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Naming embodied experience - expanding awareness

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  In some of the eastern traditions an important goal in meditation is to silence the words and quieting the mind, emptying it of thoughts. Presence is seen as something essentially wordless. In this perspective the words are often an expression of automatic or habitual patterns of thought, which easily removes you from experiencing what is really here right now. The words are seen as less true or less fundamental than the wordlessness which is prior to the words. To connect with your true unconditioned self and become more whole, you need to stop identifying with your words and listen to the primordial silence underneath.    In mind-body connecting practices like Rosen method therapy (a one to one touchbased modality) or Relatefullness, which is a group meditation enhancing relational and embodied self-awareness, an important focus is on practicing naming our immediate embodied experience as it is in the present moment. In my experience this implies an expansion of awareness. In the b
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The longing for our potential

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  Is there an unclear longing in you, a drive towards something unknown, a whispering in your inner world which is hard to comprehend but feels deeply significant? Is there a feeling of something hidden inside of you which wants to become visible? Do you feel you have something you need to express and manifest in the world, but you are not quite sure how yet? In his famous book The Souls code: In search of character and calling the jungian thinker James Hillman describes this as our unique image or pattern, which we are born with and are here to express and give shape. He calls it the acorn-theory: like an oak starts as a potential - an acorn, every person has a uniqueness that asks to be lived, a calling which is already present before it can be lived. And every person has a soul-companion, a daimon, which is reminding you of your calling and helping you to align your life with the calling. The calling and daimon is something transcendent, beyond time and space. So the work of a lifet
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Connecting with the timeless dimension in our lives

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  Human beings have a need to understand how we relate to the timeless eternal cosmos. The ordinary everyday life which is happening in time and space is our focus, but we also have one foot in the eternal world, and we need to relate to that dimension as well. This may be seen in light of different perspectives - for example science may understand it as processes in the brain, religion as experiences of divine interventions, and jungian psychology as the human innate need for meaning and wholeness in life.   In meditative traditions, with thousands of years of experience with exploring the inner realms of human being, the timeless dimension is called the eternal now. This eternal dimension may be accessed through activities like meditation, dreamworks, interpreting synchronicities, fasting, yoga, exploring our inner life, looking at significant symbols, rituals and so on. Experiencing the eternal dimension may also arise spontaneously in our lives. One traditional name of of this spo
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The creativity of the unknown

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  In the mystical traditions of the great religions there is an emphasis on the dimensions in reality which are not known to us. Often these are described as nothingness or emptiness, layers in consciousness which are outside of time and space, limitless and eternal. To a mystic there is a possibility in life to  access an immediate awareness of this nothingness.  What does that mean, how may this experience be described? Conceptually it is hard to convey because nothingness points to the layers in consciousness which are unfolding and ungraspable, that which is not yet here, that which is becoming. It is like a space of potential from where the forms of reality are being created in an eternal dance.  Nothingness is the unknown, so the conventional categories of good or bad, normal or not normal, are not operating. Even the stable identity you have, the person you thought all your life you were, falls away. Only nothingness or the infinite remains. Its like an oblivion or a total forge
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Kabbalah and the turning towards that which is not yet here

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  In the winter of 2021 I got an impuls to get a seven-armed candlestick, a menora. I searched online markets, found a beautiful menora, and purchased it. I still remember the excitement I felt. I usually dont like shopping stuff at all, but this felt different and important somehow. I wanted to light the candlestick and put it in the window so it became visible to everybody. To understand why this felt so significant to me, I started to explore the meaning of the menora. In jewish and christian faith it is interpreted in many different ways - in one perspective the menora is a symbol of the wholeness of everything. This spoke to me. The insight I received is that the menora is a symbol of the living universe, and we are all parts of it. If we hold ourselves back and suppress our expression in the world, we hold back and suppress a part of the universe. We should light our candle and not hide it, but put it in the window so the light is visible and can impact the world. In Kabbalah, th
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Saint Birgitta`s ecstasy

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  Birgitta is one of the great woman mystics of the middle ages. She was born in 1302, a daughter of a noble family in Sweden. She married early and got 8 children, living the life of a noble lady. The story is that Birgitta had religious visions at some points during childhood, and when her husband died the visions returned, and transformed her life completely.  In an important vision, God told her that her calling was to be his bride and mouthpiece. Birgitta let go of her comfortable life and her assets, moved into a monastery and started conveying the visions and messages she received from Jesus Christ and Mother Mary. There were messages about how to live a good christian life aligned with the will of God, about international politics and what God wanted the Pope and kings of England and France to do, and about founding a new monastic order. More than 600 visions, which were written down by Birgitta and her helpers, were spread and read widely. She was also an important counsellor
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The perception of life in the mystical traditions

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  The classic mystical traditions of the great religions are diverse and complex, their stories about reality are very different and their perspectives on life are unique. Still, in its core, there seems to be common ground and a universal experience and perception of life. One gateway into this perception of life may be a quality of radical presence - a letting go of attachments and beliefs from the past, opening up and receiving the flow of life in its newness and wonder. Life as a continuous gift, carrying us as grace. Life as a work of art, forms constantly being created and changing. Life as a timeless eternal ground, emptiness and fullness.  In his book  The mystic heart  W. Teasdall points out that for the mystic, human identity is not something we own, but something we receive - we dont own our consciousness, we inhabit it. This implies a concept of consciousness as a community of interconnected being to which we all belong. "Reality, cosmos, life and being are one vast sy
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