being human,  embodiment,  learning

The Realization Process

I have been practicing somatic meditation throughout the last few years, though not as regularly as I’d like. Recently, however, I started a regular practice, specifically using Realization Process techniques. As a long time ‘dabbler’ in meditation, bottom-up approaches work far better for me than top-down and I actually feel like I’m making progress. I have been noticing small shifts not only in the practice but throughout my days.

At first I wrote, ‘it’s not easy and takes effort’ but a more accurate statement is that ‘it takes effort only insomuch as I give time to it and get out of my own way.’

Today I thought I’d share a scholarly paper on the Realization Process developed by Judith Blackstone. It’s a bit heady but I’ve been studying yoga, meditation and other such topics for a few decades now. The following are excerpts and a link to the paper which briefly describes nondual reality and the process that helps us realize our part in it.

“Although nondual realization itself is entirely effortless, entirely without any sort of contrivance, we need to do the focused practice of subtle inward attunement in order to let go from deep within ourselves. But then we are able to really let go. We do not have to continually reinstate either our conceptual understanding or our wide-open focus. This means that nonduality is not something that we only experience when we remember to focus or conceive of life in a particular way. When we realize nondual transparency throughout our whole body, we uncover ongoing, effortless nondual reality.”

As we realize nonduality, we shift from a conceptual stance to the actual experience of ourselves and our environment. We shift from a constructed reality, to reality itself.”

Judith Blackstone, Embodied Nonduality

It’s an amazingly beautiful new way of being and I’m only scratching the surface. 2021 is looking incredible already. Now, if you excuse me, I need to do some heart breathing.

Photo by Susi Neumair – Wedding Dreamz on Unsplash