The Greatest Medicine...

Over the last 5 days I have had the great good fortune of spending a lot of the time in Meditative Silence, re-discovering that the best medicine is experiencing the awareness of Being (Essence, Living Spirit), that Living Presence that exists within all of us beyond the egoic consciousness.   For me this awareness happens through Meditative Silence. 

Last week I started feeling a pull into Meditative Silence that continued into the weekend – which gave DH a lot of time to prepare for his interview today. J  And it did not mean that there wasn’t any “doing” – as there was laundry and meals to make, phone calls to family to be made, conversations with DH to be had, etc.  Yet, I was continually drawn inward beyond the egoic functioning, the scaffolding of the self, into the open space of Being - to the awareness of Presence beyond the mechanism of the “me.”  Some days I felt a soft presence of Love surrounding me, other days it was the felt sense of the vast expanse beyond form, and other days just an awareness of The Silence of Being that is the thread through all life.  Even so, feelings arose, emotions emoted, but there was still this Essence of Being that made Its Presence known through the veils of thought, feeling and “doing.”

Most psychologies and some forms of “spirituality” focus on “fixing”, putting the emphasis on *self*-improvement, *self*-empowerment, on gaining *personal* power, offering to make life better by fixing, or bolstering the surface self – the ego, the personality - neglecting to see the root cause - the underlying “connection” with and awareness of our Essential Being.  Directly experiencing the inner flow of Being on a regular basis will do more for us than any quick-fix methods, as helpful as they may be initially.  I had forgotten this, under the strain of years of life’s twists and turns in unexpected directions, falling back into the egoic fear of survival again and again.  When we are able to reach a deep state of awareness of Being, the protective scaffolding of the ego begins to collapse, or becomes transparent, as we discover that we ARE That Silent Presence of Being – that there is no separation from our Essential Being, and never has been – the key to any kind of lasting transformation.

This is not to say that the “ego” needs to be transcended, or gotten rid of, as if that were possible. J   It is part of the whole package and needs to be embraced as such.  But it is not *essentially* who we are.   We can learn to keep bringing our awareness back to the silent space of Beingness and see our life experiences through the lens of Being, and not the ego/persona: the constellation of ideas, beliefs, opinions, judgments, thoughts, identities and definitions about who we *think* we are, and what we *think* reality is, and how life “should” be happening…  To see through that scaffolding to the incredible vast Aliveness that we are changes our perspective – even momentarily.  I am currently re-acquainting myself with the awareness of this “core” Being again, re-experiencing it as a part of my daily practice of awareness…  Becoming aware of Being (no matter how many times) is like becoming aware of our Essence before we were born – returning to the Innocence of Being.  Delighting in that…  Abiding in the felt sense of Being.  The Greatest Medicine. 

Resources:
Adyashanti – The Way of Liberation on-line course

Ram Dass – Paths to God
and my own experience J

Also see: Collapse the Scaffolding
And: November's Swan Song - Edge of Glory

Photo:

Rainbow light on wall
zoom blurred