PEAK EXPERIENCE INTEGRATION

PEAK EXPERIENCE INTEGRATION 

Going beyond the known

Many of you have had those experiences of pure bliss or ecstatic rapture.  Moments of profundity and transcendental insight.  Where you experienced or knew something beyond what your ordinary senses and mind experience on a day to day basis.  Something that left you feeling touched, moved, alive, open, integrated and whole.  Words often cannot describe these experiences.  In fact when we use words to explain them, the words tend to make the experiences seem more ordinary than they are.  Yet often we want to share something of these moments with others so we do our best to translate them into mental thoughts and ideas, even though they will never truly fit inside of them.  

Peak experiences are gateways for waking up our awareness to the fact that there is more than what we’ve been experiencing life to be.  They stretch us beyond our known world into something more expansive and inclusive.  They often show us that there is indeed something behind the appearance of solid matter and physicalness, and beyond the ordinary thoughts we think.  If we’ve never had a peak experience it’s hard to believe that there is anything more to existence than what we experience as our everyday reality.  We simply have to take it on faith that there is something more, that is until something pops us out of our ordinary experiencing.  Even if we had 1, 2, 10 or a 100 peak experiences it can still be easy to fall back into our normal, habituated way of seeing reality as a physical machine devoid of spirit or essence.  

Peak experiences can occur at any moment and don’t necessarily require anything on our behalf in order to “make” them happen.  There are however certain conditions that seem to make the probability of them occurring more likely.  One is an earnest and sincere desire to know one’s self or know the true nature of reality even if you don’t fully know what that means.  Our desire for this creates the internal conditions along with an attractive force that set the stage for extrasensory or beyond sensory peak type of experiences.  Any type of inner or somatic work that you do, which helps dismantle your physical and mental defenses, increases your receptiveness to these types of experiences as well.  Other activators can be near death experiences, traumatic experiences such as car accidents or other physical/emotional threats, consuming psychedelic substances, meditation, lucid dreaming, sweat lodges and other healing work, particularly when there is a group field effect in place that supports going beyond the known.   

FUNCTION OF PEAK EXPERIENCES 

Bring the extraordinary to life

The function of the peak experience seems to be to give us a new or wider perspective on what is, viewing life in a different light than how we’ve been seeing it.  They also tend to increase our hunger for truth, knowing more of what is, and bring us more into alignment with ourselves and the larger organizing principles of life.  We get to feel what it’s like to vibrate at a higher energetic state with more awareness, openness and inclusion.  I find that it’s fairly natural to desire more of these experiences once you begin to taste them, yet the peak experience without the integration of it, is simply chasing pleasure and in the longterm is not fulfilling.  It’s like sex without love.  It may feel good in the moment, but it doesn’t have any lasting ripples on your state of being or what you create as your day to day reality.  

For many the desire for these experiences is to help bridge the so called gap between what is experienced on the more ordinary levels of reality and what gets glimpsed, tasted and known as reality through them.  Our minds may not believe that the essence of those experiences can really become our day to day reality, and that is the very debris that we need to clear.  Sometimes peak experiences are not “pleasurable” in the ordinary way we think of pleasure, but rather they are uncomfortably revealing.  They reveal where we have thoughts and beliefs that don’t support a more alive, rich and expansive way of being.  It’s like interference in the system of naturalness or our natural state of being.  That interference is made of up of stories and perspectives that we’ve created about our experiences that are distorted or not in alignment with the truth of what is.  Even though we might be very convinced of our perspectives and feel that they are all very accurate, our conviction doesn’t make them true if they are not in alignment with how the larger organizing principle views life, which is always love and acceptance of all.  

The desire to hold anything separate decreases as we open into more and more.  As our rigidities soften, our dissociations land home, and our completeness is accepted by us there is less and less that we can even perceive as separate.  This is the perspective you taste during peak moments, and yes for the most part it feels good, or better stated it feels like unified ecstasy that is grounded and all pervasive, that knows without figuring anything out, that loves without thought, and that is without anything.  Integrating these experiences is work.  It’s the core reason why we do any of this inner work to begin with.  To live the truth of our being, which is free, boundless, unified, whole, in love and at peace, that’s why we do it.  

There is infinite oneness from which infinite possibilities are birthed and brought into expression.  The deeper you know this infinite oneness to be the truth of existence and the source of all, the more available and capable you are to bring these possibilities to life.  Beyond ordinary, non-ordinary and extraordinary is increasingly and increasingly more probable to be your lived experience as you commit to integrating and bringing your peak experiences to life.

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

UN-CONDITION THE SPACE OF YOU

UN-CONDITION THE SPACE OF YOU

Birthplace of programs, patterns & conditions 

Often in spiritual circles we talk about deprograming or de-conditioning ourselves from the programs and conditions we’ve learned, which are either untrue or don’t serve us any longer.  Much of our personal work and development is focused on dismantling these patterns that create inauthentic ways of being, so that ultimately we can simply be ourselves just as we are with nothing added or subtracted.  In fact much, if not all of our suffering, stems from disconnection from ourselves (i.e. not knowing ourselves) and then attempting to be someone or something out of that sense of disconnected emptiness.  This creates the entire gamut of patterns, programs, strategies and conditions that come along with attempting to be someone or something other than what we nakedly and innately are.  

What are these programs, patterns and conditions really made up of?  All patterns are simply made up out of thought.  Those thoughts inform, direct and mold the forms and behaviors that you see and experience.  The root of thoughts are beliefs, the root of belief is perspective, and the root of perspective is simply perception or the ability to perceive.  So the fact that you can perceive (i.e. that you are aware) creates a perspective or lens from which beliefs, thoughts and forms are birthed or brought into creation.  Each level back is less conditioned or patterned.  Forms are the most conditioned or patterned, thoughts a little less so, beliefs even less so, perspectives less so than beliefs, and pure perception/awareness is the least conditioned.  This is why as people become more steeped in pure awareness (which is the most refined or primordial essence or substance if you want to call it that) the more transparent they become.  Transparent in actual form, less fixated in thought, and less biased and strongly held in their beliefs.  This is the space of what all of the work of de-conditioning or deprogramming brings us all directly into contact with and ultimately shifts our sense of identity.  

See when we are fixated on the body and the thoughts in our head we think ourselves to be a separate human being, that becomes our identity.  Be clear that separate human being is just a thought.  When we start to recognize the beliefs that create the thoughts and forms, we see ourselves as less and less separate as we begin to be able to change our thoughts and see the direct impact of that change on our physical world.  This makes us feel less separate from and more a part of or interconnected, so our identity is more like a web of beings rather than just a separate individual being.  When the beliefs become clearer and clearer and lighter and lighter we open into the recognition of perspective, which is like the lens through which light is focalized.  Here our identity is that of what I would call the soul or higher self.  We realized our selves beyond a linear timeline seeing our entire trajectory or journey forward, backward and now.  Until finally even the lens is transcended and all that remains is pure light or pure awareness, which is non-localized, spacious, all encompassing and all pervasive.  Here identify is just one, one beingness, which is what I call the God state.   

BEING UNCONDITIONAL SPACE

Giving the gift that you are

Now that we are clear on how conditions arrive in the first place we can easily see that as we track our way back to the source of it all we arrive in that unconditional, non-localized, all pervasive space of ourselves.  This is the purest state of being possible and it is your true self; it is what and who you are.  (Side note: There is a traversing beyond beingness itself which is to remove yourself completely from creation. It is quite advanced and another transition all together which I will not address in this article.)

When you know yourself as God, or as pure awareness, the space of you is unconditioned.  This means that anything and everything is possible as no conditions are set and no programmed responses have been decided or determined.  It also means that anything that interacts with this unconditional space has an opportunity to see, remember and know itself clearly.  For example say that there is a group of 5 sitting in a room and one of those in the group has recognition of the unconditional space that they are and they’re completely rested in that knowingness.  Through the restedness they have in themselves, in what they are, they naturally and effortlessly emit that and it becomes the container of the group or room.  What will then organically occur is that any beings that are present in that group who are more transparent in their form, thoughts, beliefs and perspective will naturally and effortlessly meet that awareness.  To whatever degree one is transparent in self will be the degree to which they can meet that awareness.  Of course that awareness does not stop at the container of the four walls and therefore has opportunity to be picked up by any and all open enough to become coherent with it.

When no conditions are set and no programmed responses have been decided or determined God just simply is and moves.  This is where we recognize that self-organizing principle of life that does itself by itself.  Our heart flies open and moves towards God, merging into that source of what it is through the recognition of itself.  If we are still fused with our thoughts including our worries, concerns, plans for our future and such, than we may try to define it, put it in a box, label it, force it somehow, or figure it out, but when we are beyond the box of our thoughts we simply allow it and recognize it as God and eventually as ourselves.  

To un-condition yourself, which is simply to remember yourself, is the biggest gift and really the only gift any of us have to give.  The giving being inherent and naturally occurring, you couldn’t stop it even if you tried.  Your thoughts, actions, behaviors, and movements are all seamlessly in God as God.  Nothing being out of flow or coherence.  Not acting as the person you, but from the knowingness of what is prior to it all.  

It all boils down to what you desire and where you place your focus.  Do you desire to play in the world of forms, manipulating and achieving, moving from here to there, feeling like you have purpose in a particular way and hoping to find peace and happiness once everything settles into place?  If so you will not have the penetrative power that you need to break through the layers of your own mind.  Do you desire to know yourself, know the truth and know God and is that your one and only sole desire that you seek at the expense of all else realizing there will never be an external settling into place or peace and happiness found in anything you do, achieve or accomplish?  If so you will have the fuel that you need to realize yourself and so it will be.  You then become the gift that you’ve been all along and your radiance touches all.

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

Abundance as the Natural State

ABUNDANCE AS THE NATURAL STATE

Focusing on what is

So much we are focused on what isn’t.  We spend our energy thinking about all the things that we desire as if they are somehow lacking now with the aspiration that we will attain them at some future date.  This is the near constant game that our mind’s play on us.  It goes something like this.  Look out at the manifestation of this thing that we call physical reality.  See how there are certain things not in your visual or mental perspective that you would like to see or believe are there.  Things such as cars, houses, clothes, friendships, partnerships, children, jobs, degrees, money, vacations, etc.  Decide that at some future date those things will be there.  Work to achieve said things until they arrive at future date.  Become happy when things arrive and become sad when they don’t arrive.  In many ways this sums up our human existence.  

While exciting at first, or exciting when you are feeling successful, living simply to achieve your desires is temporary unsustainable happiness that is dependent on what is showing up being in alignment with what you think should be there.  Read that sentence again until it really sinks in.  What if there is another way to live besides for the achievement of your desires?  Would you be willing to stop focusing on what is missing from your experience and trying to get something from it that you perceive isn’t there?  Many people might initially say yes however when it comes to implementation, follow through is often poor.  We are addicted to focusing on what we think isn’t there and such our experience is one of lack, followed by effort and trying, and feeling only success if we can somehow get the thing to appear to us.  This is the cycle of suffering.

You might be thinking how do I not perceive lack when clearly I can’t perceive the thing that I want as being in my direct experience.  First I will say that your focus on it not being here is all that keeps it from being perceivable to you and what pushes it away or keeps it out from your direct experience.  Mostly we are unaware that we are even doing this, however whatever we insist upon will be what we experience even when we are unconscious as to what it is that we are insisting upon.  Something to entertain to help you open up your perspective is the recognition that somewhere what you desire exists.  It is not out of creation, it just simply is not directly here now.  This perspective can be a bridge for you until you can more fully rest in the abundance of is-ness itself and begin to slowly shift your focus on what is rather than what isn’t.  If you fully shift your focus solely onto what is, even if only for a few seconds, the abundance of life as the natural state will be evidently clear. 

COMPLETENESS OF ISNESS

Want nothing to be different than it is

Due to that fact that most all of us think that the goal of life is to achieve our desires and then die we completely miss the fact of our own existence.  We place most of our attention on the stuff of life and very little, if any, attention on the fact that we exist, that we be, that we are, and so we are unfamiliar with ourselves or with is-ness.  Simply is-ness is.  Is-ness is before any forms or before anything takes shape in our perceptible and sensorial experience.  Recognizing is-ness is the recognition of completion, abundance and the natural state prior to phenomena.  

You may wonder how you can more fully pay attention to the fact that you exist.  The easiest way that I have found is to set yourself in the attitude of not wanting anything to be different than it is.  When you stop resisting what is, either through giving up your focus on what is not or by directly surrendering to your conflict with whatever the appearances are that are showing up for you in any given moment, you are left only with is-ness.  That pure state of beingness before thought forms emerge which begin to inform your experience.  In addition to not wanting anything to be different than it is, is also not wanting anything from anything.  In this way you end your desires to get something from anything.  When you do this you will see how much of your energy and attention it takes to engage in life by trying to get something that you perceive you want, think will benefit you, keep you safe or ensure your survival.  Once suspended, all of that energy and attention that was bound up in getting, can then be redirected into the pure focus on your beingness rather than on trying to somehow manipulate life to your liking.

What I am pointing to here is quite simple in application, so it begs the question as to why we don’t follow through.  Why do we stop ourselves even before we try?  Why do we want so much to hold onto our perspective of lack which leads to effort and trying rather than surrender to life and experience the abundance of it?  First the mind doesn’t like simplicity.  It wants it to be more complicated than that so it will do its best to try and complicate and confuse things for you.  Two, we often think that our desires and preferences are more important than they actually are, so we don’t want to give them up.  We confuse our desires, preferences and what we think should be (rather than what is) for self-empowerment and therefore think we need to justly fight or stand up for what we want.  When we don’t get what we want, or achieve what we want, we feel cheated or somehow worthless or not valuable.  It’s hard for our egos to swallow the fact that they really aren’t that important.  That what we want isn’t that important and often not even relevant.  It feels like a punch in the stomach, or a death of sorts, like everything you thought was so important no longer being so.  This is the beginning of the dis-identification of the ego as you and the surrender into the god state where you come to know the real you.  

Lastly we’ve confused our happiness, joy, bliss, safety, security and ok-ness to be locked up in something seemingly out there so we keep trying to get it from out there somewhere, in circumstances and conditions.  It will never be found there because conditions always change.  What doesn’t change is you, is is-ness.  Is-ness always is.  It doesn’t come and go.  It is the stability in the ever changing sea of appearances.  Lock onto that instead and you will know yourself and what true sustainable abundant, bliss, joy, freedom and safety is.  No more will you need to seek it out in the world of appearances. When you arrive here you will begin to see that your necessity to make things happen through the physical lessens and your more formless nature will be more real than the form.  Greater ease and effortless doing naturally emerges.  You become more in agreement with God, with the real you, and that alignment, though death to your ego, will set you free.  That is divine union.  That is mergence with God.  That is the return of oneness remembering itself.  My best advice is to stop being so stubborn and just let God be as God is and you will discover everlasting peace.  

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