am I supposed to do nothing?

Hi, I'm new in the community.
I'd like to share a passage out of a book written by Anais Nin in 1932, called "The House of Incest". At the end of this very small book she describes a scene with a dancer first living in tightness and distortion, then surrendered to the flow. I find it beautiful and it explains so much.

"We all looked now at the dancer who stood at the centre of the room dancing the dance of the woman without arms. She danced as if she were deaf and could not follow the rhythm of the music. She danced as if she could not hear the sound of her castanets. Her dancing was isolated and seperated from music and from us and from the room and from life. The castanets sounded like steps of a ghost.
She danced, laughing and sighing and breathing all for herself. She danced her fears, stopping in the centre of every dance to listen to reproaches that we could not hear, or bowing to applause that we did not make. She was listening to a music we could not hear, moved by hallucinations we could not see.
My arms were taken away from me, she sang. I was punished for clinging. I clung. I clutched all those I loved; I clutched at the lovely moments of life; my hands closed upon every full hour. My arms were always tight and craving to embrace. I wanted to embrace and hold the light, the wind, the sun, the night, the whole world. I wanted to caress, to heal, to rock, to lull, to surround, to encompass. And I strained and I held so much that they broke; they broke away from me. Everything eluded me then. I was condemned not to hold.
Trembling and shaking she stood looking at her arms now stretched before her again.
She looked at her hands tightly closed and opened them slowly, opened them completely like Christ; she opened them in a gesture of abandon and giving; she relinquished and forgave, opening her arms and her hands, permitting all things to flow away and beyond her.
I could not bear the passing of things. All flowing, all passing, all movement choked me with anguish.
And she danced; she danced with the music and with the rhythm of earth's circles; she turned with the earth turning, like a disk, turning all faces to light and to darkness evenly, dancing towards daylight."

Namaste,
Helen

Wonderful Jetster - good job.

Open *OK*

Well Open and Cynthia thank-you both for softening my communication with other Spiritual individuals :) already I am seeing a difference! :)

using the word Religiously going to the site might have been a wrong choice of words ;)and I do not and have not pushed my truth as I see it through the guiding of Openhand on anyone :) I share on my Face Book my personal daily happenings and how I get through them and share Openhand's articles , I use Face Book as sort of a Diary but Open to others opinions and thoughts, some people privately have messaged me for my opinion and their curiosity on my new way of being and as u state Open I provide My truth as I know it to be now, of course I mention You Open and Openhand as this is where I am getting my new way of being and guidance, it has truly changed my life :).

Thank-you for the push once again in the right direction Open and "Openhand acting as a Mirror" having each person feeling their individual truth, that statement has re-organized my clarity on understanding the Openhand way.

That's great Jetster - but let's not make Openhand a religion!

It is acting as a mirror. What you feel as truth, is your own truth, no one else's. The key then is to express from that place.

Who are you? What is your truth? Come from there.

Open *OK*

Thank-you both Cynthia and Open, I strongly believe in my core The Openhand way is my path and the Righteous path but it had gotten to a point the more I spoke to people on a spiritual Journey the more I got frustrated with the mainstream approach and of course then my feelings came out wrong, I have been trying to work this out myself but no success, your methods are certainly not easy but I do believe with some practice it will lead to better communication with other spiritual individuals.

I was also looking for an outcome in the exchange, my bad.

I am pleased and surprised to say I have had some friends reading my Face Book posts and Openhand sharing's on my Face Book privately ask me for my opinion and guidance to their daily issues.... I try to be very careful as I realize I can only provide insight to them only from my level of consciousness, I have done nothing but be me to have this happen and I am very careful how I proceed and when I do I come from the guidance of Open and Openhand, I completely leave my ego aside and very openly state to them if I feel I cannot grasp or really help give a proper opinion, but I go religiously to the Openhand site and read and use the tools and guidance to integrate consciously the teachings of Openhand with the best of my abilities...I always mention Open and Openhand and that this is my place of guidance and that this is where I recommend they go to.

Yes, perfect Cynthia. Look for the question.

So in this case, it would always be an open question: they usually begin with "what, how" or "tell me about".

In this case, you might ask something along the lines...

"How do you feel moving into bliss is actually solving the problem?"
"What happens when it comes up again?"
"Isn't avoiding the tightness simply attachment?"
"And is not enlightenment to be enlightened by all things?"

You don't have to seek an outcome for the exchange. Simply ask the question and then hold the space.

See how it goes

Open *OK*

Perhaps questions Jetster. Questions are helpful since they neither provide an answer nor do they presume that any one approach is better than another. They simply provide an exploration of options and an observation of experience.

As you stated Open "For someone only beginning to truly confront their tightness, this is quite advanced work."

But this article and many others you have written and shared with us are great guidelines.

I do have one question and it is a tad off topic, when I communicate with people on the Spiritual Journey I seem to be noticing almost all are coming from the mainstream of spirituality as u state "The spiritual mainstream approach tends to be either the avoid it, or somehow take the pain away by using some technique to move into bliss" I find it difficult to express myself without possibly sounding like I am right and they are wrong? I feel like I may be over stepping my boundaries on these people but it pains me and frustrates me to see this approach?? not sure how to approach these people as the way I feel is pushing me away from connecting with them???

I feel for you LJ :-)

What's needed is not to see your meditation as somehow different from daily life. Rather to practice looking for beauty as you go through your life, then connecting with how you feel about it within. So building external internal connections which build the sense of soul.

It's not to avoid the darkness; but instead to give you a different centre - a mast in the storm so to speak.

So work on this, and when you have it, then you can better process the density.

I will email you privately about someone I would recommend as a facilitator to work with.

Best wishes

Open

Hi LJ, What is tightness - what is a distortion? Then how to work with them? Good questions, and indeed they are fundamental to understanding the Openhand Approach to spiritual evolution. Let's get into it... First is to understand who you really are, and the nature of reality. Briefly, I put it to you that what you really are, underneath it all, is Pure Presence - the infinite potential of the One. It can be experienced within in you as a sense of absolute clarity. It is pure potential at the source of all your thoughts, emotions and feelings. People who have touched this place in the course of history, have tended to refer to it in similar ways - an inner sense of 'crystal clear clarity', as if 'no one is here'. This video explains what I mean by that... Pure presence in the universe essentially comes into being as two relativistic flows of consciousness: there is the flow outwards from the source, which we call "Separation Consciousness"; and there's the flow back inwards again called "Unity Consciousness" (kind of like gravity). This "relativity" causes consciousness to condense into form - first light, then gases, then liquids, then solids. This process is what cosmologists have observed as the "Big Bang". The condensation into form, the continual rearrangement of matter, and the yearning to flow to ever higher states of harmony (universal increase in order), causes the process we observe as 'evolution'. This overall process is actually replicated throughout all parts of the universe, including you. Inside of you at any one moment, this pull to break down old consciousness structures, and to flow to ever higher states of harmony is active: the relativity of consciousness (Unity and Separation: Love and Fear) creates every thought, emotion and feeling you have. It creates your reality (basically you are either making choices from the unity aspect - love; or you are making choices based on the separation aspect - fear). What we're moving towards, is a fully balanced, fully harmonious expression of the One Self in any moment; this is the purpose of your soul...

To be a living, breathing expression of the One in any moment, constantly seeking out ever finer ways to be, and express, the One

Your soul is a streaming flow of Unity Consciousness flowing down from the source (through you) and back to it. It is seeking to be 'self-realised' - which means to be realising of the One Self in every moment. In the way of this divine purpose, is the ego. Understanding the ego, is critical to understanding why one's life is fulfilled or not. The ego is where the soul attaches to the experience of reality. As the soul flows into you, depending on its level of self-realisation, fragments of it 'break off', get lost in your inner density, then create eddy currents of programmed behaviour. These programmed behaviours build up at many levels: your physical body (in the brain with fixed neural pathways), in your emotional body, subconscious mind and your causal body (where your karma is stored). I have explained the various bodily vehicles there are in detail in this article... Being Human. Most people think they are free and are making free choices in life, when really, they're mostly coming from some form of conditioning - they're making choices out of fear and the need to control - there are often many existential concerns that shape the choices people make. So as the soul flows into the bodymind, it gets stuck in these programmed loops of behaviourisms - what we call "distortions" - because they are distortions of authentic beingness of the soul. When these distortions are active in your life, they create observable "tightness" within. It's where you go into fear, control or resistance: essentially where you think you need a particular outcome from the moment, or are resisting another...

Let us be clear, the One in you - who you really are - wants and needs nothing. Because it already has everything! And the soul is yearning to express this completeness in every moment. It's singular purpose is to be realising of the One Self. But where ego forms, and the idea that you need a particular outcome, this creates resistance inside, felt as tightness.

How you experience this tightness, depends on where it is active. If active in the mind, you may experience it as constant questioning thought processes or doubt - you can't seem to switch the mind off. If it's emotional tightness, you might experience it as jealousy, emotional attachment or fear (for example). If it's subconscious, you'll likely be projecting filters of neediness onto your relationships with people. Or issues of self worth, lack of self love for example. How you deal with this tightness is crucial to your ability to progress through it. The spiritual mainstream approach tends to be either the avoid it, or somehow take the pain away by using some technique to move into bliss. But this only postpones dealing with the true issue.

The way to deal with it, is to deeply feel into the tightness when it comes up; to explore your neediness in it - what is it you think you need from the situation? What are you resisting? Remember, the One in you needs nothing from the situation, only another experience through your soul.

So the key is to confront the tightness, regress yourself into it - feel into it; then to honour the pain by allowing yourself to express it - to let it out. Then you work to unleash the soul through it, by finding a higher sense, a more connected sense, a more expanded one. Essentially you open a space through the tightness and let the soul flow through - to liberate the soul. Upon which, you actually become who you truly are - the One, expressing in that moment authentically. The approach is dealt with basically in this video... For someone only beginning to truly confront their tightness, this is quite advanced work. And it will take some guidance to truly master it. That's why we recommend either coming on the Openhand course program (where we go into it experientially in detail), or else by working with one of our facilitators, who have all been trained in it. You can see the list of facilitators in our network here... Openhand Facilitator Network I trust this gives both you, and others new to the Openhand work, some initial insight in dealing with distortions. Do feel free to ask further questions. With very best wishes Open