The twelfth thing

Eleven things come to us naturally: breathing, eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, moving, resting, sleeping, waking, dreaming, and vocalizing. The twelfth thing, which will free us, is to cultivate awareness in which we are doing none of the other eleven things.

~Hilarion

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Our bodily functions usually rule us. We eat when we’re hungry; we drink when we’re thirsty. We breathe without conscious thought. We sleep and wake in cycles. We eliminate regularly,too. If we don’t tend to our bodily needs, we’re miserable.

Our body houses our physical mind, which acts as a unit of storage and a point of focus for our free will. Our body also houses our sharing within—our conscious interface with the divine. As the home for an individuated piece of divine consciousness, our body is a temple. It’s important to treat it with loving care and respect.

However, if we tend only to our body’s needs and desires, we lose sight of our reason for being. Our purpose is to allow divine interconnected consciousness—the sharing—to experience itself in human form. We do this best when we allow the divine some conscious participation in our life, when we perceive life through both physical mind and sharing within.

For many of us, this conjoined perception is difficult, sporadic, and usually involuntary, because we don’t know how to engage consciously with the divine at will. Until we learn how to connect with the sharing intentionally, we will struggle with melding bodily and divine awareness.

Practice of connection with the sharing begins by allowing awareness of the body to recede, creating deliberate house room for the divine. There are numerous ways to achieve temporary relaxation of separate identity: meditation, prayer, gazing at mandalas, and walking labyrinths are just a few.

The important thing is to give the physical mind and body a break, by letting them recede from awareness briefly. In doing so, we allow ourselves to remember our sacred origin and identity, as part of a divine interconnected whole. When we return our consciousness back to our body after this perceptual pause, we will do so feeling whole and balanced and with an understanding of the right relationship between spiritual and material.

Let’s take a sensory break right now and spend a few minutes in conscious connection with our inner divinity—our sharing within. We will begin by slowing our breath and allowing it to become soft, regular, and even. We will picture our sharing within as an orb of golden light in the center of our chest, in our heart region.

With every breath in, the light becomes strong and bright. With every breath out, the light suffuses us and our surroundings. As we continue breathing softly and visualizing the golden light, a sense of peace, calm, and certainty will wash over and through us, signaling conscious connection with the divine.

We will relax into that sensation of ease and serenity, allowing the cares and concerns of daily life to fall away from us. With each inhalation and exhalation, we release more and more of our separate identity. Our occupation, our status, and our role as a child, a parent, or a partner all evaporate in waves of golden light. It feels good to let go of this self-definition and just be.

As we breathe the golden light in and out, physical sensations begin to ebb. Our personal boundaries start to blur, and our consciousness starts to blend with the beings and things in our vicinity. We breathe golden light out in waves, and our perception rides out with the light to touch all the rest of existence, too.

It feels natural and comfortable to join our awareness with that of our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, and finally with all of creation. There is no separate self; there is only a collective and loving WE. We are infinite, whole, holy, perfect, and beautiful. Simple existence is joyful and precious. We feel no need to do anything other than be. Life is love. Nothing more is required.

We will allow ourselves to savor this blissful and exquisite state. This is our true nature in the sharing. Then, when we feel ready, we will return our awareness slowly back to our physical body, while also retaining connection to the rest of creation, too.

From this joint perception—physical awareness and sharing within—we will open our physical eyes and examine our surroundings. We will notice how everything around us seems more beautiful and loveable, when seen from this conjoined viewpoint. Recognition of the divine in ourselves and in all parts of creation makes everyday life more precious and enjoyable.

The union of heaven and earth occurs within us, when we perceive together with the sharing. This is our reason for being. We know we are divine love incarnate.

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Divinely unique and beautiful reader, how does it feel to be everything and nothing? Please share…