Living the natural state

~ A text by Irma ten Brink ~

There is no absolute truth, but here is mine to share with you.

Very often I hear people say, wish, cry out: ”I just want to be myself”. “I want to be who I am”. And I know this feeling, this longing very well. I translate it now to a longing to ‘live my natural state’ which means to live the potential of what I am, to live that which I am meant to be living, to live what I was born to be my authentic self.

During this quest, which started getting a more concrete form about almost twenty years ago when I met Yoginâm, I discovered that wanting and wishing things were not so important. It is more about listening to what is meant to be.

And this listening is only possible when you are in the present moment with all your awareness. As long as you are busy with things that happened in the past or wishes, fears, expectations for the future you are not in the present moment.

But this is not as easy as it seems because we are often not aware that we are busy with our past or future. In the discovery of the transformation and letting go of past and future with all its fears, habitual programmes, illusions etc., lies the unveiling of the natural state.

We are transcendental beings, which means there are different levels of being which all influence our experience. We are experience, we are these different states all at the same time. These levels can also be very paradoxical towards each other, therefore there does not exist only one truth; it just depends from which level you approach a truth.

And all these levels are infinite, most levels are also unconscious. Some we can become conscious of to a certain depth, some will remain a mystery forever. But they do influence our lives and to acknowledge that is an important step as is the acknowledgement that comes with it that you don’t know anything at all and that you will never be able to grasp or understand it.

Life is a mystery, we don’t know where we come from, we don’t know where we are going but we can trust it, we can trust that it is as it should be and it is good precisely the way it is. We don’t have to understand in order to trust!

And maybe, if it is meant to be, we may become aware of this intimacy which is always very much here in the present moment. I experience it as a reminder of an undefinable essence from which we came, which is present now and where we will go back to after life.

For me this quest of finding my natural state is very much about becoming aware of these different levels and bringing them into harmony, an ongoing exploration.

And finally it is about letting go of the identification with I because as long as I is up front as most important, the natural state cannot be lived.

The most important instruments for this are silence and meditation techniques.

With the right meditation technique you don’t just dream away and have beautiful feelings which bring tranquility for that moment. Instead you use something, for example your breath, to concentrate on in order to stay in the present moment. The present moment is all the different levels together, not only the material level. If you can stay focused in the present moment everything that needs to be seen and to let go will come up by itself, you don’t have to do anything for that! When you try to do anything you are actually grasping it more instead of letting it go and you will never succeed.

By meditating every day for half an hour (also when you don’t want to, don’t feel like it, don’t have time etc.) you bit by bit start to let go of everything that obstructs you from finding the natural state.

In the beginning you can do this alone, you will discover and let go of disturbing habitual programmes which where created in the past and illusions projected in the future.

But there comes a moment that you can’t do it alone anymore, it can even become dangerous to do it alone. These habitual programmes and illusions are there for a reason; they support us and give us a (false) sense of security. However, if we let it go and don’t have anything else anymore to grasp, it can drive us mad at the end. Therefore we need a focus which is beyond the illusion of I and which can help us transform and open ourselves for a wider perception beyond ourselves.

For that I use the Breath of Heart, a personal sound which I received from Yoginâm as a tool which is connected to the breath. It helps me to focus on something that is not personal so that I can let go of my personal attachments. Also it helps me in moments when everything else seems to disappear and there is nothing else to hold on to anymore.
A mystic can help us to let go of ourselves in the end, to let go of this personal identification with an assumed existing I, to live our natural state and to trust and discover the infinity and the oneness we are all part of.

The Mystic say:
“The saint realizes water
The wise one realizes the ocean
The ignorant one realizes the drop”

By Yoginâm
From Fragments of Voice

Again here we have this paradox. In some states this I is there and we can’t go around it. We have to look left and right before we cross a busy street. But just realize: this is only one state!

Becoming aware, in other states, that no I exists, brings a totally different quality to life. Only letting go of the personal identification with I will help to unveil the natural state. And letting go of I and finding back the natural state on this level brings peace, joy and contentment on other levels. Realizing this on one level is the starting point of starting to live this natural state on another more day-to-day practical level. And there it will be tested by life with all the circumstances and challenges that life will give you in order to strengthen and fine-tune yourself. You start living your potential!

The ethics of resonance

“The resonance of today creates the experience of tomorrow”

We are part of an indescribable oneness. Once we discover we are part of this oneness, life becomes an art.

Everything we think, everything we feel, everything we want, dream, long and wish for, everything we do has a resonance. With this resonance we are creating our world.

This is very subtle and most of it is unconscious. For example by learning as a little child that you are not good enough, you start screaming this resonance into the world “I am not good enough”. With this resonance you are creating your world and you create circumstances which confirm that.

But also liking to watch the suffering of others on television, in aggressive movies, computer games etc. creates the need for that. So by liking and watching it, very subtly you are creating a world that answers to your needs. So the world has people who suffer because others need this in order to feel good!

By becoming more aware of this, observing ourselves, stalking ourselves, we can start creating a kind of world that brings joy, well-being, harmony and bliss for all.

This is a continuous possibility, challenge and responsibility for those who are aware to create a world in peace and to help others to become aware too.

“We are the creators of our entire universe with its infinite possibilities”.

More awareness means also automatically more responsibility which we should all take very seriously in order for the world to find peace. Once you realize we are one, we can’t leave someone else with a problem. If we can solve it or can do something for some one else we have to do it.

This oneness is not possible to describe. Yet mystics have written about it for centuries and present-day science also acknowledges how everything is connected to everything else.

When we start becoming more aware of this oneness, accepting that we will never know what this really means, we start to realize that everything is Love in the widest and deepest sense. And also, this cannot be described, understood or known in any way. And yet this is the most important aspect of life!

When I did my Vision Quest in Death Valley Arizona I became more aware of this connectedness. Because I could not understand, describe or grasp my experiences on the threshold of the quest I received a song in the last night of the Vision Quest; the night you cry out to receive a vision for your life.

This song, which came as close as possible to my experience in this solo quest went as following:

I am the land
I am the sky
I am the water
I am the fire
I am the animals
I am the people
I am I am

In this realisation it is just not possible to hurt anyone anymore.

But because most people have hidden demons inside themselves who are strong and can come up under certain circumstances, they can hurt each other. Also being unconscious can cause pain and suffering to others.

Therefore, while you are on this path of transforming yourself and letting go of these inner demons like jealousy, greed etc. there is one basic principle to always live up to:

“Never intentionally hurt, harm or damage anyone or anything”