Saturday, September 21, 2013

Compassion and Beingness



"The outer mind is 99.999999 percent comatose.
It simply does not realize
the unconscious forces
that dominate
or direct
the life of the individual."
~ W. Brugh Joy

I am in a pondering mood this morning. It may be some anniversary energies as I am acutely remembering having spent a lifetime of joy over a few weeks time in Thailand back in September of 2010. The sweetness of those memories are wildly contrasted with some very convoluted memories of a trip to Europe just one year later, in 2011.

As I was pondering, a "thought for the day" popped into my inbox. It seemed to direct my mental and emotional pathway. Aaron, a teacher I appreciate very much, was explaining the nuances between compassion and unconditional love. "Compassion implies a trembling in the heart, and opening of the heart….there is no longer need for forgiveness. Judgment falls away….there is a deeper seeing into the other's suffering and an unconditional love that embraces the other…. [Compassion] involves both aspects: deep seeing and unconditional love." Aaron says when love is there without that deep seeing, we are talking about unconditional love, but not about compassion. 

As I read Aaron's writing, my mind immediately jumped back to having read Joy's Way, A Map for the Transformational Journey: An Introduction to the Potentials for Healing with Body Energies, by W. Brugh Joy early in my training as a Healing Touch™ practitioner. In chapter three of the book, Brugh writes about a woman who had a direct inspirational awareness—spoken to her slowly and repetitively—of three injunctions: Make no comparisons; make no judgments; delete your need to understand. (p. 59) 


While I was looking online for the exact wording of these three injunctions, I came across a video interview Jeffrey Mishlove did with Brugh. Joy also wrote Avalanche: Further Awakening Into Beinghood. This video interview is titled "Thinking Allowed" and Brugh is talking about healing and the unconscious mind. You may want to take 6 minutes and 45 seconds to watch it for yourself

This is the ad for the "Healing and the Unconscious" DVD:

The unconscious, says Dr. Brugh Joy, is composed of multiple, autonomous personalities. These personalities affect our state of health—from allergic response to disease states such as diabetes and cancer. He suggests that the unconscious mind is far more extensive and powerful than is generally acknowledged, and that the normal conscious mind cannot hope to control the personalities within. Esoteric rites and initiations, he maintains, were designed to call forth particular personalities from the unconscious at appropriate stages of development. 
 
In the second part of this program, Brugh Joy describes how our dreams reveal the unconscious dynamics underlying health and illness. Illness, he says, is always there for a purpose. If we simply try to remove illness, without understanding how we are served by it, we fail to grasp its lesson. As we explore our unconscious mind, we face the disowned parts of ourselves which may appear to us as hideous or demonic. Joy suggests that if we are able to withhold our conventional judgments regarding these aspects, we can gain new perspectives on personal and social issues—and appreciate them as manifestations of our wholeness.

I loved how Brugh spoke about your getting a bigger picture, and the benefit that you are able to see through the many pairs of eyes, and hear via the many pairs of ears. I would imagine I may not yet be fully finished pondering, but I do have a greater appreciation for the importance of our having compassion for that sacred (not scared!) journey into beingness.