Big Mind/Big Heart -- View from the Absolute

Because I am, heaven overhangs and earth is upheld.
Because I am, the sun and the moon go round.
The four seasons come in succession, all things are born,
Because I am, that is, because of Mind.
Eisai-zenji in the Kozen-Gokuku-Ron

---

We've been working mostly within the Relative View dialoging with voices (selves) having to do with the Mind (small mind or ego), the Body, and the Emotions. We began touching the Absolute View by dialoguing with Soul and specifically, with soul qualities. Additionally, we've learned to always end our sessions with the Integrated Human Being, the one who functions in Reality and through inner-realization work continuously unifies all parts of ourselves into the wholeness of whom we truly are.

From the Relative View

All of our inner voices (selves) come from Small Mind (Ego) and have something to say that we, as Integrated Human Beings, need to hear. Note: They're all a part of Big Mind. They just don't know it!

From the Absolute View

Everything is included with no exceptions. As the One, the Absolute, we are infinite and boundless. From this view, we can see there are no limits and everything is absolutely perfect. Everything manifests from this Oneness which is existence itself.

---

We've come to understand that when we dialogue with voices that come from the Relative, whatever they have to say is truth from their own limited perspective. The dialoguing practice provides space and time for each voice's perspective to be heard and giving each voice the freedom to speak for itself allows it to have a space -- something we've rarely done consciously in the past. Have you noticed the immaturity of these voices? This immaturity is rather narcissistic in that the whole world revolves around it. Interestingly, as each voice is given an opportunity to speak, all the other voices listen and learn. And, because of the open-ended questions we ask that come from a place of curiosity and wonder, the voice we're dialoguing with gets to explore it's own limited perspective. Each voice can actually become more conscious and thereby have less need to be intrusive, demanding, obnoxious, controlling, etc.

The opportunity to dialogue with Big Mind, as well as Big Heart, frees us to let go of all our limited views -- even if just for the moments that we're doing the practice. We actually get to experience what it's like to embrace and include it all. Even the idea of something this big can be scary for the Ego UNTIL it sees (experiences) that it's not annihilated (which is its fear) but instead is actually embraced and included in the wholeness.

Once we've experienced Big Mind and Big Heart, we can return over and over. In fact, you may find that beginning all of your dialogue practice from this point on with Big Mind changes the practice -- probably making it easier.

Lastly, after you've experienced and practiced with Big Mind/Big Heart, you'll be able to relate to the Buddha's allegory excerpted below:

The Head of a large household goes off on a journey and leaves his head servant (Controller) in charge of the house while he's away. This arrangement works fine as long as the Controller remains clear about his servant role. However, the Head stays away too long and the Controller forgets that he's there to serve the Master and begins to act as if he (Ego, small mind) was the Head of the house. When the true Master returns, he may need to set things right by putting the Controller back in his proper role as the Master's servant.

So, after practicing with Big Mind/Big Heart, we'll surely want to dialogue with the True Master.

Bridging the Gap: Integration of Emotion and Soul Voices

At this point, we may find it helpful to look at the two words: gap and integration. What do these two words mean for you? Maybe a better question is "what comes up for you in this moment around the word integration? gap?

Your first thoughts will probably be the intellectual knowing that comes from "what you know." What you know comes from mental concepts and ideas based on what you've heard others say, what you've read, or maybe what you've experienced. The level where we "know" things comes from our archives of stored information from the past rather than what we're experiencing directly in this moment -- in the present.

Wisdom-questions, Knowledge-Questions
Wisdom-questions take us deeper into ourselves whereas knowledge-questions keep us at the surface level where we "know" things. You can imagine how much our soul might love wisdom-questions. And, conversely, you can imagine how much our ego might love knowledge-questions.

When we ask wisdom-questions, we're asking from a place of wonderment, openness, expansion. From this place/space, we're open to anything that arises. Questions coming from such an open, expanded place leaves plenty of room/space for answers to arise from outside of our archived data bank. It's interesting that wisdom-questions often evoke other wisdom-questions and these other questions seem to drop us into a deeper, more expansive space.

You can see how asking knowledge-questions results in a narrowing focus as our minds search our archives for "the answer" -- the correct answer! The answer to knowledge-questions is stored in a small space, so that's where our mind has to go in order to find the answer.

Gap between Emotion and Soul
In the previous article, I introduced how Emotion and Soul arise from two different worlds or perspectives: Relative and Absolute. Emotions show up because of an "other" -- person, place, or thing and needs an "other" in order to be an emotion. Emotions need cause and effect, because they are the effect of some cause (and vice versa). Emotions come and go. Soul, with all its qualities, is ever-present whether we're conscious of this presence or not; and, soul does not need an "other" for it to be "what it is."

We can perceive this gap (difference, opening, space) between the two, emotion and soul. Working toward understanding the different emotions through dialogue practice helps to bring light into this gap. We begin to understand why particular emotions present themselves -- what triggers them.

If we let ourselves be curious enough to discover what the emotion is telling us that we're needing from an "other," we also find that it's a soul quality the ego is trying to imitate. We're literally reaching outside of ourselves for the soul quality, i.e., love, understanding, strength, that is not only within us but it's part of who we truly are.

Integration
The first step toward integration is the uncovering. We finally understand what the emotion is pointing to. It's like "the finger pointing to the moon;" it's not the moon itself. Once we see this truth, we begin to notice the presence of soul qualities that were actually present all along. We can actually dialogue with any soul quality to find out anything we're curious enough to find out -- including how to integrate It, our very own soul quality, into our lives. We can ask questions like, "how can I be aware of your presence more?" The bottom line here is that the more we're aware of, and directly experience, the ever-presence of our soul and it's qualities, the less we need the pointing devices, the emotions.

The integration process begins with our enlarging the space (ourselves) that embraces and includes both the pointing device (emotion) and that which is pointed to (soul quality). The foundation for this integration process is curiosity to know the truth and the courage to ask the questions that will inevitably lead us there. A vehicle for this integration process is dialoging and reflecting back (verbally aloud or in writing) to ourselves what we've learned. Keeping a notebook helps provide a map of the territory we're exploring.

Emotion as a Pointing Device toward Conscious Understanding -- Bridging the Relative & Absolute Worlds

Are emotions mental states that arise spontaneously? How are emotions related to feelings? What is the relationship, if any, to love as an emotion, a feeling, and a soul quality?

A general definition of an emotion describes a neural impulse that moves an organism to action. It's considered to be a psycho-physiological state and really does arise spontaneously and involuntarily.

As physical expressions, emotions are related to feelings, perceptions, beliefs associated with objects or others -- even a certain aroma can remind us of someone or an event and "wha-lah" a particular feeling and/or emotion arises instantly. We're all aware of how the physical body responds to emotions, i.e., changes in temperature and breathing; increased heartrate; tightness in throat, chest, or belly. You may very well come up with other ways your own body responds to specific emotions.

From a neurobiological perspective, emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain. These mammalian elaborations use neurochemicals, e.g., dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonim, to step-up or step-down the brain's activity level.1 These 'states' are manifestations of any number of various non-verbally expressed feelings from one end of a continuum to the other end.

Looking at emotions energetically, we experience unpleasant (negative) emotions as energy-draining and pleasant (positive) emotions as energy-calming and sometimes as very alive and exhilerating. Emotions move energy -- e-motion (energy in motion) -- WHEN we facilitate rather than hinder the movement. Most of us have an automatic tendency (reaction) to "hold our breath" when we begin to experience a negative emotion. By doing the opposite, by breathing consciously, we facilitate the movement of emotional energy through us.

An emotion is experienced as a response to the nervous system and is a part of the Relative-world; a soul (or essential) quality is an expression of the Absolute-world. An emotion needs an "other" in order to arise. An emotion points toward a part/voice that needs something and is somehow trying to protect the self. An essential, soul quality doesn't point to anything outside of itself; it's complete, whole in and of itself -- it is what it is. There's no garment or anything covering up what It is. There's nothing else determining what It should be. Love is pure, unconditional Love. Strength is calm without needing to be inferior or superior to anything else.

Consider this. The Ego rules in the Relative-world and it trys to imitate Essence. From the perspective of the Relative-world, we are our Ego/Personality and from this perspective our emotions often define who we are, i.e., an angry person, a happy person. From the Absolute-world, we are Essence and our essential qualities define who we are -- our True Nature, i.e., Love, Value, Strength. From an integrated perspective, we're able to see both views; and, we're able to understand compasionately with an open heart what's being pointed to. We're not really an angry person. We're feeling angry and that feeling/emotion is pointing to some part/voice who needs to be heard, who may be feeling unloved, unappreciated, disappointed.

Guideline for Dialogue Practice
Actually, we've already done some dialogue practice with the Voice of Fear, one of the primary emotions experienced by both humans and animals. So, we know that we can find out interesting information by talking with Fear, and other emotions, directly. I'd like to suggest a slightly different variation for dialoguing with emotions. Let's see how it works for you.

• As usual, check in with the Overall Voice -- in this case, the Voice of the Overall Emotional Body. Think of this voice as the part of us that houses, or contains, all emotions. This voice is aware of all activity, i.e., agitation from some emotions, coma-like states from other emotions. We check in with this Overall Voice to find out about what's going on so that we can understand more about ourselves, thereby becoming more consciously aware. After checking-in, we can ask if there's a particular emotion we should speak to; or, we can just say, I'm curious about the emotion of ___________ and would like to dialogue with it.

Now, here's where you might want to experiment to see what works best for you. This next piece is the slight variation I was speaking about.

1. Let's say that you're curious about why you often feel disappointed (in relationships, at work, in Life). Disappointment seems to "be up in your Life right now." You could ask to speak to "the One Who (Always) Feels Disappointment." Remember to make the shift in your seat and then ask the question "who am I speaking to?" And, reply "the One Who (Always) Feels Disappointment." This helps seat you in (embody) the voice with which you're wanting to dialogue.
2. Ask any number of questions from the place of curiosity and wanting to discover whatever you can about this part/voice. The voice/part gets to say whatever it wants to say; it's speaking from it's perspective only. What the voice/part says may not, probably is not, the truth BUT it's the truth as that voice/part knows it from it's very limited perspective.
3. The dialogue that originated with Disappointment may lead to another, like "the One Who is Angry" or "the One Who Feels Unloved." Move along and dialogue with each of these as they arise, however, remember to be considerate of the voice/part with which you're speaking as you would with an actual person. You wouldn't just leave them hanging while you go off and talk with someone else who just showed up, would you?

• Once you feel like you've gotten to the bottom line, an understanding of some sort, you may want to see if you can find out which Essential, Soul Quality is being imitated? You may be able to find this out by asking the voice/part you've been working with, or you may want to explore dialoguing with the emotion itself. I'd suggest a question like: "What Essential (or Soul) quality are you most like?" How are you the same? How are you different?

Exercise
Using the handout sheet (bubble diagram) where you listed your emotions, pick those that you're curious about, those that you'd like to know more about, to use in your practice sessions. Use the guidelines provided above.

Comment Area Below
I encourage you to use the comment area below to share your experience and insights. Feel free to use your initials if you're uncomfortable using your name on this blog.

1 Source: Wikipedia Article on Emotions

The Soul: Beyond the Boundaries of the Mind

Our soulfulness is an intricate part of our humaness. We would not exist as human beings without our soul. So what is this -- soul? Can we recognize it in some way? Can we feel it? Can we somehow touch it? To say that we know that we have a soul without exploring what it is or what it means seems to be missing something deeper.

Ask any number of people "what is the soul?" and you'll get varied and usually ambiguous answers that come from concepts and beliefs, probably from a particular tradition or religion with which one has affinity. What are the chances that any one of these people can answer the question from direct experience? Can you answer this question from direct experience?

The soul is an organism of consciousness1. The soul is dynamic, constantly changing moving, flowing, unfolding and transforming. We might even see the soul as an archtype for Life. As an organic consciousness, the soul embraces and includes the ego development process and uses life-experiences to evolve -- consciousness with an even greater richness and potential. In a sense, the soul is learning how to live in the physical.

Soul, Presence, & Essence
In all the many years of reading, studying, and research having to do with the soul and it's association with Presence and Essence, my favorite teacher/author on this subject is A. H. Almaas. He describes the medium or field of the soul as the Presence of pure consciousness, the ultimate building block of our psychic life -- Essence or True Nature. He explains that Essence manifests by differentiating into Presence with recognizable qualities, i.e., peace, love, compassion, truth, pleasure, joy, strength, will, clarity, intelligence, spaciousness, etc.2

Qualities as Gateways to the Soul
From a Relative, or Dual perspective, a quality is dependent on both a subject and an object. Relative-love, for example, needs someone to give love and someone or something to receive the love. From an Absolute, or Non-dual perspective, love is love with no other purpose than to be itself. To fully embody the presence of love is to be love through and through absolutely.

What would love be like from a Transcendent perspective -- one that includes both the Relative and Absolute views?

Using the voice dialoguing practice, we can directly experience the soul just as we have previously with the Mind and the Body. We'll always begin the dialogue session by checking in, speaking with, the Overall Voice of the Soul. We can find out from this voice whether there are particular qualities that it feels would be beneficial for us to speak with. We can also let this voice know if there's a particular quality we're interested in speaking with. Remember to go back to the Overall Voice after speaking with a particular quality to check in; and, always end the dialoguing session with the Integrated Human Being. It's extremely important that you, as the Integrated Human Being, take the time to reflect verbally or in writing what you learned from each dialoguing practice.

Exercise
Using the handout sheet where you listed your soul qualities, pick those that you're curious about, that you'd like to know more about, to use in your practice sessions. Remember to start with the Overall Voice of the Soul and then proceed as described above.

Comment Area Below
I encourage you to use the comment area below to share your experience and insights. Feel free to use your initials if you're uncomfortable using your name on this blog.

1 A. H. Almaas, "The Inner Journey Home"
2 ibid.