Staying connected to our deeper experience
By Reed Summers
I was recently reflecting on the great amount of experience that goes into a single life — from childhood to adulthood; from all the jobs and relationships we have had; all the learning, interests, hobbies and travels; all the doing, talking and thinking and so much more that constitutes living a life. There has simply been so much experience. Perhaps too much.
Amidst all this experience, what is our sense of reality? Not the reality being created in our own mind through all this experience we’re having, but the reality that exists beyond our mind, within which we are having all these experiences.
Questions arise when I look out on a busy city, a fast moving highway, a shopping center filled with people, individual points of awareness each likely immersed in an all-consuming experience of life. Beyond and beneath all this experience, what is real? What really matters? In the end, when we leave this world, what experiences will we recognize as important, as purposeful and valuable in both the fulfillment of our life in this world and the advancement of our greater life beyond the world?
For me, these are questions that lead to another type of experience: an opening, a calming down, an unclenching of the mind, stepping out of the rushing river of experience to take stock of reality, looking now to see what exists beyond me and sensing into the movement of Knowledge within me.
And yet life is always bringing more and the world is always teaching us to be, to do and to have more.
Here I often think about an important truth which originated from an insight that my mother Patricia (@patricia_society) had on April 15, 2015:
“Take care that too much experience does not come at the cost of your sense of Reality.”
All this doing, going, thinking, behaving, perpetually taking in more on top of more—more information, more sensation, more stimulation, more experience. Does this in the end obscure our sense of reality? I think it certainly does. And over time we can become something of an experience junky—addicted to consuming more experience, ascribing more qualities to ourselves, more abilities, more interests, more opinions and associations in the world.
This is why its so important to pull back periodically from the rush of the world. It is so important to develop a stillness practice that disengages us, even for brief moments, from our surface experience and begins to acquaint us with the deeper environment of experience within us. Here we have a direct engagement with the quiet and pervasive reality that underlies all things. This is not an experience apart from reality, but an experience of reality.
I feel a sufficient amount of this deeper experience is critical to life in this world, a world of Separation, a world of many influences, a world where we have come to work and serve in concert with the larger movement of life itself. This is the Great Coordination that the New Message speaks of. For me, this is Reality.
In addition to engaging in Stillness, it is important that we “take care” in the world. Life is serious business. The decisions we make now heavily condition the decisions we make next. The mistakes and wrong turns we make directly affect our self-esteem and confidence late. And the influences can be overpowering if we are not anchored and grounded in reality, which is what Steps to Knowledge is about—anchoring our thinking mind in the permanent reality from which we have come and to which we will return. Steps is calling us to return to our natural self and avoid the trap of taking in more and more that is not our natural self.
“Why make your mind more complex? Why attribute more and more qualities to yourself? Why invent new levels of thinking and being when with Knowledge all things become clear?”
Step 263
With this invitation, we avoid the pitfall of consuming too much experience, stacking more qualities and alter-identities upon our one true identity. As we undertake the process of returning to the experience of this true identity, there is an equally big and important process of relinquishment underway. Slowly over time we release what we have added on that is not authentic and natural to our true self and become more essential and concentrated in our lives. This is an important process of honing and reducing down to what is real and what really matters.
May we acknowledge and continue this process of relinquishment in our lives and be aware of the tendencies to try and fill the emptiness with experience, to build ourselves up when we need to be reducing down, or simply trying and do too much, overlaying our experience of being with too much doing.
And may we continue to seek out the deeper levels of experience that, rather than obscure our sense of reality, bring us back to reality and enable us to feel the flow and movement of life that exists beneath all the experiences we have in the world.
“Ask yourself deeply what is important, but do not be satisfied with immediate answers, for you must go deeper. You must stop living at the surface of your mind and penetrate to its depth, to its core, for that is where the reality is. What is at the surface of the mind is layers and layers of conditioning—walls, blocks, shields, scar tissue. The mind is like a machine at its surface until it has become liberated by Knowledge.”
Preparing for the Greater Community, Chapter 15: Developing Greater Honesty
For a while I have been reflecting on your reflection about experience and reality. What inspired my brain to ponder about? What emerged from that, if anything? I have led a life full of experiences. Way too many. But I have stopped rushing around so much. And now I begin to stand back, or stand still and watch instead. Just sitting or standing looking at the world. Sometimes I look for a long time before something emerges. And when there is a hint for something to reveal itself, it is often worth the while to see what the message is. And wait for it to appear. The world is telling us stories all the time. Especially when certain places draws my attention to it. Why do I stop here or there? Why is this particular thought coming up every time I pass here or there? Why do I experience something and what makes it stand out instead of just being another pebble in the sand? What amplifies it to be strong enough to catch my attention? Is it for me something to work with in order to plug up holes or is it a message from the world about the world. Looking at a city, it is sometimes possible to see how things strenghten each other, how they work together within the same area, amplifying each other. Keeping humans coming back again and again.
So from there I realized that there are systmes making them happen, these experiences. And these systems are various, numerous and invisible and can be compared to systems in a house, working more or less on their own in layers or working in connection with other systems. Discovering a reality full of systems everywhere is quite a dawning in itself, I must admit and I realized for a moment about systems how important it is that they support each other in a positive and sustainable way. On every level. That goes for what we eat, how we dress, how we speak, how we treat each other etc. How it must be in a positive way for us human to function well. Ongoing and in the same direction, on the same line so to speak, in a sympathetic way, both within and beyond. Thank you for bringing me to this insight.
Very timely!!! My personal mind has been pulled in so many directions this trip to Ecuador that it has become overwhelming. The mind and/or K have been waking me in nervous anxieties at night because the daily requirements regarding the smaller “mundane” activities become very heavy and distracting. Instead of taking a bus trip 9 hours north today to meet a new Ecuadorian student of Knowledge and to spend the weekend in fellowship together, I was almost forced to take a step back from the continuous “goings on” of being in the world and the rush rush, go go, personal mind mentality. Today needed to be a day almost entirely dedicated to reading, preparation, audio revelations & stillness! When I opened my STK book this morning….as “Synchronicity” would have it, step 172 is….. Today I will do what is necessary. As you stated in your teaching Reed, I needed to be reminded today what is of the greatest importance. This step encourages us not to confuse the small with the great., understand that the Deepest par of us IS the great and expresses itself through the small activities in the world, and that we need to come to understand the True relationship between the two. Much thanx for the “2nd witness” of the day!
Thank you Reed so much for this teaching, on returning to this for the second time I saw how valuable it is to take time off to take stock of your life. I also saw how important Spiritual Retreats have been in my life, especially at times when I was facing difficult decisions. These retreats allowed me to see what step I needed to take and helped to allay all the confusion and uncertainty that these decisions usually produced in my life. But after reading this teaching I have been asking what I can do to achieve this depth and connection in my everyday life, and will sit with this question to see what emerges in time. So thank you once again for taking the time to remind us to “take care” and not be overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life.
Thank you Reed so much for this teaching, on returning to this for the second time I saw how valuable it is to take time off to take stock of your life. I also saw how important Spiritual Retreats have been in my life, especially at times when I was facing difficult decisions. These retreats allowed me to see what step I needed to take and helped to allay all the confusion and uncertainty that these decisions usually produced in my life. But after reading this teaching I have been asking what I can do to achieve this depth and connection in my everyday life, and will sit with this question to see what emerges in time. So thank you once again for taking the time to remind us to “take care” and not be overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life.
It can be very easy to get caught up in the physical especially if you’re the only one in your family who’s aware that there’s more to life than surface appearances. That is why having a community platform like this is essential. Great article.
Thank you Reed….it’s amazing how much new experiences life is throwing at us everyday. This conditions the mind in an potent way and I certainly can feel the clouds darkening my sense of reality whenever I fail to step back to anchor myself in that deeper well of stillness. I wish for simplicity and that I may nourish this sense of reality as I meet my worldly and inner responsibilities.
“Complexity is a state of self-disassociation which renders you incapable of enjoying life and perceiving your role within it. This is the source of all great poverty.”
Step 117: It is better to be simple than to be poor.
Thank you Reed!
Wonderful clarifying article Reed! Thank you so much for expressing this, it helps my understanding of the difference between reality and experience. And the final quote really speaks to me… I have begun to see, thanks to Steps, how the walls of intellect I built up in my old life (childhood and adolescence) were partly built as a defence mechanism, but now the intellect is being liberated and beginning to serve Knowledge.
Yes that last quote struck me as well, we get into rough places in our mind and yet, living at the surface, this is inevitable. So the question is there: where do I choose to live in my experience? Both produce an inevitable result, very different ones. And yes life at the surface produces its own coping mechanisms – reason, wit, intellectual pride, just a few of the ways a frightened mind copes in an unstable environment without its anchor in the permanent reality.
Thank you for sharing your impressions Reed.
For me, my “sense of reality” became more clearly defined, more clearly directed during that Threshold of Personal Revelation. “…at this time, certain people are being called. They are the Elect. They are the ones who have taken enough steps in life to reach the proximity of a personal Revelation—through their own successes and failures, through their own disappointments and disillusionment, through their own focus. It can bring them towards this great threshold within themselves.”
Once I began experiencing that personal revelation the phrase “What Really Matters” became the business end of the purpose, meaning and direction of my life here and my reality beyond. I discovered that “What really matters is that you return to the purpose that has brought you here” and “In time, things that do not matter fall away or prove to be a burden and an impediment. This I’m discovering is an ongoing process and it says what is does and does what it says relentlessly.
And when I consider all the noise and stimulation and substitutes and experiences vying for my and for seemingly everyones attention, I realize that that’s the mission field before me, that’s where humanity is and where I must be even while undergoing this process of revelation. And I wondered for an analogy, an example of being in the “zone” being focused and intentioned and determined while being “out there” and feeling like I’m “in here” within. Then the illustration surfaced as the Major league pitcher with 40 thousand overstimulated people creating a deafening unified noise. Yet that pitcher is able to be within a zone within themselves that allows them to return to the purpose that brought them there and I discovered that for me, this mechanism and process is none other than The Steps to Knowledge. And it is guiding me and returning me to that purpose that brought me here while being able to experience being “out there” and feeling like I’m “in here” within.
Yes to be “out there” and yet “in there” at the same time and, when needed, to be the pitcher throwing for the team amidst the noise and influence of the world, yes…
Thank you for this Reed. I feel that I can now share how this post resonates with. I have been reading working with the mind, seeking to reestablish a healthy relationship with my mind, not that I’ve had a bad relationship with it, but I have been asking alot of it for many years and now I see that my relationship with it needs to stabilize so it may continue to serve me in the areas of problem solving and engagement with others.
“May we acknowledge and continue this process of relinquishment in our lives and be aware of the tendencies to try and fill the emptiness with experience, to build ourselves up when we need to be reducing down, or simply trying and do too much, overwhelming our experience of being with too much doing.”
Says it all, aware of how we need to give space and time for things to be digested and integrated, instead of seeking more experience. No amount of hiking or even meditation can bring stability to a relationship that calls for just simply be, be still, reduce, reduce stimulation, reduce the diffraction of “things” to do into a few things to do. Be at peace in knowing that your life is on the right track, be at peace in knowing that we don’t need to add more things, but reduce…
Kelvin, I know exactly what you mean here. To have a health relationship with the mind even within a purposeful life, working on the right things, with the right people, and in the right place doesn’t just take care of itself. Quite the opposite in my experience. Acknowledging the needs of the mind, accepting our limits, and finding stability, even if it is new and foreign to us—so important.
Thank you Reed!
Thank you so much Reed for this teaching. It brings back many memories of experience. My life, especially since I became sober, has been like an onion. To peel the layers of so many things away to come and find the core of myself; what I am made of, what makes me tick and what my role is in everything that I experience. I have found that after peeling away some layers simplicity is one thing that is needed in life for me and that to see reality is to practice in reality the lessons I am learning from the New Message from God and from teachers such as yourself. For there were and still are many lessons to learn from in life and the reality you speak of. To be present to this reality through the true reality which lives within me and each one of us is precious and meaningful to a life of Knowledge. This is where practicing in life for me is so important. I am not there yet but that is life…learning how to move with the deeper currents within and the currents of the world. Having one foot in the world and having one foot in your Ancient Home. Much more I would like to comment but the world calls…time for work and Practice while working. NNC
Yes Jim and it is an interesting inquiry: what actually strengthens my awareness of reality and my connection to it? For me it has been important decisions, certain relationships of purposeful activity that “came online” and movement in life, actually moving in my pillars and making change there as indicated by the deeper pull and sense of “must” that was with me. These things have done the most for at the level of awareness. I’ve come to feel that awareness is made real through action.
Reed its wonderfull, I had a similar conversation with my daughter, she is 19 years old . She said that she is collecting experience .
I asked do you know what type of experience you want to become a collector? She is still young and the answer was all the experiences are good. I had a quick glimpse in the past and the future. At that moment I realized that our experiences are guided by the past. From our beliefs and the interpretation we have given to life in the past. So for me it is crucial, first of all to ”clean” our house.
”Your mind must be emptied. It must be opened. How can you receive if your mind is full of a whole mass of information? The mind must be free. It is as if your house were stuffed to the ceiling with all the possessions you have ever owned—everything—and you had not thrown away anything. It is all in there, things great and small, filling your every room and hallway. And you say, “Well, I want to bring new things into my house, but there is no room. I want to create a new feeling and atmosphere in my house, but there is no space for it.” Everything is cluttered, and your house becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Your experience of being in it is imprisoning, and you find yourself spending all of your time maintaining all of these possessions.
Your mind is like the house that you live in, in the world. It is filled with whatever you put there. It is the place from which you look out into the world. It is your shelter and your protection. It is the place where your spirit generally abides. However, if your house becomes too cluttered and too uncomfortable, Knowledge will not abide there. Then, you will find that you are living in a relic of your own past. You will feel like you are a museum keeper, someone who is taking care of old things.
The Way of Knowledge takes you out of your house and brings you back with a greater understanding. Then you will see how intolerable it is to live there and how much must be redeemed and restored. And you start throwing things away here and there, cleaning out the attics, cleaning out the basement, finding old and forgotten things here and there and getting rid of them. Then you realize that your house can be completely redone and needs to be completely redone, for it does not reflect your new experience.”
From What I must unlearned
https://www.newmessage.org/the-message/volume-2/greater-community-spirituality/what-must-be-unlearned
Thanks Marianna, I have read that chapter in GCS many many times over the years, especially when up against a threshold or decision-point in my journey. The analogy of the over-cluttered house is a good one, an illustration of too much experience obscuring our sense of reality and that the initial phases of the journey is really about clearing away, reducing and removing what no longer matters.
Thank you for this beautiful and impacting teaching, Reed. While reading and feeling your words, this from Step 123 came to mind “Silence is the experience of profound relationship, and stillness is the acceptance of profound love.” I’ve learned through my own experiences and from observing others; the personal mind is relentlessly seeking for security and gain .. …relationships, worth, inclusion, love, power…. unaware, or in denial, of Knowledge, we take from the world … the myriad substitutes … the ‘search for happiness’…at great cost and suffering to ourself and others. May many come to find and receive the Grace of the New Revelation and give their true gifts to the world.
Mellany yes that relentless seeking is our pre-existing condition before becoming a student of Knowledge and even after becoming a student it may continue as we seek to use everything (even the New Message, purposeful work, people) to fulfill ourselves in the world. At some point a switch is thrown. Like with a computer, there are the applications we run, and then the operating system they are running on top of. We can swap out our applications, run new and different programs, download new software from the world, take on new ideas and identities and abilities, but until the operating system changes we are range-bound in what we can see and know. There is an OS upgrade here, it is deep and takes time, but the truth is our hardware (mind and body) are perfectly capable as platforms for this new and greater OS, connected to a greater reality beyond the world.
Thank you Reed for sharing this. In fact I have been thinking the same in regards to the everyday lives and our experiences. I’m thankful for all the experiences I’ve taken through my life so far because without them I would not be where I am today. Being without knowledge to now being with knowledge, you never stop learning. Stillness is important to reflect on ourselves and to find our purpose in the world, at the end of the day we either know or we don’t know. Unless we step into the unknown and take the courage to learn as knowledge guides us we will always be questioning our existence.
Thanks, very important words: “Unless we step into the unknown and take the courage to learn as knowledge guides us we will always be questioning our existence.” The ambivalence wall must be jumped. Understanding comes after participation. And this is a very new reality in the world to participate in. Taking that leap to do what is known, not what is understood, strengthens Knowledge in us greatly. I just read in the New Message (paraphrase): How do you become strong with Knowledge? By making decisions with Knowledge.” That step into the unknown, even if we only have that abiding sense of rightness to confirm it, can take our experience of Knowledge and confidence in ourselves to a new level.
Thank you Reed. I know that I need a great deal of stillness and understand your need to, ” pull back periodically from the rush of the world.” I have a guidance system that alerts me to ‘too much input’ when my ‘stillness and practice time’ vs ‘time in worldly exposure’ gets out of balance. Unfortunately I have to exceed the ‘worldly exposure’ limit before I feel like I’ve betrayed my relationship with KN. BUT, I am getting more sensitive to the need for nurturing this still time with KN as something is shifting in me. I recognize the intersection of ‘time is short’ and ‘my time is meant for deep preparation NOW’. If I truly wish to fulfill that purpose and destiny which I came for I know that sobriety around my preparation and foundation building is paramount. This takes time in stillness with the input of KN and Teachers and SF.
Yes difficult balances to achieve Dariel, I’m with you in that challenge. We have this internal sense of what can and cannot be for us, not because we read it somewhere or someone laid down a rule for us to follow, but just because we know what must be and when we get too far outside the range of that we naturally come back. For me, this is part of the internal navigation system that keeps us on track. Honesty and Intention are key in this though— to be able to stop and know I am off track, or my trajectory in life is not right and be able to self-correct. This has been very important for me over the years.
I remember as a teenager wanting to experience it all. I always had this feeling that I didn’t want to miss anything. I eventually came to realize that by racing around and seeking out stimulating experiences, I was missing something, something really important. Thankfully, I realized what I really wanted wasn’t “out there.” “Out there” didn’t make me feel fulfilled. There was little satisfaction, only disappointment and, in the fullness of the noise and hustle bustle, I came home feeling empty. Gratefully, I now embrace the quiet, the stillness of my practice, shun the hustle bustle and I feel full.
Maureen yes same for me, amazing how things that were so captivating have lost that power in our lives now and we can finally come home, sit in a quiet room and be with our experience, a freedom that is ours and available not because we have something/someone/somewhere, but because we can finally stop and just be with ourselves.
Surface mind is busy interpreting experience from its very limited viewpoint. I had an experience today that left me questioning myself and whether what I was doing had any value. I realized later that my mind had started comparing and competing, leading to harsh self judgment. Whereas a deeper look at the same experience places me in a greater context where I can participate without having to define everything so narrowly, allowing me the freedom to move out of a rigid mindset into a new space, maybe a bit closer to reality. Hopefully eventually to be more present to reality in the moment and make a choice right then to be open and responsive to my experience. Thank you Reed.
In my experience understanding is paramount. When I understand something new I can act accordingly, if I do not understand – I have no action to pursue. In this sense the change comes naturally – at the same rate as new understanding. But understanding can only come when we have a moment of reflection and freedom from the world of business and complications.
Unloading one’s life from unnecessary activities can be difficult if attachments are strong. We need a deeper understanding of attachments (why we think we need them), we need to go to the roots of attachments and work the magic of Knowledge there.
I like how you put this!
The daily practices are necessary to develop the awareness needed to see this. I was good in theory. But just had a “step back” that made me realize that without knowledge, even the most “simple” choice coulfmd be very costly. It can delay others in your way to you, or their purpose.
Reed thank you for sharing this with us, it has prompt me to read my journal and to contemplate how my own journey was to realise that reality. When I read my journal for the step 263, the first time I completed the Steps, I wrote in my journal “Learn to be with Knowledge to see what Knowledge sees, to do what Knowledge does and to have the peace of Knowledge, the inclusion of Knowldege the relationship of Knowledge.” At that time I did not understand what that meant, but I wrote this anyway because I felt it was important.
The 2nd time round Step 263 I wrote in my journal “So, when I am confused I am not with Knowledge. You have only to learn to be with Knowledge to see what Knowledge sees. What does it mean to be with Knowledge?”
I had an open question that I didn’t define, but realise now that this question was popping in my mind now and again, and each time it came into my mind I contemplated it without any definition. And now I know what it means, but I only know because I could see and feel the contrast between being with Knowledge and not being with Knowledge. But to acknowledge this contrast, I had to become attentive to what was being said in my mind, and started a process of wanting less stimulation in my life, wanting to be more alone, because i’ve noticed when one is alone, you start to pay more attention to how you really feel inside, you’re more attentive. And started to pay attention to how i felt, was there a discomfort and where was it coming from, without defining it, and just being with it.
I started realizing the two realities the world (the mind in the world) and the other reality from beyond this world (the mind outside the world) by constrast, because they are very distinctive. Then once the two realities are acknowledged and one can recognise the difference (contrast), than comes a deeper need to wanting know what must be done while in the word. During the whole process I did go through moments and periods of confusion, and this is normal.
“to acknowledge this contrast, I had to become attentive to what was being said in my mind, and started a process of wanting less stimulation in my life, wanting to be more alone, because i’ve noticed when one is alone, you start to pay more attention to how you really feel inside, you’re more attentive.” This is my experience too. Since I found the NM five years ago, my life has become so much simpler and I spend much more time alone. Simplicity and solitude do make it so much easier to be in touch with my inner self and how I am feeling and responding to the world around me.
I am appreciating the concept of emptiness and not filling up the empty spaces with doing, going, and being busy. It is in the spaces between the “doings” that the true meaning of life can be experienced.
Good insights here Betty. And I agree about being alone, stepping back from engaging with others, to come back to yourself. Often my mantra in stillness when I have been too engaged with others and with work or life is “I give myself back. I have taken myself into my own possession. I give myself back to Knowledge.” All part of coming home to yourself and dealing with self-estrangement when that becomes a need.
” As we undertake the process of returning to the experience of this true identity, there is an equally big and important process of relinquishment underway. ” —Thank you, Reed, for highlighting that.
The journey we are undertaking brings many experiences to us, but here, rather than clouding reality with more and more layers of complexity, it feels like a great simplification process.
I was contemplating a passage in my today’s Step (339) that impacted me:
“The presence of love is with you, within the Fire of Knowledge within you. As exemplified by the presence of your Teachers, this presence permeates all things in the world. It is the context in which the world exists. It is still; therefore, it abides with everything. Can you who perceive the world perceive this abiding presence?”
“It is still, therefore it abides with everything”… Creation, Reality, is right here. “It is the context in which the world exists.” and calls us to calm down our minds to anchor ourselves in its reality while we are here in the world.
A “great simplification process”, yes that has been my experience. And yet this does bring its moments: moments of vulnerability, emptiness, doubt. At times we don’t know quite what we are, where we’ve been, where we’re going and a feeling of disorientation can arise. This is why words like perseverance, courage, patience, participation, acceptance are so important in the New Message. As Marshall has long said: “When you are going through something new or difficult, you have to be kind on yourself. Let us be kind on ourselves.”
Yes, Reed, very true. The journey is challenging.
Thank you Reed. The influences of the world are powerful, and I can see that if we are floating around without this grounding and understanding of what really matters we can easily lose control of the ship. Sucked back up to the surface of our mind, lost in the confusion and complexities of separation. I have also found that that as I release what I have added on that is not authentic and natural to my true self there is raw feeling of nakedness and I am wondering is this natural? As this feeling is really associated with fear and vulnerability. Which is not knowledge. Therefore not my true self, so maybe its just another layer of this onion I’m peeling. Another threshold perhaps?
I think so.
Shane in my experience there have definitely been those experiences of “nakedness,” of vulnerability, without an identity in some ways. This of course creates and fear and uncertainty for the mind, but I wouldn’t call that a problem being these are not qualities of Knowledge. On the way to Knowledge, there will be fear and there will be discomfort, we just need to keep going to pass through those clouds. But if we stop when those clouds arise, unable to proceed or resisting ourselves because of these “fearful” qualities, then even in a singular desire for Knowledge we can halt our progress.