The Illusion Of Separation
How did you go with practicing seeing the energy that exists in all things and playing around with the exercises and concepts in Part 2? I did the exercises myself and allowed myself to experience them as if it was the first time. What I noticed was that in allowing all preconceived ideas to fall away I could truly experience it like it was the first time. It was with childish glee that I saw my etheric dancing between my fingers, but then I noticed something else, not only was the etheric connecting my two fingers it also spread out to the tree that I was sitting next to. It was a cool moment when I experienced again the connection with all things. Today I am going to share with you another excerpt from my upcoming book The Way of the Initiate, in this section the young boy learns about the illusion of separation.
After a restful night’s sleep, the old sage and the young boy enjoyed a breakfast of rice as they hung their feet in the winter chill of the stream. The moment they put their feet in the water, an icy spike shot up both their bodies. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling because they both felt truly alive. As their feet became acclimatized to the chill of the water, the sun had risen higher enough in the sky to warm their bodies. It was early winter, but the element of Fire from the sun was very much alive and giving its gift to them both. A whisp of air caressed them as they filled their bellies with the rice flavored with miso.
The young boy was not aware of it, but the old sage was having him experience the elements through his five senses. It was to be the beginning of another teaching, which on some level was being guided by the young boy's higher self, a teaching that the old sage had the ability to tap into. After so many years of training, it was just as easy for him to tap into the higher self of another as it was to tap into his own higher self. There was never any thought of judgement or manipulation when he tapped into the mind of another. His days had taught him that we are all connected, and to do something to someone else was really only doing it to yourself.
After breakfast, he took Huo over to a plum tree and told him that today they were going to practice mindful meditation. When the young man gave him a weird look, he just smiled. "Don't worry, my boy. It’s as easy as holding this plum in your hand." With that, he gave Huo a plum and asked him to sit under the plum tree. "I want you to close your eyes and focus all your attention on the plum. Think of nothing else; the key to this exercise is to learn all you can about the plum."
Huo closed his eyes and started to put his attention into the plum. This is ridiculous, he thought to himself as his mind began to wander. He could hear the wind whistling through the trees and the river babbling in the background, and he could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin; in fact, the only thing that he could not focus on was the plum in his hand. He opened his eyes, only a little bit, to see firstly if the old man was watching him and secondly if the plum was still in his hand.
The old sage grinned back at the young boy and mouthed the word 'Focus.'
Huo closed his eyes again and tried to focus on the plum. It was still not working, so this time he held the plum in his left hand while he explored it with his right. He knew what the plum tasted like, but being a child, he had never held a plum long enough to understand what it felt like. At first, it felt shiny; no, that was how he expected it to feel. He explored it again, this time letting go of any expectations. The skin was tight, but underneath he could feel the liquid, the softness. He began to explore with his feelings rather than his fingers, for he realized that his fingers were showing him what he expected to see. The first feeling that came back was the word ‘refreshing’; he went deeper into that feeling and saw a picture of himself in the future as a young man enjoying the juice of the plum as it ran into his mouth. Then his feelings changed, and so did the picture in his mind. The feelings had now taken him to the orchard where the plums were grown, and he could see - no, it was more than that: he could feel - the orchard existing in this one plum. Then his feelings went deeper into the plum, and he experienced all the elements that went into making the plum: there was the Fire of the Sun, the Water of the stream, the warmth and coldness at the right time of the Air, and this all took place in the minerals of the Earth.
His consciousness was expanding too quickly; he had become open to everything, but his mind was not ready to cope with what he was experiencing, and he shut down and fell into a deep sleep under the plum tree with the plum still held in his left hand.
The old man moved over to him and placed his pack under his head. The boy had gone far deeper than he had expected, but he would soon recover, and he knew the young boy would never look at a plum the same way again. Although the young boy may not yet realize it, he had learnt that we are not so much what we think, but more what we feel. He had begun to experience the Godforce/Tao in all things, and just as it had been in all things, it was in him; he was just another aspect of the Tao. Of course, it had all been too much for his young mind, a mind that was not ready to accept that there is only One.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the teachings imbedded in it. For next couple of days why not practice putting your focus into the world around you; start to truly experience things for the first time, whether it be your morning coffee, a sunset, the food that you eat or even the touch of your lover, allow all of your senses to be fully alive and see if you can experience the feeling that everything exudes. When I first tried this with a cup of coffee it was like I had never drank coffee before, it gave it a freshness and a vitality that the thousands of coffees that I drank before did not. There was even a point in my mind's eye where I caught a vision of where the coffee was being grown. This may sound a little weird but over the years I have discovered that there is an infinite level of information that you can receive when you become one with all things. In my second book The 33rd Sage and the Initiate the main character Conway has many such experiences while on his quest. I would like to think that we are all on that quest, but only that our journeys are different.
Blessings and peace and may you begin to see the infinity in every experience.
Geof
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The 33rd Sage and the 33rd Sage and the Initiate are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Watersons, Xlibris and a number of online book stores.
The Way of the Initiate will be published mid 2013
Twitter @GeofSpalding
Official Author Blog - the33rdsage.authorsxpress.com/
Translatable Author Blog - 33rdsage.blogspot.com.au/
Book Websites 'The 33rd Sage,' at www.33rdsage.com
'The 33rd Sage and the Initiate,' at www.the33rdsage.com
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