Andrew: Peace and love everyone. My name is Andrew Hewson. I’m a spiritual teacher. I’m back with my friend, David “Davidya” Buckland. David is an author and a practitioner of the spiritual tradition of Yoga in the most essential sense of what that term points to.
And we have been getting together to have conversations surrounding the subject of spiritual unfoldment, in particular the stages of realization, and how various topics relate to that unfoldment and the possible perspectives that can be held in the midst of that, and various challenges that could potentially arise and ways to be with the process in a more effective, efficient, smooth way. So we’re here today, gathered to speak about the subject of healing, resolving material as a process through the unfoldment of realization, and I’m grateful to be back with you, David.
David: Well, thank you, Andrew. Yes, I’m happy to be here too. And healing is such a key topic on the spiritual journey, even the human journey as a whole. I mean, we’re all familiar with, you know, cutting ourselves or scraping ourselves and healing physically. And our culture is very good at supporting that.
But it’s much less oriented towards supporting healing, energetic, emotional challenges and mental challenges, unresolved stuff on those different levels of our experience.
And so today we’re gonna be talking something about that and things that you can do to support your journey.
A: Yeah, that’s really beautiful, David. I think one of the most fundamental understandings as we move into this is that we’re really dealing in an accumulation of material that has arisen through a fundamental misperception of what we actually are.
So in this misperception of our nature and this identification with content, form, and experience in a way that appears to be separate and limited, we begin to accumulate impressions. And there’s a lot of resistance mechanisms that are in place that tend to support that accumulation and its perpetuation. So we’re not necessarily talking about healing what appear to be stories or happenings, but the residue of the impressions of what our experience of that seem to be at a given point.
D: Right, when there is a, when experience arises that we don’t understand in some way or we’re not, we don’t know how to process it in an effective way, the habit of resisting those experiences tends to arise.
There’s also the tendency to grasp at what we want, the experiences inherently come and go, but there can be the tendency to try and grasp and hold on to experiences that we want. And then similarly to resist experiences we don’t want.
So rather than emotions rising up in our experience and being experienced, processed, and clearing, completing, we resist them and try to suppress them. And so they don’t complete and they stick around as an unresolved experience.
A: Yeah, that’s really beautiful. I’ve often used the example of the animal kingdom to look at sort of the natural release of certain energies and it’s been used elsewhere as well.
And one of my favorite examples is an example of a fox and a rabbit. In the case of the fox and the rabbit, one appears to be the predator and the other appears to be the prey. And although there’s no verbal conceptual processing in the same way that there is, at least in the human kingdom, the rabbit naturally innately feels that the fox is the predator. And so in the presence of their meeting, there is an inclination to run away from the fox. And in that running away, there may appear to be a rush of adrenaline, the heart starts to beat faster. And from our perception, we could say that the rabbit is afraid. It doesn’t want to be eaten. It wants to continue to live. It wants to survive.
But because the rabbit isn’t thinking of itself as a me, as a rabbit that’s experiencing this as a separate entity that energy just runs through the physiology of the rabbit in a certain sense. It doesn’t have that same blockage point that is present in the self-definition that arises with the human body and mind. So there’s a possibility for recognizing where, instead of allowing something as it arises to release naturally and to express out of the physiology, there’s a resistance to it.
And when we recognize where that resistance point is, then that opens up the possibility for a release of that spontaneous movement to attempt to control. So we can begin to witness a relaxation of that crystallization of an attempt to control what is being reflected back in conscious awareness. And we all have that capacity. We all have that intelligence innate within our being.
D: Yes, and I’ve noticed two examples of wild animals after a chase kind of scenario or an apparently stressful situation that they’ll literally shake it off. They’ll kind of dance around a little bit and, and, you know, and they’ll, they’ll clear that, that energy and shift back into their, their normal state.
A: Yes.
D: So it’s a, it’s a, there isn’t a resistance taking place. And the trick is too, we might not be conscious of this resistance at all at first. And indeed we may have taken on energetically some of these resistance patterns in the womb because it was our family heritage in a kind of a way where there’s been a history of resistance patterns in our culture. And so we pass them on and we want to be able to, when we’re born, we want to be able to fit in with our family environment and how our family deals with things.
And so it’s natural, it’s a natural process to take on those resistance patterns. But if we stop and look at our experience, we can start to recognize where there’s a reactivity. It’s not just feeling the emotion, but there’s a reactivity to the emotion, a resistance to the emotion arising, to the experience in some way.
We may have a story about it too that says, oh, this is bad in some way. And in some, you know, certainly we’re not going to want to experience the heavier emotions if we can avoid them. And there’s going to be some, a light resistance to them arising. And yet at the same time, if we don’t allow them and let them complete, they’re going to dominate our experience for a while. And they kind of, it’s like, what’s a good example. But we, say we have, Eckhart Tolle gives the example of seeing someone kick a dog. It’s natural to experience anger as a result of that. But then we can act to do something to stop it or, or whatever we do. But we can let the anger complete. But if we just kind of like, Oh, that was bad. And we la da da, then what happens is it kind of sits there in our system, looking for a way to complete and it keeps regurgitating up again and we tell the story about how, “Oh, I saw this person doing this thing, this is bad,” and it becomes a whole theme for a while. And when we do this repeatedly with many experiences over the course of our lives, we can build a fair bit of backlog.
And what’s fascinating about this too, is it’s really closely related to karma. Karma means action and karma in this context is essentially those actions that have not completed, those actions, those events that have arisen but not been fully processed and completed. And so they’re sitting there in our physiology in an incomplete state waiting for an opportunity to arise and to be completed. And so that creates this cycle where they keep coming up over and over again, sometimes repeatedly in a short period of time, sometimes occasionally over a longer period of time, whenever it’s suitable for that to arise.
A: Yeah, that’s a really beautiful couple of points you just made there, David. The first one I found fascinating was that we’ve really, in a way, collectively become desensitized to the recognition of resistance or the attempt to control experience. Because everyone seems to be in a mode of attempting to control their experience, or at least the majority does on this planet, that is adopted as a natural way of being and something that actually allows us to more effectively and efficiently navigate through life.
But actually, it’s quite the opposite. What ends up taking place is that through that attempt to control the experience, we end up with a lot of that backlog. We end up accumulating these incomplete expressions of spontaneous arising because we have this sense that we are a local doer and that we do have control over what is taking place. And when we begin to become more conscious, we begin to recognize that attempt to control.
So it’s not necessarily that something is not going to arise and that there won’t be resistance to it, but what takes place when we see that there is that sort of spontaneous tendency to lock down and attempt to control what is arising. When we see that tendency to try to control what’s arising, right there, there’s a threshold point where we can begin to collapse into an allowing.
And that’s really what healing and resolution boils down to, is an attentive, conscious allowing of these areas of experience which have not been allowed.
D: Exactly. It’s such a key thing because this is not just in terms of spiritual progress, but in terms of our just simple quality of life. All these resisted experiences are sitting there in the background as a kind of a weight and it can even actually feel like a weight on your shoulders and it tends to, even has this tendency where it’s kind of chuffed down where that we kind of build up these layers like an onion of protection of trying to keep these these details suppressed and so sometimes it can be a little bit like peeling an onion as we as we clear these things and come down to the core compression.
And it creates this kind of shadow effect on our life. And so the richness and quality of life just for day-to-day living is covered up. Our nature as, you know, clear consciousness and as bliss is covered up by all this unresolved baggage.
And sometimes it’s kind of like, in a way, organic matter, you know, buried for a long time under pressure, turns into oil, the same kind of a thing, when we have these contractions that we’re keeping contracted over a long period of time, it can kind of turn into this energetic sludge depending on the type of contraction and type of energy and so on.
But it just kind of plugs up the works, so to speak, energetically and again, reduces the richness and quality of life in the process.
A: Yeah, that’s a really beautiful point, David. I tend to call that sludge energetic condensation. And I look at it as basically just a condensation of conscious awareness that is based in this fundamental misperception or this limited reflection of I in the functioning of the body and the mind.
And so it’s important to recognize that that sludge or that condensation is actually structured in limited identity. That means it directly relates back to the limited sense of self. And so it can, there can be a lot of defence mechanisms surrounding the release or the resolution of that energy because it in a way is associated with what we’ve taken ourself to be. And we see all of these different layers coming together to present this self story or this sense of me.
And when those layers start to be resolved and released, then that limited local sense of operation and the identification that is with that is really being undone. And so now what’s taking place is we’re transitioning into, as you said, a clear, bright recognition of the truth of what we actually are. But at the same time, there’s something within our experience which doesn’t really want that to happen. So it’s helpful to recognize that there are certain defence mechanisms that can arise that actually are attempting to support the continuance of those unresolved layers of energy.
D: Yes, I agree, and it’s also a real energy drain, because all that suppression and control takes energy, a constant energy to maintain. And so as we let it go, we release that, the energy that was required to maintain it, and that becomes available for life in general.
So yes, it’s an interesting dance, because it’s kind of like changing habits that don’t want to be changed, and changing ways of being that have some resistance to change. And yet the little dance is worth it.
And when we don’t want to get into it, one of the hazards with an energy healing style is as another control mechanism. So we start to use another way of manipulating our experience. Energy healing techniques is another way to manipulate our experience. This isn’t about new ways of control. It’s about letting go of control.
And it can take a little bit of a back and forth to find our way through that and into smooth flow and letting go of those habits. But as we get clearer and clearer, they become more and more clear. And as we step back into that deeper nature, then we see through it much more. And it’s easier to see and it’s easier to release. So it’s just kind of this process.
A: Yes.
D: It also has a tendency to be influenced by the cycles of time. So there’s various qualities of time that become more dominant at some times and less so at other times. And so there’s certain times where, say, issues about anger are going to come to the surface more and other times where fear is gonna be more prevalent in the experience or anxiety or something like that. It kind of depends.
And sometimes we can see that in the collective. There’s a, at the current time, there’s been a lot of collective fear coming to the surface and being processed by people. And some are acting that out, and some are seeing the fear and don’t know what to do with it, and some have some of these basic principles, and so they’re able to see the fear and be with it and allow it to complete and clear.
And so those people become part of the solution, part of the clearing of the collective, and for themselves personally.
A: Yeah, that’s really a beautiful point. There’s so much to cover there. I wanna go back to what you were saying about energy and how that those layers of unresolved material can be energy draining. And when they’re sitting there and sort of compressing, if you will, then they actually begin to turn into, in a way, it’s sort of an oil or something that is continually becoming more dense as it just rests in that unresolved space.
Sticky, yeah.
D: Sticky too, yeah. It has a clinging, sort of like that identification quality in there.
A: Yes, exactly. It’s structured in that, yeah. And when it surfaces, it tends to sort of reflect that identification quality up into the body and mind as well.
But one perspective which I favor is looking at this condensated conscious awareness or this condensated energetic layering as a fuel of sorts. So that when we are aligned with this vast intelligence of ourself and its innate spontaneous evolutionary direction towards revealing itself to itself and recognizing the truth of its own pure Divinity, then what can begin to take place is that sludge or oil or very, very dense or thick material can actually be recognized as that which has the potential to burn the brightest.
We can see that in this world, oil is seen to be valuable. And we recognize that it has that potential to burn very hot within a certain context. And it has that potential to brighten and light up that which seems to surround it. So as we are attentively allowing the resolution of this energy with a non-controlling wisdom of just surrender, giving way into what’s arising, then we can begin to witness a process of conversion where that unresolved material becomes fuel for the fire of enlightenment.
And so we begin to see those layers processing in the direction of that brightness, that brilliancy turning up and up and up and up. And as that turns up, the bliss turns up. And as the bliss turns up, that sort of cushions and invites even more of that material to come up. And so it becomes this self-validating, self-confirming process.
And as you said, we’re learning, the conscious experiencing is learning as it goes. There’s different tendencies that are in place and subtle blind spots and movements to reject something on the basis of what may seem to be a newfound spiritual identity, whatever the case may be, there’s all kinds of different possibilities.
But through grace and that ever clarifying process of that fuel burning more brightly, we begin to recognize those things as they’re arising. And as they’re recognized, we can just flow back in to that natural intelligence of surrender. And we begin to really witness the body and the mind. In a way, I see it almost as becoming a paintbrush of the Supreme. And the strokes of the Supreme through the body and mind are what are painting the portrait of ever-refining surrender as human life within the self.
D: Beautiful. Yeah, so that’s the interesting thing about the transforming energy to note in there too, is it has that potential, as you say, to burn and transform towards, to the light. But it also has that tendency and the way it’s been there is that it’s a kind of a fuel to sustain itself and to move towards the darkness.
A: Yes.
D: So it’s kind of a thing about transformation. You can transform in either way. And so the key is to shift that trend, that tendency from the dark to the light, essentially.
A: Yeah, that’s beautiful. I’ve looked at it as basically two directions. One is the direction of recondensation and identification or re-identification, restructuring of the impressions. And then the other direction is where it’s in the direction of transcendence, release, evaporation, and resolution.
D: Yes, and that transcendence is so key because that takes us beyond the mind and emotions into our deeper nature. And that gives us a taste of that greater sense of Self. But it also softens the grip of these past shadows. And it sees we’re greater than the story of our me, our thoughts and our emotions. That’s not who we are. They’re just what we’re experiencing. They’re just part of the content of our experience.
And then we take them a little less seriously and then it’s much easier to let them go and just allow them to be there and release.
A: Beautiful, beautiful. I think it would be helpful also to mention how this healing resolution transmutative aspect of the unfoldment relates to the feminine aspect of our reality and how that shows up in the different qualitative shifts that shine forth in, as this unfoldment of enlightenment is revealing itself.
There can be a tendency on the masculine side of things to feel pretty well resolved in certain stages. And there’s several different reasons for that. One of them is because the liveliness isn’t really churning the pot so much. So the silence and the stillness is more of a dominant point of reference. And it tends to feel a little bit more removed from the whole process of experiencing and the appearance of the world, et cetera.
D: Yes.
A: So in those conditions and oftentimes in the teachings that you see sort of coming from a masculine dominant condition, there can be very little emphasis on resolution or even very little ability to recognize that there’s anything there to be resolved.
D: Yeah.
A: So as a part of the process–
D: Even to dismiss it altogether.
A: Yeah, to dismiss it altogether. Yeah, and that’s one of the self-limiting temptations or sort of options that seems to arrive as things are unfolding. So it’s important to know that, yeah, we can feel that way. We can feel like, wow, this is it. There’s not, it’s just pure, infinite stillness, nothing. There’s not, resolve what?
And we can feel that way multiple times. But that doesn’t mean that that’s actually the case, you know, and I would consider it to be a temporary stage and I would tell anybody that is tasting that just to remain open and willing to go through whatever it is that is seen or unseen in that condition.
Because as things continue to unfold and the feminine aspect does come online in a richer and fuller way, then that churning, that flow begins to reveal some of that unresolved material. And we could say that the power, the power of the feminine is what really allows for that to shine forth because that power is supportive, not only of the seeing of that material, but also of the ability to hold it in a way which is in alignment with its intelligent resolution.
D: Yes. And the key thing too is that if that feminine process is not supported in some way, if there is a resistance or denial of the need for any healing, then there’s, of course there’s the acting out issues and so on like that that you see in many spiritual communities. But also it means that the feminine side of the process, all that refinement of perception and the awakening heart and the profound universal flows of love and compassion and all those sorts of aspects are just not on the table. They’re just, they’re not there. And you know, you see people who are quite clearly awake denying that there’s bliss or denying that there’s any qualities of the divine around. It’s just this flat, kind of very dry unfolding. And you know, that’s where the healing has its role. It’s very, very important to bring out the other side of the equation.
A: Yeah, it is. It’s really interesting that in those masculine conditions where there is just a sort of a flatness, a dryness, just a peacefulness, what is missing or what we could recognize as missing if we have tasted the other side of the process, is that that material hasn’t had the opportunity to be cleared and converted into that lively recognition of the fullness and the richness of life, of the reality of this field, of ourself. And so it doesn’t mean that it’s not there, it just means that for whatever reason the willingness to embrace the possibility that there is material there to be cleared and converted perhaps just has seemed to have become dormant.
D: Yes and it’s very, it’s a critical thing. I mean I’ve seen teachers, people who have been my friends who who have had material come to the surface and start acting it out with their students. And rather than, and being told that they were doing it, having it pointed out to them, and rather than being receptive, they were dismissive.
They felt they were beyond all that and better than that or whatever the dynamic was. And so there was an unwillingness to see what was taking place and acting it out. And I’ve been quite surprised by that. A number of people now I’ve seen in higher stages where, there has been very clear development in consciousness, but still some shadows and and that’s natural. We still, like our life is kind of in this cycle of time.
Like one of the traditional understandings about karma is that there’s these three types, our backlog, the suitcase we bring into this life of seeds of action and events that take place in our life, experiences to come, and then the new karmas we create, the new unfinished business we create in this lifetime. And one of the key aspects of the awakening process is because we break that identification with the “me,” it also severs the identification with all that backlog, that history of unresolved experiences from our past. And then it stops the tendency or dramatically winds down the tendency over time to create new karma, you know, assuming resistance has fallen away and so on. So what we’re left with is what are known as the sprouted seeds.
That suitcase has kind of a schedule that unfolds through the cycles of time in our life. And so even the very, very awake and very, very clear who are doing healing and that kind of stuff, will still have stuff come up. And they’ll still be things to process. And if they’re being conscious and they understand these principles, they’re going to engage that and deal with it.
The hazard is when they’re not and they don’t deal with it. And then it becomes, then they’re basically creating new karmas and reinforcing old things and so forth. They’re not completing the process, which can have long-term consequences as well.
A: Yes, yes it can. It’s such a vital point to recognize that there’s two aspects to a very comprehensive unfoldment. That’s realization, but there’s also resolution. And if we have one without the other, there’s going to be some difficulties that seem to arise. I mean, there are some in the spiritual marketplace that to sort of attempt to counter the more masculine side of things by being very much about the resolution side, but at the same time, they may not always be situated in the recognition and the realization of what they are.
So it’s important to have that clear shift and to see ourself as we are and beyond. But at the same time, without the resolution, that’s going to still be a limited phase, a limited stage. And on the other side of things, we can really give a lot of attention to resolution, but our ability to really even see what is there is concealed by the limited sense of self.
So until we begin to really tune in to the realization of our reality as infinite. A lot of concealed material stays concealed. Yeah.
D: Yeah.
A: Yeah.
D: And it limits the potential. How the unfolding can progress. And it’s right back again to a practical level, the quality of life.
A: Yes.
D: And the value of what you’ve got. Another point in here too to note is that a clear awakening increases the power of your attention and so it greatly facilitates the processing and clearing. However, it also greatly increases the impact of not processing and suppressing. So it actually can create more difficult karmas, more difficult baggage.
A: Yes, that’s a great point.
D: It’s a bit of a dance. So I thought it might be useful to talk about the process a little bit, just in a non-informal kind of way. There are certainly energy healers like our friend Dorothy Rowe who teach a more formal process and that can be very valuable if this is new to you and you’re just learning the process. So you have a bit of a step-by-step approach to take to walk you through the process until it becomes more natural and habitual.
But essentially the first part is recognizing when we’re resisting. Noticing that you’re having an experience but there’s some resistance to the experience in there. It’s usually kind of mixed in. So that’s the first step.
And then it’s a learning to allow whatever is arising. So stepping back a little bit into presence, into witness consciousness, however you want to frame that, however you experience it. You can step back a little bit so you’re not in it and then allow whatever is arising. So it’s that learning to let go of resistance. That’s the key part of it. Learning to see it and then let it go.
It’s kind of a surrendering control, because we’re, keeping in mind here, that sense of personal me that’s in control is an illusion. There is a person here who is a vehicle of experience. But that’s not what’s in control. That’s just the ego’s mechanism for trying to manage this life when we’re out of touch with our deeper nature. But once we get to know who, our deeper nature, then we don’t need to have that ego trying to control everything. It’s actually kind of getting in the way. So it’s really closely tied into to that ego identification.
So again, awakening really helps this process, but we don’t have to wait to awaken to make progress. Learning these things is really valuable and can actually help the awakening process take place. I mean for me, one of the really interesting things happened is I watched the movie version of The Secret, and in there this guy talks about culturing gratitude, and not as making a mood, but just noticing here and there in the day things to be grateful for. The idea here is you carry a little rock around in your pocket so you notice it here and there, and just thinking of something different to be grateful for.
And it just kind of shifted the habitual tone of my emotional energy just a little bit, and that allowed the healing. A couple of big contractions came to the surface after that, I was able to see and process, and that basically set the stage for the clarity needed to awaken.
A: Beautiful. Yeah.
D: And so when we’re noticing an emotion arising, there can be just a kind of a feeling into it. We may want, we may find it useful to name it. It might come as a sensation or in the body or an emotion and sometimes the attention will go to some place in the body, and we’re just feeling into it. It’ll move somewhere and that can, that attention can help facilitate the release because sometimes it has a physical counterpart stored in the body and we just allow it to express, not to be involved in it, just to notice it and see it and let it complete or as best you can.
I mean sometimes it’s a really big one you kind of release a little bit, let the steam off a bit, or whatever and then we come back to it again a bit later. And again this isn’t about trying to control the experience, it isn’t about constant monitoring and watching for every little thing, it’s just noticing when some more important experience comes up and there’s some noticing some resistance that’s arising with it, and then learning to be with that and surrender into it. This allows it to complete.
A: Yeah that’s really beautiful David, thank you. Yeah there’s a couple of you know practical modalities that I tend to prescribe in the teaching that comes through here and the first one is very similar to what, to what you’ve been describing. It’s what I refer to as transmutation and it’s basically just this willingness to attentively allow unresolved energy, emotion, and even certain psychological impressions that may be arising in correlation with that emotion, in that energy.
So I look at three basic levels of emergence in the context of that, those impressions appearing to surface into experience and that’s the underlying energetic condensation or driver, the associated emotional reflections that are in the body, which there can be multiple emotional reflections associated with one energetic condensation or driver. And then there’s also typically certain thought processes or psychological impressions that come with the surfacing of that material. So we have the opportunity to notice on multiple levels, and this of course refines as we continue to just simply allow without attempting to control, more and more and more, and there’s more clearing.
And in most human beings it doesn’t stop there at the expression of mental movements or psychological impressions. It then finds its way into the behavioral sphere. So we see that driver expressing all the way through into the sphere of behavioral expression. And sometimes that will still take place even in the context of those that are undergoing shifts. It’s not a matter of… they’re not necessarily being a reaction or saying something a certain way, but what happens when that appears to take place? Do we see the tonality of the voice and those kinds of things.
So there’s just more and more clarity that begins to come online and with that the opportunity for an alchemical intelligence that is innate to our own conscious awareness to prevail, also begins to shine forth. So that when we see that there are certain thought processes that have an underlying tone of resistance or anger or fear or whatever the case may be, we can allow the seeing of that, then just to reveal perhaps what’s underneath the thought activity. And as we are reiterating here over and over, it’s not about control. It’s about allowing and seeing and releasing and opening into. And so as we open into that we may notice, oh, there is some fear, some anger, perhaps a little bit of both in the body. And just opening into that, then we may feel that beginning to release or convert or transmute. And that allows us to tune into the driver that’s behind that, eventually and allow for that energy to process out.
And I like to look at it as transmutation for the reason that we mentioned earlier in the context of fuel. Fuel for the fire of enlightenment, for the fire of devotion, which is a big part of what I’m speaking about. Just, you know, the devotion to the process, the devotion to truth. And so that has the potential to be converted into that lively, full, blissful presence more and more and more and more.
And that also correlates with the refinement of the perceptual faculties. And so then our capacity to notice details also comes online in a new way.
D: Yes.
A: And accompanying that transmutative intelligence, I also suggest what I refer to as contemplative supplication, which has within it a process of daily writing. And really the writing is to develop an introspective, reflective way of being with experience. So that yes, in the immediacy of the arising, there’s that non-controlling allowing and things are being released. But if we have periods throughout the day where there is a sitting down to write down what has been observed and reflect on that, we can also begin to tease out some of the details of what has surfaced and give a space for that unconscious material to become more conscious.
So we can notice patterns, we can notice certain defence mechanisms, we can notice certain movements of control, which is one of the big things that will begin to be seen as the attempts to control the subtleties, the residues of those attempts, so on and so forth.
So with just having that willingness and that devotion and that commitment to the path, the commitment to the unfoldment and the commitment to the process itself, without trying to get to an imaginary end goal, You know, it can be very, very supportive because it enables us to really be with the unfolding in a flexible way, yeah, and embrace those layers of the unconscious becoming conscious as they arise.
D: Yes, I actually journal myself. It’s one of the ways I find to, it helps process and complete various kinds of things. And sometimes it’s like, you know, profound experiences, they don’t always make memory impressions. So if I don’t write it down, it’s gone. And as a writer, you know, but it’s also very valuable for processing the dynamics that are coming up.
A: Yes.
D: I also wanted to touch on the mind in here too. I mentioned in the process, it may be helpful to be able to name the emotions that are coming up. And you mentioned too, that there can be some stories, some narrative about what’s going on. A couple of things in there. One is it’s important that we recognize that what’s arising can be a mixture of things. It’s not necessarily going to be, so we’re not going to have an answer that, “Oh, this is the stress from when I had the car accident in 1902.” I guess that’s a little too far back, but it’s not necessarily going to be that specific. It’s going to be a mixture of things of similar qualities, generally.
And so we’re not going to have the answer. And if the mind’s in there trying to figure out what this is and what it’s from, it’s basically part of the control process, and it’s getting in the way of the process. So naming can be useful. The mind is good at naming. But the mind is not good at processing emotions. That’s not the field of the mind. The mind is the field of thoughts and ideas. Emotions are on a different level. And so what the mind’s trying, if you notice that the mind is in there trying to process the emotions, it’s trying to control. You have to let that go and just allow the emotions to be there.
And then the emotional body will process the emotions. That’s its job. So the mind can see them, but they can’t process them. So it’s an important part of that, the way that the mind gets in there and tries to control in more subtle ways to manage things.
A: Yes.
D: But it’s a letting go. It’s an allowing for things to be as they are and to arise as they are. And it’s a different style of being. Mind is very, very useful for when it’s needed for organizing things and so on. Not so good for letting go.
A: Yeah, yeah, really beautiful points. And it kind of just reminded me that we’re conditioned initially to try to look for a reason why something is the way that it is. And, you know, when I mentioned the writing, it has nothing to do with that.
It’s not attempting to find a singular point of origin or a cause. It’s recognizing, it’s allowing the intelligence of the mind to serve the heart. That’s why I call it contemplative supplication because it has a supplicative intentionality to it where we’re opening into the intelligence of the heart to reveal the mechanics and the dynamics which are underlying the basic emergence. And in that, we may notice certain, you know, particular representations of that and the connections there.
So as you were saying, it’s, you know, karma or the packages of impressions are cumulative. They’re not fragmented and separate and here and this is this and this is this. They’re sort of a cumulative conglomeration.
And so we can notice that there’s an interconnected web, you know, surrounding various things that are arising and we’re not attempting to figure anything out, which has that underlying tonality of trying to control. Instead, we’re allowing the intelligence of our own conscious awareness to reveal all of those layers of concealed processes so that more and more, we become familiar with the intelligence of how impressions work in a certain sense.
So in a certain sense, we become familiar with the intelligence of impressions and how they are developed and how they are resolved.
D: Yes, and how they behave.
A: How they behave and express.
D: It’s like a knowingness or intuition.
A: Yes.
D: Rather than mind knowing.
A: Yes.
D: A slightly different style of being with it. So it just kind of pops up. And one of the values of journaling or like that is that when you’re writing about it, it’s kind of a flow thing that happens.
A: Yeah, it’s flow.
D: It just kind of comes out as opposed to mind going click click click. I mean mind’s in there because it’s needed to to use words and…
A: yeah it’s about what the mind is serving, you know because if the mind’s in it, feels like it’s in charge you know it’s going to figure out, like that but if the mind you know, the mind has the potential to become very refined and to serve this intelligence of what we are, and to serve you know the flows of love and compassion and to serve the heart more fully. And that’s what we’re really moving into in this process of healing and resolution.
D: Yes, I have observed also that spiritual practices are very, very effective for clearing a lot of this out. Just being able to step into the transcendence, go beyond the mind and the body, the mind and emotions rather, well, the body too, into a deep state.
And the body gets very rested, it goes into a state, it can be twice as deep as deep sleep. And that’s an opportunity for a lot of healing to take place and just kind of quietly goes. But then if we get, then step into activity and back into activity again, and those old habits of mind are there, then we just basically bring back some of what we’ve cleared out. We just reinforce it over and over again.
And so there’s great value in spiritual practices, but what I suggest from my side is to supplement that with some targeted work when we’re noticing that there’s some resistance coming up, when we’re noticing that we’re having trouble with certain kinds of things or certain places where we get into difficulties with certain kinds of relationships or with certain kinds of people or any kind of place where we see there’s reactivity in our life, where we’re just, where it’s like, somebody can push our buttons, you know, that’s a sign that there’s something in there that hasn’t been resolved.
Neutrality, when we’re neutral, we can remember very difficult experiences, deep traumas from our past, and we can look at them in a somewhat neutral way. I mean, certainly it’ll be, you know, the death of a parent or something like that will still be, there’ll still be an emotional value to that, but it won’t be a reactivity, a reactive response, it’ll just be a more calm and reflective kind of a response to remember those old things.
It’s that kind of reactivity part that tells us when we’ve got stuff to work on.
A: Yes.
D: And we all have lots. It’s just the nature of being human and this kind of life and this kind of collective consciousness and so on.
A: Yeah, our current time period is one that is rich with opportunity for resolution.
(laughing)
D: Drama.
A: It’s about recognizing that, ’cause we can read certain scriptures and so on and so forth, and try to sort of mix, like mix mash things together and not understand the context of where, what, how enlightenment is unfolding in our current time period, but that’s not always the most helpful.
There’s a lot of value to scripture, but at the same time, we have to look at how that value fits into our current appearance, to our current situation. And currently we’re sitting on a sort of a gold mine, if you look at it that way, of unresolved material, which has the potential to be used as that fuel, as that coal, which burns brightly in the fire of our commitment and of our recognition of our blissful nature as conscious awareness.
D: Beautiful.
A: Yes.
D: Yeah, another little detail about the refinement part we were talking about earlier, that’s really valuable. The body has a refined substance that it can produce called Soma, which greatly enhances the refinement process. And we’ve talked about that in prior talks, but it greatly enhances the refinement process and that bring out the detail and the ability to see the shadows and so on, what’s remaining.
But Soma, it’s recognizing Soma and so on like that requires some value of refinement in and of itself because it is a very fine substance, kind of a pre-physical, almost physical but not quite physical substance. And it has a major role in the feminine side of unfolding.
A: Yes, yeah, that’s beautiful. And it’s also important to note that if someone, you know, there can be, Soma can be a part of the process and and there does not be any context for qualifying it. So someone could be unfolding in a certain context that maybe had never heard about Soma, its production, so on and so forth, but it’s going on, it would just be a matter of sort of aligning the language with the experience. Yeah.
D: Yeah.
A: And we all have different–
D: And helping to support it.
A: Yeah, and helping.
D: Yeah, there’s another detail too about energy healing that I think is worth mentioning, and that is the topic of empaths. I don’t know if you’ve explored this at all, but essentially about one in 20 people are born with a greater sensitivity to their environment and to others. Now there’s many types of empath gifts. Some people are very attuned to others’ emotions or to others’ thinking, not in the sense of reading the mind, but in sort of the overall tone, the style of thinking that’s going on, or they’re sensitive with, they’re quite sensitive to, with animals or, gems, you know, minerals, that kind of thing.
There’s quite a different range of types and beyond the scope of what we’re talking about here. But essentially, if someone is empathic, then there’s this tendency to pick up information that way. And if they happen to be emotional or intellectual empaths, then they’re going to be influenced by other people. And in that sense, it’s important to become more conscious of that so that they avoid taking on other people’s baggage. Because it’s very difficult to heal emotionally if you’re constantly taking on other people’s garbage. We have quite enough of our own to deal with without taking on other people’s stuff.
So that’s a, from a healing context, it’s important to recognize any particular sensitivities you might have and make them a little more conscious so that your, those dynamics are not taking place.
I mean, myself, I kind of thought that empath was the last thing that I was. I was too dense for that, but it turned out that I was. And what I didn’t realize, it was completely unconscious, really surprised me, was that I was constantly reading my environment and the people that were around me. You know, I’d be driving down the road, I’d be checking other drivers, what their state is and how they’re doing. And in that process, I was, because it was unconscious and I wasn’t skilled with, energetically about it, I was taking on a bit of their stuff. Like oh, there’s the angry driver back there on the left. I gotta be careful here. And I was reacting to that, but it was all taking place on a subconscious level.
So becoming conscious of that, then I avoided picking up the other, I can still be aware of it, but not be picking up other people’s stuff all the time and adding to my own baggage to deal with.
A: Yeah, I’m glad that you brought this up. I have a particular perspective that I hold on it. And I’ve, I work with many that might be considered empathic or have this high sensitivity and within the realm of sort of attunement to different emotional statuses, mental statuses and environmental context, those sorts of things.
What I’ve found can be potentially limiting about that, about the sensitivity and then also about sort of the concept of the empath is that it could be taken on as a potentially sort of a victim situation. And that’s not always going to be the case. It just depends on how it’s held. But when there’s a tendency to feel as if it’s always someone else’s material that’s being processed out or something like that. And I’ve seen the mind get involved in that. And what I refer to as the spiritual ego get involved in that and it can get pretty sticky.
So in the context of unfoldment, I tend to recommend, you know, that, well, of course we want to have an awareness of, if we’re, you know, kind of groping for whatever, you know, and our own unconscious dynamics in turn, in reference to sort of exploring and those kinds of things, that’s very, very appropriate and very, very important. At the same time, we can begin to develop a perspective as the truth of non-duality begins to shine forth that really what’s being reflected back in the context of this body and mind to be processed out is not necessarily coming from out there.
And I think that that’s one of the most healthy perspectives to have, particularly as the stages continue to unfold because as that refinement and that clearing begins to take place, very naturally a nervous system which is situated in a certain status and which is able, begins to sort of become a vehicle for certain levels of processing, which can be recognized to be more ancestral, more collective, more referential to gender identification, more referential to perhaps environmental context, those kinds of things.
And that’s a very appropriate thing. It’s very natural and spontaneous and in alignment with the healing of humanity. And so, just to have an awareness of the tendency to sort of get lost in the otherness, you know, and the projection of that and the conclusion of that. And because really there can be a, just as it’s a very fine line between differentiating where something is yours, you know, where and where it’s someone else’s. And I think that we all have something within us which tends to lean on the side of it being someone elses. (laughing)
I say, well, just take, you know, responsive, impersonal responsibility, you know, it’s very helpful, but I totally appreciate what you’re saying and understand. It’s very, very important to have an awareness of those kinds of things.
D: Yeah, and particularly when you get into the further stages of enlightenment, where you become everything, then you definitely start processing the collective.
A: Yes.
D: But one of the really important things I realized about that is that we tend to be tuned to certain things. Like if we have a history of anxiety or jealousy, and we process that, but we still have an attunement to it in the collective.
So we’re gonna be more aware of that in the collective, and we’re gonna have a greater ability to process that in the collective than someone who’s got a background more with anger or something like that. So there’s a local attunement skill we’ve got because we’ve learned to heal that arena.
A: Yeah, that’s a really beautiful point. It kind of goes back to the understanding of becoming specialists, you know, that within the mind of divinity, certain specialized ways of processing out material or areas of material that are being processed or sort of being aligned with, not by any sort of decision-making process, but just through the flow of experiencing and what we have tasted and what the impressions were in the context of a given body and mind, and how through healing that there’s a comfort with healing that, and that translates into higher stages.
And so we may have a particular interest, like one of my, one of the interests here that, and one of the main things that tends to sort of be processing out. It has to do with male and female egoity and egoic dominance and the way that men and women relate to each other and how that relates to the masculine and the feminine aspects of conscious awareness. So that, you know, it’s just something that’s there, it doesn’t mean that that’s going to be in the foreground for everyone or something that’s of interest. But it just depends on the case.
D: Yeah, I’ve actually been quite fascinated because I’ve noticed that people who get into higher levels of enlightenment, they become quite distinctive in what their gift areas are, where they’re focused, and what they’re developing. And so it’s quite interesting to compare notes because they’ll go into some detail about, you know, the structure of the universe, or they’ll go into, you know, the mechanism for using laws of nature to help heal a large community, or, you know, there’s just all kinds of different ways that shows up. And I think it’s always a surprise, because even to the person that unfolds for, I mean, they may have had a gift that they were aware of before, but it tends to flower, Or there can be gifts that were there that were essentially dormant or unconscious that come to the surface and find expression when there’s a clear vessel for that to take place in.
I think it’s also important to mention that enlightenment isn’t really a goal in itself. Enlightenment is a state of being. It’s a way of living. And it has these advantages to live a better quality life. And that’s what we’re talking about here, is upgrading the quality of your life so that you have a platform to live it from in a much more enjoyable and satisfying kind of way. It’s not just some elusive, I mean, it has been for a long time, a rare and elusive kind of thing, but that’s not true anymore.
There are many, many, many people who are waking now and each of those are flowering in their own ways. It’s quite beautiful to see.
A: Yeah, it is really beautiful. And that’s a really, really beautiful point. It kind of reminds me of when I, when we first started doing these talks together, I mentioned to you maybe us having a podcast together and for whatever reason at that time, it just didn’t seem like it was a good fit.
Of course, we’ve ended up sort of having, having a sort of podcast in a way anyways, but one of the, the title that I suggested was Daily Divinity. And that’s really, you know, that really kind of sums it up. It’s not something that’s kind of out there off on a mountain top, you know, far away and something to get to. It’s divinity in daily life.
You know, it’s realizing the truth of our divinity with more depth, more clarity and allowing that to express itself within the realm of daily living and to reveal itself amidst all of these presentations of experience.
D: Yes.
A: So it’s about the appreciation for the process, appreciation for the process and the willingness to allow life to be that, to be that unfoldment, to be that process, to be that ever clarifying, ever deepening richness of our being.
D: Yes, an upgraded life skill.
A: Yeah.
D: It’s beautiful.
A: Beautiful. There’s one more thing I wanted to mention. I couldn’t remember it earlier when I was trying to think of it, but just going back to the tendencies of the way in which certain material is processed out. There can be a tendency within the realm of the mind and the ego and the way in which experience is held to feel that certain things are the end of the world. You know, it’s kind of, there’s a seriousness, there can be an underlying false sense of seriousness surrounding certain things.
And the accumulation of that energy as it surfaces can sometimes have an end of the world sort of sense or flavor to it, you know. And it’s not that the heaviness or the stickiness, as you said, isn’t there when we recognize it or when it comes up, but that we’re able to hold that stickiness, that sludginess, that end of the worldness in the space of just gentle, receptive allowing and allow that to process out, without believing that it is something that it isn’t, without becoming that.
D: Yeah, not buying into it, not stepping into it. Yes, I fully agree. And it’s, you know, the experience here has been that there’s some pretty mighty big things came to the surface at different times that seemed almost overwhelming and scary. But I found that no matter how big and scary it seemed, it was always possible to process it.
And the natural process here was only to bring up what was possible to process. So if it’s showing up, then we’re ready to process it. Whether or not we feel that way, that’s another matter.
Sometimes we can be like, okay, this is a little too much and we back off and let it come back again a bit later for more. But yeah, it’s a bit of a dance sometimes to get past our habits and our resistance and the mind trying to control and all that, all this kind of stuff. But over time, it just becomes almost automatic.
A: Yeah.
D: You know, this stuff comes up and you’ve learned how to do it better. And so it just automatically, it’s just experienced and away way it goes. And there can be this idea that enlightenment means everything’s just peace and bliss all the time. And certainly those are there, but emotions don’t go away. There’s still the full gamut of emotions. And in fact, my experience has been that they’re actually bigger and fuller than they ever were before.
I can cry at a movie where I never was able to before and it’s just a real rich experience. I can get really angry and then it’s just like, “Whoa, that was a lot.” And then it’s just, away it goes, it’s gone, it’s done. No residue is left behind. So it’s just this full richness that it brings to the table. So yeah, it’s a process.
I sometimes use the example of the boogeyman thing. When we’re a little kid, we can get into these real fears about the boogeyman under the bed or in the closet or something like that. I mean, there’s a whole movie they did about the monsters in the closet. But the thing is, when we were kids, it was a big thing, but now we’re adults, when that old fear comes to the surface, It’ll come with that fear of, oh, the boogeyman under the bed. But it was just a fear. It was just, that’s all it was. There was never the boogeyman under the bed.
And so it’s just something to be experienced and processed. We’re adults now, we can handle it. It’s not a big deal. But if we buy into that, oh, you know, that scariness, then yeah, then we can get lost in it.
So that’s the key thing, just being able to see it without getting into it. And I’ve seen that done, you know, like I’ve seen techniques used in groups like this one called Family Constellations.
I saw it demonstrated at one time and they basically invited the person to get into their drama and their story, to invest in it, to make it stronger, to make it more real that they were the victim and I was appalled. And so I was like, no, this is not a good technique.
But then later on, then later on I saw the same technique but used quite differently where they weren’t inviting the person to invest in their story. And that, they were just having people experience what was there and allow it properly. They understood the process better and it was used as a much more effective technique. So that’s the key.
And when you’re looking at any kind of, you know, energy healing or similar techniques that are out there, just watch it. If it’s, does it take you into the experience or does it take you into allowing the experience?
You know, and that difference makes all the difference.
A: Yes.
D: Going into it just reinforces it. Whereas it’s allowing. And of course, don’t get freaked out if you fall into the experience when it comes up sometimes, because there’s kind of like, there’s this dance they talk about in the Bhagavad Gita.
The first part is you notice after the fact, oh, I got caught up in that again, I got angry about whatever, or whatever it was.
And then the second part is we start to notice during. So right in the middle of it, we’re like, “Oh, I’ve fallen into this.” And then we can kind of step back and change the direction of it a little bit.
And then finally, we notice when it’s first coming up. And even before that, it was just the first impulse. It hasn’t even come to the surface yet. And then we have the potential to heal right on the level of that first impulse before it even manifests as emotions and events and drama in your life, just on that seed level.
Of course, some of the deeper shadows and stuff, it’s hard to avoid that. They’re still going to express in some kind of way. But then again, if we understand these basic principles, then we can be with it with a bit of practice.
This stuff takes practice, but with a little bit of practice, we get familiar with the process and then it just becomes so much easier.
A: Yeah, yeah. Really, really beautiful points. It’s important to recognize too that even when that stage where we’re recognizing it, what appears to be after the fact, that’s a very, very important stage because it’s through reflecting on that process and seeing where we bought into it, seeing where there was identification, seeing where we became it and we’re acting it out. There’s actually a clarification that’s taking place and an undoing.
D: Because we are seeing it.
A: So the next time that something similar arises, the likelihood of that same thing taking place decreases because we’re bringing awareness. There’s more conscious, there’s more light shining into that. And then as you said, it becomes subtler and subtler and a familiarity develops with the process.
And then you really made a wonderful point. I’m glad that you made it before we finished surrounding the resolution of that material and before it expresses within the field of activity, before it surfaces. And surfacing in the context of attentive allowing doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is being acted out or that it’s a drama.
It can be just those subtle impulses, the energy recognized in the body and different things expressed on what we might call a silent level. And someone, we can be with family, we can be somewhere and nobody else knows that it’s going on, but there’s a processing out of material.
And it’s a beautiful opportunity for reflection utilizing the sensory field. And as that resolution begins to take place, not only are those unconscious layers not expressing in the field of activity or the field of action, but also the karmic possibilities are transformed in the field of activity, in the field of action. And so, you know, when we resolve layers, our unresolved materials surrounding money and surrounding, you know, dealings with money and lack and fear and all those different kinds of things, not to say that we’re gonna become millionaires or something like that, but the way in which the flow surrounding the presentations of that aspect of experience is and is recognized, changes.
And so there’s a greater degree of comfort, a greater degree of flexibility, and the way in which a certain experience would have unfolded if we hadn’t resolved that material, now is no longer present. And so that experiencing can unfold in its highest possibility because we’re attuned to resolving those layers prior to them expressing in the field of behavior, in the field of action.
D: Yes, there’s a sufficiency that arises to that example. And actually in all areas of life, but financially and relationships and so on like that. We can be in relationships without, you know, being this thing for acting out our garbage. It can actually just be a relationship between two souls.
A: Yes, and the relationship actually can serve the process of resolution. So it can actually become a service vehicle where there’s an underlying commitment to the reflection in the intelligence and conscious awareness, which is utilizing that dynamic in the direction of clearing. And as there’s clearing, of course, there’s more richness, more fullness in the dynamic. And that supports the willingness to look at deeper, darker layers. And then that becomes more richness, more fullness, more bliss, more intimacy, so on and so forth.
So it’s just vast, our potential and the possibility of human life when we are attuned to these principles. And we have that willing heart and a childlike simplicity when it comes to these things.
D: Yes.
A: One more thing I’ll say about this is that your example of the boogeyman reminded me of the possibility that in certain things surfacing, sometimes the sensory perception can be colored. And so that what we’re seeing or hearing actually sort of is influenced by a certain emotion or a certain energetic presence and potentially can be distorting the sense faculties and of course the thought processes.
So it’s helpful to recognize that, during purification, if there’s something processing out, just to have that awareness that perhaps sensory perception is being colored in a certain direction. It’s not a safety feature, it’s not an attempt to control, just wisdom and having that awareness ’cause it does take place, as we know from lying in the bed as a child with the heartbeat like this, and you’re looking at the closet door and you see little something, something’s in there moving around.
You know, the senses are colored by that fear. Of course, when you get up and go to the closet and turn the lights on, nothing’s there. But if you lay in the bed, the whole story, the whole, the conscious awareness begins to reflect what it’s believing in.
And the Yoga Vasishtha makes that point so many times that whatever the conscious awareness holds within itself, whatever it takes itself to be, that is what appears. And that is what seems to be going on.
D: Yeah, snake and string analogy.
A: That’s it.
D: Common one, yeah. Seeing in the dark, seeing the string as a snake. It’s fascinating ’cause it’s a fundamental dynamic in the way we live life. This can make such a difference in life. I mean, I’m just gradually over time, I’ve been watching just things simplify. The mind gets quieter, the emotions could become more settled, Fuller and richer, but most of the time, much more settled. Life gets less eventful, ’cause there’s fewer things to rise to the surface to be processed.
And when things do come up, that need to be completed, everything that’s needed to complete the process is there. Just everything just kind of organizes, you know. I mean, an example that comes to mind is driving home from a late movie one night, a few years ago now, but I was driving home and one of my tires blew out for no reason.
They couldn’t figure out why it blew out after looking at it. And so I’m in this place, unlit highway in the middle of nowhere, but it actually wasn’t very far from where I lived. So I thought about getting out and changing the tire in the dark. (laughs)
I know this isn’t worth it. The tire is gone. So I just drove home really slowly on the thrashed rubber, trying not to damage the rim. And then the next morning I called up to find out who carried that kind of tire. And it was like half a mile away. I changed the tire over, took it in.
They had one in stock, or they actually got two, they had two in stock. So it was all taken care of just click, click, click, very easy.
And whereas, you know, historically I can recall similar kinds of things where it’s like, it’s just a big drama and it just goes on and on and doesn’t wanna finish and you know, this kind of thing.
But when you’re cooperating with life, then life can cooperate back and support you. And it just works so much more simply.
A: Yeah, yeah, great example. That’s it, we’re just attuned to that support, to those laws of nature, those aspects of ourself. and in a certain sense, you know, that kind of experience becomes commonplace, you know, just for the things to flow more fluidly, for there to be less seeming interruption, for certain things to come together organically, naturally, spontaneously, no need to force, no need to try, you know, because we have seen that we are life and we are one with life.
And that recognition of the oneness of life begins to express itself in that flow, in that sense of just a seamlessness, and when little things bubble up and are processed out, it’s just right back, it just kind of serves deepening in that sense of flow and that sense of fullness.
D: Beautiful.
A: All right, well, I think we’ve covered quite a bit. So I want to thank you again for taking the time to chat with me about this. And I’ll look forward to seeing what our next conversation will be on.
D: Yes.
A: So we give all glory to pure Divinity.
D: All glory to pure Divinity.
A: Thank you, David.