Transcript from a meeting with James Eaton on 15 April, 2017
Q: I can drop the story momentarily, but there is still sensation. And the sensation is, not constantly, but typically recently, is pretty heavy.
James: Great. So we come back to the start again. Simple. Child-like. Here we are. Whatever-we-are. And we notice that whatever-we-are, that’s here, has this quality of being aware. Aware of the visual image, of sounds, smells and tastes, as well as thoughts, feelings and sensations, all coming and going, while this that we are, that is aware, doesn’t come and go, but remains constant throughout.
So rather than an entity inside a body, it seems that what we really are is this ‘pure awareness’.
And then we start to see that the coming and going sounds, smells and tastes; the thoughts, feelings and sensations; even the visual image, are not separate from this awareness that we are – that there is wholeness.
And then we come to these gritty, visceral, dense bodily sensations. So what we’re doing now is, just like we did with sounds, smells and tastes, we’re bringing these two, these seeming two, together. We’re inviting that gritty, dense sensation to soften into this aware openness that we are. To come back to wholeness.
Awareness is not that gritty sensation. And yet it’s not separate from it either.
So it’s welcomed in. We don’t grab it and pull it in! Because that’s just the ‘me’ wilfully trying to get somewhere again, which only creates more resistance. I often get the image coming up of Mother Mary – just standing there with arms open, with no agenda, just beaming unconditional love and openness. That’s what aware openness is. That’s what we truly are. So it’s not anything we have to do. In fact it’s the easing of a previous effort – the effort to tighten and clench.
Lovingly acknowledging and welcoming that dense, coagulated, grisly ‘bleurgh’; without agenda, allowing it to do whatever it needs to do.
And it might seem like that heavy sensation grows. But because we’re in this place-less place, that’s Ok. It can grow. If our eyes are closed it may even manifest as all kinds of wild mental images. The things I’ve experienced when doing this sort of work have been extraordinary. All that repressed energy that could never be faced, stagnating in the mind over a lifetime, can take on all kinds of demonic appearances.
And there can be a huge amount of rage coming up, often connected to very early childhood, when we suffer this great fall from wholeness into separateness, when we start to take on the psychological self. And we’re really angry about it – the terrible twos! But the apocalyptic temper tantrums we throw are so wild they tend to get shut down, and we’re not allowed to express. So it’s that child’s rage that could never express. ‘Apocalyptic’ is the right word for it, because there’s no holding back in a small child, the lid is totally off!
And if we can stay with that rage, acknowledge it, include it, honour it, then often we find grief in there too. Grief for the loss of wholeness. It’s like a death. It’s a death that’s never been grieved. And along with that goes the rationalisation that to have lost love, we must be abominable. That is the terrifying place that we never want to be seen, that we never want to go near.
But when you meet it all from this openness, when you start to feel, just once, just once! You start to feel the energies coming up and they’re allowed, and you’re being the loving space for it to move, to open, to be listened to, to be acknowledged, when you see that nothing happens to You, just once! It’s like a penny-in-the-slot that suddenly drops: ‘Ah-ha!’ So from then on, when you find yourself in that situation, it opens more and more and more. So more of these tensions we hold can release, more repressed energy can be reclaimed. That’s the process.
But, you know, it’s finding the way into that first experience of it. Rather than what often happens, which is, sitting with it, trying to love it, whilst secretly wanting it to go away! That just creates more resistance. So we get stuck in a loop and nothing changes.
So how do we step out of that loop and get that first taste, so that we know what we’re talking about here is real? It’s about loving whatever arises, not from the personal ‘me’ that wants it all to go away, but from this new place, that’s not a place – this unconditional awareness that has no agenda, that is love. That’s what’s going on in these workshops. Getting that first taste, having that penny dropping down the slot: ‘Ah-ha! I see!’ And then we can start to take ownership of the process for ourself.
