In January and March of this year, I spent a weekend in a private retreat with Michael Neill and a weekend in an intimate group with Dicken Bettinger. Both men are master coaches and teachers in the application of Syd Banks’ Three Principles philosophy. (All of this was well before the onset of The Great Shelter-in-Place, of course.)
During these weekends, I had profound, life-changing experiences. You know the truth when it happens to you. You can feel it.
The first truth I felt was this:
We are always connected to a higher intelligence.
As Sydney Banks said, “There’s a spiritual energy guiding us that is far greater than we are. It’s been guiding us from day one. The only thing that doesn’t allow us to know it is our ego/intellect.”
My recognition of this truth, this absolute knowing that came over me, was the result of my own 30 years of work coming to fruition.
What I realized, though, is that it didn’t have to take 30 years.
Throughout the decades, I thought I had to do so much work, that I had to do something to get there… Aikido, yoga, meditation, etc.
And now I know:
I’m always there.
• • •
“There” is here inside me. I have it. You have it. It’s guiding me every step of the way.
And the minute I don't believe my thinking to be real, I can listen for the wisdom guiding me.
We listen to the intellect like it’s real, rather than understanding that the intellect is a reflection of Intelligence. The intellect is only designed to be an echo of this Intelligence.
It’s like sticking a spoon into the ocean, scooping up a bit of water and saying the spoonful of water is the ocean; it’s not.
The truth is, the only thing that can tell us where we are is how we feel, and we have a culture that doesn't like to feel. (We think there’s something wrong with feeling!)
So after 30 years, I now understand it’s okay to feel what I feel. And now, I look for good feelings. Because they're my clue that I’m closer to the Source. The Guide.
We either know what to do or we don’t know what to do. We are in one of those two states at any time. Intelligence guides us to know, rather than to figure anything out.
• • •
The second truth that became clear to me was this:
This Intelligence is LOVE.
During the retreat with Dicken Bettinger, my thinking fell away and I clearly saw it: This Intelligence is Love. It’s all-giving. It’s inclusive. When my intellect quiets down, I know this.
I know the truth of what Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba was pointing to when he said, "The divine is not something high above us. It is in heaven, it is in earth, it is inside us."
What we are going through right now, what we're up against as a culture, as a planet, has me thinking about Thoreau. We are all going to Walden Pond. Distractions have been drastically reduced and we can see our true nature.
Even in isolation though, we can be distracted.
We can Zoom, text, scroll, keep busy.
But there is an invitation to be still. To explore the possibility.
How do we connect to our true nature? Really listen to it? Feel this love inside of us and act from it?
We have to...
Because with all we are facing in our personal lives, our economy, our community and the world, this is a pretty big wake-up call.
Everybody has access to this Intelligence. I can’t give this to people. I can’t give people what they already have. But I can point people to what is already there. We all have it. We just believe our thinking to be real.
• • •
In those private retreats with Michael and Dicken, there was one moment that each of them said something, and I could feel it.
I made myself available to feel the truth. I wanted to feel it. The intellect can never get to it; that’s like a dog trying to catch its tail.
So how can I set up circumstances so that someone else has that same moment?
In fact, you already have it. We all have it. That’s the big joke. We try to go find it from somebody else because we think we don’t have it, but we all have the same access, the same love.
The best chance I have of reminding you of that is being in that energy with you and pointing you to it, just as Michael and Dicken did for me.
All you need is one moment.