The theme of the month last month: “Oh, Intelligent Life Energy (or God/dess, Spirit, Love, True Self, Awakened Mind, Source or whatever you like to call That Bigger Thing), what would You have happen here? (or now)” Then listening/feeling/seeing what comes through as an answer. On the mat, though an answer may come with words attached to it, it potentially and hopefully takes the form of something shifting for the better, before words are put on it and not guided by our thinking mind but by something Deeper/Bigger. This theme/questioning is as applicable to Life as it is on the mat.
A couple of quotes from others:
From the Gospel of St. Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
From Erich Schiffman: “By allowing and desiring yourself to be more open and being increasingly receptive and welcoming, and by consciously “joining with” the Infinite-from which you were never apart-you give permission for Life to flow through you unimpeded.”
History: When I was in college (VA Tech, in case you’re wondering) in my first year of engineering school, I was working on a problem (that’s pretty much all you do in engineering school) and got it to a point where I couldn’t go any farther with it intellectually. Using just pure math and logic, I was stumped. After struggling with it for maybe a half hour, it was dinner time and I figured I might as well just go for dinner with my buddies. While eating, suddenly I knew how to solve the problem! It just dawned on me. I was so excited but also concerned that I would forget before I got back to my room to see if I really had the answer. When I was able to sit at my desk after dinner, sure enough, I had the right solution! I was amazed!… and a little confused. How did this happen? How could the way be shown without using logic and the step-by-step thinking mind that I was trained in and practiced for so many years of school? No one had ever told me such a thing was possible! (nor did anyone during my college career!)
Over the next 4 years, I experienced this phenomenon over and over again. Time and time again the logical, thinking mind would take me to a point and then be of no use whatsoever. Each time, I would have to stop, take a break, and then something else came through and the answer was given/received and the thinking mind then knew what to do. I consider that the main thing I got from my actual college education (B.S. Eng, isn’t that funny!) was this practice with receiving answers from something deeper (and FASTER) and more complete than the thinking mind. It wasn’t till years later that I started calling it God or Mother or Spirit.
Fast forward a few years to Washington state where I began my first committed and long-term spiritual practice in a Native American Medicine. Most of the practice in that tradition was singing and praying with a focus on “following the Spirit” in Life. When we had our Sunday gatherings and monthly whole weekend gatherings, we also did hands-on healing during which we were taught to pray something to the effect of “Please, God, help me” while working on someone or being worked on. Here again was what I had learned in college, opening to something greater/deeper than my small self.
This history is to give some background to the “why” of this past month’s focus on “what would You have happen here?” In a nutshell, we need some way to open ourselves beyond the little self, beyond our little, predictably repetitive, so often incorrect, discursive thinking mind. This opening ourself, making ourselves available to the Greater, is something we can, I think we must, practice. Asking is to say to the Universe/the Divine, “I don’t know,” or at least “I know I don’t know everything,” both of which are powerful places to stand and powerful Truths to acknowledge. Asking, or even having the thought of MAYBE asking, will also powerfully reveal when we are acting from our own little will and are closed to anything that would get in its way! With that awareness, we can usually easily see the pain that we are causing ourselves, and probably others, too, and then be able to have something shift for the positive.
TO BE CONTINUED