Georgi Y. Johnson's Blog: I AM HERE - Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty, page 40

Death & Transformation April 24-26 2015, Israel

“In the contemplation on death, the preciousness of life emerges. In allowing that which passes into the flow, we become increasingly safe in the eternal.”

Death & Transformation
April 24, 25, 26, Zichron Yaakov, Israel
with Bart ten Berge & Georgi Y. Johnson

“Don’t miss me. Breathe. I am in the wind.

Don’t long for me. Drink, for I am the water.

Don’t speak for me. Listen! I sing in the silence.”

Within the conditioning of linear time (past, present, future), we postulate our death always as a “future” event. In this we solidify that which we “are” as if it is stable, and we live in subconscious fear of the end of this “thing” that we believe ourselves to be.

On inquiry, this person, through all its layers, is constantly in transformation, just as this body is in constant transformation.

The more we are able to allow the depths of who we are, through the windows of perception, the more we find a stability in That through which all transformation occurs. In this, we are able to liberate our direction from the sign posts of fear and threat, and expand into the joy of living through wholeness with what ‘is”, moment by moment.

The allowance of transformation, is integral to our freedom, just as much as the restraints we attempt to put on transformation generate states of fear, projection and illusion.

Our inner growth, expansion and manifestation depends on our willingness to release old forms, beliefs, self-images and structures. In this, the fear of death can prevent us from allowing the ‘death’ of old forms within ourselves which no longer serve our highest purpose. Yet the willingness to release those “old” structures of personalities will always depend on our consolidation in a space beyond all that transforms through processes of creation. This space is available in every second, to all of us.

Day 1

The ONE that contemplates all that changes. An inquiry into memory and imagination.

Day 2

Resting behind Being. An inquiry into the softness of surrender, and what is surrendering to what.

Day 3

Falling back into THAT which is at the core, behind even perception itself.

The contemplation on our physical death is a master key in coming to life, in its fullness and unconditional purity. This course is designed to transform the pain of letting go into the joy of freedom and transformation.

This is an advanced seminar/satsang that is also open to the wider public.

To Register, contact: bart@inner-growth.org or SMS 972 524297196

 

KISS IN THE EMPTINESS

You thought you were right. You believed it was so,

so you thought to cut the night in two

relieved to state that you know

how it should be, if it could be

that which we ought to see.

You thought you were wrong. You believed it was so,

as you, caught naked in the light,

were retrieved from frozen places

like a river ashamed of its flow

or a bird in full song suddenly quiet,

as if you thought you were wrong.

When will you stop believing, my lovely,

and feather this form across the night?

Can you disperse in living freedom,

blissful and transitory,

as a kiss in the bliss of emptiness?

In freedom forever held

by a boundless dominion of beauty?

A kiss in the emptiness

You thought you were right. You believed it was so,

so you thought to cut the night in two

relieved to state that you know

how it should be, if it could be

that which we ought to see.

You thought you were wrong. You believed it was so,

as you, caught naked in the light,

were retrieved from frozen places

like a river ashamed of its flow

or a bird in full song suddenly quiet,

as if you thought you were wrong.

When will you stop believing, my lovely,

and feather this form across the night?

Can you disperse in living freedom,

blissful and transitory,

as a kiss in the bliss of emptiness?

In freedom forever held

by a boundless dominion of beauty?

Consciousness – the last concept to be free in nonduality and inner growth?

Consciousness is one of those broad words we use to express way too much. In psychology, it is popularly set apart from the subconscious and unconscious states of mind as pertaining to the waking state. In modern spirituality, the word consciousness becomes often synonymous with God – or the absolute source of all we are.

Used interchangeably by many spiritual teachers with the word “awareness”, consciousness is seen as the infinite end point – the source of all perception and of creation itself. To question is to be caught in the “mind” and the illusory processes of thinking. Consciousness is collective, as Jung and other pointed out. It is inherently, apparently formless, in any normal notion of “form”. Yet is it the end point? And could treating it as such present a final limitation that seeds psychopathy and far deeper illusions of separation?

Representation of consciousness from the seventeenth century

It all begins with direct inquiry, and as such, the modern spiritual search often seems to end with a lack of direct inquiry and sometimes with the birth of ego structures of megalithic proportions.

The belief that we are consciousness in an absolute sense, is akin to the belief that light defines the darkness – or that darkness is born of light. Is this true?

The belief that consciousness is the source of all we are rather than an effect of a deeper primal cause has rebirthed such terms as “awakening” and “sleep” as polarized states of spiritual attainment (or lack of it).

The belief that consciousness is the absolute source of creation has led to many false philosophies of personal manifestation – allowing the various agendas of jealousy and greed to eclipse natural human qualities of care, kindness and humility.

The consciousness police create dualities in multiple shadows – from the feeding of a kind of addiction to “humania” – as if human beings were separate or at least superior to other forms of life, and of course, separate from the physical dimension which is this planet and its mysterious solar system. It blinds us to the objective reality of the physical universe, as if human will and perception were the definitive cause.

As such, consciousness, while being a powerful, unified, infinitely intelligent layer of form, common to all human beings, can also bring with it tremendous shadows: arrogance, psychopathy and pure destruction. For consciousness to be truly of service, we must let it be, in its infinite variety of expession letting it work through us according to its own need, unconditionally.

The moment we identify (even with consciousness itself), the agenda of separation is interfering. A split is created between the liberated conscious state, and the unconscious beliefs, agendas, natural daydreams, sleep states and even with out own inevitable death process.

Identification itself rests on the premise of separation. Identification is only possible where there is an “other” to identify with. As such, identification can actually strengthen the illusion of separation.

Consciousness as a way, not a destination

There is a popular modern spiritual myth that consciousness is an end-point – the first source of all creation. Teachers are quoted, cited and used as authorities in this great defence of the perspective of pure consciousness. Yet, if it were absolute, would it need to be defended? Against what?

Following in the wake of this, come the assertions that you are not the body, and that the whole of creation is an illusion of your own mind. The severe split, or duality created in this proclaimed spiritual movement can birth whole new generations of pretenders, hypocrites and lies in the inner world.

Scientists today are looking for the physical origins of this phenomena of consciousness, in a defiance to show the spiritual world that it all comes down to matter.

Yet, when we release identification with consciousness and allow ourselves to wholly surrender to the darkness of our own source which precedes even consciousness itself, such a notion is in way disturbing.

If consciousness is an effect of matter, it would change nothing. It never was separate. The only illusion is in that very belief in absolute separation. No physical particle ever dissappears (except in its raw state where it can appear as spontaneously present and absent/everything and nothing). The material world doesn’t die, but is in constant transformation through time and space. As such, it is much a continuum as consciousness itself. If one is the effect of the other, or are both the effect of something far deeper and more unconditional at the source of all we are?

Conscious moments

An inquiry into consciousness will show us a flickering light of “Nows.” Sometimes the light of consciousness has a slow rhythm, and sometimes it becomes very fast. At the same time, we can move into another mode which in the book I AM HERE, we call awareness. In this dimension of Being, the experience of pure perception resembles more a wave form – with less separation than the particles of the Now.

In both cases, the particle bombardment of “Nows” or the wave flow of “being”, there is a subtle yet ubiquitous continuum, Entirely unconditional, this apparently empty yet intimate prevalence is that which facilitate any form of perception, any movement, thought, feeling or emotion. It precedes perception itself.

It is here when we are outside of time and space, such as in coma state. It is here in dreamless sleep. It is here when we are bummed and here when we are enlightened. It pretends nothing and asks nothing. When we access it, consciousness and awareness itself surges forward. It is at the root of Kundalini awakening (yet rarely noticed, due to the intensity of the experience which is the effect of it). It is that which allows us to create and destroy, that allows us to pass through dimensions of birth and death. It is identical to itself and therefore unperceivable.

Yet this is not a dead end but the final surrender of a belief in absolute separate identity, as in allowing That, a natural process of alignment occurs that moves beyond any concept of separation and beyond all personal agenda or concept.

The illusion of possession and being possessed – a spiritual hell zone.

When division bells are ringing and wars are breaking out inside ourselves and in the world around, a yearning for freedom (or even a rage for freedom) can be an engine of destruction.

Empowered by the fresh taste of clarity and truth, the discovery that our freedom has been lost or abused invites an inquiry into the fundamental structures of mind and the way these belief structures put limitations on our consciousness.

From the times of priests and exorcists to the modern day, these formulations of mind are fortified by beliefs in the illusion of possession.

“You cannot possess that which is truly yours.”

~Georgi

All that you are, all that you feel, all that you see, all this could be yours, if only you don’t attempt to possess it.

From the great beast of consumerism and a world that equates inner value with the “stuff” that you own, through to fundamental concepts in institutions such as marriage where the woman in many cultures is “given” to the man, the illusion of possession can by the fallacy behind some of the most senseless conflicts of our time.

Out of the belief in possession, the shadowy energy of theft is born. The illusion of possession also births the great demons of jealousy, or hatred of the “other”. It leads to toxic competition, violence, murder and war.

The desire to possess, and the belief that this is possible, narrows the windows of perception until the actor finds himself at war with existence itself. And that ‘thing’ which is then possessed, must then be defended, lest others seek possession also. This threat creates senseless reactions, a universe of negative emotion, shame, guilt and a spinning mind of thoughts trying to justify the agenda to possess.

Is there anything in heaven or earth that can truly be held onto, forever? Who is the one that seeks to hold, and why?

Even your own face, seen in the mirror, is not ultimately yours.

When the agenda of possession is satisfied, with a short term fix, it is never enough, and of itself it begins to birth more suffering. This is because if there is a belief in possession and that the object, person, job, land or status can be “possessed” then the acquisition is fragile. It can be taken away. Others could possess it back. It needs to be defended. It needs to be chained up or nailed down.

There can never be peace in form where the belief in possession persists.

To find oneself possessed

In the great fluidity of creation, the belief in possession tends to freeze that which it is unable to control.

There is a native American saying that the one who believes in possession will become possessed.

Within the agenda of possession there is a deep split in the psyche. This split is connected to an inability to really know who the one is that seeks to possess.

Who is this one? The one that turns consciousness towards a world of objects, diminishing other people to the position of objects and seeking to chain them down in a manner that they can be owned?Could it be that this one – this basic structure of ego based on illusory identifications – is also possessed? Possessed by fear?

Even with a trolley full of stuff, the heart will still yearn for wholeness.

Let’s take an example.

Something in you seeks to possess status, a certain “special” position in the world. What is this something in you, that needs this exclusivity? Why does it need it? Why is this something incomplete without it?

Could it be because this structure that seeks to possess is in itself a “possessed” aspect of ourselves? An aspect that has been severed from the whole by trauma?

A wise friend once said that the gates of hell are inscribed by the words “More” and “Better”.

The belief in eternal separation is the forerunner of the belief that we can possess the “other”.

What is the threat? That if the possession game is not acted out, then this one (the one we believe ourselves to be) will get less, and indeed that you will be “less” than anyone else?

This one – this ego entity that seeks possession – is itself possessed by the illusion of possession. And it is a very sad animal indeed. Sad, because no matter how much it eats of the natural resources of the whole, it just can’t get enough.

The insanity of possession

If something or someone were truly yours, then you would not be able to see it as separate. Possession demands separation. Without separation, there is no “other” or “thing” to possess. That which is truly yours is part of you, it is the source of you, it can’t be seen or held, because it is not separate.  It  could never be lost or taken away.

We can possess the whole universe, and every moment of beauty and radiance, only by totally allowing ourselves to be that which we already are, and to merge in unity. Such a unity is never lost, and would never be called possession, because such a unity leads to immediate freedom.

The moment we move with the belief structures of possession, we are actually pushing the object we crave away from ourselves. We are investing in projections, a selective wish for the pleasure of it and the not pain, and agendas to fix fear by clutching at something on the outside.

Yet, even projections (which have no relation to the “thing” we seek to possess) are not stable, no matter how hard we protest. We claw at them, and our hand passes through. They bring nothing at all. So the need widens. Dissatisfaction and disappointment prevails.

In this, the pit of loneliness seems to deepen, because possession creates a deep scar of unnatural separation. And the more we feel ourselves alone, or believe we are “standing alone”, the more the world outside appears to be a threat, or an object that needs to be conquered. And the despair around an illusion that will always, always fail, just widens.

All the Way

Freedom holds nothing. It moves with the bliss of the earth and the ecstasy of the wind.

As with other sufferings, the art can be to go all the way home to the source. Follow the urge to possess to its origin, to find out what it really seeks, what can really be for real, what is truly “ours”.

The one that seeks will find itself, never threatened, never separated, never lacking. And then the celebration of creation and togetherness in this life for this short space of time can begin.

This is the freedom that was never won or lost, and which can never be taken away. This is the freedom of being here, liberated even from the idea of possession, being all that we see and all that we love, being that.

The Stupor that Kills – Trauma & the Closing of the Windows of Perception

“Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.”

~ W.H. Auden

Spiritual teachers often refer to the common waking state of mind and spirit as “sleep”. They talk about the danger of falling asleep, and the need to “wake-up”. In general, the word “Awakening“ in 2015 has become commercially synonymous with the word “Enlightenment”. Yet there is a lack of refinement in language here, which can lead to a range of misconceptions.

Sleep is a beautiful and essential ritualistic human and spiritual need – taking us beyond the thinking mind, beyond the configurations of feelings and emotions, and even beyond perception itself – to that place from which perception is reborn when we wake up. When the Dalai Lama joked: “Sleep is the best meditation,” he wasn’t actually joking. Nor was he recommending we collective scatter our consciousness and anaesthetise our feelings and emotions by going into states of materialistic trance.

Sleep is not a “lesser” state. What is meant by spiritual “sleep” is something else – something closer to the word “Stupor” or “Stupefaction”.

What is Stupor?

stupor (plural stupors)

A state of reduced consciousness or sensibility.
A state in which one has difficulty in thinking or using one’s senses.

 

 

Two streams, one river, and a universal ocean.

Where do we find ourselves? Where do we find our Self? Where do we stand in the individual spiritual search? Where so we stand at all?

Two Steams of Spirituality

There are currently two school of inner growth and spirituality.

The first aims to bring happiness, success and fulfilment through the healing arts. Often this involves liberating a person from patterns, habits, traumas and damaging attachments in order to heal the “person”. Such an approach is reflected in the very word “healing”, which suggests that the person is broken, that it can be repaired, preserved or sustained.

The second stream of modern spirituality comes from the premise that person-hood itself is nothing other than a configuration of trauma-based attachments, identifications, patterns and habits. Therefore, this stream, today found most popularized through the nonduality movements, aims to liberate us from person-hood itself, through the windows of perception and into a space that both precedes and survives mental programs, identification and attachment.

Nothing New, Always New

This split is as old as history, reflected through all religions in the rift between the healers and the mystics, or between those that attempt to institutionalize spiritual teaching through the founding of religions or organizations, and those that seek to transcend or liberate individuals from both individual and collective identifications.

How much freedom can be gained from the struggle to become the ultimate “someone”,  the unique individual, empowered and all-healed? Witness the birth of the meta-ego: identified with the light, often co-dependent on a field of bliss generated by a chosen spiritual teacher, secretly competitive and only half happy.

On the other hand, how much freedom can be gained from the struggle to become the ultimate “no-one”, non-identified, non-attached and non-engaged with the very flesh and blood substance of being here? Observe the arrival of the meta-anti-ego: whip-lashing from life and responsibility through the pornification of a person-breaking experience, and bitterly repeating and dictating this experience to the “others” that could not be “other ” if the advertised freedom had been truly attained.

In no time and with a contraction of space, spiritual inspiration can fall into power-based schools and institutions postulating under feigned equality. In no time, and with a total loss of space,  competition, cruelty, self-obsession, jealousy and arrogance raise their (now so “spiritual”) claws.

From the healing arts to the world of nonduality; from the fulfilled everything of the Someone, through the emptiness of the Noone, a deafening message is sounding through the acoustic deaf-spot.

It is not about being Someone. It is not about being No-one. It is about being ONE. The undeniable fact of unity.

The awakening of the 21st century Western individual

Beyond undeniable mortality and vulnerability to random disease and the inevitable suffering of life-blows, there are currently seven billion people on the planet and a kind of miracle is occurring. This miracle is the emergence of the individual.

Individuality no longer has to be caught in a polarity with conformity to social or religious norms. It is no longer defined by belonging to any particular tribe or country. It is still (and always will be) amorphous, transient, unstable and unable to locate. Yet, there is a shift to a middle way, in which it is possible to be free of the “person” while healing the “person”; through which the healing of the person entails the liberation from the person; through which freedom means the freedom to be here as someone, but that within a someone that is in no way separate, definitive or identified as having anything to do with the source of who we are.

The “nondual” individual, will find himself or herself sooner or later in pain. Sooner or later, they will seek healing from the pain that binds them, in order to be free even of the absolute grip of person-hood. If they do not do this, life will break the person until they find that they were always, already free.

The healers, sooner or later, will find that their healing of the person is an endless job, transferring one contracted identification onto the next, swapping the drive of the ego for the drive to catch the ego of the teacher. Sooner of later, life will bring them to a space where the healing of the “person” fails and they begin to understand that they were always, already healed.

Across the planet, a multitude of “people” are awakening from the trance of who they believed themselves to be, and a multitude more are being born that way. Through work with good teachers or bad, they come to a space where the gut of individual responsibility or responsivity, produces a natural and transient emanation of personhood which is of service to the whole, with which the unity becomes increasingly seamless. They do not depend on authorities. They do not depend on the appreciation or acclaim of others.

Above all, they are not afraid. The age of possession and fear; the age of belief in the supremacy of separation is passing.

These are the ones that will one day march in my region, Jew, Moslem and Christian, will march in peace – fearless, and in affirmation of the greatest prize of all – standing as a human being, here, awake, unpossessed and free.

Can you hear this call of freedom as it resonates through each individual, transient cell of these transient bodies of earth? Will you take space to surrender into it?

Peace and the illusion of separation – 21 insights

Peace and the illusion of separation. 21 insights to open the way to happiness and interbeing.

Peace has no opposite. The opposite of war is surrender.
Throughout creation, separation is only made possible through the fact of unity.
Separation is the opposite of connectedness. Unity has no opposite.
To stand alone is to begin to allow the undamaged unity that includes all that can be perceived, just through the act of perception.
Often, when we believe we have separated from another, the story of togetherness is just beginning to deepen.
Nothing in creation exists independently of anything else.
Just as pleasure has no meaning without pain, the individual “I” has no context without the collective “I”.
Peace cannot be won, achieved, made or created. It is Peace itself that wins, achieves, creates and makes all that we are.
Peace has as many vibrations, notes, chords, expressions and flavours as creation itself.
When peace meets peace, there is an empowerment and expansion.
Inner peace is not the end-point. There is always this awesome, overpowering, all-powerful peace that erases the line between inner and outer in movements of pure grace.
Even though we know that we never exist in isolation, not in our bodies, our emotions, our hearts, our minds, even in our very consciousness. Yet still, we act as if we are separate. Why?
In living we often hear words of love. In death, we say “rest in peace”.
Peace is the backdrop to all creation and love flows through all divisions of the one into the manifold. Peace and love dance together in an orchestra of creative unity.
Do not believe you can separate from your enemies. Emotion, especially when it is replaced, will tie you together for lifetimes.
To reject the “other” is to affirm the “other”. Only when you allow the other deeply into the gut of all you are will you reunite with the peace which is always here.
If needed, humanity will destroy itself in order to expose the ever present peace that it never lost.
Love seduces, heals and invites the other home to the ever-present unity of peace.
Between the man and the woman there is war. The war is a complication the great love that is blending the two as one, without negating anything.
In any moment of eternity, the eyes of peace can open to see through the illusion of separation.
At the heart of the atom there is pure peace. Awareness is in effect of matter. Love is an effect of awareness. Peace is an effect of love. This is the way home to the space we never left.

 

You can take part in a free, online event on Sunday, 15th March 2015 with Georgi & Bart where we will share an inquiry into peace and nonduality with Grace Bubeck. Click for details.

Where will I find you? A Georgi poem.

Where will I find you, my friend?

In an accusing forest of laws,

tortured by stories repented

yet never truly told?

In clear, blameless skies,

before, between and after words,

without verdict, innocent and free,

This is where I find you.

Where will I find you, my love?

Split in shame and disgust

where stinging eyes fame,

the one we could never tame?

In this stainless ocean free

of all monstrosity of fear,

untainted and pure, fiercely alive.

This is where I find you.

Where will I find you my child?

Abandoned in a dark room

where doors slammed shut

as if no-one was there?

Here, I will find you,

in the human moment,

born of infinite, endless care,

where division died before it began.

This is where I find you.

The Joy of Embodiment with Bart & Georgi, April 4-5th, London

We are happy to invite you to two days of inspiration in London with international spiritual teachers Bart ten Berge and Georgi Y. Johnson of Chashymie.

Art Therapy Centre, London

 

-Where the ‘HERE’ holds the ‘NOW’

-Nonduality & Embodiment

-Inspiration, Creation & Manifestation

-A radical shift into Life & Beauty

-The celebration of the individual in unity

Opening the Channels of Peace & Love.

The program includes shared inquiry, guided meditations and energy exercises and techniques for rejuvenation.

Price: 200 GBD (sliding scale available)*

*Those who are also taking part in the Glastonbury Retreat with Bart & Georgi will receive a 10 percent discount on the total amount.

Information & Registration: bart@inner-growth.org

Or you can order tickets here.