signup
for email updates
Directory
Our
Archive: 2001-2004
Cover
Art Archive
Search
|
From "Connection
to" to "Expansion of"
by Lisa Lindberg
For 24 years I have read, studied, attended workshops, gone to "healers"
and spent hours in meditation. I know high states of consciousness exist: I have
experienced them. But I could never bring those states into everyday life, moment
to moment. I had my "spiritual" life, and my "waking consciousness."
This split was highly dissatisfactory.
There was always a teacher in the room who had supposedly attained what I wanted
and could transmit high things. But I always left as the student (blissed out, but
only temporarily). It became a drug. My life would push me back to "get"
more of it. I was hooked.
Then I started noticing things I didn't want to see: enlightened teachers rarely
produce students of their equal. They often have devotees that provide their needs,
unlike me. I observed that my teachers' traits were not as enlightened as I had thought.
They have "stuff" just like the rest of us! Often, profoundly gifted "psychics"
have ego or other issues. I wondered: Could it be that focusing on "spiritual
goodies" leaves other parts of us abandoned? Could you have profound gifts and
yet not be "enlightened?"
Through circumstances too complex to fully relate here, answers to my puzzled questions
emerged. I was in Sedona, the Mecca of the New Age, at a retreat with a Hindu master
(think bi-locate, manifest objects, broadcast high states of bliss). I went seeking
nirvikalpa samadhi. I left in touch with my own Divinity. The irony? This powerful
master had little to do with it short of providing a place in time for me to meet
Jim and Mary.
There is a story here -- a whole book -- but I share some highlights here. Jim, Mary
and I, all attendees, had achieved some level of awareness in our journeys already.
But when we gathered spontaneously in my suite that Wednesday night, something incredible
happened. We gazed into each others' eyes and "came forward" together.
We shared an unexpected state of consciousness, or "frequency," profoundly
different from the "magical" states we had experienced before. It is almost
indescribable. Clean, crisp, clear and open, it contains all things and nothing.
It is Present; it is Presence. Rather than riding on someone else's spiritual achievements,
we realized, we were experiencing our own divinity together. We knew our lives had
changed.
God (I prefer Being because it is less charged) is indeed All That Is. Through manifestation,
Being experiences itself in its totality. That totality, then, if indeed it contains
ALL, must include pain as well as joy, despair as well as hope, hate as well as love.
No longer could I open to experiencing only parts of Being (parts that "feel
good"). I could not buy in to the notion that "God is Love" and that
other things were somehow "not God." I could no longer continue "spiritual
experience jumping," only to return to my mundane life. I had found the doorway
to my Beloved dream: to live in my own Divinity in each moment.
We run around looking for some magic bullet to heal the hurt, cure the illness, change
the picture. Affirmations. Crystals. People who claim they can transmute our patterns
unconsciously. We long for ourselves. Somewhere we know we are truly Divine. Yet
we villianize those things in us that don't feel "spiritual" or "nice."
All modalities have their supportive place. I wouldn't give up bodywork for anything.
Holding my favorite stone grounds me. I practice Pranic Healing, a profoundly powerful
change agent on many levels. I often participate in workshops by great teachers.
But nothing "out there" can heal us until we go "in here" and
honor every aspect of ourselves, consciously bringing Presence to them.
Let's say we have "anger" issues. We recognize that (first step). We look
to heal. We tap on body meridians, meditate, breathe, tone, do the hokey pokey and
turn ourselves around, and we think that's what it's all about. What if that rage
(or illness or depression) is an aspect of us that is wounded, alienated and frightened?
What if until it is felt, heard and transmuted by our own presence we will never
be free? What if our wounded aspects hold profound gifts -- but we can't receive
them because we just keep finding pathways to circumvent them? If a child were hurt
and raging, would we reject him? No, we would hold him closely through his strong
emotions with our love. Our woundedness longs to be brought home to wholeness too.
Can we love every aspect of ourselves that profoundly?
A teacher once told me that it isn't rage that causes the atrocities of this world,
but the subconscious repression of it. Instead of reaching for the "only love"
experience of God, I willingly went to my subconscious to meet my wounded aspects.
They were not happy with me. How would you like to be left outside with your gift,
deemed "not holy enough," locked out in the name of "love?" As
I joined my darkness with Presence, "not God" was welcomed back to God,
an alchemical process of profound observable outcomes.
Few of us live fully in our bodies; they can be painful places. Who wants to feel
that? There's the trick. The fear of feeling our wounds keeps us running "out
there," playing in the other realms (it feels so good, so spiritual). The fear
is worse than the thing itself. I now know that bringing Presence to the wounds transmutes
them back to well-being, releases their gifts. The body becomes more user-friendly
for the soul, and we spend more time here.
It is time for us to Divinize the human experience. Time to stop saying "all
is one" and start experiencing it. Right here, right now. In our bodies. We
become Divinely Human by experiencing our humanness as Divine. Jim calls it "Embodying
Presence." When you sit with someone who has embodied presence (and perhaps
you have!), you are freed to fully experience the wounded (and other!) aspects of
you. And they are transformed.
This work is not always fun. You don't get to hang out with Kumbayahoos and gig on
the love vibe all the time (although when you do, it is far more real and lasting).
Sometimes it hurts. A lot. But soon meditation is no longer "connection to"
or "going to a higher place." It becomes "expansion of" the Presence
that is you, more and more.
As a result of this great work, we become less Embodied Ego on this planet, and more
living, Embodied Presence. As we become Awakened Creator, all of Creation around
us starts to awaken with us in true communion. Presence becomes the 3D world. It
works. That I can promise.
Lisa Lindberg combines Pranic Healing, Intuitive Guidance, and Embodying Presence
through Somatic Experience in her healing practice in Shoreview. She is currently
working on a book where she tells the truth about the insanity and rewards of spiritual
seeking, poking fun at herself and her desperation along the way. She can be reached
by phone at (612) 382-4527 or e-mail ldlind@qwest.net.
Copyright © 2005 Lisa Lindberg. All rights reserved. |
March 2005 |
|
|
