To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
I made another discovery, which I believe to be the Great Discovery. When we make this discovery, the search is over and life begins – life isn’t over, life just begins. Really! And this discovery was that I was never alone any more. I had a God of my very own. And where I am, He is. I’m often by myself, but never alone. And this has been the way it’s been ever since the discovery, and it’s the way it was before the discovery.
Chuck C., A New Pair of Glasses
Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.
Wayne Dyer
All programmes of self-actualisation, ancient and modern, have one major point in common. This is the intention to cultivate and maintain conscious communion with Source. This source is given many names across these various cultures, including `The Nameless One´.
My attention was once drawn to the fact that terms such as Yahweh (Judaic) and Wahe (from the Sikh tradition) resemble, from an onomatopoeic perspective, the sound of an in-breath followed by an out-breath. This makes sense when we consider that the Source is both the wellspring of our physical life and the fountain of inspiration for our creative powers.
Falling Off The Beam
When I am out of sorts, – restless, irritable, and discontented – it invariably turns out that, for reasons often beyond my grasp, I have fallen off the beam of conscious awareness and end up suffering from the illusion of disconnection from Source.
The result is a combination of feelings: anxiety, overwhelmed, disconsolate, and forlorn. While there may be very good explanations as to why such feelings arise, my focus in writing this piece is rather on how best to handle them when they present.
Most of us know the definition of a panic attack. When it strikes, we are overwhelmed by a sense of terror for no apparent reason. The inner reaction to the prevailing outer stimuli is disproportionate.
The illusion of disconnection described here could be called an alienation attack. It is the state which frequently overcame me in childhood when, in the face of seemingly overwhelming and unbearable challenges, no protection, help, or guidance appeared to be at hand. The child in these cases felt both powerless and helpless. The last resort in such cases is the ego.
The ego has an important function in life, that is to secure our survival as we grow up and take our place in the material world. It does this by creating and upholding the perception that we are each a separate individual, an entity distinct from others and, by implication, the rest of Creation.
The original meaning of `individual´ is indivisible, i.e. cannot be separated. It is remarkable how some words take on the opposite of their original meaning over the centuries.
Ego
The ego says: I am Patrick, a material entity located in this earthly environment in a subject-object relationship. This is where I end, and you begin. It would also contend that we are all separate beings, conceding that perhaps some are having the illusion of a spiritual experience.
Source reveals that we are all, in fact, spiritual beings emanating from one Source, all of us having an earthly, or material, experience.
I am convinced in my own mind that alienation is the real illusion. It is the product of the ego. This is the one problem that encompasses all other human problems.
The one answer that contains all answers is our innate beingness within Source. I am totally convinced that the only roadblock between me and you and me and Source is the human ego inflated beyond its original purpose, a run-away train, so to say.
Furthermore, I believe that the best definition of the inflated human ego is, “The feeling of conscious separation from.”
From what? From Creation. From Source. Others might use the terms such as: Life, Good, God, or Great Spirit. Conscious separation from God, from each other, and eventually from ourselves. And that’s the ego, self-will, run riot, driven by any number of a myriad of basic human fears.
The fear of rejection, of abandonment, of ostracisation, of ridicule, abuse – physical, emotional, sexual, and/or spiritual. The seat of all the fearful obsessions of the mind is the ego. That’s where they come from. Fear drives us to sacrifice connection for protection.
The inflated ego is insatiable. It lures us into a game called: “I will be happy when…” When the conditions are met, we find that the rules have been changed and the pursuit continues, in vain. This game may be played ad infinitum, until we go to our graves. Once ego inflation has reached a tipping point, and this cruel game has begun, we can never be satisfied.
Unless something powerful enough to disrupt this dynamic happens, we will be forever chasing our tails. Typical disrupters include: the death of a loved one, the demise of a primary relationship, serious accidents, major career setbacks, an encounter with addiction, and the experience of our mortality, to name but a few.
Going It Alone
Recent research into childhood development had demonstrated that a common reaction to having experienced being wounded (trauma) in childhood, is so-call hyper-independence. The attitude that, because no one (not even, perhaps especially the Almighty) can be trusted, we are thrown back exclusively onto our own devices as we navigate our path through life.
But, contrary to the ubiquitous messaging of our post-modern, consumer culture, walking alone is not normal. It is neither natural nor healthy. Most of us have walked alone for most of our lives. I walked alone for forty-two years, wanting so badly to be a part of, yet always feeling apart from. That is not normal.
To be cut off from Source, to live in existential exile is not normal. Conscious participation in Source is just as natural as breathing. That is the normal, natural state. Being away from home is not normal. Our problem, therefore, appears to be conscious separation from. Our solution, our salvation is conscious contact with and in Source.
As a child, I wondered where we all came from, and to whence we move on after death. Of course, there was the Catholic dogma which argued that we came from nothing and were on our way to heaven or hell, depending on how we measured up here, in this lifetime, to the moral demands of a punitive God.
But that version of reality began to lose its hold on me around the age of 7. Deep down inside, I knew there was more to it than that. Later, refreshing impulse came in my teen years when we studied the poetry of William Blake, who saw the divine everywhere and in everything, and metaphysical poets such as John Donne, who were driven by a deep study of spiritual questions and the nature of reality.
Returning Home
The idea of the Divine residing in all aspects of life began to take hold. It prompted an exploration which continues to this day. It also reminded me of serene experiences I had had at the very beginning of this incarnation, joyful experiences of belonging, in absolute safety.
The unity of all Creation has become central to my world view. Much of what has been discovered in scientific research over the past fifty years, especially in quantum physics, now confirms this view.
Everything is connected to everything else. The flutter of the butterfly’s wings in the Rheinland is deeply connected to the cyclone in the Indian Ocean.
Native Americans seem to have intuited this long before science provided the proof. They have a saying: `No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves´. We are all the branches on a tree called Creation. Yet ego had clouded our vision to the point that we often lose sight of the truth.
Only this can explain how we could tolerate an economic system which divides us into `Haves’ and `Have Nots´, how systems such as slavery emerged, how the rape and plunder of military conquest have become accepted as normal in human society. Operating in Unity Consciousness, we would never treat our sisters and brothers in the animal kingdom with such cruelty as we do today or imperil the future of human life on the planet for short-term financial and political gain.
And despite knowing this intellectually, like many people, I often lose awareness of connection with Source. The good news is that this generally no longer happens for long periods without my knowledge. I have developed a sensitivity which gives me early warning signals. This does not make life more comfortable, but it is certainly more vibrant, and a return to the awareness of connection generally follows quite quickly.
Helpful Practices
What helps when this illusion of disconnection comes upon me? Well, taking three deep conscious breaths is often a good start.
Any body-based exercise which takes me out of the endless loop of thinking and brings my attention back to the present moment is useful in this respect. The endless thinking, or stinking thinking as some call it, always draws me out of the present to either the past (regrets, resentments, remorse) or the future (anxiety, catastrophising, obsession with outcomes, etc.).
The intention to consciously connect with source begins with returning to the present moment. We move from `nowhere´ to `now here´. According to the recently deceased spiritual teacher, Wayne Dyer, there are seven main faces of intention. He described them as: creativity, kindness, love, beauty, expansiveness, abundance, and receptivity.
Here are some of the practices Dyer encourages us to implement on a daily basis to ensure the manifestation of our intention to live consciously in Source.
1) Want more for others than you want for yourself.
Want whatever you seek for yourself (e.g., peace, joy, happiness) more for others than you want for yourself. Give to others what you wish for yourself. That is how we create a higher level of consciousness.
2) What we resist, persists.
Every thought that we have that is incongruent with Source is resistance. Unkind thoughts, uncreative thoughts, every thought of judgment, fear, depression, every thought of `it can’t succeed´, etc. Whatever we believe, the universal Source will help us to fulfil that belief.
3) Contemplate yourself as surrounded by the conditions which you want to produce.
Never underestimate the power of imagination. Tests have proven that imagining positive results is almost as effective as practising achieving such results. Because we are always one with Source, we are one with all of its attributes, including abundance and receptivity.
4) Practice radical humility.
We are not this body that we inhabit. We have it. We are not this mind that seems to be running the show. We are not any of the possessions that we have accumulated. Not human havings, or human doings, but human beings. Practice being in Source.
5) Cultivate gratitude.
Gratitude and entitlement are mutually exclusive. They cannot cohabit in our heart. We can cultivate gratitude for everything that shows up. It is wise to remain in a state of being generous and grateful because, in doing so, we reflect the generosity which has allowed us to come from the infinite source to this material world?
6) Avoid condemnation.
Regardless of the challenges we face, when we resort to judgement or shame we are using the lowest energy in the Universe. We cannot shame our way into higher consciousness.
7) Practice meditation.
Meditation is essential because it is our way of staying connected to Source or, more precisely, cultivating our awareness of the already existing connection with Source. Meditation is the antidote to distraction.
Source is the only thing in the Universe that contains and transcends everything. Within the realm of matter, everything is organized in opposites of polarity: male-female, up-down, north-south, east-west, alive-dead, right-wrong, black-white, etc.
The exception to this pattern of dichotomies is silence. When we cut silence in half we get more silence. Cut it in half again, and we get even more silence. So it is with Source. Cut source in half and we get just more source. Silence is my portal to the awareness of connection, of `at-one-ment´ with Source.
We can all find our best mode of meditation, some active, others passive. Sitting in silence, gardening, painting, drumming, washing the dishes. Every human activity can become a meditation.
As we hone our intention to abide in the awareness of connection with Source by means of such practices, the infinite abundance of Source, with all its loving attributes, will flow ever stronger through us into this majestic world of matter.
