A curios thing has happened over the last days where a number of people have been giving me feedback about how they perceive me. One person a few days ago told me that she experiences me as very protective. I would agree with this person that is how I used to show up in the world with a very self protective, guarded energy but internally I feel I have shifted far from that so the feedback was a surprise. I asked my closest friend if she sees me that way and she said she never had in the 10 years she’s known me. It is clear to me we are different with each person we know. My daughter laughed when I told her and she said I was the least protected person she knows, the least person anywhere. Then today someone told me I have a very powerful energy that attracts her and feels exceptional nurturing. So who am I? It is clear each person I know perceives me differently. Am I any of those perceptions? all of them? none of them? I am getting clear I am none of them, that my true identity is a non identity. Yea, I have been in the spiritual game for decades and know the drill. But it is only lately it is sinking in. A few weeks ago I had a powerful experience at dance. Today I understood in my own mind what had occurred. While normally I dance without thought, I always dance as a person, as an identity dancing. But this day there was no person dancing, there was merely movement moving. Yea, I know, impossible to capture with words yet my experience today brought it home further. Am I the person being perceived? perceiving? or the one witnessing the whole play.
Wow, I came across this old interview today that so clearly speaks to, illuminates this formless awareness. Able to take this in more deeply then ever before as little tears in my identity have been arising lately, make it easy for me to grasp what used to be such an elusive understanding. It is dropping in for me, this reality that I do not have a solid identity as an I, a me. I do not yet fully grasp the significance of it yet exciting to finally be able to grok this at a deeper level. Figures it would come on a site linked with my old friend and teacher, Eckhart Tolle.
http://livingwithtolle.com/?p=2866
Paraphrasing part of the interview:
…the intensity of any reaction is just a response to how many times you have fallen for this misperception in the past
…whenever there is a reaction to thought, the thought about the reaction is…the feelings in the body are an emotional compass; when you feel a positive feeling, the positive feeling says this is feedback through the emotional body that is letting you know that the way you are perceiving this is giving you nearly as many choices as the Universe always gives which means you are perceiving this clearly. When you feel a negative reaction, it’s the Universe through the body saying to itself basically the way you are perceiving this is not giving yourself as many choices as the Universe always gives itself and you are misperceiving this making it far more personal then it actually is and the intensity of how painful it is, the reaction is really showing you how many times you misperceived this… so what arises, is there anyone to whom this belongs? “If the answer is no, then it’s, I am simply aware of this feeling or thought and usually what happens is there is a thought that arises and then there is a feeling that happens in the body that we think is a reaction to the thought and we think, well, I want to get rid of my thoughts because I want to not react and to feel good in my body, right? I’m going to then blow the lid off that and let’s see it a different way, that the body is an emotional compass and when everything feels good in the body that’s telling you that the way you are perceiving this moment is giving you nearly as many choices as the Universe always gives itself. When you feel tight and constricted in response to a perception or a thought, the constriction in the body is saying the way you are perceiving this is giving you far less choices, far less clear then how the purity of awareness is … and the intensity of the reaction is literally a measurement of how many times in the past you’ve fallen for this misperception and identified with it.
quickest way to come at this is not with intensity but with innocence… every time there is a reaction ask yourself, who does this belong to, starts to loosen things