Encountering Stillness
Sharing reflections for our onward journey - ask if you have questions:
There is a special quality of stillness in a person who encounters the shadow wholeheartedly.
Your body may relax in their company because it understands, in the subtle communications of their presence, that nothing is excluded in themselves, therefore nothing in you can be rejected.
TOKO-PA TURNER
Can you sense the ecstasy of relief?
It is our birthright. And a gift to ourselves, to others, and for the world.
This quote points to one of the aspects of fruition of this path, which can take a lifetime to cultivate, yet also be right here right now at any given ordinary moment: What we call Enfleshment, and sometimes refer to as Being The Love Loving. One of my teachers calls it the Freedom Vehicle.
The Kiss of a single encounter can indeed take us "all the way", especially if we surrender to the endless effulgence of Love. For most, however, it requires an ongoing process of maturation, to which the continued development of Stillness Practices supports the journey.
There are ever-deepening levels to this work. Our realization and ultimately Enfleshment can be kaleidoscopic: bits and pieces of numerous aspects of several orders of dimensions of states of consciousness integrating all together, all at once, all at the same time - no dichotomy of ascending and descending currents as the books and many spiritual teachings describe.
Even the book STILLNESS couldn't help but make the Enfoldments sound as if they were a linear process - such the limitation and challenges of writing about an alive multidimensional fractal process happening in the moment at the level we call Pure Breath of Love described in the later chapters.
My point is this: Encounters of states of consciousness must integrate to the level of becoming a felt-sense perceptual capacity or what some call a "station". This 'steady-state' is not fixed, it is itself a station at rest in motion: Automatic Suspended Shifting Fulcrum.
From that place, rather than being an obstacle, the ego structure then becomes part of, and in service to, the Authentic Self in Service of Good for the Whole.
Along the way, especially when we rest further into subtler and more nuanced depths, there can be ego co-opt, acting-out, and blind spots, meaning, we literally don't "see" through our self-serving ego agendas, or how we are still stuck or operating as a separate entity. Worse yet, we convince ourselves (and others) that we're "there" and that we've "got it". On the other extreme, we may feel unworthy and that we will never have it. This is narcissism. (Not pathological - that is a different discussion).
It doesn't matter if we have a grandiose or deficient identity - they are the flip-side of the same coin. We are all narcissists! If we have an ego, we have narcissism - it's "normal" and intrinsic to our development.
Much of our work is supporting answering The Call to come Home which means our ongoing development and evolution - not as a self-improvement project - rather as an integral part of a larger whole that is also evolving.
The key to aligning with this evolutionary impulse is to keep it free by applying the disposition of the practice:
Let it be. Leave it as it is. Let it go. Rest back into openhearted relaxation... Repose.
We have to disengage from telling stories, from speaking about rather than direct felt-sense, and from orienting to the past, or the future.
How do we know if we are in a bypass or ego co-opt? We may not, for a while...
Being able to navigate from the perspective of the disposition of the practice will be the key to unlocking that box.
Sensing the feeling-tone of 'know thy self': If we know ourselves through the felt-sense-tonality of presence, and we feelingly sense what it feels like to have our attention directed, what the effect or impact on us is, then we have a chance to "catch" the feeling-tone of our take-off point - the point of co- opt when we "sin" (go off the mark).
(Sense the following from the perspective of feeling tone... catching the body-felt-sense tonality of what is being described. These are sign-posts of this new GPS ;-)
Do we sense sensual flow, relaxation and ease?
Do we have contraction, fixation, stagnation, and freeze? Or do we exit, leaving a vacuum?
Much is being talked about the discoveries of the different "brains" of the body: the head, heart, and gut brains. Well, how about the Wholeness Brain?!
With sincerity and grace, naturally and over time as if according to some Benevolent Tonal Match, we are gradually "taken" by The Presence of Stillness as Love suffuses every molecule of every aspect of ourselves until we are completely saturated, metabolized, and wHoly Unified.
Love Becomes Flesh.
With no reference to quote, nor authority to assert other than my own direct experience, it is mysteriously important that we allow this metabolizing process of that which we call "our lives".
We evolve into orders upon orders of Wholeness as the undigested places are metabolized and transmuted.
Sometimes parts of our ego-structure still need development before we can enter, let alone stabilize, in a certain depth of the work - Momma helps us unpack all of that, one way or another!
Other sign posts are that we may recognize the reflections of people and situations that point towards what we are not "seeing" - if we're in a committed group such as ours, with a teacher/mentor, and there's enough collective development and trust, we feel safe being open to giving and receiving authentic feedback, and may even gently confront when we sense the feeling-tone of a blind-spot or the tonality of deflection or reactive resistance and acting-out is present. Not because we are here to assess, judge, fix, "therapize", or evolve someone else (or ourselves for that matter!), but it becomes the training ground for sincere autonomous practice.
Again, the capacity to be able to know thy self by developing the capacity to down tempo, reliably orient inwardly, while remaining steadfast in openhearted freed attention is key. From here we are either Rest in or as Love ;-) or at least catch the felt-sense tonal nuance the moment we've gone off-the-mark.
A few other pointers:
If you already know it, it isn't fresh in the moment.
Don't stop at having had an encounter of an Enfoldment, no matter how profound/amazing/life-changing it seems in the moment. It takes time, and sometimes repeated encounters, for the Enfleshment to fully suffuse.
Meaning it has transmuted your disposition, orientation, and perceptual capacities accordingly.
Basically, it's the difference between experiencing an Enfoldment versus having it fully integrated - being it.
This is true Freedom as Love. It won't mean freedom from your past or events, or even your ego per se! It is freedom to repose in That which Enfolds all of it rather than being trapped or defined by your story and patterns.
It's beyond non-dual. You will rest in the "automatic shifting" of ALL PERSPECTIVES: Dual, non-dual, and that which is beyond dual/non-dual, as well as new or other perspectives we could never imagine - it's inclusive and ever-evolving.
There is no "there" to reach.
This process of reclamation of the unresolved, split-off, undigested, shameful, hated, "traumatized", incomplete... whatever parts of us is not always easy. Remember: Stillness is not for sissies! ;-)
Read the quote above again... Repose in Wholeness as Health.
Hint: You. Cannot. Do. This. Nor can you merely think it or even understand it as a conceptual construct. It has to permeate and suffuse you until You AND IT ARE ONE ...in some mysterious relational dynamic embrace that is unwavering in stillness as Love’s ever-evolving effulgence.
Love... Making Love... with Love... Becoming More Love Loving... That Is The Love That is All That Is.
Enfleshment is Beyond an Embrace.
This includes, and is also beyond, conceptual understanding - it requires allowing yourself to Be IT:
The people of this world are like the three butterflies in front of a candle's flame.
The first one went closer and said: I know about love.
The second one touched the flame lightly with his wings and said: I know how love's fire can burn.
The third one threw himself into the heart of the flame and was consumed.
He alone knows what true love is.
Rumi
All of you are on your very own personal and unique trajectory with this - it is pointless to compare - the co-mutual resonances will naturally become more distinct - allow it to inform you. (Have your ‘Q-tips’ readily available ;-)
My heart-felt gratitude and appreciation for all of you, for your presence and participation, for your courage, vulnerability, perseverance... and especially for your resonance as Love on the planet at this time.
Deep Bows
Love
Always
All Ways
Giorgia
