Being Held — All We Can (And All We Need To) Do for One Another

Meditation and Coffee Time – Thursday, May 9, 2013

Meditation/Daily Review… In my meditation I had a momentary fleeting sense, a brief taste of being held by the All, of being held in all my pain, anxiety, weakness, doubts, guilt, frustration, limitations, and yes, including glimpses of joy – in short, of, for a brief moment, being held by the All while in my state of utterly and merely humanness. I noticed that when I sensed that I am thus held I could, for that brief moment, surrender to “what is.” And in those brief moments I felt safe, relaxed, and in a state of equanimity.

I recalled my previous blog entry describing my experience with Ed Gutfreund. While I was on the massage table table in his office I had had another taste, an unfamiliar taste, of being held in my mere human beingness. This was so different from my separate ego being held by another’s affirming my aspects of “greatness” or “pseudo greatness.” These experiences, these momentary touches of being held by the All, have been blessings.

At this point Pat joined me for coffee…

Pat: It is hard for me to surrender to the goodness of the Cosmos, to trust in the goodness of the Universe. …

I smiled at her spontaneous statement that seemed to me to be so aligned with where I was in my meditation, so aligned and yet I had said nothing about my morning mediation. So then I began to share my meditation – noting amazing sameness of topic between us. Pat: That’s great.

Pat: In Mind Training we are taught to have awareness in body, speech, and mind. But my reaction to such lofty ideas is: “You’ve got to be kidding!” I’m so far from the consciousness of which this Mind Training is speaking! Gary: I feel the same way – I see from my brief taste of a level of oneness in my session with Ed on Tuesday just how far away I am from living at such a level of consciousness, Unitive consciousness, for longer than a brief moment. At least we are in this soup together!

Pat: How are you and I in our relationship with all of these obscurations supposed to realize this state of Unitive consciousness? I get caught in striving toward this higher consciousness. But of course my striving never works! On the other hand my alternative to striving for this higher consciousness seems to be resignation, that is, being resigned to walking on this earth without deeper consciousness.

Gary: One of the Pathwork lectures speaks of this challenge we each have as evolving human beings. In the beginning humans lived moment by moment – truly “in the NOW,” but without self-awareness. Next some humans evolved to a state of self-awareness, but were no longer living in the NOW moment. Instead these humans were living in the past (living life from their unconscious images and patterns of defense against pain) or in the future (wishful thinking about some future good). From here we humans are now beginning to evolve to living in a state of consciousness of self-awareness while in the NOW moment – rather than self-awareness in the past moments (images and patterns) or future moments (wishful thinking).

Pat: How can we support each other in such an evolutionary process? Gary: Perhaps it is simply in being able to hold each other in whatever the present NOW moment is for each of us – to hold each other in our “merely and utterly” humanness. This feels new and sweet to me.

Shared in love, Gary