Georgi Y. Johnson's Blog: I AM HERE - Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty, page 41

Some Illusions about Illusion in Spirituality & Nonduality

Illusion: C14: from Latin illūsiō deceit, from illūdere; see illude

“The opposite of lying is honesty. Truth has no opposite.”

Often, and with some judgement and dismissal, our spiritual discussions can be hijacked by the statement “it’s all just an illusion.”

This is not only a conversation stopper, but also can be a rejection, breaking the communication, devaluing experience, and even slamming shut the doors of compassion. If we are on a roll, manifesting ourselves in joy, the most likely response will be that we don’t care. But if we are in great pain – for example, after the death of a loved one – the statement that this loss, or this pain is an “illusion” can feel like hypocritical insult.

That all the happenings in this life of ours, all that is said and all that is done, all we think and feel and all we perceive, that our very being here is illusory, is not outrageous, however, it is sourced in ancient wisdom.

But rather than using the illusion card to reject the “other”, perhaps it is worthwhile to inquire into what this illusion is, where illusion begins and where it ends, and what is the reality that must be here, for us to even make a claim that something is not real?

What is illusion?

Where do we draw the line between illusion and reality, and who decides that? The teacher? The latest book? Ancient texts written out of another culture in another era, interpreted by generations of diverse teachers?

The wisdom of the illusory nature of being here is not random. It is based on the realization of pure subjectivity. Every impression, every moment of perception, is entirely and utterly subjective. Every thing is relative to another thing.

Even an awakening into pure consciousness is generated out of this particular body, mind, heart and nervous system. The story is then imprinted on memory and processed and told subjectively. Each and every moment of experience is relative to the next: based on a certain perspective – a perspective always limited within time and space.

If all that is changing – or passing in time is an illusion, then what is the end point? Where can we stand and be for real? When all we are breaks and we find ourselves in an infinite or eternal pool of light, god-like, alive and unbounded, then this is the end point, right? Is this the “reality” beyond illusion?

From the gut of compassion, and as a responsive human being, I must say: “Yes, No, Maybe, Not only.” The reason for this, is a severe illusion plaguing our time based on the illusion about the very nature of illusion.

Is the body ‘just’ an illusion when our child is physically threatened?

Not only is illusion precious, it is sacred; it is our purpose; it is who we are; what we are and where we are.

What is NOT illusion?

If illusion is all that moves, all that changes, all that is caught in time; if illusion is the whole of creation in its dynamic, incomprehensible immensity; if illusion is the tenderness we feel for a baby; or the empathy we feel in witnessing starvation; then illusion is a very precious thing indeed.

Not only is illusion precious, it is sacred; it is our purpose; it is who we are; what we are and where we are.

Illusion is the potentially blissful and ecstatic miracle of being here, right now, in a human body, reading these words – even if the reception of the words is entirely unique, subjective, changing, relative and seemingly non-absolute.

After a spiritual awakening, or dramatic shift in a process of inner-growth, for a while there can be a sense of liberation from old beliefs, limiting perspectives, and tired or outgrown identifications of the mind. This can be exhilarating. Freedom floods through the windows of the mind and heart with a recognition that this freedom has always been here, never lost, and that it can never be taken away.

Yet we are still here, in “this” illusory world.

Yet we are still here, in “this” illusory world. There are still social norms, financial realities, issues from North to South, suffering, rejection, betrayal and the genetic legacy of our birth families. Fear is still here. Cruelty is still here. Our impending physical illness and death are still here. How easy it could be if we could just dismiss all this as illusion and root ourselves instead in pure consciousness, resting as the light which is the source of all creation – identifying with the creator rather than the created. But identification with the creator that excludes the created is perhaps the most severe illusion of all.

This transcendental position anyway pales within time, because there are ‘others': other hearts, other perspectives, other minds, other feelings, other people. So, for a while we could preach “the truth”, (while secretly seeking affirmation of an illusory experience). From a superior perspective we can run through our illusory  world, revealing the unfettered light source of all we are. The less others are convinced, the more we will protest from our blissful superiority. The more stubborn the “other” illusions, the more we feel compelled to reject this life as nothing more than “illusion”, (especially when it hurts).

Beyond Perception, Beyond Creation

Few are able to take the next step beyond illusion – and to apprehend that even the most blazing experience of absolute truth could also be “illusion” – a relative perception or reflection in time and space. How could this transcendental experience be just as illusory as the old lady with the shopping bags cursing the rain, or as illusory as our boredom, or worse, as illusory as our pleasure?

Few are able to allow that consciousness itself – this pure light of perception – could also be a grander, transient form of master illusion

Few are able to allow that consciousness itself – this pure light of perception – could also be a grander, transient form of master illusion, which is relative, passing in time and changing in space. Few will allow the humility to accept that a perspective that needs to be defended from other perspectives cannot be itself the ultimate truth.

Truth – beyond all illusion of changing experience – must be a continuum – it must be always, already here, at the gut of every second of our existence – never absent, never affected, unconditional, never changing, beyond all “otherness” or duality. Above all, it cannot be an end-point to the human mind and heart.

It is here, when we are in the glories of meditation, and it is here when we scrape the rotting grog from the bottom of the fridge. It is here when we are driving our car to work, and it is here where we are in the unconscious depths of sleep. It is here when we are holy and here when we are in an alcoholic stupor. It is here when we are organized and it is still here when our minds decompose in old age from neuro-degeneration. It is here when we have power, and here when we crack in nervous breakdown. It is here when we are expanding in unconditional love, and it is here when we are contracted in a pit of jealousy. It is here when we lie, and here when we strive to be honest. It is here, unconditional to any happening in time, space or perspective.

I am That

Can you find it, within your self, and sink back into That? That, which is the very core substance of all illusion and through and within the burning core of creation, yet entirely untouched by it all at the same time? Can we be that, which as the source of love, is not itself loving, and as the source of peace is not itself peaceful? Can we allow that which is the background of all we are, through which even the very pulse of consciousness flickers?

For the one that rests in That, there is no rejection, no judgement and no need for the label “illusion”. From here, every happening, appearance, dance and creation is simply a reflection of itself, never divided, always whole.

The Wisdom & Absurdity of ‘Letting Go’ in Spirituality & Inner Growth

You’ve probably heard it often, if not from others, then from your own internal voice. Let it go!

What does that mean?

What is letting go of what?

Is it truly possible to leave anything or anyone behind?

The command “Let it go” can often sound punitive. We can feel not “OK” in our inability to simply get ‘over’ stuff which is attracting our thoughts, feelings and emotions, for better or worse.

Yet throughout the ages, the sacrifice, the willingness to ‘lose’ something, or the ‘let go’ has been prized as a key movement in allowing personal evolution, freedom and inner growth.

Yet when we contemplate just the movement of letting go, it can never be so simple. Is it to repress an emotion? To “think” other thoughts, not about the object we want to leave behind? Is it to chant a mantra louder than that which is our subliminal, natural preoccupation? Is it to pretend, to disguise or dictate our feelings in another direction? Is it to forget a conflict and trust that it will not come back to bite us in another guise?

Three layers to inner wholeness: let it go (mind), let it be (heart), be for real (body)

Stuff that grabs our attention does so for a reason. It’s not random. The main reason is because there is a learning in it, often from a deeper karmic theme.

On the interpersonal level, for example, our preoccupation with the “other”, in love or war, is often stemming from a deep pain of rejection, and a learning (and eventually a liberation) through all the forms this pain can take in our inner and outer worlds.

It can be easier to obsess about the “other” person, or a situation, or an argument or outrage that has been, than to go to the root of our own intimate pain – this sense of separation, rejection, inner condemnation, or disgust at the ‘world’.

Rejection, for example is a pain which works both ways – often leading to the core which is our own desire to reject being here, now, for whatever reason. It’s not an easy one.

The Psychology of the ‘Let Go’

So back to the ‘let go’. Why are we holding onto stuff in the first place, in order to generate this need to let it go? What motivates the holding on?

More often than not, our compulsion to hold onto what has been a painful or confrontational entanglement is not because we want to keep it, but rather that in our fear, we want to freeze it. By obsessing, we keep stuff in its present form, thus preventing its unravelling to tell its story.

For example, we can have an internal rant about an argument with the neighbor, which goes on and on inside our heads, repetitive, annoying, boring. Why would we do that? The first reason is to freeze the situation from revealing that which we have long been hiding from – our own sense of unworthiness, our disgust, our feeling of not belonging. So in obsessing, we are actually attempting to be free, we just didn’t learn yet what real freedom is.

When we “let go” of the stories in our minds, and disinvest from them with our consciousness, what tends to come forward is a story of feelings on the sentient layer of awareness. A first layer can be pure emotion – perhaps anger or fear, but if we let them be, they will open like flowers to reveal the seeds of separation from which they were born. Behind the anger, for example, can be a fear of rejection. Behind the fear of rejection can by the pain of rejection itself. Behind the pain of rejection, perhaps a sense of separation. In allowing the sense of separation to expand, this itself will – sooner or later – reveal it’s own lie. We were never separate, and we never will be separated.

So who lets go?

When we are in an inner fight, unconditional surrender to what “is” will open the garden of healing.

In a sense, the movement of letting go, is a movement of surrender to whatever is here and now, on all levels of our experience. It is the opposite of self-control or punitive dictation.

Through surrendering to whatever is present in the moment, the engagement which is not in the moment immediately becomes relative. For example, by surrendering to the suds of the washing up, at the same time that we are fuming about the neighbor, our experience is broadened into a relative context.

A space can then be created between the emotions and thoughts connected with the neighbor, and the one who is able to experience such feelings or thought (together with the warm water of the washing up). This space opens a possibility for that one – the one that is able to experience anything at all – to release its hold of the entanglement.

There is a risk in this (and unconsciously we know this, or else we wouldn’t be holding on so tight). The risk is that we will meet the deeper layers of our personality, or the deeper themes around the same sentient wounds. Take the risk. In a way, in letting go, we begin to get ourselves back.

In short, letting go is not about repression, rejection, disconnection or throwing stuff away (there is no such place as “away”). It is about releasing control over whatever “is” happening in ourselves, at the depth, and moving beyond fear in order to allow transformation.

The one that is able to let go, is the source of that which is in need of healing and transformation. As such, letting go is about releasing control, and letting that one – the one we are at source – be in freedom.

It is not about division, but about reunion. All ways.

And deep within this reunion is the explosive power of our collective freedom.

 

 

Spiritual Awakening in Slow Motion

Spiritual awakening is not a rare event, nor is it a permanent one. While the imprint of awakening is left on memory, it could more often be seen as those moments where an underwater swimmer comes up for air, takes a gasp of pure consciousness, and then returns to the depths of incarnated engagement. Here, we take a look at awakening in slow motion, to give a sense of what is going on, and where the subtle traps of ego can be found.

Spiritual Awakening, What happens?

Awakening is one of those terms which is thrown around so loosely (and often interchangeably with enlightenment, self realization, and any other claim to elated spiritual status) that it’s important to tread carefully in defining what it is. We therefore offer one model – the one most commonly associated with awakening, and most disseminated through the works of Eckhart Tolle, in his teaching which is having a worldwide impact in supporting people to move out of the time-based linear structures of the mind as definitive of who we are.

Awakening, in this context, is the sudden loosening of our belief in thoughts as being in any way definitive of the inner self. The thinking mind, in a way, breaks open, through it’s own circulation, absurdity or conflict, and the consciousness that supports the thinking mind is suddenly liberated.

Unrestrained, unbounded and apparently timeless, this consciousness beyond habitual conscious thought then reflects on itself, becoming conscious of consciousness, opening a chain reaction into infinity. Is this an end point? How could it be?

More often than not, it is the individual, or the nervous system of the individual, that retracts from this and reawakens the thinking mind, with a “Wow!” or with a refreshed story with more freedom, more possibilities and more existential space with which to renegotiate the challenge of being here as a person.

For some, this can seem like a critical moment or arrival point (especially when they have been trapped for some time in mental structures they believed to be absolute).

They talk about this “awakening” in the past tense, as an event that shook their belief systems, and they take it on as being a milestone in their spiritual development: “Before I was awakened, after I was awakened, when I had MY awakening.”

Yet they are not in “it” (the awakening movement) moment by moment (although they may strive to be). A shift occurred, and they identify with the shift.

Often such individuals will report. “I know, I am There.” (Where is “there” if not “here”)? A subtle belief slips in out of a fundamental egoic drive to survive to establish a new identity on being “there” and a new cycle of learning emerges.

Many Awakenings

The more realistic picture is that as humans, from childhood on, we undergo many awakenings and (re)awakenings.

These occur as a direct function of the ability of the nervous system to contain high infusions of formless consciousness, and of the coherence of our state of mind. Awakenings come and go, each slightly different in its imprint than the next (due to the impact on changing form).

Or to put it more precisely, “we” come and go into the experience of awakening which accesses what is in itself a timeless dimension, revealed as always here behind and beyond life-time events, plans, expectations, disappointments and the ageing process.

With training and when spiritual freedom and/or service has become part of a (smaller) person’s passion, intention and direction, then experiences of awakening or unfettered consciousness can become more common, more accessible and less dramatic.

The decrease in drama is partly quite simply a decrease in adrenalin. The fear-based mind is reforming itself to recognize the effects of pure consciousness as non-lethal, and not only safe but even empowering. Little by little, an individual becomes more “awake” in everyday life or regular thinking. The process occurs not only at the micro level (of a moment of awakening) but through progressive integration, at the macro level of a life time.

Yet still, it is necessary to look more deeply at this opening door to the infinite power of consciousness and to study what is cause and what is effect, so as to avoid identifying with the effects alone.

Awakening in Slow Motion

Stories are told of the the brilliance of the infinite I AM, mind-blowing in its endless eternity, and of the sudden liberation from suffering into a space of bliss.

In parallel, we hear stories of the collapse of limited structures of identity of personality, the deflation of old beliefs, and the liberation from negative thought patterns. Yet on closer inquiry, all of this — all of this — is the effect of something else: a movement that happens prior to the ‘breaking open’ of universal consciousness.

So let’s look at some characteristics of awakening in slow motion, that are more or less ubiquitous.

1. Solitude, intimacy with Self

Most experiences of awakening occur when an individual retreats deeply inside his or her self, in an honest and authentic dialogue about self identity, direction or purpose.

2. The Role of Suffering

Such a retreat towards a long forgotten (but deeply remembered) inner resource is often the effect of traumatic shock, nervous break down, long-term discomfort or misalignment with inner purpose, or sheer depression. In solitude, or behind a veil of seclusion, the mind begins to dialogue with itself. Yet the mind, in and of itself, is unable to negotiate the depth of need, or pain, that is pushing upwards out of the pure experience of being here. The inner debate can become a reflection on a whole form, a form which suddenly cracks open under the light of consciousness as in no way saying anything about the one itself which is debating. In this shock of consciousness, experience chases consciousness itself towards identity, and realized the limitations and fallacy of identity itself.

3. The Collapse of Form

In this movement, it is the opening, the disentanglement or the collapse of mental structure which exposes – sometimes for just a split second – a dead-pan for real, all powerful continuum of self. This core container – which never leaves us an never can be left – can be overlooked. This pure “That-ness” of anyway, always, even unconsciously, being consistently existent is the core glimpse of truth.

So powerful is the collapse of form to this existential continuum, that consciousness itself arises unfettered, with the great “experience” of awakening – and of the liberation of perception. The problem is that many identify with this experience, the effect of opening the core of inner truth, and forget the cause.

In this, new forms of imprisonment can be rapidly built, accompanied by a whole new first-aid belief system. This will be found in spiritual agendas and statements of absolutes such as: “Consciousness is all we are,” and quite surprisingly, with a great deal of aggression.

The Cause and the Effect

Identification is a process which takes place in the realm of effects. Effects are the imprint of any given experience on our memory. The experience itself is an imprint of some dissolution of form that has already happened, allowing something more of source to be revealed. Of course, the source of all we are is at the causal level of our manifestation.

To give an example, we widely believe that Peace is the experience of peace – (the relaxation or the feeling of being safe and OK), when actually, in all its variety, these are the effects of peace on the form that we are holding at any given moment.

Similarly, we tend to identify love as the “feeling” of love – (an opening up, a sense of well being, an excitement in the collapse of the blockages of our hearts). Again, these are the varying effects of “love” they are not love itself, which moves much more through the undercurrents of the unperceivable.

Identification with the effect of awakening leads us to dictate as a kind of absolute law that consciousness defines us – in the face of coma, sleep states, and worse of all, in the face of all those “unawakened” individuals.

Identification with the effects of awakening brings us a renewed means to separate, a way to condemn, and an egoic drive to defend a superior status. All this is a kind of current human tragedy in the realm of spiritual development, and makes spiritual seekers and teachers easy pray to the wheels of spiritual consumerism. Within the expanding world of nonduality, it can lead to a stark antithesis of all that nonduality (One-ness) claims to stand for.

What is THAT, the cause behind the effect of awakening?

Unfortunately for the profits of the spiritual business sector – That – this omnipresent core of who we are, which in itself gives rise to consciousness, awareness and creation is not some future destination, nor is it ever separable from all we are – in whatever state of awakening or enlightenment. It is the same one in you, me, the dog, a rock, or the sun itself. There is no status in it, and no discrimination based on levels of consciousness.

That is a continuum and not a dead end – although the deep addiction to perception and to “seeing” and “being seen” could keep us out of the sheer reality of who we are and in an ongoing dance of spiritual illusion.  That does not negate anything is entirely without conditions. It doesn’t liberate and it doesn’t exclude. It simply is, just as it always has been, and always will be.

That has been so ignored, it can feel like a hard nut, or a wall. But it’s not. All that is needed is patience, humility and a willingness to softly fall back into it, and to let it manifest through you (including all windows of relative perception), without identifying with any thing that can be seen, felt, heard or conceived. Then, like star dust expanding into space, That will begin to calm the bright lights of perception, and the universe which you are will begin to align of itself for real, from the inside out.

 

Thy Kingdom is Come ~ a Georgi poem

Yes, we look at stuff: heads, houses, trees,

under skies we lie are finite

just as I watch she who I think I am,

through eyes bent by illusion of night.

We feel unfolding in this love

and call love the unfolding.

We let peace blanket the fires

and call peace the smoke.

(Yet peace itself never broke).

So we seek light shows at a carnival,

mad prophets and meditating words,

bending behind and out of the whole

as if recluse – this inner orgy of nuns –

could unchant no-one’s manifesto.

But it can’t end here, it can’t be fooled

It can’t be held, kept, never enclosed.

Could you see it, touch it, feel it?

Are we petty tyrants, dictating effects,

while the great cause just laughs?

Where would you find this that roams

through internal empires, looking for itself?

It’s here, in the gut of the kitchen sink.

It’s here at the joyous, alcoholic brink.

It’s here where cockroaches swarm.

It’s here, where you stand forlorn,

half naked and trembling,

in misery’s silent storm.

It’s here, beloved,

as you kiss this sleeping child.

Here, cursing the light, lost in the wild.

It’s here in your sleep, oh gentle lord,

deep in the earth.

It’s here, in this ongoing chord,

where this, your death,

is this, your birth.

It’s here, my friend, my self, my lonely one

It’s here.

And the kingdom is come.

Thunder on the Mountain

Why do you pretend, my lovely?

There, on that lonely height?

How are you truly believing

that these thin cries of strife

can rival the earthly cry of life?

How you fooled us in the valley,

with graceful masks and sugared ice,

too sweet in a house of cards,

a gamblers fort that lies the disguise,

with those dead, arrogant eyes,

as if we wouldn’t hear

a distant call of thunder.

It was in the twist and the turn,

an inaudible hiss of hate,

a prostitution of words,

the rejection of fate.

It was in the sly need to tease,

the unspoken disease

in the kiss for show of rape,

and this sinister need to drape

Now, do you know an unknowing?

Standing alone in the darkness flowing?

Through thighs and the eternal showing?

And if Judas had a wife, she’s here, now,

sounding destiny’s bells through hells

failing silently still as an unseen night.

And the thunder within and the thunder without

they come together, my beauty,

and still, you are more than this.

Some way you’ll find, oh foolish one and only

That safer, heavenly human place

where ‘better’ and ‘more’ are gone.

Death & Transformation – Advanced Seminar & Satsang

3 Days of Inspiration with Bart & Georgi

6 February at 10:00 am – 8 February at 18:00

Havelte, Netherlands.

“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.”

(The seminar will take place in Dutch & English)

Venue:

Meeuwenveen Accommodaties


Meeuwenveenweg 1-3


7971 PK Havelte


Postbus 51


7970 AB Havelte

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.

 

Cost of Seminar, including lunches: 350 EUR

Cost of Seminar, including lunches and sleeping: 400 EUR

Contact: bart@inner-growth.org

Flowers for a Funeral

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.

I am the one for whom yesterday

was only ever celebration

and tomorrow is but a sparkling thought.

I am not ahead of you, my sweetness,

but always behind,

always, already arrived.

And if you see me, smiling in the light

let purity melt my face

unleashing freedom in the night

that brighter dominion

that we could never replace.

When you rage, old friend,

I am the heart of the storm,

When you love, lover,

I am the loving.

When you break,

still believing in shape,

I am the space between,.

When you search,

I am that which seeks,

And when you are wholly here,

Here am I, forever whole.

The lie that you are gone

We would have us believe this tree

flowering and bearing sweetest fruit

is the death knell of a seed,

that once entwined with animal fur

found home in fertile soil.

We might see an empire of clouds

reflecting every tincture of light

and decide this transient beauty

is the death chant of a river.

Perhaps we should bow to whispers

that butterflies blown through glories of flowers

are but death knells of caterpillars

we tried to avoid in the mud.

And just as we hear sweet melody, singing

through branches of our minds,

Would we say this song is dying,

even as it is sings?

Does the silent moon decry

the death of a blazing sun?

Always ourselves arriving,

How would we lie and say

that now, you have passed?

Is a rock separate from a blade of grass?

Is it liquid, this thin shield of death,

this transparent divider of glass?

Let me in, sweet sister, to your sweetness

Let me dissolve in the nectar of all you are

Let me absorb you into earthly tone

Let it come, let it be, let it be free.

Not grieving but living again

as each step to death

walks us closer to life.

ISIS: it is what it isis? Nonduality, unity, and the horror of human.

Once again, that word called “ISIS” arises together the bleak fibres of unconditional cruelty into the spotlight of the collective consciousness.

In the world of the global media, they say a picture is worth 20,000 words. Yet sometimes, it seems clear that even 7 billion words could not relieve the horror of an innocent aid-worker facing decapitation, or of Australian citizens suddenly exposed to the insanity of unconditional cruelty. As we take in these stories – as they go viral across the social media – what is happening to the perception of humanity?

ISIS – Egyptian goddess of unconditional love.

“When we witness the uncontainable, perception by reflex deforms itself.”

Georgi Y. Johnson

This is the ISIS challenge – the challenge to the spiritually awake individuals determined on the one-ness of mankind to answer the question: is ISIS also part of this wondrous unity? Is humanity ONE, or are we internally ONE, on the basis of a condition that cruelty is never aroused among us?

This is the ISIS factor – the factor within the world of  inner growth, meditation and self-development that can send us spiralling back into judgement, beliefs and exclusion. This horror threatens, above all, to make hypocrites of us all.

Last century it was the Hitler factor. In 2014, it is ISIS. ISIS has become 2014’s  iconic point of focus for an archetypal suffering, horror, cruelty, senselessness and inhumanity. Yet, we would be liars if we were to pretend that these predators multiplying across the planet were not human. They are part of our humanity. This is a fact.

Right now, part of this dimension called humanity, is horrific beyond belief.

“One love, one heart . . .

Let’s get together and feel all right”

Bob Marley, Bob Marley – Legend

Before going on, it’s important to stress that there is no argument here against intervention to stop the activity of ISIS, to put borders to the cult-like syndrome of collective psychopathy affecting these individuals and to section this chronic disorder just as we would section all those who are of danger to themselves or others. Yet despite the present vulgar art of modern psychiatry, sectioning is an activity arising out of a need to protect and heal.

Yet, this article will delve a little into the social fields of spiritual seekers, of nonduality, and of the awakened, so as to try to open a clearer sight of the ISIS factor, among us, between us, and within each sacred universe of embodied peace and love.

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” 

Winston Churchill

The book I AM HERE – Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty outlines the three windows of perception: consciousness, awareness and perception through emptiness. Consciousness – connected with awakening and mind, is the area where perception selects where to engage and where to release. Awareness – connected with the felt sense, being, or the heart, is the area where perception is purely sentient, responsive and responding from behind and through all phenomena, sharing atmospheres, feelings and processes. Perception through emptiness is the means through which both consciousness and awareness are able to expand or focus, it is that which allows focus and refinement, as well as the co-existence of the individual within the unified field.

“ISIS is nothing other than a symptom of the trauma of the collective whole of humanity.”

Bart ten Berge

Yet it is in this dimension of emptiness, the “unconscious” of humanity, that we tend to collectively discard all that we don’t want to feel through our sentient awareness. This includes whole fields of voice-less suffering, including the hidden horrors of sexuality, shame and rejection. Poignant examples include incest, insanity, addiction or murder. The proverbial “skeleton in the cupboard” of the family home. The shadow suddenly denser because of the light. The “other” that gives form to fear.

We have the misconception that when we withdraw perception from what is anyway here, then it ceases to exist. This is not the case. When we throw something away, it is still somewhere. There is no such place as “away”. It will come back to haunt us – firstly by setting unchosen limits on our perception (we cannot look at it, because we decided it doesn’t exist) and later, in nightmarish form based on fear and threat. As such, the rubble in the emptiness begins to gain power as the demonic “other” waiting to get us.

When we witness the horrific beheadings of Westerner on Facebook, or the enslavement of women and children on Twitter, perception by reflex deforms itself. Shocked and terrified by the apprehension of cruelty and horror, we shift quickly upwards to consciousness, to take control.

Rapidly, we move into judgement. ISIS must be stopped. They are not human. It is an outrage. Send in the army. The whole area of horror in living sentience is thrown again into the emptiness. We try to bypass the agony of what is occurring among us by instigating greater force, greater control, and by rejecting the phenomena of cruelty. In this, we leave the victims alone in a field of abuse, and we serve the insanity of the perpetrators with the prize of its secret agenda – the closing of the human heart.

“Consider your own place in the universal oneness of which we are all a part, from which we all arise, and to which we all return.”

― David Fontana

It doesn’t work. The war will be back in Gaza. ISIS will be back, with other faces, other agendas, other names. The cruelty will come forward, because it is part of the unified human field. It will come forward again and again until humanity itself lets the pain back into the unified field of perception. It will break open in suddenly violence, until humankind recognizes the trauma in its own blind-spot and awakens to the need for healing.

What does it mean to open the perceptive window of awareness to scenes such as the kneeling British aid-worker and his laconically posing ISIS executioner?

Feeling awareness is non-selective in nature. As it expands, it will run through the desert atmosphere, the helplessness and surrender, the field of arbitrary cruelty shared by killer and slain, abuser and abused. It will run through the deformed plain of the so-called ‘individual’ ready to murder for a so-called belief. It will meet the hollowness that is there in the heart of the perpetrator and even grieve the agony implanted in the closure of the murderer’s sentience, the lovelessness or the inevitable self destruction.

This pathological destruction follows an ideology of ‘kill or be killed’. This leads to a rapid narrowing of the field of possibility until the battle becomes internal with the inevitable play-out of suicide: killing one-self; the place where the murderer and victim become one.  If humanity continues to invest in the belief of ‘kill or be killed’, then how can it’s final destination be anything other than self destruction?

Does it make a difference if we allow ourselves to sentiently “feel through” the whole drama – even on the projective screen?

Yes. Without any doubt, the perceptive window of awareness is the headquarters of integration between consciousness and emptiness. It is the transforming motor of healing, through which we evolve rather than self-destruct. It is the place of inter-being and unity in manifold form. It is the area through which we can welcome all the parts of humanity today back into the heart of shared evolution. It makes all the difference.

The closure of the sentient window will lead to an escalation of projection, rejection, division, and suffering. That suffering will not be in the other. It will manifest (as it does) in our own hearts and homes.

When we foresaken demons rise out of the gut of humanity and manifest within the transforming zone of human awareness, our conscious attitude has the chance to become not controlling, but guided by wisdom. That means we make different choices for the benefit of the whole; choices that transcend the knee-jerk, fear-based instinct of ‘kill or be killed’. Choices which see beyond the pictures of the imagination and the endless projections of blame for collective suffering on any particular group or tribe.

If the agenda of ISIS is to close down human sentience, then the agenda of humanity, for the sake of all that suffering, must be to open it up.

We are all tempted to pour our own hidden suffering and trauma in the projected field of ISIS. In this, we are seeking healing, the healing of our individual form through the projection on an imagined ‘other’. But the next time we find ourselves leaping cavalier-style into the closure of judgemental thinking, perhaps we could consider: what if that executioner were our own son, brother, friend? How would we feel about it then? In fact, how do we feel ourselves responsible in allowing the suffering in our own hearts, in order to allow the transformation of healing?

There is no escape from the ISIS factor. What humanity has created, only humanity can transform. This is the work of human responsibility through  allowing the expansion of perception.

Unity is not a sanctuary or a recluse. But it is the bedrock out of which the shared process of manifestation and healing evolution is perpetually born.

i-Exist ONE; 2015 England ~ The Program

The Avalon Centre

Day 1 Wednesday
18:00-21:00

Collapsing into peace
Welcome at the Avalon Centre, and meditation.




Day 2 Thursday
10:00-13:00

The Glastonbury Tor

The Power of the Now

Attuning to the blissful touch of consciousness
(Morning talk/meditations)

13:00-14:30

Lunch at the Avalon Centre

14:30-17:00
Liberation of Perception – the Formula
Exercises & partner work

17:00-19:00
Dancing with the Wind 
Climbing Glastonbury Tor

The Veils of Avalon

Day 3 Friday
06:00-08:00
The Veils of Avalon
Dawn Walk

10:00-13:00
 Be Still: Where Male Meets Female

The movement beyond polarity – pure awareness.
Morning talk and Meditation.

-Quick Lunch at Avalon Centre-

The Chalice Well Gardens

14:00-16:30

Beyond active and receptive the water flows
Walking meditation to the Chalice Well Garden s and The White Spring




Day 4 Saturday
 10:00-17:00
 Entering the Secret Chamber

Arousing the miracle of life & beauty

Within Wells Cathedral

Excursion to Wells and around nature near the Wookey Hole Caves.

On site meditations.


Day 5 Sunday

10:00-17:00

Vibrations of Silence – from Timeless to Eternal.

Walk through the 2nd largest stone circle Stanton Drew , pub lunch, stone circle meditation.

Stanton Drew Neolithic Stone Circle

19:00-22:00

 I AM HERE – Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty
Open Satsang with Georgi & Bart in Assembly Halls on I AM HERE – Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty – UK book launch




Day 6 Monday
 10:00-13:30
 The Rising of Existence & The Freedom of the Here 

Silence/Stillness/Emptiness

Morning talk and Meditation.

Unity in Human Form

13:30-15:00

Lunch at the Avalon Centre

15:00-18:00
The movement into unity

Meditation & Partner Work




Day 7 Tuesday

The Art of Manifestation

10:00-13:30

Freedom of Form

Passion/Ecstasy/Bliss

The wisdom of the And-And

13:30-15:00
Lunch at the Avalon Centre


15:00-17:00
Satsang & Meditation

17:00-19:00
Break

19:00-22:00
The Listening.

Evening fire ritual at the Avalon Centre.




Day 8 Wednesday
10:00-11:00
The Secret of Softness

Shared meditation and goodbye.




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