Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the week of January 26, 2015

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Living Wholeness

(The Way of Wholeness: Part 8)

Wholeness means that everything fits, everything belongs and has its place. Living wholeness means, in practice, that our days flow without inner obstruction. No longer is our inner life separate from our outer life: it is all of one piece. To live in wholeness means to live in awareness, in the unfragmented energy of consciousness. Behind all activity and occurrences, our life flows in peace. A current of spacious inner stillness accompanies all we do and experience. And we do not miss chunks of our day, of our life; we live it. Living in wholeness means living in presence, with a wide open, relaxed awareness that takes in everything around us and everything inside us.

Starting the day with a period of meditation that puts us in state of wholeness is the single most effective action we can take toward living in wholeness. A morning sitting sets up our entire day. We put ourselves into contact with our wish to be whole, into contact with our body, mind, and heart. We put ourselves into the cognizant stillness behind all our perceptions. And we emerge from the meditation in a state of wholeness, which we then have an opportunity to carry into our day. The sitting not only helps us have the inner peace to be present, but also the strength to meet, accept, and respond to whatever comes our way. For wholeness is not just about all the things we like about our life. Wholeness is all-inclusive and does not turn away from or reject the unavoidable experiences we wish were otherwise. That takes peace and strength.

Throughout our day we return to the inner work of wholeness. Because we start from the whole, we do not have the tension that arises so readily from partial inner efforts. We return in peace to ourselves, to our life, to our awareness. We no longer need spare attention to split between being aware of ourselves and doing what we are doing. It is all one whole. We are here in our body, heart, mind, and consciousness, and we are intentionally doing what we are doing. Being more conscious enables us to be more conscientious, the inner raises the outer. Whenever we fall or fail outwardly, even in a small way, we let that remind us to be present and whole. If we stub our toe because we were not paying attention, we take that as a reminder to pay more attention, to come back to presence right then.

Living wholeness brings the timeless to time. Our entire day becomes one large moment that we flow through, that we breathe inside of: a rich, timeless moment. We understand and appreciate the privilege of being alive. Our self-centeredness fades in the greatness of each day.

For this week, please open to spacious living, to living wholeness.


     

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