Underneath the narrative of your life, just below the grand storyline, even beneath the colorful emotional landscape, there exists a rich, mysterious world of sensations – a somatically-organized field of intelligence, creativity, and aliveness. But there is no support here for personal identity; here, life is revealed to be much less about “me” than we thought. There are no “problems” here, nothing to be fixed, cured, or shifted. There is only an untamed fire of presence.
In any moment, you can enter this field and come to see, in a very direct way, that whatever arises in your present experience – whatever thought, feeling, emotion, image, hope, fear, or longing – no matter how seemingly disturbing – is ultimately and immediately workable, and a portal into the great natural perfection. It is pure energy, woven of the substance of sweet and fierce love.
Descending into the body, into this wide open, empty space can seem terrifying, because it is so unknown. You can no longer find many of the familiar reference points of the mind from which you have come to organize your life. There is no complaining here, no resentment, no “understanding” – not even any “transformation” or “healing” as we have come to think of these terms. Nothing is “unhealed” or in need of transformation. Just raw, naked, experience, free from interpretation.
The body is an invitation, an entryway into the freedom, love, and vastness that you are. For it is out of this alive, pregnant mandala of creativity that flow the qualities of kindness, compassion, attunement, and presence. This is what you are.
This meditation on Sri Ramana Maharshi's instruction to Frank H. Humphreys (a devotee of Sri Ramana) is read by Buddhist nun, Samaneri Jayasāra, whose YouTube channel is filled with the highest spiritual teachings from various traditions for the purpose of deepening...
Few spiritual teachers in the modern era spoke as directly to the human heart as Ram Dass. Decades after his teachings first transformed Western spiritual culture, his voice continues to guide seekers navigating a world that often feels fragmented and divided. A newly...
In Parts 23 and 24 of the Spiritual Odyssey series, we stepped into an important chapter of Swami Satchidananda’s earlier life: his time at Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam (Ashram) under the guidance of the great Tamil monk and scholar Sri Swami Chidbhavananda. Though those...
We may look a little different, speak different languages, have different nationalities, but these are all different parts we play. Essentially, we are all one. As an analogy, consider the sea. All the waters came from the sea, isn't it so? From the sea, the water...
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