Integration isn't always easy.

The goal of this work isn't to eliminate unpleasant emotions or experiences (who would want that boring life?), but rather to realign us with our resilience, our equanimity, our ability to adapt to circumstances, and our power to create.
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Greetings Healers,

These words from Robert Adams echo many I heard from Herwig over the years and constitute perhaps the best integration advice I've ever encountered. Perhaps you, too, might find value in them:

"The only thing you can do is to wake up. When you wake up you see the world as a reflection, as a reflection of a mirror. The mirror is always the same. It never changes. The reflections change.

The question is, of course, then why are there reflections? Where do they come from? And as you know, my answer is that they do not exist. It's an analogy I give you to let you understand where everything is coming from.

Only reality exists and you are that. Only consciousness exists and you are that. Only love exists and you are that. If you only realized who you were you would be the happiest person that ever lived, and I mean happy, totally happy, unchanging happiness. Is there such a thing? Yes there is. Unchanging peace. Unchanging love.

But you have chosen to identify with the maya, with the unreality, and so you think you suffer. You believe your life is not the way it should be. You compare yourself to someone else. You want to make changes. As you know by now, when you make those changes they only last a short time, then you're back where you were before.

The wise person, therefore, does really not look to change anything. They become quiet. They have patience. They work on themselves. They watch their thoughts, watch their actions and observe themselves getting angry, observe themselves getting depressed, observe themselves getting jealous and envious and the rest of it.

Little by little they realize, "That's not me. That's hypnosis. That's a lie." They do not react to their condition. To the extent that they do not react to their condition, to that extent do they become free. They no longer care what anybody else is doing. They compare themselves with no one. They compete with no one. They simply watch themselves. They observe themselves. They see the mental confusion. They don't run around shouting, "I am absolute reality. I am God. I am consciousness." Rather, they see where they're coming from and they leave everyone else alone.

Such a being unfolds at a fast rate. It makes no difference what predicament such a being is in. It doesn't matter, for such a being is already free. When the mind rests in the heart, that means when the mind does not go out any longer and identify with the world, when the mind rests in the heart there is peace, there is harmony, there is pure being. When you allow your mind to go out of yourself it begins to compare, it begins to judge, it begins to feel offended, and there is no peace. There’s no rest.

How do you begin? Well, first you realize the place that you're in right now, whether you think it's good or bad, whether you think you're happy or sad, whether you think you're rich, or poor, or sick, or healthy, the place where you’re in right now is your right place. That's a beginning.

You stop trying to be someone else. You stop trying to change your life. You’re in your right place, right now, just the way you are. If you can become happy and peaceful in the place where you are right now, all of a sudden you will find circumstances will change in your favor, and then again you will be in your right place. Whatever change comes along as far as your body-mind is concerned, you’re in your right place. The more you can see that, the more you can look at what I just said intelligently, the more peaceful you become, the more the karmic patterns begin to break away and you begin to awaken.

It may be gradual at first. You notice that things that used to annoy you no longer annoy you. You notice that people that you live with, the conflicts you had, they stop because you've stopped. There's no more trying to get even. There's no more trying to win your point. There's no more trying to find the right book, or the right teacher, or the right anything. You remain centered. You remain free. When something comes along, whether it's good or bad, you simply sit where you are and you ask, "To whom has this come?" and you laugh, for you have separated yourself from your body-mind and you begin to realize that your body-mind is going through the experience but not you.

So there is nothing to worry about. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing that can upset you. There's nothing that can harm you. You realize whatever someone does to your body, physically, or with words, or otherwise, can never, never hurt you because you are not your body. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter what you see with your eyes, it can never affect you, for you are not your mind. You have actually separated yourself from your body and your mind."
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—The Collected Works of Robert Adams, Volume 1: Sitting in the Silence

My thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s healing groups. I have no doubt that our transformation always benefits All That Is in addition to ourselves, and certainly, this ripe global moment can be no exception, which I’d say was demonstrated nicely in this case by all of the lung work the adult group seemed to accomplish—and the heart chakra connections that y’all seem to like to feature so prominently must certainly benefit a time of global healing, as well.

For a broader perspective on what we're all experiencing, an article probably worth anyone's time, "What if the Virus is the Medicine?" asks "How can we, with the support of the unseen, serve as midwives to all that is dying here and all that is being born?" and posits that we’re in a sacred time, and for those interested in a deeper dive, Deepak Chopra recently gave a 30-minute Facebook talk on the interconnectedness of pandemics, their spiritual significance, and the way they serve us. I posit that we can maintain a practice of bearing detached witness to any circumstance or experience.

May we all honor our body's inherent knowledge of perfect health, our immune system's ability to keep house, every circumstance that helps remind us of our true nature, both individually and collectively, and may we find equanimity in the presence of fear.
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With Love,
Colin

Happy new season, Dear Ones,

Noticing how many of us appear to (understandably) be acting from a place of fear recently, and knowing that giving credence to fear a) separates us from our true nature, and b) weakens our immune systems, please let the following rhetorical questions serve as this week’s integration tip:

1) Is it possible that our view of the world is only a paradigm, and that even the things that we believe have been proven might also be subject to paradigmatic blinders or misinterpretation? In fact, hasn’t this always been the case?

2) Is it possible that everything is indeed fundamentally well, and, hence, that we can relax, trust, and abide in abundance, contentment, and joy in each moment and under any circumstances, even if those circumstances might happen to include the presence of emotion?

3) Is it possible that emotions arise in order to heal through simple awareness?

Getting a little more timely...

4) As Béchamp theorized (and with which Louis Pasteur is purported to have concurred on his deathbed), is it possible that microorganisms take up residence in the body subsequent to a pre-existing unhealthy condition in order to help us to heal it and are, hence, not only incidental to a condition rather than the cause but actually beneficial instead? 

5) If this was indeed the case (and there does seem to be ample evidence for it in spite of the prevailing dogma), then, rather than going to war against perceived invaders, wouldn’t our work would be to continue to create conditions of overall health with ongoing confidence in our immune system? 

6) Could we then praise microorganisms for coming to our aid and welcome and observe the healing that occurs? Might there be legitimacy in the holistic view that acute conditions like flus are often a sign of a chronic condition transforming into something manageably acute, whether for an individual or for a community, and wouldn't this then be cause for celebration?

7) And might it also be true that, as Einstein suggested, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe”?

Regardless of any paradigm one might happen to subscribe to, could there ever be any reason not to do our best to create conditions of overall health? Please always know that I’m here to help us all to do just that!

In support of fully functioning, intelligent bodies, as always,
Colin


Further reading:
The effect of fear on the body: https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/impact-fear-and-anxiety
The effect of fear on executive functioning: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/leading-emotional-intelligence/201104/where-did-my-iq-points-go
Béchamp’s “terrain theory”: http://maronewellness.com/pasteur-vs-bechamp-an-alternative-view-of-infectious-disease/
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/notes-from-yesteryear/germ-theory-versus-terrain-the-wrong-side-won-the-day/?fbclid=IwAR04CUt87tAtcq07jGMDx3FWwsx7lvr6sseST-tN1y12DqETexKZvyGMrc0
Some evidence of Pasteur’s fraudulence: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325129.The_Private_Science_of_Louis_Pasteur
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While Abraham might not suit everyone's tastes, could there be better integration advice than this? 

Let's make it an Abe twofer with this 10-minute morning meditation:
https://youtu.be/E4fg6xOeiLs

Happy daily integration,
Colin