Friday, 17 July 2009 14:51
Here is another exchange with someone by email. Someone wrote me the following:
My next question is how do I go about exploring the sense of lack? My guess is that I have to feel it, but I can't find it. I can't locate it or pin it down to be with it. I'll try to write it out to better feel it and clarify it: What is this sense of lack? From the perspective of feeling, it is a tension and sense of anxiety. The tension can be felt to different degrees everywhere in the body; the anxiety seems to be in the lower belly, the stomach, and the chest. The thoughts that go along with it are - people know something I don't - I have to get more information, more knowledge - something is missing - maybe I can get what I need from a teacher or book - what I find is never enough - why can't I be more like so and so; he's seems to be so free and happy - I am not enough - I need something more - I have to prove myself - I have to work hard and earn enlightenment - something in the future could bring me what I want (though I don't even know what I want) - the future could also bring disaster - I am so vulnerable - I am afraid - I am incomplete, insecure, and lacking in confidence.
That seems to be its voice at the moment.I still feel like I'm missing something in my exploration of missing something! But this is a start. How do you suggest I meet this sense of something missing? What can I do?
And here is my reply:
That is a wonderful start to your exploration. And you can also develop a curiosity about the actual "hole" or emptiness in the center of the feeling of lack. Very naturally, directing your attention to this sensation of lack will bring to awareness all of the voices and memories and conditioning associated with that experience of lack. These often need to be seen and allowed just to be here. And yet there is usually a raw sensation of lack that is still felt at the core of your Being. You just need to allow the associations to arise and be seen, and then direct your awareness once again to the emptiness at the core.
Often an even deeper layer will come to the surface, perhaps a deeper layer of conditioning such as sadness or anger or fear. Or at other times it will be a deeper layer of your Being that is a quality of Essence or Being, such as love or peace or joy. And the shocking thing is that what often arises in the lack is the very thing you felt you were lacking. So a sense of true essential love can often arise in the place where you lack love. And essential worth can be found in a place where you lack any sense of value. But really all you need to do is trust and explore whatever does show up. There is no formula as it unfolds differently every time you look within.
Ultimately, even these deeper and truer experiences of essence are empty at their core and so there is always the opportunity to go even deeper into the emptiness. It is like infinite layers of more and more essential aspects of your Being that are then seen to be hiding another deeper layer. But the doorway or opening to the deeper reality is always the place where it seems emptiest.
There is an article on my website that explores this in greater depth here.
And in light of your questions, you might enjoy the following two videos that I just discovered. They are by a physicist who has found a unified field theory that fits right in with this way of understanding consciousness. But be forewarned, the videos are very long (over four hours each) and he gets into all kinds of far out stuff from UFOs to advanced ancient civilizations. It can blow your mind a bit, and yet his theory of how the universe is structured fits right in with what we have been discussing, with an emptiness at the core actually being the entry into a deeper dimension. In his theory the emptiness at the core of every object (including the Sun, the Earth and our physical body) is an actual black hole. Like I said it is kind of mind blowing! Here are the links:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6151699791256390335
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1895475242307393956&hl=en
Hope this helps.
Warmly,
Nirmala
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