» Exploring the embodied felt sense of the Hakomi principle of Unity «
The principle of Unity has a fundament that We're All One, that we're all connected somehow, but what does that actually FEEL like in our body-mind?
What does 'Unity' feel like and how do we move from that space?
I know many people who can tap into the non-personal unified field of consciousness with relative ease, but for me, it feels like an illusive state, one that pushes up against my sense of 'Self'. No matter how connected I feel to something great than my Self, there I am, present and in my very defined, and somewhat dense body.
It makes me wonder, does the 'I' actually disappear when a sense of oneness becomes more apparent?
My gut answer is 'no'. I think a loss of our sense of Self may in fact be a protective disassociation mechanism at play, cleverly disguised as a 'Higher Self'.
Rather to stay present to our sense of 'I' and notice how that dances in the greater awareness of the whole seems more interesting and engaging to me. How, instead, do I allow my awareness to encompass the dual presence of collective and personal energy that is here to be felt, seen, heard, expressed?
How do I simultaneously expand out of the boundary of my body, while simultaneously locate myself squarely into my body? What a practice!!
In service of this enquiry, I have a practice that I like playing with in the context of Kirtan (call and response chanting of mantra). It involves our voice. Our voice is a unique expression of our personality and resonance. The quality of our voice has been shaped by our emotional life that is unique to us.
I don't know about you, but my voice can betray me. By that I mean, my voice is so telling of how I am showing up in the present moment. If I'm feeling self conscious or nervous, my vocal chords will constrict and my voice will sound slightly gravely. If I'm managing some emotion, such as fear or grief, my voice will pinch out into a higher, faster delivery. And when I'm triggered into a trauma response, I have no voice, no words even, as my mind colludes with the safety of not being seen or heard.
So bringing my voice into a circle is very exposing. Yet, it is the one practice that brings me closest to the felt-body sense of Unity.
So this practice requires a pinch of visualisation or imagination to create the effect, and it goes like this...
We are all singing/chanting together a simple mantra, over and over. We can hear each other, and our awareness can create a focus on the unified whole of the sound. The sound is one voice.
And yet, we are all individual voices within that one sound.
That in itself is a beautiful realisation.
But let's play with this a bit more and deepen the experience.
Imagine, visualise or pretend your voice is coming out of somebody else's mouth, and imagine also, that their voice is coming out of your mouth.
Your awareness needs to be both with their voice and your experience. Notice how your body wants to shape itself in response to this voice coming out of your body. Does your body need to be softer and more loose, or does it need to clamp up a little and hold itself smaller or tighter? Do you need to sit straight, or dance your body around? Just feel into the shape of that voice coming through your mouth.
This little exercise creates a non-individuated experience. Your voice and their voice are in the field of experience, but 'non-localised' to your individuated experience. In other words, you have the opportunity to loosen your identification with your ego around singing. You can, instead, pick up another 'ego' and play/dance/sing with that. If you choose an uninhibited voice, it can be very freeing for instance.
I remember one time I chose to do this exercise spontaneously as I found myself getting agitated by a chanter next to me who was wildly out of tune and singing at the top of his voice. So I decided to do this practice.
I opened and allowed his voice to spring forth from my mouth, never quite knowing where his voice was going to go next. The perfectionist in me, that often governs my singing voice, sat back and looked on perplexed, and then with amusement. This voice I was inviting into my experience of singing was actually VERY freeing. I had no idea what was going to come out of my mouth next and I started laughing. Something in my chest unknotted.
There is a dual effect to this practice. My awareness was getting conditioned to noticing my experience without labelling it as 'mine' or shaping to the personality of 'me'. This lack of identification of 'me' and 'my voice' freed me up to be more aware of the unified field that is always present, but not largely noticed.
And so I circle back to the unified sound of the whole. But this time I'm experiencing it, not just at the mind level, but with the body also.
I am you and you are me
How do I show up differently once I hold this belief close to my heart?
Good question.
To focus on my individual state, preferences and personality, requires me to contract my awareness. And it requires me to believe that I am separate from the unified whole field.
The awareness of the unified field requires me to expand up and out. And to bring a mindful awareness of connecting to this present moment, rather than an idea I have of how the present moment ought to appear.
So I use this practice as a way of reconditioning my awareness of 'who I am', and the quality of awareness that I hold.
You see, as we locate our Self in the Unity Principle, it allows us to bring online curiosity and compassion. We are allowing our Self to feel (y)our history, (y)our celebrations and challenges, and to honour the intelligence of (y)our system to be here now, having survived whatever came before. We feel the commonalities within us, the uniqueness between us, and the collective field of wholeness around us.
Unity is the magic within the method. What’s in me is in you. We are all interconnected, we are fractals of the whole, and we are all helping each other to come back home to our heart. We are all looking for our most whole and unfractured expression of Self. While we all have different stories, methods and customs, we all share our humanity and universal needs. Our small microcosm moments of healing create the highest articulation of unity within the cosmos.
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