Hi Danniel,

I think it's important to allow people the space to explore into distortion. The "Middle Way" has often been interpreted within people as a dropping of their extremity - "dropping the hot coals" - is something you often hear. The problem is that you then become an identity who is "dropping the hot coals" and adopting the "middle path".

In the Openhand Approach, there is the recognition, and allowance, that every distortion conceals a hidden gift - a nugget of soul gold that got buried in the distortion. It's because ultimately, every distorton is a distorted expression of the soul: anger becomes the distortion of expressed warrior energy or powerful will - the ray 1 of the soul (see Openhand's view on the 7 Rays of the Soul). The problem in simply "dropping the hot" coals of this distorted behaviour is to risk "throwing the baby out with the bath water. You're denying and suppressing a crucial aspect of yourself. It can lead to frustration and the creation of another type of identity - the spiritual identity - I'm behaving like the Buddha for example (rather than allowing the fiullness of myself).

That's why at Openhand we apply the Breakthrough Approach - you allow and encourage expression of the distortion, including regression into it. But then you're feeling into whatever the attachment might have been that belies the distortion. Needing people to respect you for example. You let go of that need as you experience it. Then the strong energy can flow through but without projection or judgment - you're able to find a constructive way of expressing the power.

I do think this "non-dualist" approach has been pretty good at bringing people to a good degree of surrender and letting go. But now, if we're truly to evolve, it's time we move beyond these teachings and really delve into the nature of the soul: there is The One, the absolute in you (non dual), and AT THE SAME TIME, there is the unique expression of you. And actually, by unleashing the unique expression of you in any given moment leads to the One - the true essence of the One.

The Shiva energy for example is also an expression of the One. It can be highly destructive. But destruction leads to construction when it contains the seeds of the future. Thus the Shiva becomes the necessary catalytic energy that breaks the old reality construct down that the new can emerge. The risk of playing the "Middle Path" is that you'd miss the fullness of this very necessary energy. We all stay in limitation. And that's definitely what humanity needs to evolve beyond right now.

Open