Eye Gazing

The core of all suffering is living a false life.

The basic teaching is always the same.  Surrender. Relaxing open as the universe.

The basic practice is always the same. Surrender. Relaxing open as the universe.

What can you do to begin opening?  First thing: Look deeply into someone's eyes.

"Looking deep into a person's eyes... requires a certain relaxation from the usual armor we wear."

-Adi Da (Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda (Da Free John) in his book: The Knee of Listening.


Myth of Freedom

There is a book by ChogyamTrugnpa called The Myth of Freedom.  You don’t need to read it.  The title says it all.

Raising three kids I’ve seen this odd need for ‘freedom’ inside each of them. A path from dependence to independence. I used to think this was something inborn, an evolutionary trait that helped a tribal member survive by going out into the world alone.

But I’ve begun to suspect it is more ‘cultural’ than anything. More and more my discoveries have revealed that one of the greatest effects on human development is the panpsychic sphere of their CULTURE. More than genes, more than parents. Witness some cultures where teenagers do NOT go through the normal ‘rebellious’ stage of development.

So what is this need for freedom? Certain models suggests that the masculine force (Alpha) is defined almost entirely by its seeking for freedom, and it defines this freedom as a sense of nothingness.

As we came from nothing perhaps we have an inborn seeking to return to nothing…

Another thought occurs to me. Perhaps the concept of control, and freedom, the desire to be ‘free’ is an inborn spiritual device. Perhaps deep down all of us have been ‘programmed’ with a series of codes that define a series of authentic doings. We can call this purpose, mission, context, whatever.

This might again, just be a cultural meme… Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants? What if our core definitions of feminine, masculine, purpose, love, mission, opening, were nothing more than cultural memes…?

But what if they aren’t? 

What if when you burn everything else away, you are left with a small piece of something you should do? A script. A role for your actor to play. An authentic co-creative role.

And if this is true it suggests there is certainly more going on here on this little spheroid ball in the void than just random evolution. There may be no meaning to life… but there might be a plan.

And if there IS a plan… then FREEDOM is… what?

Freedom is living your authentic life.

You might not be free to choose what that is…. You might have to just discover it and surrender to it… but perhaps the entire struggle for freedom is the true search for your authentic doing.

And perhaps this explains why so many of our current teenagers struggle so horrifically with a sense of control and a desire for freedom. Their culture is imposing a series of choices and directions for their life that are often 100% at odds with their authentic path.

Or maybe it’s all just a cultural meme…


Turbulence

Until you learn to enjoy the experience of turbulence, you will never achieve the authentic depth you are fully capable of.

If you are serious about growth, healing, progress… you have to lean into your edge, and become comfortable with being uncomfortable.  Whoever told you growth was love and light and peace and joy, lied to you. Any teaching that is not disruptive to your sense of self, that doesn’t make you highly uncomfortable at times, is not doing you a lick of good.

Nothing against enjoying life.

But if you want grow, be ready to undo yourself, and enjoy it.

First and Last Training

The Buddhists have a training called Morality – The First and Last training.  This corresponds to what I call therapy.  Whenever you are trying to work with the pieces (shards) of yourself, making them better, healing them, growing them, you are doing what is called therapy.  This effort to grow is endless.  You can always get better in some area of your life. 

So what is Art? Sexual Yoga?

Stay tuned to find out… 

Finding your Inner Strength

There is a short scene in the new movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, where two characters simultaneously find their inner strength through the tussle of the Masculine and Feminine.  Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) needs Bruce Banner (played by Mark Ruffalo) to turn into the Hulk in order to save the world. But Bruce is afraid of his inner strength. The feminine force (Black Widow) steps up, and pushes Bruch off a ledge. He will either die… or turn into the Hulk as he falls. Will he rise up and become the monster he fears, in order to fulfill his purpose and save the world?

What are you willing to do to find your inner strength and live your deepest truth?

Back in the day...

Men were Men… and Women were….

No better example of the fixed roles of men and women in our past evolution can be found than in the TV Show Mad Men: Don and Betty Draper.

Don is all evolutionary man… 

Or maybe this image would be a bit more appropriate:

Don epitomizes masculine energy: Purpose, focus, drive.  He walks into a room and people notice.

But behind this wall of basic masculine energy is a hurt little boy. He’s constantly at war with the feminine, always trying to feed off it, control it, or run from it. 

Not only is he afraid of the feminine in all it’s forms, he is afraid of the true depth of his own masculine.

Betty is all evolutionary woman… 

Or maybe this image would be better:

Keeping the home, nurturing the children, filling the home with light and love…

But behind her wall of basic feminine energy is a hurt little girl.  She constantly maneuvers to keep her man, to feel safe, to control her environment.

But in this she denies her own masculine strengths, desires for career and purpose of her own, but worse she operates on only the most superficial of feminine levels. Her true feminine rage and power and love scares her more than anything else.  Unleashed past her desire for more financial independence and love, into the authentic whirlwind tornado of the feminine goddess, what would really happen?

Here we see the arch-types of human evolution, the old style of loving born out of need and control and fear.  Men lived the stereotype of masculine warrior hiding the hurt little boy underneath desperate for mommy’s love.  Women lived the stereotype of the passive female hiding the ferocious feminine storm underneath. 

One hundred thousand… two hundred thousand years of evolution led to Don and Betty Draper… who reside in all of us.

And yet we yearn for more… more from our living, loving, and intimacy.

Luckily, something happened to change everything:

NEXT BLOG: The Next Evolutionary Step in Intimacy: The 60s.

For a MUCH DEEPER exploration of the idea of Primal Growth Click HERE.