Silently Thundering the Truth of Oneness

Laura Basha

Photo By: Nitish Meena
 

Clicking the shutter on this stunning serenity just last week while in Alaska, I was so struck by the quiet serenity and profound power of the environment.
 

Otherworldly beauty, and we were trespassing through the sacred waters of the whales and eagles and otters and bears; through Nature’s realms.

 

As I allowed this resonance of majesty to impact me, I became aware that this dreamlike place lives on long after I leave to go back to my daily living. It lives on like this, infinitely generating from past into future a holy integrity that dwarfs my opinions, my concerns, my fascination with myself and with differences between me and others, silently thundering the Truth of Oneness.
 

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A single hand cannot know the whole animal at once. The ocean has an eye. The foam bubbles of phenomena see separately: we bump against each other, asleep at the bottom of our body-boats. We should wake and look with the clear eye of water we float on.

 

– Rumi

Intuition: the Seventh Sense

Laura Basha

 

Photo By: Stefan Kunze
 

Inward Sky

You are the soul, the universe,
and what animates the universe. …
Why cry for what is closer than voice? …
Prophets come and go for one reason, to say,
Human beings, you have a great value
inside your form, a seed. Be led
by the rose inside the rose.

 

– Rumi

 

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Have you ever had a thought of someone, perhaps someone you haven’t been in contact with for some time, and at that moment the phone rings and it is that very person? Have you ever had a dream about an unidentified or uncommunicated event, and then that event occurs? Have you ever stopped and been very still and reflected on something of concern to you, and an insight occurs, or even an epiphany, and you are flooded with knowing the solution to your problem?
 

What if we were to practice listening to the “still small voice” within? What if we listened for the inner wisdom that resonates to our question, and tested the result in the laboratory of our own life?

 

The more we practice, the more audible is the innate wisdom. We can see that it has been speaking all along, we have simply been listening to the cacophony of the external world of our circumstances and conditions, and not paying attention to the permeating flute music, resonating from the inside out.
 

The more attention we pay to the Silence within, the more we can avail ourselves to what It is saying, and recognize that It is always available to us.

 

Like Balance, Intuition is a sense that is ours for the cultivation. It is as available as the air. Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight, Hearing, Balance, and Intuition. Seven!
 

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You may also like to read this post on The Sixth Sense.
 

The Consciousness of the Healer

Laura Basha

Photo By: Tony Webster
 

Help people express whatever their ‘thing’ is.
Give people the opportunity to freely express.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, if they can express it,
it resolves itself – if you don’t react.

 

– Dr. Meji Singh

 

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The consciousness of the healer is everything. We can only take people to the level of understanding we have integrated.
 

As the healer listens to the metaphors taking place in the moment of the healing relationship/session, the process of the healer seeing through the maze and re-ordering the maze into positive, understandable symbols for the client, symbols of health and well-being, demonstrates to the client the client’s own creative protective mechanisms. Disarming the grip of fear that the illusion is real, the client feels the relief of returning to the resilience of Health – the true default program within all of us.
 

This can be explained verbally, but if the client is not cognitively aware or capable enough of understanding the verbal articulation of issues, no matter, for the work is always done through consciousness, catalyzed through the silent awakened consciousness of the healer.
 

The degree of potential healing is directly proportional to the degree of clarity and resulting presence of the healer.

Listening for Understanding

Laura Basha

 
Photo By: Tanja Heffner
 

The skill of deep listening is the key to relatedness. When we refer to listening in this way, we are referring to a quality of listening which is listening deeper than to the words being spoken. We are referring to a depth of listening which is listening for the feeling behind the words. We are listening for the way a person sees life, for the logic of their thinking.
 

This type of listening is listening for understanding. Listening for understanding how another sees life engenders compassion and insight, both for the listener and for the speaker. Understanding another’s point of view occurs naturally as we listen with nothing else on our minds; we listen from curiosity, without judgment, truly fascinated by how another sees life.
 

We all have a perception of life experience which is unique to our own past experience and memory. Essentially, we are all perceiving separate realities. We are all unique cultures with diverse points of view. In order to truly communicate with another we have to listen to their particular reality with respect and fascination, and we then engage with them from understanding their perceptual vantage point. This is true dialogue. Dialogue is not talking as much as it is truly listening. Insight and rapport come from respectfully listening for understanding.
 

We have many blocks to listening. We all do. We “listen” until the other finishes talking so that we can say our piece, or we look attentive all the while having judgmental thoughts, or we are thinking about what we will have for dinner, or we simply space out, or we experience boredom, etc., etc. The key here is to know that we all have ways in which we distract ourselves from listening, and that all of these “blocks” to listening are simply us listening to our own thinking rather than the thinking of the speaker!
 

No matter, simply notice what is distracting you from being present with the speaker and clear your head of your own chatter and come back to listening with curiosity about how this person sees life. You will find that boredom disappears, and knowing the “right” thing to say occurs as an insight, and rapport deepens, and understanding deepens, and communication is effortless and creative and empowering.

 

Diversity then becomes a valuing of differences rather than a threat to individuality. People begin to communicate from alignment rather than fighting to have their point of view heard and recognized. People don’t want to be agreed with as much as they want to be heard. Creative problem solving becomes the norm.

 

Listening with nothing on your mind, or without the distraction of attention to personal memory, is also the best methodology for hearing one’s own innate wisdom and common sense and genius. When we listen for what we don’t know, rather than for what we have already assimilated previously, then we open ourselves up to hear creative insight from within.
 

Health and well-being, leadership, creativity, wisdom, whatever we need to know, springs from within us. We tap into the inherent leader that resonates within every one of us. We elicit it from our fellows when we listen with nothing on our minds but fascination with how they see life. Communication takes on an ease. Rapport emerges. Alignment ensues.
 

Empowerment of self and others evolves from listening for understanding – listening to and for the Wisdom within.

 

The Sixth Sense

Laura Basha

Detail of Painting By Laura Basha
 

I am in the process of creating my next painting of which the above drawing will be a part, and the process has me considering something I think important to us all. It has me thinking of the question of “Balance”. Proportion and balance as depicted in the human form was considered the most elevated and honorable subject of Renaissance art, certainly by Da Vinci. In reading his notes, he talks about painting as:
 

“… [surpassing] all human works by the subtle considerations belonging to it. The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principle means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second, which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen. …”

 

In following the mathematical instructions of Vetruvius, and the elegant draughtsmanship of Da Vinci, the importance of balance became very apparent to me, and in combination with the above quote, I began to think of our five senses of taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. But what if there were more senses? More senses might allow for us to cultivate a life experience of even more richness and equilibrium; a deeper resonance of Life might be available to us.
 

What if Balance was one of those senses? Balance is something we consider when “juggling” our schedules, when needing more time for relaxation and play to balance out work, more time for family. When we are out of balance, things fall apart, fall down, like a perfectly stacked tower of blocks until one tilts a little too much to one side.

 

It seems perhaps capricious, but what if we were to focus on balance as being a given sense – a sixth sense if you will? If we paid attention to balance like we do to say, hearing, would we experience more equilibrium? When we slow down and turn our attention away from the cacophony of daily life, we hear the birds, the breeze, maybe laughter in the distance. If we listened for balance, what would we hear? If we paid attention to balancing activity with rest, would we experience more pleasure in being alive? Much like sight is to the artist, balance may be to the fulfilled life.
 

If balance is available to us through simply reflecting on it – not having to make it happen or “create” it, how much of a contribution could it be? What would life experience be like if we knew balance was intrinsic, such as smell and taste and touch, and we just haven’t been paying attention?
 

Where in your life would more balance make a difference? And what could you realize if you reflected on it as one of our given senses?
 

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You may also like to read this post on Intuition: The Seventh Sense.
 

For the Benefit of All Concerned

Laura Basha

Photo By: Delfi de la Rua
 

It seems to me that the greatest gift we can give to one another is really listening for the best in each other: our perfection, our beauty, our differing perceptions. And through listening for the best in each other, eliciting the best from ourselves.

 

We could call this being “Source” for each other. It is not for me to say what another’s best might be, yet it seems to have very similar characteristics from one person to another, namely: joy, relatedness, confidence, love, self-expression, all in a uniquely expressed freedom of expression that catalyzes other’s Joy. Seeing the best, looking for the best, catalyzes the best and all involved are uplifted and see possibility.
 

This is the type of “Sourcing the best”, if you will, or simply “Sourcing”, which one experiences when in the presence of extraordinary leaders; meaning to say, people who have done the work to allow Source to express through them. My own mentors have been such people, and their “teaching” from this awareness has been what has empowered me to, through my own continual growth process, transmute and distinguish my understanding of my own false personality, such that authenticity has a chance to emerge: powerful, happy, free. This transformation then hopefully allows me to resonate Source into my world. In other words, this transformation empowers me to have the best chance to make a difference, and then catalyze others to resonate in their world, and pay it forward.
 

I don’t think “I” actually “source” anyone or anything. Reflecting on Source as a possibility allows It – Source, Absolute, God, whatever name we choose to call It – to make Itself known through me, use me as a conduit, and when I’m truly present, let it express through me to the extent that I have the capacity and understanding to align with It, surrender to It, catalyzing me and hopefully others toward what they have to contribute to the world.
 

“To give is to receive”. It has to come through us first to be expressed, so we experience the gift of It’s Peace before we can bring it to our worlds.

 

May we all continue to grow and learn and have compassion for ourselves and others, for the benefit of all concerned.