Becoming more subtle 

Refining your awareness

Most people are physically focused, meaning focused on form and the material world that they can see with their physical eyes.  With this the tendency is to focus on objects, circumstances, events, the physical body, sensations and what is outwardly being done.  This is a gross level of awareness as opposed to subtle level of awareness.  

Subtle awareness begins to occur when less focus is placed on the form and more focus begins to get placed on the formless.  So what is the formless?  This may seem mysterious to some people as they have never had any pointers to the formless and so they don’t even know it exists.  The formless is the substratum from which the form gets expressed or created.  One way to play with this is to feel what you were before you had a body.  To feel your existence prior to your physical form or birth.  Another way to play with this is to notice the difference between a person who is alive in their body versus one who has died or is no longer in form.  A body, without the formless making it come alive, is no longer the being we know.  So ask yourself what is the being? That being that you knew, that was previously inside of a particular body, is the formless nature that we all are.  

Other ways to notice the formless are to bring your awareness to what remains when everything else falls away.  When there are no objects, thoughts, feelings, or sensations, than what remains is beingness or pure existence prior to form.  Because we are so physically focused rarely do we put our attention on beingness or what would seem like nothingness to the overstimulated mind, but in fact this formlessness is more alive and real than the forms you see with your eyes.  But don’t take my word for it, directly experience it for yourself by shifting your awareness away from form and towards the formless.   

Benefits of being more subtle 

The sky is limitless

So why would you want to become more subtle or tuned into the formless you may ask.  Some of the primary reasons are that you become more perceptive and can view from larger perspectives.  Its kind of like switching from the perspective of an ant to one of an eagle.  You can see quite a bit more from the eagle’s view.  With this lots of things are more easily “brought into perspective” and by this I mean things that seem scary to the ant are not scary to the eagle.  As your perspective expands things that feel fearful to you become less so.  

Your sense of a being a separate person also begins to dissolve.  When you experience yourself less as an individual person or more as beingness itself it is easier to tune into “other people” because they are less differentiated from you.  Some people have a fear of this because the feel like they will “take on other people’s stuff”.  However as you increase your subtle awareness you begin to realize that there really is no you or them, that there is just one beingness, so this idea of their stuff or your stuff becomes less relevant as the need to protect an individual self diminishes.  

The more and more subtle your awareness becomes the thinner the veil of separation between you and God or Source becomes.  With this you feel less disconnected, less powerless, and less unworthy.  You begin to know your true self as God/Source/Beingness more and more.  The identity of yourself as a form, primarily a physical body, becomes less as well.  The more you realize this body is simply an intelligent, creative expression of an aspect of you, not you yourself.  

This is the direction towards unity, knowing your wholeness, and oneness, along with clarity and love.  From the perspective of oneness there is only one’s self which is bliss/love, and everything that is seen as form is simply an expression of this one love.  The need to protect oneself from oneself becomes ridiculous from this perspective.  When you can view another from this perspective they begin to remember who and what they truly are.  This is how through your beingness and knowingness of your true self you impact another and can turn their heart to open towards more love as well.  

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado