PRIMAL CONTRACTION

“Deprivation seems to affect the emotional development of a child in much the same way that horror does. Do the two situations, then, have something in common? To my mind, both conflict with the individual´s inborn sense of the natural order of things. Both contain an element of unreality, making them incomprehensible to the individual. No infant or child can fathom the lack of response to his or her needs by a mother or father. The child´s sense of reality is upset. Such a child must feel like a fish out of water as he or she cries and struggles to reestablish the expected environment. The deprivation is accepted as the new reality, but only after the child has waged and lost the battle for a human right.”

~ Alexander Lowen, Narcissism, p.148   

The infant cannot fathom the frustration of its biological needs for physical touch, affection, attention and spiritual recognition. The bodymind contracts in an attempt to block the feeling of pain resulting from the betrayal of the infants primal-primate needs for human affection. The energy of the bio-anger becomes locked in the tissues, literally locking spirit within an armor of rigid defense. Flow of energy and consciousness around the body is curtailed by the muscular contraction against feeling the deprivation of love.

Since the tension of this bio-frustration is pre-verbal and unconscious, it cannot be accessed or addressed verbally. But shows up in a million symptoms such as self hatred, self sabotage, inability to bond, shyness, survival insecurity, impaired creativity, self consciousness, weak immunity, uncoordination, substance abuse, frigidity, promiscuity, dissociation from feeling and emotion and in the extreme: violent, pathological and criminal behavior. It is scary to think that who we are now is greatly impacted by muscular defense patterns that were established in our first years when we had no volitional control over our lives. For those of us who were not giving the loving space to unfold naturally into the world, fear and primal rage are still probably locked into the core musculature. All of us to one degree or another are primaly contracted...for as consciousness ascends with each generation we can never seem to get enough sensitivity and receptivity to our needs.

Primal contraction probably begins in the womb with the stress load, thoughts and emotions of the mother, and those she comes in contact with. There may even be some anaesthetization of the fetus due to harmful substances the mother imbibes, as well as noises. Primal contraction is essentially the tensile state of trying to get out of the present moment. And it is our resistance to Being...to letting go that scares us. We literally flee our Self in seeking to return home to Soul in the present moment. So primal release is the remembering of our origin-al nature prior to contraction.

The template for contractive reactivity is laid down in the first few years...a biological indignation and defeat. A priory helplessness embedded in our inner most structure and all our compensatory inventiveness and adaptability, is just flabby housing around the brittle foundation of neglected spirit. Unconditional compassion (spaciousness) is about the only thing that can touch and melt this frozen defensive structure. Only by intuiting the unconscious source of our angst and learning to unconditionally love ourselves can we out grow our primal contraction. For in our reactivity and our angry response to injustice, it is hard for us love our pained self. So we are literally running from ourselves in horror, layering cage upon cage.

We cannot differentiate from something, (that is transcend and include) until we become conscious of it. Not just mere rational understanding but full body-mind-soul felt-sense or grokking. This is a full spectrum perception where the heart gathers in its magnetic field both the three lower chakras and the three higher chakras. Dissociated rational perception is hubris, where the intellect is high jacked by the three lower chakras without the mediation of the heart. This dissociated rationality or “dumb-genius” is the basis of the ecological-spiritual crisis. We are still awaiting the great synthesis, truth and integration through experiencing the heart´s amazing powers of transmutation. Neurosis and pathology occur when we “dissociate” or make unconscious through denial, repression and neglect rather than to differentiate and transcend. Through addressing this shadow of dissociation or negation we can re-integrate into our full wild-sensory-body, feeling-earth and Kosmic heart.

Individuation/independence is the differentiation process. Pathologies of co-dependence or isolationism represent symptoms of dissociation where either through neglect, abuse or ignore-ance, the heart has failed in its mediating role to integrate the chakras to the full spectrum of consciousness/sentience. Primal contraction in that it diminishes our energy, blocks integration and creates inner/outer separation, most certainly interferes with our maturity, independence and relationships. By loosening our core, we reclaim our spiritual center, which allows the individuation and independence necessary to expand our inner and outer boundaries. If we fail to really reach ourselves through our contracted core, we cannot either convey energy from the earth, nor receive or convey sustained love with others.

The more into ourselves we go, the deeper into Kosmic embrace we expand. The deeper the sacred marriage within us and the more possibility for a parallel sacred marriage between two equally evolved lovers....Soul love. Suffering is caused by lack of love awareness or ignore-ance of Spirit. Nirvana is the victory of conscious-love over suffering...through the loving embrace of suffering. Nirvana can be taken into deeper and deeper depths of the psycho-physical body itself, by seeking out and healing through love-consciousness all that lies in shadowy retreat from our sentient perceptors. Nirvana is to embrace within the heart all that runs from us hurting and bleeding. The transmutation of suffering flesh, through triumphant Spirit.

Separation

This core of contractive holding is the very real separation between our inner self...the flow of feeling, emotion, knowing, vision....and separation with Other. I acknowledge that pain is a great awakener and everyone has their own reasons for suffering. But by primal release I am talking about the restructuring of our energetic blueprint through the conscious feeling and liberation of the stored tension from our original retreat from consciousness...and love. Love is what feeds life, what expands consciousness, what grows us out of shadow and pain. *Core contraction prevents a sustained generation of love...the Stellar Heart, which would in itself melt the core of our very being. The stellar heart or Christ Spirit allow us to face the Void and the Nothing, without retreat...it is the source of our manifestation.

Deepok Chopra says "The basis of fear is SEPARATION. That means that, at the molecular level, there is less communication between the cells of your body...you are separating yourself from your healing power.” I would add that in “fear” we are separating ourselves from the rest of existence PLUS the ascension/liberation of the human spirit. Our primary fear is of separation. Separation from the mother. Separation from our past in death. Separation from our loved ones. This is why Krishnamurti says that living is in the dying. That we have to die to ourselves to live and love...because it is our “fear” of separation which prevents the boundless love of the stellar heart, Unity Consciousness or Oneness with All.

Primal contraction makes one feel overwhelmed or invaded by the world, for boundaries are only felt when they are fortified. Primal contraction does not offer us defense against Other, but instead makes us feel vulnerable to attack and almost helpless in our ability to make “real contact with other.” Primal contraction taken to its zenith could mean we would live in total isolation and still not feel safe.

“But there can be no freedom from fear unless you experience it, and you cannot experience fear as long as you find ways and means of escaping from it.”

~ Krishnamurti, On Living and Dying

We have to feel and face our aloneness in the Void, our separation, our contraction against life, if we are to truly live and love. We have to die to our separate-self-sense. All current manifestations of fear in our lives are build on our primary contraction...we carry our cocoon wherever we go. Primal Release is an attempt to bring feeling back into numbness, to find our blind spots to recover our wholeness. In becoming conscious of our recoil from life we can die to the cocoon and so become our Butterfly Self.

Responsibility

Nothing is ever lost to consciousness, only hidden. The truth of our past is apparent in the body. Whatever contraction an infant goes through is necessary or it wouldn't happen. Primal contraction is an anaesthetizing response to danger, insult, or unmet needs. What I am concerned about is that once we have claimed responsibility for our adulthood, why should we continue to carry the deep pain of our early life over which we had no volitional control. Its not as though we can make up for the early trauma, but there must be ways of melting the core contraction of consciousness on which our ego hangs. Again ego is not to be gotten rid of, it is the internal pressure of unconscious and involuntary holding that is the strain and the waste...the devitalization on which our self-saboteur clings. This separating force keeps us from greater communion with ourselves and others. This unconscious defensive shield then unfortunately attracts further abuse from our community...through no fault of our own.

If a family is unconscious enough for primal contraction to occur, then chances are that animal-social dynamics will usually prevent the conscious disclosure of this primary defensive contraction. The armoring becomes obvious later in life when conscious-romantic relationship or spiritual practice infiltrate the deadened unconscious parts. Often resulting in aggressive, egoic backlash as the armor seeks to maintain its “protective” hold over the organism. But we can´t just reject or beat up our lover or therapist that is threatening our armor´s demise.

The suppressive/abuses forces of our past may have contributed to a painful body shield, but once we learn to let go of this, we realize that all that tension may have propelled us to reach further into the world and into ourselves for healing. So we can be grateful to all that went into the making of us, good and bad. This is the fascinating enigma of the dance of light and dark. It is probably not a good idea to even broach the subject of primal contraction with one´s birth family, for they were just doing their best within the level of consciousness and circumstances they were given. Since it is our unconscious reactivity that we are addressing in removing primal contraction, any anger or blame disempowers our healing. This whole problem of the illusion of the separation-self-sense is one of ignore-ance of Spirit, which forever requires unconditional understanding.

Life is such that what is good often turns out to be bad and what is bad often turns out to be good. Blame is antithetical to healing. *As long as we are unconsciously waiting for apology or amends this prevents the gratitude and empowerment needed for healing, wholeness and redemption. It must be emphasized that primal contraction work is the recognition of our formative forces through a transpersonal and animal-sociological perspective of our 1-5 years. It is essential that we take responsibility for the mechanism of inducing and maintaining our suppression and pain. This work is the process of making conscious the shadow of the past for full digestion and release, rather than having to carry around our shell of recoil for the rest of our lives.

As we awaken and start to bring up our pain and confess our loss of self, we are usually told to shut up, to quit complaining, to stop being ungrateful. So unless we have some ultra compassionate and ultra conscious friend, we are likely to resort to increased addiction abuse to further suppress our awakening selves. This primary armor is passed on from generation to generation. But with conscious revelation it can be exorcised from generation to generation. We can´t blame our parents for the unconsciousness of primal contraction that was passed down to them. But we can honor their struggle by addressing our own primal contraction and attempting not to pass it down to our own children. There is intelligence at work in our having to transmute the trickle down effect of centuries of ignore-ance. The time has come for us to own up to our lives...to our Power.

Once we have taken responsibility for our primal-contraction we feel more like we own our own body and our own life...like we have a life to live and we are not just a ghost or a figment of our own imagination. This turning into the core is liberating, as it stops us seeking approval from outside us and heals the intrusive feeling of leaky boundaries. If we remain unconscious to this primary defense structure we remain victim to our own reactive defense/separation tactics. Cocreation and synchronous happenstance can then only occur on a superficial level...all beginnings and no follow through, because we react defensively to the defenses of others. The intoxication of the initial magic is quickly overcome by the core unconscious belief that "there is no hope." No hope to counter the fundamental separation of self.

Life vs. Death

As we go about primal therapy we may go through a stage of collapse or giving up on life. But this feeling of the lack of will to live is not new, it is just being “uncovered” as we begin to let go. You see in a Spirit suppressive environment during 1-5 years the infant is conditioned to give up on life, while the self survival instinct keeps the child alive. Thus from the beginning there is a strong polarity between Eros and Thanatos, life and death. This external suppression of the infant is then internalized in the psyche. This polarity between the life and death urge is felt as an internal pressure throughout one´s life, coloring all aspects of perception and experience. A fundamental intractable tension, with no readily conceivable cause and allowing no true resting state. Both the go and stop, live and die buttons are on full force, wearing away the organism.

Conditions we create for ourselves may mirror the imprisoning hold of our internal lack of flow. By putting ourselves in an imprisoning situation the external suppression manifests our resistance to the internal suppression and makes our self-suppression conscious. Also as we consciously work on the physical-emotional contraction of the recoil of consciousness 1-5 years, we go through a period of giving in or giving up the striving to live (Eros). At this point the organisms exhausting effort to soldier on despite suppression is apparent in Eros´s absence, for then Thanatos or the damaged will to live is exposed in the light of day.

Therefore this “giving up” stage is essential to a more profound form of autonomous existence. When we face our own self suppression and self negation we learn how we keep ourselves small through anaesthetization, just like we did as an infant. Only in dying to this self-contraction can we come fully back to life and expand to higher levels of Being. Then we do not have to push so hard against ourselves to Live, or Create, or to Be, but we will efflux from a deeper more healed place than our initial programming. We take command of our own life, instead of being ruled by the play of unconscious tensions. This understanding of primal contraction and the tension between suppression and the will to live, is of great importance to medicine, education, psychiatry and rehabilitation for prisons, addictions and for child abuse.

One way of looking at spiritual development is to open, purify and integrate the former and the lower to receive the future and the higher. Release of primal contraction is essential for spiritual growth, for the energy lost in the tension between the will to live and the will to die, is energy unavailable for our higher functioning. Primal contraction is a fundamental “holding” onto life which interferes with spiritual surrender or faith. All physical, mental, emotional and spiritual systems are weakened through autotoxemia and reduced flow of nutrients, oxygen, energy and information.

Our primal contraction extorts a major portion of our energy and prevents the natural maturation process. How does one deal with the release of such tension without resorting to the usual self sabotaging means of “eating one´s anger,” melodrama, blame, entertainment or depression. Sure we can´t just inflict it unconsciously on the world and we can´t run from addressing it, admitting it and feeling it. Where does our healing lie in the honoring of our infantile, primal-primate needs?

If we were frustrated in our primate and recognition needs as an infant, then as an adult we “defend” against the True Needs of our bodymind and soul. That is we abandon ourselves and literally suppress ourselves without even realizing we are doing it. In an unresponsive environment the inhibition of distress behavior is a survival mechanism to ensure that the infant does not waste even more energy and distress itself to death. Or put itself in danger by attracting predators. Hence the superegos restraining action of primal contraction is a survival mechanism in a hostile environment. But once the danger is over, the muscular cage imprisons us to the past and the limited self sense.

“Although the ego cannot control the body´s involuntary sensations, it can and does learn to withdraw awareness from the body, to globally deaden and desensitize it. This is what Aurobindo called “vital shock” — the shock and recoil of awareness from the vulnerability and mortality of the flesh, a recoil that numbs the flesh and distorts awareness. But this body-deadening is accomplished only at a heavy price. For if it is true that the body is the source of pain, it is also true that it is the source of pleasure. The ego, in killing the source of pain, at the same time kills the source of pleasure."

~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary

Originally the chronically contracted muscles prevented us from feeling the full impact of the pain of abuse, neglect or disharmony. But these muscular shields also prevent inner impulses from reaching our awareness.

According to Alexander Lowen the ego is mostly a surface phenomenon both in the body and in the cerebral cortex—primal contraction may mean that we are reduced to the periphery of our whole self, with a weak or involuntary connection to our inner depths. These unconscious muscular inhibitions must also simultaneously be reflected in reduced psychological motility. Therefore our freedom of choice, our faith, our view of possibilities, potential and our vision...our vision-logic is limited. We become perhaps a useful slave but a poor master of our own life, for the soul is our pilot and our mind a mere technician. In primal contraction we are caught fast in the cocoon of mind...SOUL, Soul is received in utter self-surrender and release.

Because our depths harbor such fossilized tension, we may fear or repress our unconsciousness, our shadow and our pregnant void of soul. Yet soul may involuntarily break out of its own accord during some laps of ego-control, as in sleep or altered states. We may have a rich inner life, but if there is that barrier of fear inside us our ability to tap into our intuition and feeling is reduced, so we are cut off from our creative source of Being. Our Muse is graced spontaneously and not under the control of our will, however with unconditional gratitude we create the conditions for the invitation, inspiration, involution of the higher and deeper realms of consciousness...To live our Art, to live our Being.

PRIMAL RELEASE

“To the degree that structural pathology is reduced, function is increased; to the degree that function improves, pathology decreases. Structure is frozen function.”

~ Alexander Lowen, The Language of the Body

Primal contraction is survival shock, the self anesthetization of the baby from the traumatization of threats against its real needs and well-being. The consequences of this shock affect all Bodymind systems. From my own felt-sense and symptoms the majority of the holding is caught in the central axis of the body, like a vice grip on the central nervous system. Our inner kinesthetic sense is mostly felt at the periphery of the body, but one morning while lying in bed I felt this column of paralyzing death-grip in my central core. I consciously thought, “now how can I melt this?” Where upon I immediately started melting the contraction from the crown chakra down. Coming from the point of unity to melt the ice of separation all the way down. Chakra work most often begins from the base chakra up. However from this experience with core contraction, there is obviously something to be said for the top down approach too.

Remembering that the two halves of spiritual growth are: Involution the descending spiral of spirit into matter and evolution the ascending spiral of matter unto spirit. Disciplined practice of meditation and contemplation on the higher to transmute the lower and caring compassionately for the lower to surrender to and receive the higher. These are two halves of a whole. The left and the right wing of our collective flight into the inner void and into outer space as well. To reject the “I” through which I perceive is to reject all. We have to real-ize our selfness before we can give that in selflessness. We cannot receive or act on our full genius if primal contraction is wasting energy and stemming the flow of kundalini. Hence our sweet invitation to rejoin...

Anything that increases Kundalini flow decreases primal contraction. As we learn the subtleties of our amazing biology there is potential for many to realize the flowering of Kundalini. It just depends on the culture and the spiritual practices...food, dance, rhythm, music, movement, freedom, dreaming, breathing, giving, sex, truth, love, gratitude, faith, happiness, meditation. Anything that increases our interior life decreases primal contraction. Increased interiorization=increased independence and evolution and decreased narcissism. Ken Wilber says that meditation tends to loosen the psyche and serves to derepress, and that it is the greatest tool we have for decreasing narcissism, or the separate-self-sense.

Work on primal contraction (recoil of consciousness 1-5 years), is focused on dismantling our shields to free up the energy through our core to ignite our Stellar or Causal Heart. It is delicious, painful, rewarding and total spectrum in its effects at opening up our receptivity to the world. I came to the conclusion that primal contraction is held mostly in the small muscles that lie closest to the spinal column. A core of intractable tension surrounding the central nervous system, reducing energy and information to all organs including the heart and brain. To release such fundamental holding, the spine (sympathetic trunks) and plexus need to be purified, energized, opened and united in ascension, so that the vegetative, animal, human and supra-human synergistically uphold each other.

The chronic spastic back muscles compress the spine and depolarize the ganglia and nerves of the sympathetic trunks. The nervous, immune and muscular systems become exhausted through lactic acid/hypoxic conditions of muscles that fail to return to a resting state. The wound up body is not as receptive to energy from the earth or environment, nor can it adequately convey energy and information within it. Energy for healing and spiritual development is thus not freely available in the person harboring this fossilized core of tension. Of needs unmet. Kundalini or consciousness itself is thwarted in its natural streaming. There is a dampening of the awareness of impulses into and from the contracted individual, essentially cutting one off from the Life flux.

I agree in the lack of formula approach for moving beyond the cocoon of rational-ego-mind requires gnosis and Spirit is infinite and ever changing. Sometimes we would require human interactive keys, physical keys, nutritional keys, dramatic keys, subtle keys. This is why the integral approach is profound for all factors feed each other and reveal deeper and deeper work to be done. As the entire bodymind globally shuts down to reduce awareness, conscious breathing is a the first place to start to reveal methods of unraveling and to expedite change.

Energize! give freedom to the bodymind and it will find its own modes of release. This becoming more sentient feels like being a Frankinstein monster as we become more conscious of the body. We feel new pains and we feel the tension of the cage we have been under. It is strange once again to be alive until we acclimatize to our new sensibility and become accustomed to a heighted level of existence...to leave the suffering and the small self behind...
to break out of the chrysalis...
to metamorphosize...
to fly...

• Gratitude gets the whole ball moving to melt the fear and resistance to life that has solidified in the body. It also helps deal with the disorientation and vulnerability inherent in opening oneself up to the world.

• Yoga— the evoking and yoking of Spirit via the Grand Alignment of body, mind and soul—is the source of our muse, our noble destiny, our soul-work (Dharma), our security, our financial integrity, our spiritual worth and our happiness.

• Chakra— work is essential for meditation alone doesn´t seem to exercise and cleanse the plexes or liberate the gross emotions associated with each chakra. Such chakra work could include: Chakra standing poses, visual/color guided meditations, Chakra chants, drumming, dancing.

• Sun meditation— I find most expedient for gathering the necessary energy, and creating the greatest background sense of bliss and well-being...most necessary for continuing on this difficult work of unveiling the inner self.

• Hanging— from my hips over a bar for 10 minutes a day is I think the most significant factor in “sustaining” my progress. It opens my pelvis to energy from the earth, elongates my spine giving my nerves new life, and feeds my brain of course by being upside down.

• Over extending the spine— I had a dream that I did this technique on a young woman who had been deprived in childhood. She crouched on the ground (hands on the ground in front of her) and I put my hands on either side of her spine at the back of her chest. She pressed up into my hands, while I pressed down against her. Her spine cracked about 10 times.

This spinal compression/extension can be used at the bottom of the spine by pushing up into a therapists hands with the legs. In the middle of the spine by pushing up on all fours and at the top of the spine by pushing with the arms. It is the most cathartic and radical form of back release I have found. Theory being that the contraction can be released by overextending already contracted muscles. When they are relaxed they let go further than they were originally. Emotionally the burden is lifted once the tension is acknowledged, rather than carrying the load around for years...making to body numb with pain.

• Eliminating enervation—I have gone off stimulants, cut back on fruit, am taking mega kelp for minerals, heaps of water with colloidal silver. I am also taking liver detox herbs, L-Cysteine/vitamin C and fasting to continue on to deeper levels of entrenchment.

• Raw Diet—Cooked food and other denatured substances add to this contraction through increased toxicity, free radicals and acid pH which contract tissues and occlude the light of life.

• Cardio-Muscular-Release—is a simple technique which opens out the neck/shoulders/heart and turns off the fight/flight. This is important to move through any panic as our contraction becomes consciously felt.

• Spinal Shower —I have been using the flow of a 3” column of warm mineral water on my spine which has radical effects in "meeting" and eliminating stored pain and emotion. Healing both muscular and nervous system. I think a super-spa with hundreds of jets may work. The great thing about water flow is that it is chaotic, this arrhythmic flow helps to break up structure and resistance.

• External Pressure —Also some sort of double layered pressurized suit, that you climb into and blow up with air. The idea is to put sustained force on the exterior of the body so the most inner musculature thinks it can relax its grip because someone else is doing the work. Even a pile of bodies on top of one would probably work.

• Rosen —is a form of bodymind work which is essentially meeting contraction with unconditionally loving hands and presence. This is excellent for addressing the gross and current manifestations of primal contraction. No other body work seems to get the individual to focus on the reality of their deep condition and to face their truth beyond the strenuous blocking that occurs. Rosen is the lightest of body work, but it was more excruciating than Rolfing for me because I began to feel my own internal pressure.

• Visualization— (Spontaneous Inner Visuals) and dreaming is good for transforming the atomic memory level and as a diagnostic tool. Affirmation or positive mental outlook is essential for improved immunity and the strength needed to change and grow.

• Mindfulness —must address our daily habitual responses, in a pervasive contraction watch...The egos habits of mind rule the body so we must open and reveal the mind, differentiate from the mind to free the body.

• Death phase —When this primal contraction work really started happening for me my body collapsed for four days as my bodymind reorganized. Kundalini moving through my dead parts and my unused parts was at times blissful and excruciating. During this time I did mostly bed-rest, meditation, chakra work and self healing.

Lying in the death pose in a warm tub of clay inside a cave for several days may be an advanced form of this death work. I would say that fasting in combination with this death work would be the deepest and fastest route to transformation. Its the type of thing where if one could lie around in a spa for a couple of days ones whole life would change...but we just don't get the chance to completely collapse, and collapse again...as much as we need to to be reborn.

Related reading:

The Language of the Body, By Alexander Lowen
No Boundary, Ken Wilber
The Belly and Its Power, Allan Saltzman
The Healing Way, Allan Saltzman

This last piece is the metaphysical implications of the contraction/release work...this directly ties into Ken's No Boundary.

“The intelligence of Universe is continuously willing to share its abundance with us, as is evidenced by our accelerating expansion of knowledge and power. It is our unique free will that enables us to choose whether or not we align with the intelligence of nature and cosmos. Cocreative living is experienced at the individual, relationship, group, and community levels. It is the receptive, heart-centered, intuitive, energetic complement to the will-centered, creative, intellectual force humanity has been predominantly utilizing to date.”

~ Marshall Lefferts, Voices of Conscious Evolution Newsletter, vol. 1 Fall 1999

Alexander Lowen reminds us that faith is the full flow of all bodymind circulations. Faith is the solar radiating expansion of heart throughout all chakras—spectrum of consciousness, throughout all time—past, present and future, throughout all relationships—family, community and globe. It is through the stellar heart that we lean into the wind of our soul, of Earthsoul and Universoul.

Our unconscious defenses limit the range and depth of our conscious perception and experience...drop us out of the life flux and out of love. In processing our shadow, and through primal release we open up our flesh to the full impact of the vibration of life. When recoil in fear is overcome vast resources of energy and consciousness are available for depth perception. All senses come back to life, visual acuity being perhaps the most obvious change. In a no shadow world our vision is scintillating, vibrant, translucent. In time our senses could evolve to see and feel the life fields themselves, whereas now we still tend to block the intensity of vibration with our holding.

Perhaps the difference between knowing and groking is that the later is the full sentient experience of the inner and outer environment without recoil consciousness. The reveling in nature, the depth of the blue sky...the sunlight...the more full bodied perception and sentient existence.

“… until we deeply, deeply understand and comprehend the "how" and the "why" of "Emptiness is Form, Form is Emptiness", then we are still amongst the blind being led by the blind; trembling and shaking in the process, clutching and grasping after substances... in full revolt against the Emptiness that is quite literally the Womb-Space of All Trans-Form-ational Be-Comings."

~ Naked Monk

Meaning is both state specific and infinite with the expansion of consciousness. Our problem of lack of meaning in flatland culture is because consciousness is too boxed into the mechanical and the material. The egoic surface structure of the bodymind dominates and strenuously prevents exploration of the Void. This confinement of being into the cocoon “actually” prevents the freedom of spirit necessary to allow the real healing of humanity. The real healing of the total organism in the evolution toward Universal Man.

“The very purpose of the unfoldment of the cosmos, in anthroposophic eyes, is to facilitate the manifestation of humanity, for humanity to develop its I-consciousness.”

~ The Secret Life of Nature, Peter Tompkins

“... your deliberate self-donation, is at once the most painful and the most essential phase in the training of the human soul. It brings you into that state of passive suffering which is to complete the decentralization of your character, test the purity of your love and perfect your education in humility."

Practical Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, P. 129

Ignore-ance of Spirit is overcome by jnana or gnosis, which is radical insight leading to knowledge of the Supreme and Prior Identity. Thus consciousness returns to the increasing unity of the Godhead. Gnosis or Grokking is the direct contact with the true source of divine power, namely the Void or the “depth” of all being. In coming to grok that Source we simultaneously come to know ourSelf. The Void or Emptiness is boundless, it transcends but includes all manifestation. In order to reach that ultimate estate, the self must first die to its present, limited mortal self-sense, at whatever level.

But this dying is not the negation or denial of that level we find ourselves on, but merely acceptance of the death of exclusive identification with that level. Self differentiates from that level and thus transcends it, by expanding the boundaries of self to include ever greater span and depth of Kosmos. When we negate, deny or ignore something we preserve it, for we can only transcend that which we are conscious of. To transcend all is to include all.

“We must go whole-bodily to God; failing that we fall into dissociation, repression and inner fragmentation.”

~ Ken Wilber, Up From Eden

I think that the terror of facing an infinite abyss is merely this holding on or ignore-ance of Spirit. It is not the abyss that is terrifying, it is our holding on to fear, our resistance to the Void that scares us. The ego is in the surface of the body and the surface of the brain...this is our domain of will, of control and where we assume our freedom lies. We fear anything interior to this for that is where our truth arises and the "source" of our feeling which we try to manipulate in our favor.

The Void is total, utter and unimaginable Bliss...what scares us is letting go of our ego's sense of control. In our cocoon we are holding on so tight to hell trying to manifest heaven...that we have forgot that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and so we try to manufacture this outside us. But our ultimate freedom, security, abundance, knowledge and beauty are found in trusting in the Void, in letting go in Faith to swim in the infinite waters of Soul.

If we can move away from rigid forms of the past we can re-member our future....Spirit is already manifesting our ultimate design, we just have to get out of the way. Imagine what huge advances will be made when Humanity goes to the stars...and forgets the contractive hell we put ourselves through here on earth by replaying archaic forms. The countries which gave birth to humanity are now the most backward and entreached in the past.

The flatland egoic science of rational mind is penetrated, that is made transparent and transcended via gnosis of the Void. We presently are at the stage where Humanity is to die to, differentiate from and transcend the mental-egoic level. We are differentiating from exclusive identification with mind, via radical insight of soul through meditation. We are moving from the classic brain to the quantum, from the rational to the transrational, from the personal to the transpersonal. As the confining walls and structures are breached, it may temporarily feel like a loss of self, like the Ground of Being has fallen from beneath our feet. But if we do not regress through anaesthetizing addictions we will learn to fly in these higher dimensions of self and find our safety in the light and freedom our expanded state. Permanently, unbendingly receptive to the Void....