Naturalness contains all of the gradations of experience
“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?” - Rumi
Last night I looked at the collective consciousness as natural. I noticed that it has beginnings, endings and a middle, which is the part that we experience on a day-to-day basis and that we often dismiss. I had dreams that led me to a feeling that all of this is natural.
I had a meditation dream in which there was an area that was not meant to be remade in human design. I thought of this as I do the Garden of Eden, and you could say that Adam and Eve failed in their role, and fell out of the garden by having done so. When we fail, we tend to then try to do things differently as a reaction, we change our behavior. My feeling in the dream is that we must leave the failure as it is. There’s a quality to this idea in which we’re invited to let go.
If we’re really drinking in life, we’ll make mistakes. Life is not rigidly defined -- it’s experienced. In our experience of life sometimes we feel that we are defiled or contaminated but always there remains a purity behind our experiences.
In another dream I am shown that our pursuits may distort our natural innocence. We try to alter life and in spite of that we are already natural and we contain an innocence throughout our lives. After all, we are the permeation that goes through everything, and some say that trying to alter who we are goes against our true being.
What these dreamed thoughts lead me into is that there’s a bridge. There is a middle area and if we’re to rest in it then our vision has to become more inclusive. Over the course of human history, and in our own lives, we have defined and made natural only certain aspects and we have developed exclusive perspectives. We change ourselves due to what we deem unnatural, and the changes then affect how we live. We become more polarized as we perceive an above and a below and live in a black and white reality. Coming into view is the in-between, being in the thick of things, a messier place where we get our hands dirty.
A way that I relate to this in our lives in society is to consider the one who feels beaten down in life and clamors for something more from those who have established a hold on society. In between the have and have-nots is a barrier, something that has been repressed for so long that it has become what we see as a part of the collective consciousness. It’s “the way things are” we tend to say. This acceptance and sentiment normalize the caste and social class systems.
The speed of light is one hundred eighty-six miles per second. The speed of sound is two tenths of a mile per second. There is an area in between which may represent an aspect of our perceptions. This middle needs to be included, not marginalized. I am being shown that the middle is natural and that we are meant to make life inclusive but to do so we must focus on the middle and we must normalize it. The middle, the above, and the below must meet in order to have true acceptance, and only then may we come together in oneness.
Nature is the way it is. There’s nothing wrong with it. And this feels newly profound. Messing with nature in this way disturbs something. This view helps me see the worlds’ logic as kind of obvious. It is right in front of our eyes. In nature we see life doing what it does, an overallness intertwining in the way that it functions. Each part is consistent in its own way.
In the meditation dream in which I’m sensing the importance of the middle I am able to see myself and my life in it. I have my own ideas about things, and I see a way in which this is not functionally practical. When I form my own opinions rather than see things how they are, I become a deviation. There’s something about ‘ordinary’ that is right in its way. From this view my expectations that things may be different start to not make sense.
In a sleep dream I am with a relative in a place where Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, had lived. In the dream he is no longer alive. I’m in what was his small compound and it’s something like a village. I sense that there’s more here than I can see. I explore it because the outside feels kind of empty, sensing all the while that there is something more to be found on the inside. Morning comes and the compound feels abandoned. My relative sees a person and says to me, “Oops,” and then he leaves. I don’t respond or feel shocked, but when he leaves I don’t follow him and I find that I am lost inside the compound. I discovered that it is much larger than I had thought. I have a feeling of letting myself go because I’m absorbed in experiencing what is there. The people on the compound seem fine, there’s nothing wrong, but I sense a problem because I don’t speak Spanish and the folks in the compound do. I want to know how to get out of the compound. An English-speaking woman appears and I’m shocked and surprised by this.
I’m a big-shot in this dream acting like I’m owed what is being given. Realizing that there’s something more than I can see I begin to sense an awareness of a middle area, and in between. The English-speaking woman points me to a main road and then she goes out of her way to begin to lead me. She is frightened by a man who appears. His presence represents to me the shaking of her illusion about her life in the collective consciousness, the middle zone, which is symbolized by Castro’s encampment. She has never felt free. I intercede peacefully between her and the intruder. In the dream it is her fear of the intruding man that contaminates her naturalness. After the encounter she is able to take me through the maze and out of the compound.
Interpretation
The dream tells me that I am facing an issue in the overall and in the outer. To face it in a meaningful way I must be more inclusive than I am. That encampment is separate and I have to accept it. Inclusive means not just me. It means I have to uplift everything from the middle so everything may fit back into a whole. I feel that what I am shown points to a greater beingness that awakens in the overall when the heart recognizes inclusiveness. In order for a greater overall universal connection to reawaken, dwelling on our personal deviations must be overcome.
This middle area becomes a collective consciousness over a long course of time and this is where our values and orientations that are associated with this middle zone come into being. The way we react to this is we develop philosophies and theories that have us see the world from this middle point of view. If true awakening is to occur, then every area of life has to be held without concern about the fear of letting go of our imposed conditions that have become established between what we separate into the above and below. The imposed conditions, over the long course of time, appear normal because we have normalized them, but actually they are a collective confinement of our consciousness. As I consider the caste system with its many levels, I see that these systems keep us in our amnesia.
This view allows me to reflect on the things in life that people have stopped paying attention to. What feels right to me now is to view life from an outside-of-time way. It seems we’ve developed a dark energy that keeps above and below different. We do one thing based on personal benefit at the expense of something else. Another view, to view outside of time, might be to keep the consciousness of all, an appreciation for all of it, for how it is, and deem nothing separate.
There is a quality in the outer and nature, this is the denseness of things, and it mirrors how manifestation has formed. Even though it has what we may call a lower-self, it has a naturalness to it that also works. The grand design is complete even if we’re not used to seeing it as such. Nature, when left to itself, sorts itself out.
When we act out of selfish motives we establish a false criteria and we materialize the deviation that then normalizes and gets set. This is what haunts us and what we feel as difficulties in life and society.
Suggested Contemplations
Consider that striving and seeking does not get us what we want. Take your journal outside. Feel the breeze on your skin and the sun on your face. Sit comfortably and become aware of your breathing, in and out, go slowly. Consider what it may be like to just be, to not need to change anything, and to accept what comes without seeking our own gain in it.
Close your eyes and Imagine your awareness as goggles that turn inside. Search your interior, notice your heart pumping oxygenated blood throughout your body without you needing to do anything to make it happen. Each breath oxygenates every cell you possess. Consider your organs each doing their part, functioning in their way.
Notice that this requires no effort on your part. Turn your awareness from the inside to the outside. Pay attention to your senses. Where are your feet? Do they rest on dirt, stone, grass, concrete, or some other substance? What are you sitting on? How does your bottom feel? Is the surface cold, hard, soft, bumpy, or smooth. It the seat below you level? What about your hands? What is happening on your head? Does the wind ruffle your hair? Are you cold? What do you smell?
Now listen. What do you hear? Are there leaves rustling, the sounds of people, or something else? What do you hear that is at a distance? If you listen closely do you hear insects? What do you see? What in your field of vision was not made by humans? Find the sky, are there clouds, a moon, stars, or something else?
Relax your senses to allow nature to register softly rather than being focused on seeking. Consider that you are in nature, you are nature, and nature is you. Rest in this awareness while breathing until you feel full. Hold the breath for a moment to notice what it feels like to be at the top of your inhale, then slowly release your breath. Feel it swirl around you. Breathe in something of the environment, the breeze, a scent, or sound. Take note that the life around you is not other than you.
On an exhale know that your breath feeds the grass and the trees. Inhale and feel the breath, while being aware that the trees, and the grasses feed you breath too. From this expanded view how does it feel to be intimate with your surroundings? What may you have noticed that you had not noticed before? Consider that like your body the systems around you in nature are being natural. There’s life, decay, death, and there’s change, motion, and stillness. Allow yourself to appreciate the naturalness of it all.
When we experience stillness within and a sensual awareness with what we had thought to be outside of us, we are authentic. We accept what is. It is natural to feel an aliveness that is the scope of the planet and the universe. This is the edge of what permeation feels like. It is outside of thinking, seeking, analyzing, and mind chatter. It is natural.
Let this view expand out to your life and gently invite yourself to notice where you find the extremes and the middle. What have you normalized that might need a shift in view? How do you see humanity holding to deviations that have long ago been set? Consider what may come of a return to naturalness.
“Through Love all that is bitter will be sweet, Through Love all that is copper will be gold, Through Love all dregs will become wine, Through Love all pain will turn to medicine.” - Rumi
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