Receptivity

[Moondance]

There are no formulas that can bring about the felt-sense realisation of no-separation/Oneness. But what seems to be reported in many cases of this shift is that when conditions (in the story of me) thrust us to the outer edge of our habituated tendencies of mind (this could occur by various means such as suffering, trauma, existential crisis… also, meditation, inquiry/koan, absorption etc.) the veil of consensual reality can lose its hold and in this psychological vacuum another perception can arise.

So it’s clear to most that, to some degree, certain conditions need to prevail in order for this shift to occur. The above ‘means’ from meditation and inquiry to suffering and crisis all serve to bring the nervous system/consciousness into a state of receptivity or openness*.

In contrast to this, paths, practices and rituals which promote becoming, overcoming, striving, improvement, perfection and purification, largely lock the organism into dualistic and subtly egoic states of mind and hamper the simple shock of ever-fresh receptivity.

Of course, eventually paths of purification, perfection, abstinence, rigorous practice and ritual etc. may well bring the body-mind to a state of desperation where there will be a giving-up and in that moment of crisis receptivity may start to dawn. In other words, these paths can act as the long way round - an unnecessary and often painful diversion away from this which is always already the case.





* To acknowledge this does not in any way violate the principle of no-separation since none of this entails an actual separate self (it can’t because there isn’t one and there never was.) It’s only and always Source at play (so to speak.) The play of receptivity is often (but not always) a mechanism within the story which arises correlative to the delusion of separation falling away.