(orig. published) February 6th, 2007
…But, I really feel the need to get something up here, as I am now on my new, responsible blog regimen, and hopefully, will give y’all a reason to keep checking back. So, I have been meaning to put this up for a while anyway – it’s a holiday greeting letter that I put up in December 2003, embodying ideas which were somewhat nebulous for me at the time but which, looking back were very indicative of the way my thinking and heart were moving. I am now quite clear that the ideas and sentiment expressed below are crucial to a new model of human experience. -B
Dear Friends,I hope this finds you well, prospering, and ready for the year ahead. I don’t know if you may agree with my perspective, but I am seeing a challenging time ahead for all of us living on Earth today. One major factor, in my view, is the failing of the human social contract worldwide, driven by fear, of scarcity, of each other, of the unknown. It is apparent that as this failure unfolds, it coincides with spiraling corruption and epic greed within human institutions, and with something akin to constant low intensity warfare upon people everywhere.Recently, I have been meditating on this common life situation a great deal, and it seems to me that there is no longer any way of fighting fire with fire in respect to this spiraling emotional violence. The students of war, struggling for the high ground throughout the world, are the best at their craft of human destruction that have ever existed, with an unimaginable arsenel at their disposal. To fight them is beyond possibility, and any improbable success will likely only create warriors more grim and indomitable. More than this, I think there is an actual possibility that thinking in terms of opposing or resisting the violence may feed it. As James Joyce said, from the lips of Stephen Daedelus “History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awaken.” We are, with grace, witnessing a change in the consensus model of what a human being is, waking up together to a world where we no longer project deadly fear out upon each other. How the burgeoning tide of attacks can be turned outside of the model of action we all tend to understand and invest with “reality” is beyond the fevered attempts of our mental activity “inside the box.” But I believe we know in our hearts.So, I am sharing with you at this time of spiritual focus and renewal an affirmation I have been working with recently. I am repeating this every morning, for 15 minutes or so, hearing the words in my mind and trying to penetrate beyond them to the seed thought they contain. Perhaps you will consider adopting some version of this practice as we work together to wake up. Perhaps you’ll be able to improve on it, and share your improvements with others. A great American sage named Lester Levinson discovered what may be a key truth regarding human creativity – that there is an energetic component to our felt/thought wholeness in each moment, and that we seem to be stuck in a mode of clenching, holding onto that energy so that it drives pathological mental processes and behavior. He discovered that we can learn to release this energy, like learning to use and strengthen a muscle. By thinking about anything we are holding energy with, the energy comes up to be released, is felt in the heart and abdomen, and if you, for instance, imagine that it is like water compressed deep underground and you are putting a tube into it and uncapping the tube to let it go “without engaging your mind,” the complex driven by the stuck energy can begin to dissolve. I have developed a new approach to affirmation in which I combine this release process with the mental focus. As the feelings come up during the subvocalization of the verbal formula, I let them go. I would be interested to hear if this approach has any practical use for others. So, here is my affirmation:
I release, I forgive, I hold blameless, I wish well, and I pray for
all invasive, invidious, judgemental, fear-driven, ego obsessed and threatening beings,
including me,
and so am free from any attack or trespass.
May this help you to clear an inviolate space of peace within your heart now and throughout the times to come.
