There is available in the universe, and also on Earth, a certain quality of energy that actually transcends and includes everything that is in the form of a life. This energy includes you and all that exists on this Earth. It can subtend all forms, it is the source of all forms, and it has created your form and all forms.
Now when something creates something else, it doesn’t mean that the creating part disappears into the something else and it doesn’t mean that it transforms itself into that something else. For example, when you put hydrogen and oxygen together in a certain form, in a certain combination, then water comes. The hydrogen and oxygen are in a way still there but they have also been transformed into something else. Whereas this subtending is different from that, in that the form emerges from that formless energy but the quality of that formless energy remains in the form, or with the form. So in a way it creates a kind of duality – if you look at it in a certain way; duality is just how the mind sees it. The duality is that you have your day-to-day life, you have your relationships, your job, your interests, ideas, views, opinions, attitudes, preferences – all these things that belong to a human form, and at the same time present is an energy that is beyond all those individual selections, preferences, and identities which make you into the actual living human being that you are.
That energy, since it precedes form, means that it is the same for everybody, that what is available to you is also available to your neighbour – it is always available in the same way but *what* it provides is always different, according to needs. So the very same energy is available to everything and it is even there in Beings like animals, birds and so on, that don’t have any conception of it and wouldn’t talk about it even if they could talk, like I am talking this morning, but it is part of their makeup. When we look at a bird we can say, “It has two wings, it can sing, it can fly from here to there, in the winter it goes there and then it comes back.” And we can talk about what we can observe and discover about a bird or an animal and say, “This is what a bird is; this is what a cat is; this is what a horse is,” and so on, but it is perfectly clear to me that all these living Beings are also connected with this transcendental energy, this fine energy, this subtle energy, that is everywhere. But with animals the duality disappears. Well, it doesn’t really disappear because most people look at a bird, a dog, a cat, a horse, and just see it in a formative way and that is the end of it, but in fact from the point of view of the experience of those creatures, the two are one. They don’t think out their lives, they don’t plan their lives; they are natural Beings that express themselves instinctively without second thoughts. And it is clear to me that this is part of their reality, again without them discriminating and saying, “I am a cat but I am also part of the One energy, this subtle energy, that this man is talking about. It is part of my reality, I accept that, and it is very beautiful.” They don’t see it in that way; they are just what they are, with these two aspects of the formless and the form simply together in unity.
Before the conscious mind developed to such an extent that it started to analyse and try to understand itself, I guess our early ancestors were like I described my sense of how animals and birds are, they were just instinctive Beings. This transcendental energy that I am talking about this morning would not have been separated out by them as something beyond their immediate experience of being in a body and having desires, needs, and so on, and then *plus that* they have a transcendental energy – it was all amalgamated together. But now we have come very much to identify with our forms, our desires, our wishes, our ambitions, our dramas, our life stories, that we have to stop and say, “Wait a minute, that is not all that there is to it. There is also something beyond.”
So in a way the Work we are doing in OneLife is to reconnect with that forgotten department of our reality – the transcendental energy, the subtle energy, that pervades all life, all existence. All the Work we have been doing and will be doing in the Training is in a way designed to reconnect you with that dimension. And all the exploration that we do *can* succeed – not necessarily that they will succeed because that depends a lot on you – in doing that because they all emerged from that transcendental space. All these different forms, all of the different exercises, structures and meditations, were created and came out of that space so that quality of transcendence, formlessness, is contained in the forms. So through them you have the possibility of identifying or experiencing that formless quality which is beyond the exercise, beyond the meditation, beyond the description, even beyond the experience that you are having of the exercise as such. They all lead back to the source of all life.
Now that process, which is happening in every person I have ever worked with in the past thirty-five years since I started this Work, is going on continuously, and the more often you involve yourself in it, the closer you will get to incorporating it, becoming one with it, or being aware of it and allowing it to be consciously present in you when you live. The form and the formless are really not separate, they are totally involved with each other, and as you move towards what we call the baseline – though it is not really a line, it is the base place, the base reality – that base reality is also moving towards you. In a way you penetrate your form towards the formlessness, and towards your source and the source of all life, you open up the channel towards it, and at the same as you get closer, the more this energy starts to penetrate and run channels through your formed aspect.
Of course that results in certain kinds of experiences that you will have, and they are usually, in the end if not immediately, positive – of course, because the ultimate positivity is finding your source. The energy coming in disturbs the settledness of the form, the solidity of the form, the inflexibility of the form, the identification you have with the form; it starts to disturb that, to break it up, and that can sometimes lead to uncomfortable experiences – sadness coming up, hurt coming up, fear coming up, doubts coming up, and so on. But more often they are positive experiences, like stillness, relaxation, softness, openness, friendliness, warmth, companionship, community, and a stronger and stronger feeling of knowing who you are. The form on its own is not who you are, so as the form gets infiltrated by the formless you begin to get the feeling, “Oh, I am not who I thought I was, just this set person with a certain identity. I am part of something that is a movement of life, that moves all, and that is in a way the bloodstream of my Being.”
When you begin to feel that and sense this other bloodstream – not the one in your body or the one in your mind or your heart, but a kind of bloodstream which feels cosmic – it feels universal at the same time as it feels personal. You get the feeling that this bloodstream is not unique to you. The way it moves in you and through you is unique to you, but the actual quality of it is universal. The more you feel that, the more you get a sense of what you really are, and then you can start to let go of your structures, your ideas, your views, and of your selfness which is in fact a trap. Who you think you are, or what you identify with, is a trap, and you are trapped in it. And that project to make your ego glorious is an impossible one because it could only work if everybody cooperated with it and gave you exactly what you wanted whenever you wanted it. If the whole world was devoted to you maybe you could find glory. So it is really something that is blocking you from finding the glory that you actually are.
Now this quality of energy, this presence of this eternal energy, this unchangeable energy, this energy that sings the song of life, is always and everywhere present, but it is almost universally ignored, unknown, unconnected with. I read two newspapers every day, and there is not a day that passes without thousands and thousands of terrible things happening. This is a product of people’s behaviour and attitude towards others, towards themselves, towards their family, friends, and enemies. Now if this energy I am talking about was available to these perpetrators of barbarity and crime, then these events would simply not happen, impossible. You could not behave in the way that almost everybody does behave sometimes, occasionally, often, or even always. So although it is present everywhere, it is unknown – and not even called The Unknown because it is not even considered to exist. But I know it does because I experience it all the time.
So you are all very lucky because here it is available, here it is present, or here it is made manifest. In a way it is always manifest but I make it manifest – that is a fact, not a boast – and so it becomes more available to you here than it would be almost anywhere else in the world. So what can you do to receive it?
Well, that is difficult to answer because in a way anything you do is the wrong energy. Anything that you do will come from your ego and your wish to have something that sounds great – and then you make it impossible to be resonant with it. Sadly your desire immediately alienates you from the possibility of connecting with it, so we have to find another way. We can’t do it the normal way by aiming for it, going for it, just doing it – you can’t just do it.
So I am not sure what you can do, to tell you the truth, because I am not quite sure what I did in order to get it. I can’t pass on: “This is what I did and if you do it it will happen for you” – because I am not quite sure what I did! I did a lot of things but precisely in what order, in which combination, and at what time of the day or night, I don’t know. But it happened. I don’t know how it happened but it happened. What I can do is to give a few hints:
· Being silent helps – when there is silence there is a space in which it can enter into you and be recognised and responded to.
· Being open is of course important too otherwise you can’t receive it.
· Withdrawing yourself to some extent from this self you identify with as yourself which fills up your space is of course always going to help. As long as you are congested with that which you believe you are then you cannot resonate with that energy because you are already on the wrong wavelength. So when you don’t need that self – and you especially don’t need yourself in this room, not when I am here, not when Varuni is here, and we are doing explorations with you – then that should be your focus, to let go of the part of you that leads you and runs your scheme every day, every moment. Just leave it all behind at the top of the stairs with your shoes and come in here naked and open, and knowing that you don’t know but being open to pick up on the resonance of this transcendental energy.
When you do the various exercises that have emerged from the Work which we share with the Trainees each time, enjoy the exercises because many of them are enjoyable. They are fun and involve a lot of interaction with the other students here. But also remember at the same time as you are appreciating the form of the exercises and explorations, that the formless is also there. And that when the exercise is finished but you are still in a way being carried along by the process, that is a good time to be open and available to that energy that was contained in the exercise. In most cases you identify more with the form, of course, because you have to to do the exercise, but then when the form, the structure, comes to end and you are just there – whether you are on your own, with a partner, with several partners, or with the whole group – then in the aftermath of the exercise there is a big open circle in which you can join the transcendental energy more easily.
*Introduction Talk, Energy Training Part V, 11th of February 2009*