Loving Awareness

The unity in Love

Posted by matthew on October 7, 2007  |  4417 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F10%2F07%2Fthe-unity-in-love%2FThe+unity+in+Love2007-10-08+01%3A02%3A30matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F10%2F07%2Fthe-unity-in-love%2F

Love is always a journey towards oneness, toward unity. ? Because the use of the word Love is so pervasive in Hollywood, psychology and everyday use, it is used in many cases in contexts which does not imply this. 

? For instance, here is one phrase which has entered into the standard cultural catch phrases:

You cannot love another more than you love yourself.

While true, this implies of course there is a distinction between loving yourself and loving another. ? There is no difference. ? Loving yourself is loving another, and loving another is loving yourself. ? To perceive otherwise would be to enforce separation where there in actuality is none. ? There is a vast web of interconnection between everyone and everything on this planet, and what affects one spins out to affect us all. ? Every action you take, whether it is to yourself or others, creates ripples throughout yourself, your friends, your community, and the world. ? Looking deeply at the vast power and scope of this interconnectedness, the ultimate truth is simply that you are the world. ? Loving yourself is loving the world, and loving the world is loving yourself.

This may seem idealistic and ungrounded to some. ? To help the explanation so you understand this interconnection in a more practical way, let’s look at a relationship pattern that has been very common in this culture, with manifestations in both genders:

A man decides he is in love with a woman and wants to build a future together. ? Wanting to demonstrate this, he showers her with gifts and wants to spend every waking moment outside of work with her. ? He makes her wishes ultra-important and always makes sure to do whatever it is she wants, putting aside his own desires. ? He has decided love is to be expressed through sacrifice. ? To pay the extra bills, he keeps at a job he doesn’t like much, and gives up dreams he has of alternate careers. ? While this feels very flattering at first, after some time the woman feels this sacrifice like a weight on her shoulders. ? He has given up large aspects of himself, which cannot help but create both a void in him that he hopes to fill via the woman and unspoken expectations that influence all interactions in the relationship. ? After a time this accumulates into frustrations and arguments. ? He has disconnected aspects of himself and assumed this is an action based in love. ? In essence, he has tried to find Love through not loving himself, and then discovers the expression of this lack of unity from the voice of his partner.

Showing the other side of the spectrum, many “selfless” people initiate all of their actions from a very “selfish” perspective – albeit with a grander awareness that encompasses this interconnection. ? Gandhi once spoke that he was the most selfish being on the planet. ? He performed every single action solely for himself. ? He thus did not get tired of living his ‘selfless’ life, because it was a continual reinforcement based in love of Self.

If you recall moments of love between you and someone else, even experiences with a pet, these are moments where truly their needs and desires meld and coexist with your own as equal partners. ? The other’s desires becomes your own. ? There is oneness and unity. ? There is no sacrifice of your own desires in this state, for your desires are as important to the other as their own, and vice versa. ? Experiences in this state are often called “higher”, where time stands still, colors seem brighter and a grand feeling of aliveness pervades every moment. ? However it is not truly “higher”, but simply underlying every moment, waiting for you to knock.

To help with this experience, here is an exercise:

Sit across from a partner and breathe calmly and deeply together as you look into each other’s eyes. ? Imagine yourself in a vast plain of grass and forests drenched in comforting sunlight, with all the space around you that you can possibly imagine. ? Now bring every aspect of yourself to this place. ? This includes all of your desires, your dreams, your frustrations, and even your defenses. ? Let them take up all the room they could ever need without any expectation of change. ? Your partner can do the same in their own mind. ? Breathe deeply for a minute until this feels like a completely natural self-perpetuating state.

Now bring your partner into this place, which includes inviting all aspects of them into your space. ? Invite their desires, their dreams, their frustrations, and yes, even their defenses. ? Give them as much space as they could ever need. ? Now allow both of you to interact in this space without trying to do anything. ? Let your desires interact with theirs without conflict. ? Even your defenses can interact. ? Give it time and space.

With complete permission there is an encompassing transformation that occurs naturally, without effort. ? There is no sacrifice, only expansion that comes from allowing a greater world you’re your own. ? Because their desires are as important as your own, the interaction helps you understand your own desires more clearly, and even grow towards grander dreams. ? Oneness helps you move towards clarity with your own identity, rather than making you give it up.

Note that this exercise can be done alone with the Self, for we all have conflicting aspects of ourselves that desire different things. ? These have sometimes be called “subpersonalities”, or separated aspects of Self that have different identities, albeit in milder forms than what is seen with true multiple personalities. ? If you are alone, you can stare into a mirror and bring conflicting aspects of yourself together into this vast open field of sunlight in exactly the same way as described above. ? Allowing all aspects of yourself to operate from a space of unity will of course create ripples in all the relationships in your life, inviting others to do the same. ? Loving yourself is indeed loving the world.

Being present with emotions

Posted by matthew on September 30, 2007  |  423 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F09%2F30%2Fbeing-present-with-emotions%2FBeing+present+with+emotions2007-09-30+21%3A41%3A27matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F09%2F30%2Fbeing-present-with-emotions%2F

Emotions are somewhat of a problem for the vast majority of people in this culture. They can be very pleasurable in the initial rush of love in relationships or in successes in sports and the workplace, but for the most part ‘painful’ or ‘messy’ emotions are thought of as something to avoid or fix. Many, many people have gone to counseling because at the root they see their emotions as a problem and thus think they have issues to resolve.

I personally love emotions. I love them for the huge gift of perceptions they bring, being a measure of dynamics happening externally. I love them for the self-knowledge they bring. But most of all I love them because inviting them in, fully, in their totality, brings such a vivid sense of aliveness that is not possible without them.

Simply put, there are no â??˜problems’ with any emotions. The only problem is our own judgment, the perception of separation that divides parts of ourselves into â??˜good’ and â??˜bad’. This categorization has a strong influence in every experience of emotion.

I’ve written before about related topics, so for further reference you can look at The Allowing of Pain and Negativity and a table of emotions.

To look in detail at something, let’s look on a basic personal characteristic that is treated with suspicion and often repressed: the quality of aggression. It is recognized, truthfully so, that aggression can cause conflicts, crossing of boundaries, and a fundamental lack of listening. And yet this is only one aspect of aggression, an aspect fundamentally based in the perception of differences and separation. Someone mired in this state views others as unconnected to themselves, and therefore an enemy. This is always accompanied by a deep division in the self, where there is some denial of huge swaths of one’s being. Although this is all too common, it is actually not a natural state. Looking into nature and its purity, it is easy to find examples which are not based at all in separateness, but rather of following the natural way each creature is meant to be. Spending time watching tigers or black panthers in the wild gives a wonderful example of this. Their aggression is a thing of beauty, and harmonious.

Within people, when aggression is allowed to its full fruition – without any perception of separateness – there is never any possibility for war because there is no one ‘out there’ to make war with. Perhaps a better word for the state is dynamism. Dynamism is itself part of the spectrum of aggression, a great expansion of energy which includes and brings others together for a purpose. It inspires and provides a basis for positive change in the world.? Dynamism includes all the aspects of aggression mentioned above, but is not at all based in conflict, so the same energy that is used for conflict in one case is used for creation and beauty. 

?A wonderful example of this state is the spiritual teacher Krishnamurthi. There was a strong outward force around him which was joyful to be around, much like watching a panther in the wild.

All emotions â???? and personal characteristics – have this dichotomy. When blocked and based in the division of right and wrong, ‘me’ and ‘not me’, any emotion can create conflict. When fully allowed to the degree where there is no control and no judgment, there is a transforming that occurs to move us into the potential of the experience of that emotion. This will always be a movement towards love of self and others. Allowing always creates a space for this transformation and movement. All too often, there is a desire to take action to transform emotions into something â??˜better’. At its roots this is a non-acceptance of emotions as they are occurring in the present moment. Any action based on non-acceptance is likely to perpetuate that state.

Saying ‘we are complete and perfect just as we are’ is not an empty statement, nor is it based in a positivity that is about avoiding focusing on ‘negative things’ – though it has often been used for this purpose. It is a statement of fact. As we learn greater experience of allowing, we also gain more direct experience of this completeness. And thus, joy begins to be a regular occurrence.

the prison of emotional denial

Posted by matthew on September 23, 2007  |  711 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F09%2F23%2Fthe-prison-of-emotional-denial%2Fthe+prison+of+emotional+denial+2007-09-24+06%3A00%3A45matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F09%2F23%2Fthe-prison-of-emotional-denial%2F

These last two weeks I’ve been witness to a few rather emotional discussions. Which is not at all unusual for me. However, in these weeks I’ve also been seeing how much push there is to suppress emotion in them – even for discussions of an inherently emotional nature. This kind of reaction seems to be pervasive in our culture. As a society, we’re extremely uncomfortable with emotion, and this shows up in a lack of appreciation of simply allowing it. To take an example, say there’s a conflict between two people you know and like. There are no ‘easy’ solutions in such a situation. Both of them usually have valid perspectives, which are linked to their own emotions, who they are, and their own boundaries. It’s easy to get alienated from such situations because there’s no ‘right’ answer, no “good side”, and it’s easy to feel trapped between the opposing forces. Aligning yourself with one side usually generates more problems. Emotions, therefore, are something best to avoid. At least so many thoughts go.

If we look deeply at the mechanism of suppressing emotions, it’s easy to see why. Who we are, which includes emotions, is actually extremely flexible â???? we can do almost anything we want to ourselves. We can develop ourselves to be almost anything desired, but we can also push emotions, memories, and thoughts away from sight and try to squish them into nothingness. Our training in this culture involving doing such things almost from day one. However â???? and this is the root of almost all ‘problems’ â???? we cannot truly disconnect ourselves from ourselves. There is no way to cut off and discard any disliked portion of ourselves. There is truly no escape from who we are. We can try to surgically disconnect a painful emotion, and we get a reasonable facsimile of this disconnection. But it will not be a true disconnect. Any emotion we’ve tried to shove away is always there, waiting to come back, and in fact pulling on us in every moment.

For the visually minded, I liken this process to a great white elastic band. We can stuff part of ourselves in a box, bury it, and walk away, but we’ll have that ‘pull’ from it. It will exert pressure on us in every single moment, bringing attention to it. The farther we push it away, the more pull there will be. This is why the elastic band image helps. This pull isn’t a harsh ‘you must deal with it’ one, but rather a force of nature that simply wants us to be in wholeness, bringing us back to our greater Self. This elastic can be influenced by others, too â???? if someone else walks through the area of the denied connection, what occurs is the elastic force snapping back, similar to a real elastic band. This is another description of what ‘triggering’ is.

Now in almost everyone there is not just one such pocket of emotion buried and abandoned, but multitudes. Each one exerts this pull back. Try to imagine how that would feel with real elastic bands. Because of the constant pull in many conflicting directions, there’s very little freedom to move in any direction. A little movement can be made, but even small can movements pull against hidden emotion which will then pull back, producing an emotional reaction in response. This can generates fear of any emotional movement at all. Most people are quite literally trapped in a static place by buried emotions. In such a place, life is filled with emotional minefields and geysers waiting to erupt. Words must be watched and controlled in every moment. Walls and wired fences mark off areas where unwanted emotions lie fallow.

Now imagine on top of this picture that you are close with someone else, who also has a huge amount of buried emotions. It would be very easy to get a reaction in that person if you tried to move through any of their “elastic bands”. So in most relationships, there is a general, unspoken agreement for both parties to act in such a way that no one will be triggered. The initial rush of being ‘in love’ at the beginning is usually the time such agreements are formed. It’s quite natural, of course; being triggered is not enjoyable to anyone, and it is normal to demonstrate you’re not going to trigger pain to someone you love. However, this restricts motion even further. After some time, there’s often a realization of how emotionally static such a posture is. This is when relationship questioning happens. It can either lead to greater freedom if both sides are open to questioning or to the end of a relationship if one person blames the other for opening up emotional cans of worms. There was an unspoken agreement, after all!

These unspoken agreements are actually pervasive in all aspects of our society. Social groups often have a number of these. To see this, try to imagine you showing the raw spectrum of an intense emotion without filtering (and without blaming others) to a group you’re part of. If you feel that this would cause a lot of alienation, or you simply cannot even imagine it, that is a sign of unspoken agreements. In such cases, someone not acting in accord with these agreements are the vast majority of the time thought of as ‘the problem’. To someone in a prison, those outside of it can indeed be a problem! Unfortunately, the label of ‘the problem’ sticks far too often to anyone with even a little self-doubt, encouraging further denial of emotions. And thus the cycle continues

The road less travelled, of course, is simply to not push away any emotion that occurs. This applies to both emotions within and emotions in others. Without the network of opposing forces described above, an incredible amount of freedom begins to take root. There are no longer any self-created chains rooting you to a particular emotional landscape. At first this is terrifying, but as the infinite amount of choices now available are gotten used to, the dance of freedom truly begins.

Of course, it takes a good deal of time to reincorporate denied aspects of ourselves back into the fold. Try to imagine trying to rush this process and having many of these elastic forces snap back all at once! It takes gentleness and patience. Nevertheless, each part of Self allowed back into a space of wholeness always adds to your sense of freedom, and brings a greater strength for any further challenges. This is the path of wholeness. When the freedom and joy of this is seen, then there is no need to even try for disconnections from Self. For we are complete, just as we are.

an experience of the forest

Posted by matthew on August 21, 2006  |  382 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2006%2F08%2F21%2Fan-experience-of-the-forest%2Fan+experience+of+the+forest2006-08-21+19%3A12%3A00matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2006%2F08%2F21%2Fan-experience-of-the-forest%2F

Going in the forest is one of my favorite things to do. Not because it’s always pleasant, or because of fresh air, but because it gives me such a wonderful sense of potential of what life is like without all the controls and predefined judgments that make up the relative ‘safety’ of our society.

When I’m walking alone in the forest – usually at night, when my secondary senses take off where sight is left behind – I always get such a feeling of interconnectedness. It isn’t simply that the forest is interdependent with itself, though the energy of a tree blends perfectly with the grounds and bushes to the point that it’s pointless to think where one begins and the other ends. (The same thoughts can also me used for “what is myself” thoughts when pointing to one’s arms, legs, chest, face, etc.). It’s also that it is so incredibly welcoming, of everything. And by “everything”, I mean that. Death is accepted with the same equanimity as the increase of an afternoon breeze. Branches may fall and a gale may cause tall tree tops to tremble and sway many feet from side to side, and there is no worries from the trees of their own demise. Human presences are welcome, not as strangers, but as an increased blending of the energetic weave – even loggers come to empty the sky of leaves.

And because of this welcoming, this non-attached acceptance of any change that comes, there is subtle detachment from any form that comes. The result of this detachment is the complete lack of fear. Fear only exists because of attachment, hanging on, attributing meaning we don’t want lost to particular objects or symbols. With detachment, of which the flow in nature is a prime example, there is no fear. There is adrenaline and instinct, but no separation and shame, a basis for what we call fear.

I get quite a picture of what intelligence is when I’m there, as well. This isn’t referring to grades or mental processes; it refers to a process of surrender, of following the “natural way”, no matter what the form. It’s a non-duality in thought and action, in seeing that there is no “other”, in any form. There’s no sense of this concept in a forest; there is only the forest, which is simply life. It is this kind of perception which helps me act more with love; seeing another person literally as another manifestation of myself, not as I know myself, but as the fullest extension of my being.

This is the kind of experience I can have when heading into nature, and why I value it so much, especially going out camping where there’s no human influences. It often brings out fear being alone without the “safety net” of a community – which is to say it brings out all the blocks I have inside. Not a bad thing at all.