Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Jeddah Mali teachings Embracing Freedom

Dear Wendy and other interested users,

In the meditation on 'Meaning' Jeddah asks us to bring to mind something that we have found to give our lives meaning. Then we are asked to release that thought or image and return to the Sea of Awareness. The resulting experience dissolves some (or all) of the mental and/or social props we use to give that thing 'meaning' for our lives. (I hope this is a reasonably accurate summary of that section of the meditation.)

As I have lived quite a few years on this planet already in this life, a lot of the major meaning categories have been decimated -- just the nature of my quest has brought up and destroyed a lot of these identifications. So, basically, when Jeddah asks us to bring forward some aspect of meaning structure that we adhere to, my mind draws a blank. That does not mean I believe I have nothing more to examine! Just that it's not coming readily. The response that comes to mind is 'Just stick with it and something will come up as you keep asking yourself to bring it forward into conscious awareness.' Undoubtedly that is true, but I'd like to know a few examples of 'meaning' other than the large categories Jeddah mentions in the introduction to Meditation 4.

What actually does give life meaning? When I really think about it, the only thing I can come up with is loving friendship, especially with other seekers, and rendering service to those in need.

Thanks for being here!

Catalina

Hi again, Catalina!

What an interesting question.

I’m going to have to revisit that meditation, but my recollection is that Jeddah is referencing meanings in which consistent unexamined thoughts have led to assumptions which have become beliefs that we hold in our unconscious. Because they are unconscious we may be inadvertently creating outcomes that are not aligned with conscious awareness and our stated intentions. When we examine these meanings from this context we find that the sea of awareness is clearly following through on exactly the instructions that we were unknowingly sending out.

If these thoughts are expansive, well and good, but we often internalize meanings that do not support our alignment with pure awareness. When this is the case we can trip into the illusory and contracted states of fear, overwhelm, paranoia, anxiety, judgment, separation, depression, etc.

When we don’t challenge or question these assumptions, we limit our access to the naturally expansive states of love, peace, joy, kindness, respect, inspiration, appreciation, etc. These are the default states that give life meaning and that align us with the unified paradigm and direct conscious contact with awareness.

It sounds as if you are well down the road to consistently remembering and accessing that connection.

Lots of love,
Wendy

Hi Wendy-

I know this is an older post, but this is the meditation I am stuck on now

I do wish you would revisit the meditation for more clarity. I completely understand the explanation you give above, however, I heard in the meditation: "identify something that has deep meaning for you, something you feel you could not live without, now let go of all meaning and see that thing as Awareness itself.

For me the thing that I dont feel I could live without is my primary spiritual path and community, which has literally been a lifeline for me for many years, and the idea of letting go of the profound meaning and healing that represents is truly distressing. If Jeddah indeed means what you say above, about letting of meaning in things that create contraction, it does not seem to be worded that way in the meditation or I am misinterpreting somehow. Can you please clarify?

Thank you!

WaterBird

Hi WaterBird!

Glad to hear you are moving ahead.

I realized as soon as I listened to the “Meaning” meditation again this weekend that I had butted heads with this exact quandary, not during the times I have done this meditation, but during an exercise we did in Jeddah’s retreat.

When I originally did this meditation, the area I brought up was one that matters a lot to me, but that I quickly recognized had an incredible amount of baggage connected with it. As I sat with the initial thought and gradually released all the layers of meaning that had built up around it, I had an incredible shift when I recognized that even the perceived “imperfections” were all perfect despite the meanings I had attributed to them. I went from the place of this is “impossible” to one of anything and everything is possible. So for me, it was a very strong experiential realization because of the subject I choose to work on.

This was definitely NOT the case during the Jeddah retreat. We were asked to identify elements of our personality that we felt were intrinsic to who we are and then release them. I was amazingly attached to a couple of the traits I identified and felt the meaning was so altruistic that I didn’t want to release them anyway! I have revisited this exercise multiple times and have gradually been shifting my outlook as I have come to the following realizations – some of them prompted by Jeddah and some from self reflection:

We are becoming that which we are, not what we imagine we should be. You are already a spiritual being and part of a spiritual community and no amount of walking or not walking that path will change it. Paradoxically, when I assume that I need to maintain my altruistic traits I am reinforcing the belief that they were ever absent, just as you are giving power to the thought that you could ever be a none spiritual person. In fact, when we realize this we open to the possibility of even more spirituality or altruism than we now experience because we are knocking down the walls of the box in which we have contained these meanings. It’s as if the curtain between the quantity/quality that we were comfortable with (the meaning we had assumed) has been removed and we have access to the infinite supply that is evident now we can see beyond the limited frame of reference we had before.

When we perceive good/bad, virtue/sin, black/white we are assuming that there are two fundamental realities rather than one. Duality comes from the meanings we attribute to the various aspects of our life. We know and have experienced that we are all sourced from the same energy.

As we release the effort to maintain the identity, the story or the meaning, we more and more consistently place our attention in the present moment, where everything we seek already resides anyway. All we release opens more space for infinite possibility and potential.

The mind’s interpretation of what goes on in our lives creates meaning and assumptions that are intended to protect our ego and identity. These can take us on a very circuitous route of highs and lows and existential angst. The mind is not and never will be the tool with which to experience the truth. The present moment awareness we experience through meditation will lead us there.

As we continue to access expansive states of consciousness, our old perception of self will naturally atrophy. We just need to have the willingness to undergo continual shifts in our perception, learn to recognize mind activity at subtle levels and discern what is expansive and what is not.

For a lot of us, I think Jeddah’s work is about learning to trust ourselves and the process we are going through. There is no right or wrong way to do this and it is all part of a process that is leading us on an upward spiral. She exposes us to concepts we can experiment with and there is no pass/fail. Work with what comes up and move on. As we continue to evolve, what is obscure now will become clearer and each time we revisit these meditations, we will be coming from a more spacious and expansive perspective.

Trust the process!

With love,
Wendy

Thanks for your detailed response Wendy. I can tell from my response while reading (and re-reading) it, that I am not ready to make this leap yet, whatever the block is. And I have so many layers of "work" happening right now that I will just trust that the timing is not right for me on this teaching, and simply pass on it for now. And frankly I am just a bit burnt out on working so hard at all of this. Its sort of paradoxical, isnt it, that the teaching is "you are already that, and its all perfect", yet here is this set of teachings and lessons that we must progress through in order to become conscious of it and change how we experience it?

Thanks again for your support.

WaterBird

Hi again, WaterBird!

I understand exactly what you’re saying. It reminds me of that poem of T.S. Eliot

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

It’s definitely worth the journey, but sometimes we need to pace ourselves!

Jeddah had a really great analogy when she was talking about Embracing Freedom and said that people think they can set a goal like “I want to be at peace” or “I want to feel good” and just get out their map or set their GPS and forge straight ahead to achieve that state. Her point was that the meditations in Embracing Freedom are like towns along the road that you need to pass through in order to release the lower vibrations from your system and embrace the wisdom that allows you to finally and totally access the higher frequencies that you seek.

The "Unseen Helpers" meditation is really helpful if the journey is feeling a little lonely. They can’t do the work for you, but they can definitely provide support along the way!

Lots of love,
Wendy