Tuesday, November 2, 2010

NOVEMBER RADICAL EXPRESSION

In a world of instant access and quantum technology, I find myself longing for a deeper level of intimacy and connection that simply isn’t available via the internet or social networks. It seems as though most people are so entranced by today’s myriad forms of instant information that the glare of data is reflected in the deadening stare of mesmerized eyes. Everywhere I go I see couples that are physically together, yet are texting and talking with others and not the least bit present to the one they are actually with. I have witnessed entire tables full of people in restaurants that are completely ensconced in their mobile devices, the only exchanges being a sporadic sharing of something of interest on a screen. While the interconnection of the cosmic mind is being reflected powerfully in our current technology and media outlets, it seems to be also demonstrating for us the limitations of mind-content identification and the deadening effects of that ever active thinking apparatus. How often do you experience the feeling that even when you are in the same space with someone, they really aren’t fully there? Do you also sometimes suspect that when you are having a phone conversation with someone, they are clearly engaged in something else at the same time? Do you notice that there is an increasing vacancy in the eyes of many you are conversing with? Do you ever sense the diminishing depth of intimacy where programming and information is replacing raw honesty and heart connection? Have you ever had the sobering realization that the main culprit in this line of questioning is the one reflected in the mirror? The lens of conditioning is glazing over the reality of true vision. We are looking and we are often not seeing. We are hearing and we are not listening. We are colliding and we are not touching.

There is nothing lonelier than being with someone when they truly are not there. Mind-identification and multi-tasking aren’t benign when they are robbing us of real connection. It seems to me that the unconscious thrust of all this whirling data is to prevent us from feeling the depth of grief of what we have lost so long ago; the True and Real connection to our Source, the depth of our experience of our own Soulful Selves, and the interconnection to the Whole of Creation that has been perceptually severed and forgotten. This is what we most crave. It cannot be replaced by sound bytes and Facebook friends. It cannot be found via 253 Dish channels or the highest of internet speeds. You will not locate Source by texting or palm piloting. And try as we may, we cannot think our way to G-awed.

Intimacy is a quality of attention to attention itself. It is a way of presence that is beyond the mind and intrinsic to the heart. It is behind the conditioning and beyond the programming. It is found not on a screen but in the depths of the eyes of those we are heartfully with. I invite you to look and really see. Listen and really hear. Speak and really say something. The hurt we try so hard not to feel is the call to return. It is the call to return to our self. To return to the direct experience the One Self. It hurts to live inauthentically. It pains us to be out of our integrity. We may suppress that ache, but it will not forever be denied. The perception of separation has tragic consequences in time and space reality, and eternity is even now shaking us to awaken. We can deaden our senses, but we cannot dim the Essence of our Life. Life is intimacy and connection, tenderness and touching. We are in a Unified Field that is ItSelf a loving embrace, and our contraction and withholding from each other is to far out of synch with Truth to be maintained for long. We are by nature the other’s keeper, and the pain of disconnection will eventually bring us home. Religious or political or racial distinctions cannot touch who we are at depth, and it is to the Deep that we are now summoned.

So consider putting down the phone, turning off the TV or computer, and really paying attention to attention. Be intimate with the moment and all that it contains. Feel your own heart. Touch your own tender places. Look deeply within and attend to all that is there. And then give those same gifts to all who enter your sphere. Return to the radiance of intimacy, the splendor of tenderness. Listen, watch, feel life as it moves in and through you, and as it connects you with all that is. Paying attention to attention is loving deeply whatever arises. And loving deeply whatever arises is to live wakefully and intimately within the One.

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