"Out of Our Heads, Into Our Senses, Pt. 6"

Facilitated by Daniel Jacob

Series Index is Here

Original Reconnections Transmission is Here

So there you have it.  An introductory journey from head to heart, by way of the senses.  Some might call this "taking the scenic route."  Others might refer to it as "the ob-scenic route!"   Whatever.  When we stay up in our heads, it's easier to hold judgments about "right" or "wrong," because life in the "Tower" is mostly theory and conjecture.  It's only when we come down on the ground and taste the flavor of being physical that pure instinct, preference, or non-preference can be contacted within us.  Some are afraid to find out who they are at that level, while others are willing to go there, but are afraid to stand back and admit what they found.  How does the saying go?  "What happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas."   Oh well, all right.............

 

The Reconnections refer to these two personality types as "experiencers" and "conceptualizers."  And the dividing lines for some of us can get pretty rigid--especially when we are dealing with long-standing taboos involving sexuality and relationships.  At Club Recon, we co-create a sharespace, midway between thinking and feeling.  We call it "theeling."  And the one cardinal rule we have is:  we don't debate.  We SHARE, and each person who takes the risk of stepping out of the shadows is allowed to reveal him or herself fully, without the threat of commentary or criticism by someone else. People do ask for advice, and folks will respond.  But when they do, it's about "here is how that works for ME," not "here is what YOU should do."

 

      "Please don't try to fix me, friend.  I'm not broken. I'm merely in process......."

 

I suspect that this is why Spirit encouraged me to approach this subject through the eyes of two very talented and articulate women:  a Teacher of Tantra, and a Mystic Mystress.   One spends her life teaching about and exploring the dynamics of pleasure in a person's life.  The other boldly visits realms of fear and pain which others seek to avoid.  Strangely enough......not only do both forms of exploration frequently intersect ---as the Reconnections mentioned in their transmission on the subject---they also tend to deliver each traveler to the exact same destination.    

 

The other day, one of my long-standing clients said she'd had a dream about me.  She said she dreamt that I'd given birth to a watermelon.  In many ways, putting this series together has been that for me, and so much more!   There seem to be seeds, everywhere.......ripe for planting and harvest.  Looking back, I don't think this had so much to do with what was said in these articles as it had to do with tones we each contacted within ourselves as we wrote, or as we read. 

"What you say to me doesn't matter nearly as much as what I'm saying to me while you're talking......."               

Shama sums up her view of these issues.........

"Out of our Heads and Into our Senses… interesting that I just finally "grocked" the title!
 
So many of our world religions aim to steer us away from our bodies and our senses!  They tell us that our emotions and sensual nature are not to be trusted!  We are taught that our bodily responses lie and steal us away from the “higher pursuits” of the mind and spirit. They warn that the path of sensuality and pleasure leads only to debauchery and degradation citing the Roman orgies as a primary symptom of the downfall of that civilization.  And thus, so many of us are now “living in our heads”, and out of the body.
 
Tantra teaches that all too often, the mind lives more in the “painful past” or “fearful future.”  That we rarely dwell in the relative peacefulness of the NOW moment.   It is only in the present that we can find that inner peace so many of us are craving.
 
So, which teachings are more accurate?  I guess the best way to approach this question is to notice what you are experiencing in each type of circumstance.   Which types of experiences actually DO help to create that sense of inner peace?.  Sense?  Did I just say SENSE????  The only way to know whether an experience brings us what we are wanting is through SENSE.  What does it feel like?  We are looking for feeling here, after all, aren’t we? That must mean that an important indicator of whether we are experiencing what we are wanting is through our senses… through feeling!
  
Tantra teaches that we embrace all things as expressions of God.  In Western culture, we have chosen to view our world in terms of dualism…. Good/bad… right/wrong….up/down, etc. Instead of seeing things as part of a continuum, or as opposite sides of the same coin.  Inherent in this dualistic viewpoint, there are things wanted and not wanted -- accepted and rejected. This is not the only way to interpret the world, but it is the prevalent perception most of us are using. The “grey areas” in between are all but ignored.  When that which is not wanted is in our face, we experience “pain” (rejection) and we seek to move away from that.  This is how consciousness of separation began.

Being human is a dance between experiencing Self as an expression of God and also as a separate identity. Because of this, an experience of “another,” or a reflection of Self can also be experienced.  Life is a continuum of alternative expressions and perceptions. We usually begin with a desire, which calls forward what we believe about that subject.  There are things we embrace and fear, things that help us understand and make choices around how we wish to sculpt this art form which is our life experience. In a dualistic paradigm, we may find ourselves dancing back and forth between those experiences much like a pendulum swings, beginning with the extremes and then refining our choices so that we end up somewhere in the middle. Some may wonder why we just don’t hang out in the middle from the beginning, but Tantra argues that to fully understand any experience, we must taste some of all of it!
 
In the Universe of the mind, when we are deep in thought, we create an illusion of separation.  What does thought contribute to the process?  It helps us name and identify things and decide whether we want them in our experience or not.  This is called discernment or judgment.  Children have to be taught about separation.  They instinctively see everything as a part of themselves. I think many would argue that thinking is an important function, as a person grows up. We learn to pay attention to danger and this is important for our well-being. Rightly so!

 

The Tantric would say "yes" to all of this.   However, he or she might add that paying attention to the mind is only one side of the equation.  If we become overly mental, we create an imbalance, which many of us are experiencing as a lack of inner peace.  If we use our minds to the exclusion of our senses, we will be flying partially blind.  The mind used in concert with the senses is a dynamite combination. In my shamanistic studies, they teach that the best use of these principals is to understand that the heart, which has it’s own brain (as science has recently discovered), is where we are designed to “download” information and the mind is what we use to interpret that information.  Have you heard the expression, “I know it in my heart?”  
 
Each person's sense of Inner Guidance or Intuition (some even call it instinct) reveals itself as our first response to any stimulus.  It may manifest as a feeling in the "gut," or as an automatic “knee jerk” reaction to move us away from a dangerous situation. Humans seem to be the only creatures on the planet who ignore such messages and go ahead anyway.......straight into danger........because they “think” they should do something they have been “taught,” rather than what their senses are leading them to do.
 
How many times have you said, “I should’ve listened to myself,” having second-guessed a circumstance, to doubt your intuition.........a circumstance which plays out just the way you had “intuited?”  When will we learn to trust that Inner Guidance?  How many times do we have to prove this to ourselves to get it?
 
Tantra teaches that whenever we favor one aspect of self over another, we create separation and imbalance.  Now, through the same Tantric teachings we realize that these concepts of separation and imbalance are as much our powerful teachers as anything else, and yet to remember what balance is, when we veer too far off in one direction or another, it can be possible to find our way back to center, well-being and peacefulness.
 
Life is a dance between the heart, the senses and our minds.  And in learning the steps of that dance, we explore many realms in each, sometimes forgetting other aspects of self in the process. And when we choose to exclude any part of ourselves for too long, it creates a level of pain that our soul craves to have re-balanced.  This is the dance of life.  No right.  No wrong.  All just a part of the journey.

Copyright, 2007, by Shama.  All Rights Reserved.

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Separation is the dream, Oneness is an awakening from that dream.  Many are teaching that our 3D (physical) world is now a setting sun, soon to be gone. And they use this as their primary reason not to engage with life. We read about putting on "bodies of light," which will carry us beyond imagination---into realities the likes of which we've never dreamed.  Why does one state of being have to exclude another?  Is it not true that the most beautiful and expansive of sunflowers also have roots, digging deep into dark and wormy earth?  Cannot the same Humanity which produces Super Telescopes, gazing off into an infinity of stars, also support the existence of a simple Microscope, to enjoy the symmetry found in a single grain of sand?  As above, so below.  It is the way of things.  The higher we go, the deeper we must also grow.

Another Transmission from The Reconnections

My Dear Friends, 

 

The preeminent search for understanding before feeling, especially where it applies to oneself, can be a cork that is placed in a magical bottle---to prevent the Genie from escaping, unnoticed and unchecked.  At your core, you all seem to WANT magic in your lives.  But few there are who are willing to go the distance in regard to learning what it takes to wield that kind of power.

 

Just as religion can serve as a defense against having your own "religious experiences," so can an obsession with knowledge without experience hinder a person from contacting many of the deepest and most meaningful aspects of self.  Sense impressions and spiritual tones carry KEYS for internal dynamics that might have remained incomprehensible if they are left out of the picture. 

 

There is no separation between your physical environment and your feelings about yourself and life.  But it is possible to embody simultaneous variances of desire (to be split) within yourself about how you wish to function in everyday life.  If you wish to free yourself from any limitation---if you have "fallen into" a story plot from which you can't seem to extricate yourself---you will first need to neutralize your thinking and feeling about that situation through Shadow Work and Conceptual Reframing.  Though it IS possible to create a "now you see it, now you don't" type of experience, you may still require yourself to SEE IT before you erase it from your experience.  Do you understand this?  In order to LEAVE a place, you must first arrive there.  Many of you have not yet "arrived" in 3D.  You have not TOUCHED DOWN, and this is why your focus of awareness cannot leave.

 

As creators of your personal reality, the world is your oyster.  Everything is allowed, unless it isn't.  Nothing is really required of you, unless it is.  When a Traveler in 3D finally has his fill of searching for what it is he wants, it would behoove him to look around and pay attention to what is searching for him.  There are always two "sides" to each reflection. And each "side" represents some part of YOU.  If you forget this, a door gets locked inside you, and the "cage" in which you find yourself immediately gets smaller and more difficult to endure.

 

Now.  Now is the time!  Release yourself from the Tower, though the penalty for freedom may cost your life..  All death is merely transformation.  Come down to dance and play among your fellows......taste and smell ALL the delicacies set before you at this grand banquet of life.  Then, eat only what you wish.  Taste and choose......according to your own private hunger, your own secret dream.  We will be beside you......catching ev'ry remnant of "self" which falls from your plate.  We are always here."    <end transmission>

 

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"How does that old saying go....?.....Better to have hurt in Love, then to not have Loved at all.....? The Spirit of Sacryfice is much like that. We will never go through life and not experience suffering or without getting hurt by those we love and who love us...but it doesn't have to be for nothing, it doesn't have to be a negative experience. All of these are gifts from the Divine, just as "good things" are gifts...so are these also "good things in life". If one never deeply hurt...then how would you measure love?  It is Ok to FEEL...it is Ok to be passionate in ALL that you feel. Crying, hurting, missing...they are all part of the experience of Loving. They are only negative emotions if you make them that way...not because they automatically are. To live in a polarity and to live as ONE with the Universe we need to accept polarities within ourselves and allow ourselves to feel them and embrace them and experience them and learn that we DO have control of them....the ebbs and flows and waxing and waning and bi-polarity of All That Is and all that WE are.

To Love is to risk....to Love is to feel...to Love is to hurt...to Love is to cry.....Sacryfice IS Love.

~Sacryfice. 

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"Scarier still than giving such mindless trust is the prospect of asking for it.  

To stand, shrouded in a mound of flesh---scorned by some, admired by others---no special transcendent package of bright expectation or surplus of ideals.   What right have I to ask so simple, yet so profound a blessed favor? 

What credentials do I possess, what persuasions can I offer, that would make it safe for you to lay aside your protections and allow me entry into the Holiest of Holies?

If I were to make those necessary promises, those various assurances that would put your mind to rest, what would they be?   What could I tell you or show you that would make it any easier to give away all---yes, I said all---of those layers of insulation which separate your secret heart from mine?

If I could put on any form or countenance---If my eyes or my lips were shaped in perfect contour---if my crystalline gaze and my smile were so brilliant and pure that the stars of the heavens shone in them when I spoke, would it be any easier to place at my feet those certain treasures---those last essential mysteries which make you who you are?

What would it take for you dare to open your box of secrets here and now?   What arguments could I make that would convince you of my worthiness of your trust?   What contracts could I sign, what sacred bindings could I bestow?  What qualifies me to freely accept what others have died trying to steal away from you?

It is simply that I AM HERE, and I HAVE ASKED YOU---and you have reached the place where you can hold onto it no more."

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Copyright, 2007, by Daniel Jacob, except where noted.  All Rights Reserved for each author listed.  May be copied and shared, for purposes of personal growth and/or research, so long as the above URL and this copyright are included.  All reproduction for profit, by any means, requires the written permission of Reconnections, Inc.