Experience

                                            

           

 

 

                                                

 

 

               

 

                           "The Soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome ecstatic experience."

                                                                    Emily Dickinson

In order to have experience we have to have polarity, contrast, and difference. In order to experience love we must have a reference of hate or fear. People get locked into one side of a polarity and therein spells trouble.

An important goal in an awakening human being, one who is not living as a Zombie, robot, clone/droid, is to have complete and conscious experience, this is the fullness of being a human being and it is most pleasurable. This is one of the main draws of intense, thrill seeking extreme sports, but those people are seeking a very small window of complete experience. They will have the moment on the 60 foot wave or the feeling on top of Mt. Everest, but it's not something that can be sustained, certainly the memory lasts a life time, but what good does it serve in day to day life? I know people will strongly disagree with this but it's my perspective.

You could get the same effect by going into combat, there are a number of vets who say they never felt as alive as when they were in combat. My proposal is the slow and steady, smell the coffee, have a piece of pie approach to fullness. So my ideal prep routine for the physical body would be something like having a great work out/hike in the woods, massage, deep relaxing sauna, floatation tank, excellent meal with excellent company, excellent love making, and deep rejuvenating sleep. All this would/will facilitate you having complete experience, because all those rituals are a deepening process for your body and sensual experience to be optimally alive and aware.

For the mental/emotional side of the equation, would be the most positive, affirming, faithful, grateful, hopeful and compassionate thoughts which would lead to loving feelings in which you will feel mentally, emotionally, and psychologically safe enough to go deep and be authentic.

Both the physical and mental/emotional bodies would be activated, and resourced as fully as possibly in this routine, which would make available the heart chakra. But back to complete experience, because experience has this dualistic nature, we want to approach all our experience as conscious as possible, otherwise we will have our experience created for us. This is what Oscar Wilde means when he says; “Most people are other people.”

When you approach any experience in a conscious, open, curious, and present way, you are navigating True North toward complete experience. When you approach any experience mindlessly, with no intention, and robotically, you will have a truncated experience that will leave you empty and disappointed, thinking about how to get your needs met some other way. This is what the Buddha described as suffering.

A good place to begin exploring full experience is to practice self observation. This is a witnessing consciousness that is a meta, third person perspective. Instead of “I'm hungry and want ice cream,” it's “He's hungry and wants ice cream.” You will feel a kind of odd amusement and pleasant detachment. This shift from first to third person perspective, if practiced as if you truly are watching someone else, will give one an experience of a different sort entirely. You will see and experience the experiencer and the experienced as one and the same, they are a digital unity so to speak.

You will also feel/see the observer is not different from the observed. This is a very difficult perspective to maintain, you may have moments where you are watching yourself walk out to the car, open the door, slide into the seat, and then you forget that you are observing yourself, and you'll find yourself waaaaaay down the road and realized; “Oh, I was totally unconscious that whole time!” This will remind you to remember that you were going to observe yourself, and you'll begin again. It's kinda like teaching a puppy to pee on the newspaper, you have to keep taking him back to the paper over and over.....

 Take homes today are; 1) Experience depends upon polarity, duality, and contrast, 2) Being awake as a human being is to move toward complete experience, 3) Relaxing, energizing, moving, breathing fully, sensing deeply helps in awakening the physical body, as well as balanced diet and rest. 4) Focusing on positive thoughts and emotions engenders mental/emotional balance 5) With these centers highly activated and resourced, you will be able to contact the witnessing, 3^rd person, observing perspective. This will facilitate complete fulfilling experience, even if it's some kind of shit storm that you prefer not be happening.