A Conscious Posture
Sensation is the essential experience on the road to consciousness. I need to understand what it would be to have a conscious sensation.
We wish to know who we are. Each of us knows the difficulty. I come to a quiet state with a little more stillness and silence, but as soon as I emerge to respond to life, I am the same as before. Nothing has changed. What responds is not really “I." Something in me has not been shaken. I never have the feeling of being at the root of myself, of reaching my essence. And I am never entirely touched. There are always hidden parts that refuse.
My body is the first to refuse. It knows nothing of my wish and lives a life of its own. Nevertheless, it could participate in the process of knowing. It is the receptacle, the vehicle for the energy in us. If we look within ourselves, we see that the energy is concentrated either in the head or in the solar plexus. Perhaps there is a little in the spine, but nothing in comparison with the other centers. And there is nothing in the lower part of the body. It is as though the body had no real importance. Yet it is only in and through the body that the energy can act.
I feel this energy beginning to appear. In order for it to act through me, I need to see my automatism and to recognize that if it becomes stronger than the conscious movement, the energy falls back to its lower level and once again I am taken. The position of the body is very important. My automatic posture holds back the energy and conditions my thinking and feeling. I need to see this, to live it, so that a conscious suffering appears which calls for a new posture, a conscious posture that, like an electromagnetic field, allows the action of this energy on the body. Its position must therefore be precise, and be maintained by a close and continual cooperation between my thinking, my feeling and my body. I need to feel at ease, with a sense of well-being and stability. Then the position itself can allow the mind to come to a state of total availability, naturally becoming empty of agitated thoughts. In the right posture, all my centers come together and are related. I find a balance, an order in which my ordinary "I” is no longer the master but finds its place. The thought is freer and also my feeling, which now is purer, less avid. It respects something.
As I let myself open to this energy, there is absorption without judgment, without conclusion, and my attention maintains itself patiently without effort and silently penetrates beyond what I know. This is like an inner expansion. I feel a greater unity between my body and what animates it. A center of gravity, my vital center of energy, has formed by itself. There is no more contradiction in me, no more refusal. I have found in myself this primordial center of energy, and have passed beyond the struggle, the duality between my body and my psyche. The more I experience this state, the more my essence is touched. But as soon as I lose contact with this center of gravity, the energy surges back toward the head or the solar plexus, and the false notion of “I” returns. I believe this contact is easy to maintain. Yet even the idea of maintaining it is false. This center of gravity must become second nature to me, my measure and my guide. I must feel its weight in everything I do. Otherwise an opening to the higher centers cannot take place.
When I experience being this living Presence, conscious of itself, I feel that it is the Presence that is breathing. The freedom of my center of gravity depends on the freedom of the breathing. When I let the breathing take place without interfering, another reality appears, a reality I did not know. I need to see that this experience is my essential food and must return to this state as often as possible.
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; pp 213-215)
Sensation is the essential experience on the road to consciousness. I need to understand what it would be to have a conscious sensation.
We wish to know who we are. Each of us knows the difficulty. I come to a quiet state with a little more stillness and silence, but as soon as I emerge to respond to life, I am the same as before. Nothing has changed. What responds is not really “I." Something in me has not been shaken. I never have the feeling of being at the root of myself, of reaching my essence. And I am never entirely touched. There are always hidden parts that refuse.
My body is the first to refuse. It knows nothing of my wish and lives a life of its own. Nevertheless, it could participate in the process of knowing. It is the receptacle, the vehicle for the energy in us. If we look within ourselves, we see that the energy is concentrated either in the head or in the solar plexus. Perhaps there is a little in the spine, but nothing in comparison with the other centers. And there is nothing in the lower part of the body. It is as though the body had no real importance. Yet it is only in and through the body that the energy can act.
I feel this energy beginning to appear. In order for it to act through me, I need to see my automatism and to recognize that if it becomes stronger than the conscious movement, the energy falls back to its lower level and once again I am taken. The position of the body is very important. My automatic posture holds back the energy and conditions my thinking and feeling. I need to see this, to live it, so that a conscious suffering appears which calls for a new posture, a conscious posture that, like an electromagnetic field, allows the action of this energy on the body. Its position must therefore be precise, and be maintained by a close and continual cooperation between my thinking, my feeling and my body. I need to feel at ease, with a sense of well-being and stability. Then the position itself can allow the mind to come to a state of total availability, naturally becoming empty of agitated thoughts. In the right posture, all my centers come together and are related. I find a balance, an order in which my ordinary "I” is no longer the master but finds its place. The thought is freer and also my feeling, which now is purer, less avid. It respects something.
As I let myself open to this energy, there is absorption without judgment, without conclusion, and my attention maintains itself patiently without effort and silently penetrates beyond what I know. This is like an inner expansion. I feel a greater unity between my body and what animates it. A center of gravity, my vital center of energy, has formed by itself. There is no more contradiction in me, no more refusal. I have found in myself this primordial center of energy, and have passed beyond the struggle, the duality between my body and my psyche. The more I experience this state, the more my essence is touched. But as soon as I lose contact with this center of gravity, the energy surges back toward the head or the solar plexus, and the false notion of “I” returns. I believe this contact is easy to maintain. Yet even the idea of maintaining it is false. This center of gravity must become second nature to me, my measure and my guide. I must feel its weight in everything I do. Otherwise an opening to the higher centers cannot take place.
When I experience being this living Presence, conscious of itself, I feel that it is the Presence that is breathing. The freedom of my center of gravity depends on the freedom of the breathing. When I let the breathing take place without interfering, another reality appears, a reality I did not know. I need to see that this experience is my essential food and must return to this state as often as possible.
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; pp 213-215)
