Can you feel your wondrous nature? How does it feel?
For me, it’s an energy of curiosity, vibrance, essence.
I can’t describe it fully; it’s me. The unique vibratory experience that I am.
Deepak Chopra describes it as the energy that observes, from behind the eyes.
“Intention lays the groundwork for the effortless, spontaneous, frictionless flow of pure potentiality seeking expression from the unmanifest to the manifest.”
You might not always feel it, yet it’s still present. You can always choose to draw upon it.
I was struck by Sadhguru when he told Willow Smith:
Never give up your wonderfulness, not for anything.
Sadhguru is on a tour of the USA now, and I love that he still gives time to riding his motorbike across the country. There’s no hurry or rush to fulfil as many dates and interviews as possible. He gives himself time to feel the wind in his hair, and the open country.
I always enjoyed motorbike riding for this reason; you can feel the speed, and the miles beneath the wheels, and, like riding a pushbike, there’s a sense of balance with the machine.
I learned to ride in Vietnam, and then quickly took a crash course — luckily without too many actual crashes, in mountain road riding.
I remember one particular aspect vividly because so many people I met had scrapes down their legs for this reason; they told me wisely, that if I was approaching a sharp turn up a steep hill, to make the turn slowly, but with purpose on the throttle. There’s a knack to this riding; a sweet spot, where the experience is effortless. Over time, I got to know either side of this experience, and there is a point where I could feel the bike slipping.
It was a real joy to ride these roads; swerve around the bends, ride down millions of year old canyons of rock, with the river flowing at the bottom, a river that had cut through in its timeless patience and persistence.
Wondrous nature.
It emanated from me in those moments; you couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if you’d tried. I was deeply peaceful in my chest; there was a warmth there that wanted for no other thing. I didn’t need any particular food, I was satisfied with water, and I was able to get to a connection so quickly with others.
I wanted to soak it all in; I was in that moment entirely. When I remember that moment, it doesn’t come to me as memory; it comes to me as a felt sense. I relive it. I embody it.
I recently engaged in a breathwork class with R. Christian Minsen, and I tapped more in-depth to my wondrous nature. Towards the end of the session, he asked me to communicate the felt sense of that nature in my body, so that I could recall it if I needed to.
I chose to rub my fingers together with sensual pleasure.
Now, whenever I do that, I get the warmth in my chest.
Often, all I need to do is remind myself that it’s possible.
Do you have any practices that encourage you to be in your wondrous nature?
In life, we don’t always get an opportunity to live in this nature.
There are so many occasions where you might feel obligated, stifled, or pushed into action. These are the teachings, taking the human course at university, so to speak.
Ram Dass always said that, and I laugh so heartily when he talks about his friend Emmanuel. I love how deeply he cherished his imaginary friend, and that his friend said to him:
You’re in a school, why don’t you try taking the curriculum? Why don’t you try being human?
So many of us; fighting hard to get out of our lives; our bodies, our jobs, our relating patterns.
It leads to polarisation.
It won’t work. It would help if you accepted the patterns and then choose differently. That’s the path.
It’s not possible to bypass the difficulty; there are no neat tricks.
Recalling your wondrous nature allows you to keep that possibility with you at all times. I know the depths of despair well, I was there today.
There’s always a lesson in that vibe, today’s lesson was that I could exist in there for infinity until I chose differently.
Sometimes you need teachers to reflect, and guide, you through life.
I benefited from Sadhguru’s words today; they made me feel that feeling in my chest, it turned me around. I’m working on being able to do that for myself, yet, when I exist in shame, I need to talk about it.
It takes a village to raise a child.
That’s an old proverb!
Edith Egers communicates, in her book ‘The Gift — 12 Lessons To Save Your Life’:
As an Auschwitz survivor, I am here to tell you that the worst prison is not the one the Nazis put me in. The worst prison is the one I built for myself.
We all have states of being that develop for survival. An intelligent function of the human being; it indeed keeps us alive amongst some incredibly difficult things, and as we grow, and if we find ourselves in a safe environment, then we no longer need those states. Yet, they stick around because they remain in our subconscious beliefs. We’re not aware of them, and so they continue to inhibit the realms of possibility for us.
Frustration arises from here; the binds that you can get into, between what you believe you need for survival and what you’re soul is speaking to you.
The universe gives us all a big challenge in mid-life, it says ‘here are the gifts that I gave you, time is running out. Start using them.’
Our culture has given up the sacred, spiritual, aspect of this; what used to be called ‘The Calling’.
You and I must rediscover this nature of relating to the very essence of nature that we are all a part.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info?
A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com