Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage
Chapter Two
Beyond Words
I was leading a very mainstream life. While I had some sense of purpose, I additionally had an underlying feeling that something was seriously lacking. Even though there was a recognition of incompletion, I can’t say that it was a conscious realization, more of a sense of things not expressed, blocked or segregated.
The previous year I’d left the large government agency where I’d worked nearly my entire career up to that point. Being out from under bureaucratic constraints lent a certain kind of freedom that I craved, but a large part of my livelihood was still generated through that environment where I returned as a consultant. I felt the rigidity of the organization to the point that it triggered an aversion in me.
What I now know is that whenever we have an unreasonably strong response to something external, something is lurking internally of the same nature. At the time, I recognized what I can only describe as flatness, a lack of real engagement to anything in which I was involved. It’s unlikely that this fact was apparent to anyone but me. I was known for my mind and abilities for pulling people and projects together. To others, my guess is that I appeared actively engaged in my life. After all, I was busy doing what needed to be done, just like most with whom I came in contact.
But I knew something was omitted. Fourteen years earlier, I’d had a major signal identifying my disconnection. Because of a viral infection that attacked my thyroid, I became extremely ill. I was likely within a hair’s breadth of death before I’d had any inkling of the seriousness of the illness. It probably was only through my mother’s mother-bear-like, protective attention and demands to the physician I finally visited that I am even alive today.
A major crisis such as this one is often the impetus that will kick start a revelation — or revolution. After my recovery, I finally comprehended the level of absurdity and danger that the lack of awareness of my own condition brought. I was able to discern that I wasn’t practicing denial in the sense of not wanting to face something. But more so, I was disconnected from my body to the degree that I had been unable to recognize my lack of health. How could I? My life and level of consciousness was weighted in my head, cut off from my physicality and any real experience or attunement other than mental observation.
I heeded a cry from my Core Self, not even knowing of her existence, and sought out meditation. That was an unlikely avenue back then, only because where I was living at the time offered very few opportunities to explore anything even somewhat resembling consciousness studies. With the help of a couple of books, I put together a practice to which I remained faithful.
Over the years, I found myself becoming increasingly calmer and healthier. I knew that the change was due directly to my dedicated focus on meditation. Indeed, I became much more in tune with my body and its messages to me. I began to trust those messages implicitly, telling me when things were right, or not, in my world.
But I knew something was still missing. I remained an observer to a large degree, not a participant. While I’d read of spirituality and various states that told of that realm, I’d had no direct experience. I intellectually knew that Spirit was an aspect of my makeup, but couldn’t quite grasp even the concept of such a reality. And yet there was something underpinning my entire existence that called out for this wholeness. Some part of me deeply desired integration.
When strong intent is present, the means to fulfill it will automatically appear. But I didn’t know this truth at that point in my journey. I only knew that I felt somewhat fragmented, and one day noticed an ad in a professional journal for a retreat with a Peruvian shaman to be held in the Southern Utah desert. Ignoring the fact that my sole idea of camping then was in pensions in large European cities, or that I didn’t even know what the term “shaman” meant, I felt a strong draw in my body to call and register. So, I did.
Four months later, I flew cross-country to Salt Lake City where I was picked up with some other retreat goers and driven some hours south to a remote canyon in the San Rafael Swell. The beauty of the area was incredible and helped to overwhelm my uneasiness of being with people with whom I wasn’t acquainted, and an upcoming event about which I knew absolutely nothing.
When we finally rolled into the makeshift camp, I climbed out of the truck feeling a mixture of excitement and apprehension, the two being closely linked anyway. While in this state, I noticed a brown-skinned man making his way toward me. He had dark, wavy hair, a mustachioed, handsome face, and wore a woven poncho. His eyes sparkled. He smiled broadly and wrapped his arms around me in greeting. As he did so, any fear I felt dissipated immediately and was replaced by great warmth swelling from some place inside me, unlike any I’d ever felt. This was the man the sponsors had advertised as a shaman, the person who, in the years ahead, I would come to know not only as a mystic and teacher of the heart, but a cherished friend — Don Américo Yábar. My meeting him was to change the fabric of my entire life. And I had asked for it unknowingly.
Around the campfire that evening, Don Américo introduced the subject of intent through his translator. He encouraged each of us to set our intent that evening for the week that was to follow. I went off on my own to think about what he’d said, the whole idea of intent being a slippery one, at best, that I had a challenge grasping. However, I decided that I must have set my intent, at some level, before I even came. That was what pulled me to the retreat not even knowing what it entailed. I wanted to be joined. I wanted direct engagement. I wanted integration of my mind, body and spirit. I told no one.
The next morning held the usual gorgeous, blue desert sky. The group had hiked some distance from our camp and found a natural rock amphitheatre. We made ourselves comfortable in the shadows of the boulders, out from under the Utah sun which was already getting quite warm. Don Américo began to speak. I don’t remember now exactly what he said. I was being lulled by the lilting rhythms of his and his translator’s vocal patterns that took the meaning of the words to some unconscious level.
Suddenly, he stopped and gazed intensely at me. He motioned for me to come to the middle of the circle where he stood. Under normal circumstances, I would have done so reluctantly, if at all, not being comfortable “exposing” myself to others in that way. In that case, however, I felt completely at ease.
I approached him. He stood directly in front of me only about eighteen inches away, his liquid brown eyes locking onto mine. It was as though he was channeling pure love directly into my being. Both of his hands hovered right outside my body at the chest level.
Making a motion of pulling apart outside the heart center, he said, “The way to see is with the body’s eye.”
I felt what I could only describe as a sweet welling in that energy center that began to undulate, creating a rippling effect.
He moved one hand up to my forehead. Making a wiping motion in my subtle energy field, he proclaimed, “Not the mind’s eye!”
I felt something shut at that level, all the while the heart energy continued to reverberate. I was unaware of anything other than large waves of effervescent warmth that seemed to echo silently, returning from the stones surrounding us, further intensifying the awakening. People seated around us gasped and murmured. I have no idea how long I stood that way. I do not know how I found my feet to return to my seat. I do not recall what occurred the rest of the day.
I was opened. I was filled. I’d had my first direct experience — beyond words.
Substitution
Words are the shell. They feed intellectual knowledge. What lies in the middle of words is the seed that, if presented and embraced in a certain way, will take us to the place we seek. But words in and of themselves are worthless, like so many knickknacks we may collect and leave on a shelf to gather dust, if we are unable to move beyond them.
For the purpose of making a point, I’m going to offer a distinction between hearing and listening. We’ll regard hearing as the mechanical process of sound hitting the apparatus that then filters through to register in our brains; within whatever paradigms we’ve already developed. The brain quickly sorts the sound or series of words into what appears to be the relevant slot in order to determine logic. However, when something is boxed in, other things are locked out.
Listening is the process whereby we are able to admit a further awareness than the one first taken in through the sonar signal. Listening actively ignores cognitive dissonance, if there is any, to see how there may be relevanceWords are the shell. They feed intellectual knowledge. What lies in the middle of words is the seed that, if presented and embraced in a certain way, will take us to the place we seek. But words in and of themselves are worthless, like so many knickknacks we may collect and leave on a shelf to gather dust, if we are unable to move beyond them.
For the purpose of making a point, I’m going to offer a distinction between hearing and listening. We’ll regard hearing as the mechanical process of sound hitting the apparatus that then filters through to register in our brains; within whatever paradigms we’ve already developed. The brain quickly sorts the sound or series of words into what appears to be the relevant slot in order to determine logic. However, when something is boxed in, other things are locked out.
Listening is the process whereby we are able to admit a further awareness than the one first taken in through the sonar signal. Listening actively ignores cognitive dissonance, if there is any, to see how there may be relevance — instead of involuntarily determining how there isn’t.
Too often when a spiritual teacher is speaking to a group, I have seen some of those present scribbling furiously in notebooks or journals, thereby splitting their attention. How can we write and really listen at the same time? I have also heard people ask a plethora of questions, or make comments, most often having little to do with the real depth of the words given.
Those are times when I’ve witnessed hearing. In many who only hear, there’s a quiet desperation. It’s a desperation coming from the Core Self, who in silent times, will receive the meaning, or transmit something already deeply known. The problem is when the logical mind is too busy with internal slotting and chatter. Openings rarely exist. Little or no space can appear for something other than what has already been categorized and catalogued!
These are often the same people who are also immediately on to the next thing without time for integration. Therefore, no mastery is possible. The compulsion is generated because they didn’t quite get “it” in previous talks, classes and retreats they attended, or books they read. Anxiety is the overt driver, while deep desire is its foundational engine.
I readily understand this urgency and desperation through the years of my own disorientation. I painfully remember the intensity, frustration and seeming hopelessness of trying to reach out to something that has no tidy form. And yet, somewhere inside those of us who have a strong commitment to the deeper life, a profound tenacity exists. We keep reaching for what will touch us and reassure us of our own Divine Presence in the face of nothing seen or felt.
In reality, all we need to do is sit in silence and allow the space for immersion and emergence. This is the perpetual school. We won’t be asked to regurgitate facts! There are no facts in this context anyway. We are asked to learn and allow the knowing to then inform our expressions. Otherwise, we are merely parroting shallow platitudes because the seed has not been planted, but remains dormant on the surface.
We don’t really learn until we receive it in the body, in conjunction with the mind and the energy of the spirit. In order to do so, we only need listen and the essence, the real resonance of the teaching, will implant itself. We don’t have to worry that we will forget, that we won’t be able to call it up on demand. It will be there — at the level where it makes a difference.
It won’t be there if we don’t allow ourselves to be present. Rather than frantically scratching down every word, we need only jot down a phrase or two, if anything. Then, at a later time, we can recall its resting place wherein we embody it. We can sink beneath the words through the state of being we originally experienced in the moment.
There’s a reason that Jesus taught in parables, as did many other masters. Storytelling is a way to skirt around the logical mind that has a tendency to throw up roadblocks to things that seem out of the ordinary to its usual reference shelf. The deeper mind takes to metaphor joyfully, sorts it in ways to find the timbre of its own truth for the Core Self. And nothing of untruth can find a resting place. In some ways the cataloging process is not so different from the logical mind. The differentiation is in the methods used for schooling those things seen and unseen, known and not known, normal and paranormal.
Translation
We hear words and sink into silence. And we start from silence and arise through words. It is within this natural cycling that profound works have historically emerged, not only to create a statement, but to provide a shift in the culture and spiritual life through the ages.
It’s highly unlikely that Picasso’s Guernica came to him through hearing. It issued through listening. Anyone who has ever seen this mural depicting the Spanish Civil War has to be deeply moved. It comes from a cry of the spirit; so much so that at the time I saw it many years ago, the curators still found it necessary to protect the painting from attack by the dictator Franco’s supporters long after he passed. It was housed alone in an annex to the Prada Museum in Madrid. Spectators could see it only by viewing it from behind a guardrail and through a wall of glass standing about ten feet in front of it. Nevertheless, for those who listened, it evoked intense emotion.
Just the same, I sat one time talking to a friend who was a woodcrafter, living in France at the time, about his art form. He related to me how he would sit with the wood, touch it and even stroke it. Once he’d done that he had a sense of what wanted to emerge — from the wood and from him. Michelangelo spoke of a similar process with marble.
There’s a time to move beyond the knowledge traditionally taught to knowledge experientially found. During one of my Sunday Salons, a discussion forum I sponsor, where the subject of this chapter was the topic, two participants, who work as speech therapists, discussed what operating through deep connection brought to them — and to the autistic children with whom they worked.
One spoke first and said, “I truly have to get out of all my training, whatever we’re taught. When you’re with a child who is totally unintelligible, it makes no sense to try to speak in the typical way. It’s better just to be quiet, watch and listen, to just be with them and have an experience of who they are. I get a lot more language that way, even though it doesn’t sound like what we’re used to hearing.
“As soon as I go into my head to all my training, I don’t get as much communication or connection with the child. When I just hang out with them, it’s not so much about the English language, but an inner language at that point.”
The other woman added, “You think about this child. What are you going to do with this child the next day at school? If you just stop thinking about it, trying to plan, and just go in there and be with the child, it works! I mean, things happen!
“I’ve often said of myself, I’m not a good teacher to other therapists because I can’t explain things that I do with kids! I go to the workshops and hear all this good stuff, but it’s not ingrained in me. But I go in with the kids and things happen!
“(Teachers may say) why did you do that? I don’t know! It’s just what I’m supposed to do.”
They both agreed that it’s not about doing, but about being. The first therapist summed it all up. “I just brought a tray of shells in one day. I got more of an experience of the kids. I didn’t bring a pencil. I didn’t bring anything to record. I was amazed at how much I saw and heard in a different way. I learned a lot more about how they really want to connect and communicate.
“We’re so trained to do these techniques. But ultimately when you get mastery at what you do, it’s about letting go. There are tools we use, but it’s not really about any of that. Those tools aren’t really about what makes us good therapists.”
There is a very real element about words getting in the way oftentimes, along with the rigidity of any structures we’ve been taught. If we would just surrender to the quiet, what we need will be there to guide us, whatever our focus.
We all need an expression that emerges from our listening, whose truth bubbles up through our allowing. The allowance can then take shape as an art form. It doesn’t matter the form. It could be gardening, sitting counsel with a friend, holding a child — a life’s work. Anything that evolves by listening, informing the mind through the whispers springing from the word-seed qualify as the Divine art. It’s grace issuing from secret passion.
Direct Knowledge
Deep listening activates the faculties beyond our five senses that most of us don’t commonly use. When we have our ears on and our eyes and hearts open, we’re alert to synchronicities and follow the cues if that’s what is offered. We feel subtle energy, our own and that of those around us — and we see beyond what is presented on the surface.
The first time seeing happened for me in an obvious way was during a seminar I attended. I had been in a trance-like state listening to the speaker, allowing his words to drench me. When the talk was over, the remnants of the state remained. People were milling around and talking. I was one of them. Suddenly, it wasn’t their words I heeded, but something else. It was as though a hand had spontaneously reached in and plucked off the mask of their words. I saw everyone, their personalities exposed beyond doubt. Every way I turned, I felt people through their energy fields. It was at first overwhelming, it being so strong and new. Through a profound synesthesia, I experienced the warmth of one, the inflexibility of another, the hope of yet another. None of my observations had anything to do with what any of them were saying.
All was there. Nothing was hidden. It never is. But we normally rely on words. It was this same kind of seeing that let Don Américo immediately know of my fearful state when I first entered the campground and met him in Utah. He sent me the energy of his heart by enveloping me in his arms, relaxing me. It followed that my fragmented state was clearly visible to him, even though I told no one of my intent toward integration. He just saw me. What he did wasn’t magic. He merely attuned to the reality beneath the surface. We can all learn to do the same.
If we listen, instruction comes to us in times of crisis, finding the opening between the words of habit and disbelief. During Sunday Salon, a man spoke up and told of a time when he’d been lost in the forest.
“It was a very anxious moment in my life. I thought I was going to rot there. It was in the winter and I wasn’t properly dressed. It was getting dark. I kept wandering around for hours. I called out in desperation.
“And then I had an insight. I asked myself a question, ‘How long have you been studying A Course in Miracles? The answer was, ‘For a long time.’ I realized that I had to get quiet and listen for that inner voice. And I did that.
“It wasn’t audible, but it was a direction. If I’d go over the hill on my right, everything would be okay. And don’t you know that at that moment my ego came out! Questioning the direction! But I put that on hold and went over the hill.
“There was a public restroom up there! I thought, ‘There must be some civilization.’ And sure enough, a ways from there was a playground and a road. I had to test the direction on the road because it was dark. Again, I was told to go to the right.
“I finally came up on the highway! That time held a profound message to me. Just be quiet.”
Residing in the Garden
We move out of the Garden when we voice what does not arise from our own Divine Heart. There’s the evolution of learning, but we’ve got to come to a place of discovering our own authority and trust it. When that happens we know we have been initiated through direct experience. That’s why no one else can truly initiate us except perhaps as recognition of our path, or to assist in gelling a commitment. But we still make the commitment. Once initiation matches direct experience, we can move through Re-Entry of the Re-membering Process. We then bring home our Core Identity intact — not someone else’s.
The Divine Presence we discover within ourselves is not a space of words. Words are a poor substitute for the warm, blissful silence. If the truth be known, we are all able to discern when we begin and end in that place. We know it, and it’s unmistakable. There’s a transmission we receive from that innermost place that shapes the words we speak. Then, it’s not the words so much as the energy infusing the things we say or do that trigger our own deepening as we witness ourselves, and touch the emptiness in others. In this way, the inside meets the outside and the paranormal becomes normal.
All events described in this book are true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.
I will publish chapters every few days until complete. Find links in the Table of Contents below.
Table of Contents
Chapter Three: The Inner Point
Chapter Four: Intentful Existence
Chapter Five: Connecting With the Cosmos
Chapter Seven: The Space of No Need
Chapter Eight: Conflicts on the Path
Chapter Nine: The Edge of Limitation
Chapter Ten: Asking the Answer
Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage
Copyright 2004 by Carla Woody. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, AZ 86304, info@kenosis.net.
