Something We Have Been Conditioned To Not Ask For
I arrived early to the park and sat on the bench like an excited kid, hoping Dove was there already. When he told me last week that whatever images I had were mine, it showed me that there was something I had been missing. It felt big and exciting. I spotted him at the far end of the park coming toward me. I jumped up to greet him and then we sat together and this is what I told him:
JON: When you told me those images I was having were "mine after all," I realized there was a whole natural ongoing process that I haven't been respecting. Somehow, I have forgotten about it over the years and didn’t think it has any value.
DOVE: We have been conditioned to self negate. The truth is that this element of you, these images, are divine - divine in every aspect of the word. We did a formal reminder of that last week.
JON: I experienced throughout this week that there is a natural inner life going on all the time. It has felt awkward, thrilling, calming and relieving all at once.
DOVE: It’s normal to feel awkward and strange. One way of looking at it is that in essence it was a soul-retrieval. It's the witnessing that locks it in. Most humans have not had the experience of being "welcomed" into life.
JON: That explains the extremes I've experienced this week - both gratitude for remembering it, and grief which I’ve been feeling from missing out on something for much of my life.
DOVE: Yes. Most humans are at some level of grief and not aware of it, but, it is still having an impact. There is a longing for connection. We have been conditioned to not even ask for it, not even allowed to formulate the questions. We don’t dare! It is looked upon as devilish, pernicious, and as a convoluted tightly balled-up mess. But, it is all there is. Connection is about being "welcomed to be here."
JON: I have been more spontaneous and less "in role" this week, even giddy. I've been more relaxed and to my surprise, I've been practicing it and talking about it all with Jenny.
DOVE: As I have had the experience of being "welcomed," I feel free about where others are at, spontaneously. A natural sympathy is there and it's like a light has been flipped on. With the experience of me being "in the center," others begin to intuit that it is so. And so they too get a respite. They may not know why, but they get a micro mini-vacation.
JON: So that means that at the same time I feel good from the inside, I am also creating a good environment on the outside, and it can all just grow and grow?
DOVE: Yes. The way the soul works is that there is a natural faculty for testing and validating with new experiences. There is an awkward part that says “What! How dare you show up now!” It's supposed to challenge the new as part of validating and discerning real truth. So, if it is true you can own it. We are actually very complex beings. There is an intrapsychic laboratory using the scientific method quite deftly. It tries to challenge, attack, and disprove before it can settle down. It is a hyper-skeptical part that allows testing of a counter-experience; to go into the unconscious in order to see if the new element throws you off or pulls you back into connection. You simply appreciate that it is a divine process which is there to protect you. It’s a component of the psychic immune system. Everything must pass the ‘smell test’. You can’t just let anything into your reality structure.
JON: This understanding allows me to see to a second, deeper level. For me it’s expanding, to where I can watch my self in a conversation while I’m in a conversation, which implicitly put me in a new "watching" position, watching over myself.
DOVE: You are expanding the capacity to allow, which is part of witnessing the internal faculty. You are allowing the subtler, divine aspect.
JON: And so I am beginning to see others more easily. I suspect it’s a result of being able to notice myself, my own images, feelings and inner workings. It's like this "welcoming" you are doing allows me to see myself by holding the mirror up. It is giving me an experience of watching myself. It's like a first training ground. Then I naturally apply that to the world around me. You are already so adept at it, allowing me to see myself. And I am starting to see everyone, and that everyone can do this. It's right there to do!
DOVE: What I do is a formalized ritual of allowing, which opens a space where extraordinary things can enter, thus making the invisible, visible. To the degree that the dimension is opened, if profound enough, the miraculous can happen. It is a profound allowing and when I work I am "inviting" in a very particular way. Usually spiritual occasions are laden with external symbols, words, candles or drums. And it is important to understand the value and role of ritual, but there is a point where it all gets downloaded into your manner and voice. I have that going on, but it's all offstage. It makes others feel equal and relaxed, but, that is true anyway.
JON: I feel I am absorbing things from you just being by you. For example at Paul's party, I was feeling your presence and it influenced my behavior and made everything richer.
DOVE: Spiritual teaching of all kinds mostly happens telepathically between teacher and student. It is absorbed by engagement in sacred situations, and to the degree we can throw language around it, we do. To feel steeped in an experience to an extent that we can say "okay" to it, that it passes through the intra-psychic lab in a positive way, gets us to a place where we can say "yes" to it. It is a real yes, not contrived, so that we can be here and it is real. We are really surveying the realm of how the soul works. I have had the great joy of finding the directions to how the human being works, and it is a real delight. It's like, "Oh, look people, I found the directions!" LSD is a peak experience and you can do it once or twice, but then the real work begins of integrating it into your reality. That involves testing and engaging the faculty that runs the experiments. Walking in both worlds, it is necessary to be able to have the skill to build and to be the bridge. Then, even those without connection can have the experience in the way in which they can get it as a real experience. This comes with the strength of your certainty, which comes with ability and skills. The degree of certainty has an infectious quality as there is an elemental desire to be certain.
JON: I know I had a lot of addictions years ago because they would put me into a somewhat transcendent place. It was a respite, or an opportunity to get away from the rush of my everyday life which felt relatively empty. I would drink to get away from it all. There was a peace there, if only temporary, but it ended up running and ruining my everyday life.
DOVE: Even addictions are an expression a desire to connect. But they create a quality of sleep. However, one cannot remain asleep forever if one is to experience union in the essential form within a given circumstance. According to the degree of intensity of the desire for connection, the "out of control" addictive aspect is engaged by the fear that connection might not happen. So when you see that connection cannot NOT happen, that moment is when the fear (that fuels the intensity) evaporates. Then, real union becomes a regular experience, and the addiction and the need for it is undercut. It's simple, just do the math. Addictions are manifestations of missing pieces. As you experience connection, the missing pieces are filled in. Things associated with missing pieces are irrelevant and what's left is your loving self.
JON: The everyday world is so much about addiction and lack of connection. It is important that we write all this down, to do it for the people. I experienced wholeness in doing the "Talking Flutes" program, which is why I felt so fulfilled by it. I was doing it for the people. I had discovered something that worked; I felt it was my duty to bring it to the people and that it would have been selfish somehow if I didn't. It was part of my campaign for my wholeness, and it worked like magic within the nine widely divergent populations where it was used. It helped to heal everyone it touched. This work we are doing can apply to humans in a similar way, and it can help them, Dove.
DOVE: The middle path according to the Buddha is greater than the extremes which appear to be greater. The middle path allows one to move from place to place and so to get in touch with something greater. The middle path isn't about mediocrity. It is about being in the middle of it all rather than some extreme place where your experience is narrow and intense.
