Good Health Seminar
UNACHO
5th of February 2012
UNACHO
5th of February 2012
...One feature that both the physical, medical, curative point of view that Anuradha has being explaining to us, and the spiritual point of view which I have been sharing, have in common, is the process of resonance.
I remember, a long time ago, reading about the birth of life, the coming together of all the various contents of organic life, how some of them simply met, as if by accident; but there was one element, whose name I've forgotten, that was missing. Under normal circumstances - as this was being explained - there was no way that this bundle of elements were able to bind together properly for organic life when this one element was missing. An element that under normal circumstances would never join; somehow its trajectory or movement in the pre-life cosmos was such that it would not be attracted - and it was necessary for it to join in for organic life to happen.
Then eventually it did happen, not by this missing factor actually joining physically, but through the process of resonance - a meeting at a distance.
When I look at one of you I immediately start resonating with you - and that happens whether we physically make contact or not. So this missing element was spinning around up here, and the rest of the elements needed to form the carbon reality of organic life were over there, and then suddenly the vibration of this bunch of elements and the vibration of the missing element met and so the bundle was complete.
Normally we don't focus on resonance, we focus on substance, contact, what we call reality - we meet somebody and that means sitting down with them and seeing them; close contact means physical contact. But all the time you are sitting, say, having a coffee with someone, you are also resonating, unknowingly, with a host of different elements all around you.
Now this reminds me that in some groups, I do a certain exploration; not often but some of you may have done it with me. In fact we can do it now, it only takes a few minutes.
So...take your active hand and put it now wherever it wants to go on your body, let it go and just see where it lands. Then I say what sounds like an extraordinary thing:
Take your hand away from your body and put it somewhere in space where you sense that the energy corresponds with the energy you are feeling in your body.
Don't think about it, just listen and assume that it is possible; taking your hand to somewhere in space where you feel: 'Ah when I put my hand there, I can feel that there is a correspondence between the energy I touched in my body and where my hand is now.'Now, what does that tell us? It tells us there is a resonance. Before we did that, before we made this movement, the resonance was still there but we weren't aware of it, we didn't much care about it, it didn't seem important - but there it was. We haven't just created the resonance we have found something that was already resonating, so all the time we are having these resonant connections all around.
So when we are moving around, perhaps meeting somebody, or just sitting on a chair, having a glass of water on the table, like I have here - that's all within our present consciousness. But there are all sorts of other things all around us that are also interacting with us through resonance.
Now that's a significant fact in itself, but the reason that I bring it up now is that when I look around now I see that all the people in this seminar are right now relating to their image or their idea of themselves. You have been watching the movement of yourself. Your consciousness was mostly taken up by your sense of self, and your sense of self is composed of your ideas of yourself and the images of yourself: who you think you are, who you come to the conclusion that you are at this moment. Not just the details of, 'Well I'm this, I'm that, I'm tired, or I am looking forward to this '- not just that but the whole ensemble. I could see clearly that everybody, to some extent, was sitting there dwelling on themselves, or their image of themselves in their consciousness, and when you do this you keep that image in place, you are adding a resonance, a resonant energy through your awareness, on the object of your awareness, which is your image of yourself, and in doing that you are perpetuating it, you are reinforcing it, you are consolidating it, you are strengthening it.
It seems like a natural thing to do - if we want to change ourselves we first have to see what we are - but in a way what we are doing, when we do that, is not really changing ourselves, we are affirming ourselves.
So when you are sitting quietly, where to put your consciousness is not there - not on yourself, because if you do that you will reinforce all the things that you are trying to change, so then you are working against change, against evolution, against spontaneous development, against emptying out, against letting go - you are working against it and more, you are holding it in place with your attention.
A famous Zen statement is:
Awaken the mind without fixing it anywhere.
Blank but awake. Awaken the mind - be awake, that's very important, but don't fix it anywhere, and if you are fixing it on yourself you are fixing it somewhere. You are not only fixing it somewhere, you are fixing it on what you are looking at, your mind, driving another nail into it to fix it - that's me. Everybody does this. And it is so limiting!
I remember, a long time ago, reading about the birth of life, the coming together of all the various contents of organic life, how some of them simply met, as if by accident; but there was one element, whose name I've forgotten, that was missing. Under normal circumstances - as this was being explained - there was no way that this bundle of elements were able to bind together properly for organic life when this one element was missing. An element that under normal circumstances would never join; somehow its trajectory or movement in the pre-life cosmos was such that it would not be attracted - and it was necessary for it to join in for organic life to happen.
Then eventually it did happen, not by this missing factor actually joining physically, but through the process of resonance - a meeting at a distance.
When I look at one of you I immediately start resonating with you - and that happens whether we physically make contact or not. So this missing element was spinning around up here, and the rest of the elements needed to form the carbon reality of organic life were over there, and then suddenly the vibration of this bunch of elements and the vibration of the missing element met and so the bundle was complete.
Normally we don't focus on resonance, we focus on substance, contact, what we call reality - we meet somebody and that means sitting down with them and seeing them; close contact means physical contact. But all the time you are sitting, say, having a coffee with someone, you are also resonating, unknowingly, with a host of different elements all around you.
Now this reminds me that in some groups, I do a certain exploration; not often but some of you may have done it with me. In fact we can do it now, it only takes a few minutes.
So...take your active hand and put it now wherever it wants to go on your body, let it go and just see where it lands. Then I say what sounds like an extraordinary thing:
Take your hand away from your body and put it somewhere in space where you sense that the energy corresponds with the energy you are feeling in your body.
Don't think about it, just listen and assume that it is possible; taking your hand to somewhere in space where you feel: 'Ah when I put my hand there, I can feel that there is a correspondence between the energy I touched in my body and where my hand is now.'Now, what does that tell us? It tells us there is a resonance. Before we did that, before we made this movement, the resonance was still there but we weren't aware of it, we didn't much care about it, it didn't seem important - but there it was. We haven't just created the resonance we have found something that was already resonating, so all the time we are having these resonant connections all around.
So when we are moving around, perhaps meeting somebody, or just sitting on a chair, having a glass of water on the table, like I have here - that's all within our present consciousness. But there are all sorts of other things all around us that are also interacting with us through resonance.
Now that's a significant fact in itself, but the reason that I bring it up now is that when I look around now I see that all the people in this seminar are right now relating to their image or their idea of themselves. You have been watching the movement of yourself. Your consciousness was mostly taken up by your sense of self, and your sense of self is composed of your ideas of yourself and the images of yourself: who you think you are, who you come to the conclusion that you are at this moment. Not just the details of, 'Well I'm this, I'm that, I'm tired, or I am looking forward to this '- not just that but the whole ensemble. I could see clearly that everybody, to some extent, was sitting there dwelling on themselves, or their image of themselves in their consciousness, and when you do this you keep that image in place, you are adding a resonance, a resonant energy through your awareness, on the object of your awareness, which is your image of yourself, and in doing that you are perpetuating it, you are reinforcing it, you are consolidating it, you are strengthening it.
It seems like a natural thing to do - if we want to change ourselves we first have to see what we are - but in a way what we are doing, when we do that, is not really changing ourselves, we are affirming ourselves.
So when you are sitting quietly, where to put your consciousness is not there - not on yourself, because if you do that you will reinforce all the things that you are trying to change, so then you are working against change, against evolution, against spontaneous development, against emptying out, against letting go - you are working against it and more, you are holding it in place with your attention.
A famous Zen statement is:
Awaken the mind without fixing it anywhere.
Blank but awake. Awaken the mind - be awake, that's very important, but don't fix it anywhere, and if you are fixing it on yourself you are fixing it somewhere. You are not only fixing it somewhere, you are fixing it on what you are looking at, your mind, driving another nail into it to fix it - that's me. Everybody does this. And it is so limiting!