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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3309, Saturday, October 4, 2008, Editor: Mark
There is a difference in the feminine invitation to rest as one's
true nature. It is about being kind inside, including the arising
emotions and contractions and the senses rather than meditating
them away. It is gorgeous because there is always this balance of
the fiercer masculine aspect, and the warm feminine voice of
'this too, this too, this too.' I find that sitting inside
myself, just allowing everything to come rest, to invite it all
in as an honored guest works really exquisitely for me. I notice
more and more, when I sit with my friends, that it is a lovely
balance to have the cool inquiry of "to whom does this
come" and the warm invitation for anything to arise, to come
to rest, to give it clarity and kindness.
- Pamela Wilson in The Translucent Revolution
Curiosity is the way wisdom gets revealed inside. It is the
forerunner of wisdom. Curiosity arises and, if you sit with it,
connected right underneath is the wisdom. They are not two.
Each one of these servants inside, from the most irritating of
emotions, can reveal an incredible amount of wisdom when you
interview it. First of all they show you their functions, and if
you have ever had curiosity about how creation was created, or
how bodies function, or what the nature of emotion is, or the
nature of thought, or the nature of wisdom, all of it is there.
These are amazing biocomputers, and you can ask and they will
reveal anything you want to know.
Be really tender with thought. The pressure we put on it is
extraordinary. It's only because thought is also the great
mystery that it is able to function with all that pressure of
disapproval and dislike and aversion and "I wish you would
be quiet" - and all our rude projections: that you are not
spiritual and you are the only thing keepingme from my freedom,
and would you please just shut up!
That is why in all the great spiritual traditions, at their heart
is tenderness - just to be kind inside, and then everything
rights itself. Fear rests. Confusion rests. Everything that was
perturbing the system rests. Because they know that when you are
tender inside you no longer need their services, because you have
returned to your true nature.
- Pamela Wilson
I'm not in the don't-touch-it school. Maybe it's my Italian
heritage. I call it Mediterranean satsang. I say, "Come
here, poor little story!" If the story keeps coming back, it
means it's desperate for a little loving attention.
If you are always going, "Oh, it's just story," of
course it's going to renew its effort: "No, I'm not!"
If a certain situation continues to arise, just let it sit with
you. See it as your devotee. Grant it the compassion to be able
to sit with you. Say, "Yes, you are welcome here." Even
story. In the beginning it's good to get firm with stories,
because there are way too many of them. But it's like Reader's
Digest; you have them condensed down to the top five issues,
right?
When you're feeling strong, or if you have a friend to sit with,
just sit in the silence until you're soothed, until the body and
brain are soothed, and then invite the story to come sit. It will
start to activate the body, and then the brain will start to
bring in strategies to fix i and try to help. So thank the brain,
and then attend to what's happening in the body. Stories have
another function, other than bothering us. They're designed to
dissolve the defenses in the body. They're like armor. So you sit
with the issue, the upset, and see where it's triggering in the
body, and then just allow awareness to move into it and permeate
the upset - like awareness has hands, and it's soothing and
loving.
What you're doing is helping the body let go of the past. One of
the ways the body creates release is by recreating something from
the past in order to pull it out of the earth of the body.
Otherwise it stays deep. This system of release is strange -
almost reptilian, it's so ancient. These bodies are from another
time. Even though you get a fresh, new body every time, a lot of
the defenses are recreated through thought. That's why I say
bring the story here. There's no lack of brilliance in the design
of either the body or the way it lets go, or even that this world
is so harsh. Roert Adams used to call this the remedial planet,
because when you really want freedom, this is where you come.
It's sweet: the body asks for a blessing through its upset, its
agitation. It's invoking the Beloved, awareness-consciousness:
"Please, master, come here. Please heal me." And if
it's really frantic, then it will be sending out distress signals
all the time. So it has another function: to awaken the Beloved.
It awakens the satguru through its distress.
Ramana used to say, "I would follow a devotee into hell if
need be." So when hell or agitation arises in the body, it's
luring the satguru out of the heart. Everything is an invitation
for the Buddha to awaken and bring peace, even to the body. It
calls for the laying on of hands, the welcoming and soothing.
Even doubt is asking for your love. Doubt is talking to you,
saying, "Master, is this true?"
When you see your body and thought as your devotees, you have a
completely different relationship with them. Where else are they
goig to go for truth?
- Pamela Wilson
Pamela Wilson on "Never Not Here:"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3663885058107839033
Pamela Wilson on "New Realities"
with Alan Steinfeld:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_fl14XA_3Y