Ida Lawrence on Awareness

The Tree Probably Does

The Tree Probably Does

Story by: Ida Lawrence

I’m going to begin with the image of a tree because there is plenty of symbology around that image: I’ll rest my back against it for a bit as I put these thoughts together. Our tree will symbolize inexhaustible life transforming, and since it is also said to span dimensions, we’ll visit that possibility as well.

Pressure and response: interesting to think about in times of change… and change isn’t coming on slowly anymore. It can certainly be seen in our personal lives. Outcomes of past choices, whether wise or foolish, conscious or unconscious, have been arriving on doorsteps with increasing speed. On the positive side, the pressure of change can cause the response of growth… if you’re into it and up to it.

When we change our perspective from personal pressure to worldwide pressure, it can become nearly overwhelming… so rapid, so destructive is the decline of this world. Is the global picture something we can bring into a conversation without becoming either angry or despondent? We’re going to try.

In the consciousness movement we work to know self. Part of that self-knowing comes through observing how, when under pressure from the outside, we may revert to conditioned and programmed responses inside. Through awareness of our conditioning and the system’s programming, we take up the task of replacing these patterns with ones that are more refined and liberating.

My thinking on this process was triggered recently when talking with my godson… our in-house Qi Gong practitioner. I’ll just quote him, and you’ll see the correlation:

“The body is a sensory and counter-pressure mechanism. When the External pressures demand a response there is an internal counter pressure that responds. A very basic example is an automatic response… when it’s hot (external pressure) you sweat to cool down (internal counter-pressure). Through the practice of Qi Gong you can control the counter-pressure.”

He went on to say that you begin with one energy circulation and practice it daily. After three months or so your work on the circulation becomes automatic… you will have a new switch inside, in response to a certain pressure. You can then move on to the next practice.

What the circulation of energy achieves is the ability to clear, clean, flow and store energy and do things with energy. What the Qi Gong master can do with energy is pretty incredible. There are videos online of masters who can start a piece of paper on fire just by projecting energy from their hands.
Stored energy can be used both to heal and to harm. And there is more, but it’s not for everyone. Most practitioners take years to get to heal or harm and that is where they stop. The ‘more’ has to be learned from a teacher who has taken the path.

Whether it’s mythology or history, stories tell of people giving their lives while learning the possibilities of energy; experimenting with the outcome of different practices. While only a few masters may know the ‘more’, a presumption can be made that it is the very real trans-dimensional metaphysician’s doorway. In today’s world, such doorways are being used.

Let’s move on to external pressure and internal counter-pressure in relation to our thoughts and emotions. Thoughts and emotions are energy too, and we can certainly create new pathways for them once we know what we’re dealing with. As I mentioned, we are conditioned and programmed to respond in a certain way. Unlike the body’s natural response, for the most part these responses are not what we were born with. Yet, like the Qi Gong practitioner, if we want to re-train these learned and programmed counter-responses we have to study, observe and feel.

Among the tools to increase awareness, re-train thoughts and emotions, and raise the energy from a dense state to a more refined state, are written lessons, specific meditations, guided meditations, physical disciplines, and therapies. Many people have been doing this work for years, and they are the ones offering tools on how to transform the fear response, as well as the anger, sadness, self-pity, hostility, weakness, indulgence and so on. So much could be said about this, and we’re just touching on things today.

We’re going to return to the tree again as a symbol of inexhaustible life transforming within a system. Have you wondered how many trees there are, i.e. how many self-contained and interrelated energy systems there are? The body is one; and the earth itself is one; the universe; the multiverse. I’d better add… and on and on.

If we as individual human beings can re-train our conditioned and programmed thoughts and emotions and raise our energy to a more refined level through a kind of ‘consciousness Qi Gong’, how about the collective consciousness of human families… can that be re-trained, or the global collective consciousness? Can a significant number of us go for transformation and liberation? If we do, can it lead to a way out of the current control system?
I’ll let you play with that, but to me, the whole thing looks like the fractal tree. And if that is true, we can say that the truth of the small is the truth of the great: for every confinement, no matter how seemingly inescapable, there has to be, built-in at the origin, an avenue of escape… because the avenue of escape exists on a small scale. We already pointed to it with the master of energy and the metaphysician.

Now let’s go to the global consciousness. We know that it is confined within a system of control… some call it a matrix of control. It seems the ones who run things have very well locked us down. When they put on the pressure, we provide an automatic counter-pressure. Normally it’s fear and compliance, sometimes it’s another reaction… argument, anger, rebellion, sorrow… but always within the confines of our conditioning and programming.

An earlier observation about pressure (when it increases, counter-pressure increases) points out the positive side: on the positive side, the pressure of change can cause the counter-pressure of growth… if you’re into it and up to it.

The intensity of global change and the downward force of it does bring the opportunity for growth. Can we intentionally be like the tree… inexhaustible life transforming? We can look into it at least, and whisper to ourselves… this may not turn out as badly as we expect.

Humanity is awakening, and the collective response to external pressure is amazing to watch. We can see energy moving, we can see the system watching and trying to manipulate it… and failing more and more often. So let’s never close the door to the possibility of liberation. We must keep on observing the movement, re-training our own conditioned responses, rejecting the programming, envisioning the change we want, and raising our energy. Our change makes a difference to the whole.

Who knows the doorway out… the tree probably does.

from:   http://spiritofmaat.com/magazine/november-2013-the-heart-of-darkness-edition/the-tree-probably-does/

Jean Houston Meditation to Access Higher Self

From Jean Houston:   http://www.jeanhouston.org/:
 
In the busy swirl of everyday life, it helps every now and again to
take a few minutes to be reminded of who you really are.
 
There is an exercise we do in my online course to access your
Higher Self. I’ve gotten so much feedback about it, that I wanted
to share it with you again.

You have a deep purpose and a guiding force for becoming all you
are capable of being.  You may sense this as that inner strength
that directs your actions. Or that inner voice, the intuitive
voice, that calls to you when you’re at a crossroads in
your life.

“This is the path you should take,” it tells you. Often, however,
it tells you with emotions and feelings, and the words come later.

Some call this guiding force the Higher Self. It is the deepest,
holiest, most whole part of you.

Would you like to be able to access this Higher Self at any time?
What if you could actually stand face-to-face with that most
soulful, wise force behind all the good in your life?

In this e-mail, I’m going to give you a meditation that will enable
you to get in touch with your Higher Self, your guiding force, your
voice of destiny. It’s simple and yet so powerful.

If you’ve heard me speak in the past about the 3 Keys to
Discovering and Living Your True Purpose, you know that the
Activation Key #2 to discovering your true purpose is opening to
your larger role in the world by shifting from your “small” self to
your Higher Self.

What is a small self? The small self is the self whose emotions and
moods fluctuate every day based on external circumstances: whether
or not you got praise at work, whether your partner said,  “I love
you,” whether you ran into traffic on the way to run errands, or
sometimes because the weather is too hot or too cold. It is the
self that is mainly concerned with the “I” of the ego, the concerns
of status and comfort.

The Higher Self is the self beyond what’s happening in the present
moment, the self that is in alignment with All That Is, with the
divine, with the cosmos. It is timeless, formless and limitless.
The Higher Self is the universe inside of you.

By shifting from your small self to your Higher self, you can
access the truth of who you are and begin to experience your unique
purpose. You can see beyond the everyday concerns of ego to a
higher calling, to seeing the world’s pain and need, and seeing
what your role is in relationship to healing that pain.

When you live from the place of the Higher Self, you live a life in
which abundance is scooped from abundance and still more
abundance remains.

How can you experience the Higher Self consciously, at will, at
more than just those fleeting moments when you sense the greater
intelligence working through you? You can do it through this
meditation, which I’m about to share with you.

This meditation will require a completely quiet and undistracted
space. Maybe you can do this now, or maybe you’ll have to set aside
some time later in the day or first thing in the morning.

==============================================
A 5-Minute Audio Practice to Access Your Higher Self

==============================================

Please visit the special audio page to listen to and download
this powerful experiential practice.

LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD NOW <<

To your higher purpose,

Jean

Ayahuasca Experience – Discussion w/Jeremy Narby

The Ayahuasca Experience

narbycoverlarge.jpg 

The following conversation is excerpted from The Psychotropic Mind: The World according to Ayahuasca, Iboga, and Shamanism
by anthropologist Jeremy Narby, filmmaker Jan Kounen, and writer/filmmaker Vincent Ravalec, available from Inner Traditions Bear & Company.
Vincent: The ayahuasca experience can be separated from shamanism. We can take ayahuasca, for example, in an urban setting and have a very strong experience, one not necessarily connected to the ancestral experience of shamanism. The experience of shamanism is quite close to nature, which actually functions with interfaces of spirits; and someone who takes ayahuasca is not necessarily going to encounter, I don’t know, the parrot god who will come talk to him in his dreams or the green mouse who drops by to say hello. He is going to see something else. While someone is having the experience in a shamanic setting, one is going to go through its conceptual system. And you can have very strong shamanic experiences without taking ayahuasca. But it so happens that ayahuasca is a very formidable agent for altering consciousness.

Jan: What is ayahuasca, for you?

Vincent: Physically, it is a beverage that is quite unpleasant to drink. Now there are different blends, depending on the shamans who brew it. . . .

Jeremy: Would you agree that it is the Concorde of hallucinogens?

to read more, go to:    http://www.realitysandwich.com/ayahuasca_experience

Transcendental Consciousness

Writer for the David Lynch Foundation and 25-year teacher of Transcendental Meditation

 The Key To Health And Happiness: A ‘Lost’ State of Consciousness?
Posted: 7/15/11 08:32 AM ET

Life happens within the realm of three, ever-changing phases: waking, dreaming and sleeping. Yet most of us intuit there’s more to human consciousness than what we ordinarily experience.

Scientists have long said each of the three major states of consciousness has its own distinct style of physiology and brain activity. Could there be a fourth major state of consciousness that likewise has its own physiological signature and brain pattern, a state that’s been overlooked or forgotten?

What if the loss of this state were the cause for much of what ails us — personally and collectively?

Transcendental Consciousness

Scientists first proposed the existence of a fourth state of consciousness in the early 1970s, when UCLA researchers discovered that people practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique shifted into a state never before seen in a physiology lab. In the history of science, if there has been a single, overarching moment of “East meets West,” surely, it was this. The pioneering research appeared in Scientific AmericanAmerican Journal of Physiology and the journal Science.1 The findings were expanded by numerous follow-up studies done at other research institutes and medical schools, establishing meditation as a new frontier of scientific research.2

to read more, go to:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanne-ball/fourth-state-of-consciousness_b_897085.html