The Great Sympathy

The tendency, from moment to moment, is to become fascinated by the intricacies of the unfolding drama of your life, generally involving you and those close or potentially close to you. By following that tendency without conscious awareness leads to losing yourself in a needless rollercoaster of thrills and spills, ecstasies and agonies and will leave you reeling and feeling sick and dizzy.

However by following the fascination with conscious awareness, by remaining centred in your body through the ups and downs, you are fully entertained and enthralled, yet not identified with that aspect of self undergoing the drama. That aspect of self becomes as the actor in the movie you’re watching, while, you who bears witness to that actor playing the role, remains safe and sound in your seat, learning, growing, recognising and healing yourself throughout. It’s like straddling two levels of reality – the eternal and the local.

For that within which bears witness, is in the eternal realm – it has been watching life unfold from the interior, lifetime after lifetime, while that which experiences the pain and pleasure of local existence – the body and personality - is merely a passing form – a beautiful and mysterious form but passing nonetheless. It lives in the realm of the relative, while the eternal self lives in the realm of the absolute.

Straddling the two comprises enlightenment.

The way it’s done, is to pull the point from which you’re watching the show, backwards between your ears into the dead centre of your brain, so that you’re watching from further back inside. Simultaneously, slow down your breathing and let it flow smoothly – holding or inhibiting your breath is what holds you transfixed to the pain and pleasure of the local (and vice versa) – letting the breath flow enables you to let both the pain and pleasure go (it’s important to let the pleasure go as much as the pain, otherwise it stagnates inside you). Then lengthen your spine, raise your breastbone and relax all your muscles and soft tissue and sink your weight below your navel.

This is best practiced sitting, standing or lying still with eyes all but closed save for a thin slither of light and can then be taken out to play with you in the big, wide world, with eyes open, as you work, rest and play – remember, relaxing is not the same as collapsing – you can relax fully in the midst of action – in fact it’s the only way to attain full efficiency in your actions, in the same way a snowboarder, for example, performs more effectively when relaxed and hence in command of the body and mind.

With that part of you watching from the space of eternity within, constantly reach inwards to the Tao itself, the source of all existence, whence springs the Great Sympathy, the root of the all-pervading tree of universal love, for by touching this, you spark off a chain reaction of love throughout the affairs of your life and beyond to eventually affect the entire universe for the better. By instigating a milieu of universal love within and hence, without, miracles start happening in your life and the lives of those around you – quantum events of healing that take you completely by surprise.

That’s my wish for you – that you're completely surprised by miracles popping in all aspects of your life today (and tonight and right through the weekend).

Expect miracles.

BD