Talk: Awakening To Reality

In this talk, Reggie encourages us to give up what we "think" about our life, and discusses the profound transformations that occur when we discover our inborn nature through embodied meditation. He says, "When reality begins to present itself in a way that is inconsistent with what we think it should be or what we want, there is a certain interesting little thing that happens to us, which is called anxiety. We become very, very anxious. Anxiety is the indicator that something real and important and promising is beginning to help in our lives."

Transcript

We live in a culture that has become more and more focused on mental and especially conceptual activity.

In order to succeed in the culture,

It almost becomes necessary to be alienated from our bodies,

From our energy,

From the earth,

From the environment.

It is a very strange society that we live in,

And it is one without any precedent in human history.

The human species has been sustainable for a hundred thousand years,

And suddenly we're not sustainable anymore.

And I do believe it's because we have retreated from our bodies and our emotions and our feelings,

From the earth,

From sexuality,

From the elements,

From sense perceptions,

From everything that has been traditionally regarded as the source of wisdom and reality in our culture has become a problem.

So this is a journey from one point of view of recovering what we have lost.

And there's one very important thing that we're going to meet in our work,

And that is the necessity of realizing that we actually don't know anything,

And that what we think about pretty much everything is incorrect.

What we think about,

Especially about ourselves,

About our bodies,

The attitudes that we have,

What we do with them and do to them,

It all kind of falls into the category of mistaken thinking.

Human beings are very strange.

They can only see things that fit in with what they think.

Our ability to literally to perceive,

Even to have sense perceptions,

Is strictly limited by what we think.

And until we address what we think about things,

Our eyes aren't going to be opened.

So one of the most important aspects of what we're going to do here is we're going to reconsider a lot of kind of basic things about our lives and what we have come to simply believe because of the culture we live in and where we grew up and our families,

And to raise questions about whether maybe those are inaccurate.

And I invite you to put aside whatever you think about anything during this program.

And I'm serious about this.

I'm going to say things,

And things will come up through the work that you're going to do that are going to be inconsistent with what you think.

And I invite you to put aside what you think and to consider what you're discovering.

And you may find in a few months that you actually start to think about things in a different way.

In fact,

I have confidence that that will happen if you do the practice and if you stick with it.

Now the other thing about us,

Which is interesting as human beings,

Is that when reality begins to present itself in a way that is inconsistent with what we think it should be or what we want,

There's a certain interesting little thing that happens to us,

Which is called anxiety.

We become very,

Very anxious.

Anxiety is the indicator that something real and important and promising is beginning to help in our lives.

So if you're sitting here,

If you came to Crestone and you began to feel anxious,

This is a very good sign.

If you're beginning to feel nervous and you feel that the ground is slipping away from under you,

This is a good sign.

This is very important.

We,

As human beings,

We have socially constructed a little world that we live in,

Which is this world of our image of reality and image of ourselves,

And it's very,

Very small.

Nevertheless,

When we're inside that little image,

We feel safe and secure.

And we spend an enormous amount of time trying to patch up and maintain this particular view that we have of ourselves and our world.

And when we start to engage reality,

Which comes from the outside,

It comes from the body,

Which is outside of our image,

We begin to feel shaky.

We begin to feel that the ground is beginning to tremble.

We start to feel groundless.

We start to feel a kind of emptiness around us.

We look out and things don't seem the same,

And we become scared.

That is the mark that something actually real is starting to happen in our lives.

Human beings were not meant to live in houses.

The human house,

And we have to distinguish this from other kinds of houses,

For example,

Bird's nests and beehives,

Beaver lodge,

Thank you,

Beehives,

Wasps' nests,

Dens,

Exactly.

Now,

These habitations are natural in the sense that they've been with these animals ever since the beginning.

But human beings actually never did used to live in houses.

Did you know that?

The house is a recent invention in human history.

The original sort of hunting and gathering mode was,

Which you can see among the Australian Aborigines,

Among the Bushmen of the Kalahari,

And other hunting and gathering peoples who represent an archaic level of culture.

You know,

They wander and they move across the land based on what's going on with the weather and the vegetation and the seasons and the movements of the animals,

And at night they usually sleep under a tree or under a rock,

And they might put up a little pile of sticks marking their house.

But the basic idea is that they have no home,

That their home is actually the road,

So to speak.

Their home is the world,

And they discover their humanity and their reason for being only on the journey.

And yet,

You know,

Five to ten thousand years ago,

Agriculture was invented.

The notion of personal ownership of property arose for the first time,

And people began to build solid dwellings that they owned.

This notion of ownership and of a house and of being protected and of being safe and being able to maintain a continuity of your personal physical territory never happened before in human history.

And the thing is we've never adjusted to it,

And it doesn't work for us.

Now,

The modern ego is a development of personal property.

It's actually,

You know,

People who are hunting and gathering do not have the same kind of ego problems that we do.

I mean,

They have problems,

They have a hard life,

But it's not like us.

But our thing where,

You know,

I am me,

And I can tell you the boundaries of me,

And if you transgress those boundaries,

There's going to be a lot of trouble.

You know,

If you don't respect who I am,

I'm going to be very upset.

I have an electric fence around my little me,

And if anybody comes and they,

You know,

Get too close,

Or they press on it in the wrong way,

There are going to be difficulties.

And we spend most of our time actually protecting this self-image.

It's a kind of idea we have of ourselves,

And we take refuge in it and we take security in it.

But the problem is this is not the human thing.

This is not the way our species developed.

The isolated ego is a pathological phenomenon.

And yet we become used to the comfort of I'm me and I have my clothes,

I have my house,

I have my car,

Me,

Me,

Me,

My,

My,

My,

And that's how we begin to feel okay.

And yet it's a suffocating situation,

And that's where the practice of meditation comes in,

Because the practice of meditation is the more we look at this me,

The more it begins to dissolve before our very gaze.

And when it begins to dissolve,

We begin to see vistas beyond ourself,

And we realize that we actually never saw the world before.

We were so narcissistic and so caught up with thinking about ourselves and looking at ourselves and looking in the mirror and asking our friends if they like us,

And you know,

The whole thing is me,

Me,

Me.

But through meditation practice,

Suddenly we realize that we actually have vision that has the ability to see beyond.

And we look out and actually that me is kind of doesn't sort of,

You know,

It doesn't really exist.

I mean,

It's kind of insubstantial.

And we start to see that there's a whole world out there,

A world that strangely enough we long to explore.

You know,

The human heart longs to be on a journey.

It longs to be in the process of discovery constantly.

And if we're not in that process,

Which most of us as modern people are not,

We suffocate and we suffer and we feel that our life is not fulfilling.

It's very interesting to watch very small children,

And their sense of delight and discovery and finding things out and taking chances and extending themselves constantly.

And that actually is who we are.

You know,

I think,

You know,

My children,

When they were one,

Two,

Three years old,

I think I made more discoveries about what it means to be a human being from them than I had in all of my books and all of my studies.

Because their thing was appetite.

And one of my daughter's things that she used to always say is baby doot,

Which meant baby do it.

I would go to open a door and she'd say,

Baby doot.

Meaning that,

You know,

Let me try it.

I can do that.

And there was nothing that she couldn't do and wouldn't try.

And I think that,

You know,

That tells us a lot about the depth of our own heart and the longing that we have to make our own journey.

Now,

You know,

Meditation is,

From one point of view,

It's very simple.

I mean,

It's a matter of simply looking at our experience and seeing what we find.

But in Western culture,

Unfortunately,

Because we begin the meditative process so alienated from our world and from our senses and from our bodies,

For many people,

Meditation means basically sitting there and having a kind of idea of what they're doing,

Which they may not even,

It's not like we're thinking,

You know.

I mean,

Maybe you think,

Maybe you don't think,

Maybe your mind is pretty still.

But we still hold a mental image of what we think meditation is.

Meditation,

Number one,

Is up here.

And we kind of feel,

You know,

I'm looking for some kind of peace or tranquility.

Or,

You know,

I remember this experience I had two years ago at this weekend,

And I'm trying to kind of recapture it.

That is not meditation.

That is basically traveling under a memory or an idea.

If we practice meditation in that way,

Which most of us do and have,

Nothing really happens.

You basically sit there coming back,

Same thing,

And 20 years later you're still sitting there going,

You know,

I had it again last year.

On July 24th,

I had that experience of peace,

So I know it's up there.

I'm just trying to recreate it.

I'm trying to get back there because it was so pleasurable.

That is not meditation.

That is actually simply a more sophisticated way of trying to feel good.

And the problem with that is nothing happens,

And there's no journey.

This is where the body comes in.

There are two parts to the human being.

There's the conscious mind,

Which is what we at this moment are aware of in terms of who we are.

And then that represents one-tenth of one percent of who we are.

And then the other 99.

9 percent is our unconscious,

Which is the totality of our experience and awareness that we actually hold at each moment.

But we press against it and we deny it access to our conscious.

Now you could say,

Where is the unconscious and why is it important?

The unconscious is actually in the tissues of our body.

It is our body.

In the tissues of our body,

In the bones,

In the blood,

In the muscles,

In the tendons,

In the lymph,

Even in the water in our body,

Is being held the totality of everything that we've ever been through and the fullness of our own awareness,

Our own potential awareness that's actually in the body.

This was a kind of very interesting discovery on the part of people who work with the body,

You know,

Rolfers and somatic psychologists and so on.

Because,

You know,

Of course we know from the work of Freud and Jung and the depth psychologists that the unconscious is actually an active force in our lives.

But they couldn't really tell anybody where it was.

And through body work we now know,

And also through Tibetan yoga,

Which basically says the same thing,

We know that the unconscious is the body.

Now why is the unconscious important?

Because in order to be a complete human being we need to extend the domain of our awareness so that it is coterminous with our entire being.

It doesn't do any good if we live in one tenth of one percent of who we are.

We feel very unfulfilled and very limited.

But when we extend and when we learn how to incorporate and integrate the unconscious contents of our life,

Which are our deep feelings,

Our subtle feelings,

Our sense of fear,

Our sense of tremendous joy,

All of the possibilities of human life,

When we are able to open ourselves to those possibilities fully and without reservation and without pulling away,

We feel complete and we feel that each moment of our life actually is reaching its own completion.

And we feel that we are living a human life to its full depth.

So you could say,

Well how do we make that journey to incorporate the unconscious of our own unconscious?

In other words,

The parts of ourselves that we have marginalized.

How do we do it?

We do it through body work.

The process of putting our awareness into our bodies,

Of breathing into parts of our bodies,

Brings awareness into the darkness and into the shadows and into the parts of ourselves that we have denied and pushed away for various reasons.

Through that process our experience begins to flow and then meditation is not simply being peaceful.

Meditation actually is a process of giving birth constantly to our own being and to further dimensions and further openings,

Further perceptions,

Further senses of the subtleties of relationships we are in.

And through that process we become very joyful because we are finally living in a fuller way.

Now of course there is a sacrifice that is involved in this work.

And the sacrifice is we have to give up who we think we are.

What do you think about that?

Are you willing to do that?

To give up who you think you are?

And then there is another one,

And this is even harder.

We have to give up who we want to be.

So did Julie put that in the catalog?

You know,

Genuine spirituality must be distinguished from bogus spirituality.

Bogus spirituality is where somebody tells you,

I am going to teach you how to feel good.

Now very few people are actually going to say that to you,

But a lot of what goes around as spirituality is basically somebody telling you,

Here is a state of mind where you are going to be able to escape from all the pain and suffering and confusion that you have in your life.

Here is that state of mind.

I am going to show you how to get there.

So you can avoid yourself and you can avoid your life.

Now they don't really say that,

But that is really what is at stake.

But genuine spirituality is letting go of our personal belief system that is limiting us and limiting other people.

It is letting go,

Again,

Of who we think we are and who we want to be.

The genuine spiritual path is not living up to some future ideal of who we could be,

But it is living down to who we already are.

That is genuine spirituality.

It is actually being willing to become fully and affirm who we already are.

And in order to do that,

There is no choice.

We have to let go of who we think we are and who we want to be.

Now a lot of people don't want to do that.

They are stubborn.

They would rather suffer in hell than let go of this idealized image of somebody different from who they are.

I am sorry.

I am a piece of shit.

And I refuse to accept myself.

I want to be this other person.

And I can write a whole novel and tell you how great this person is and I want to be that person.

I am going to keep pushing until I get there.

And I don't care if I have to suffer in hell.

All my relationships are ruined.

I am going to hang on to this idea.

That is not spirituality.

That is egomania.

Spirituality is letting go of our obsessive ideas of how great it is going to be someday and beginning to tune into what it is at this exact moment.

And the way to do that is down,

It is not up.

It is down into the body,

Into the blood,

Into the feelings,

Into the sensations,

Into the emptiness of our being,

Our physical being,

Our physical body.

And when we do that,

Then the whole journey begins to happen in a very surprising,

Sometimes shocking,

And effortless way.

So that is what we are talking about here.

In terms of the traditions that I am drawing on,

I am drawing primarily on the Tibetan traditions of the inner yogas,

Which I have been doing for many,

Many years,

Which is very much exactly what I am talking about,

Although it is presented in rather traditional language and it has to be translated,

But also on Western somatic psychology and body work and the discoveries that have come from that very rich arena,

Working with yoga,

Working with Pilates,

Working with all those different disciplines,

Have begun to give birth to a kind of point of view and perspective,

At least among some people.

It is very consistent with the Tibetan view.

So I am drawing on both of those in terms of working with you.

So,

Again,

I am very happy you are here and I want to really invite you into this fully.

But at the same time,

To be honest with you,

That it is going to require,

On your part,

Giving a lot.

You are going to have to give up a lot in terms of your mental image of the world and your idea of even what spirituality is and what you are.

And it is not that you are giving it up and I am going to give you something else to work with.

I am not going to give you some other thing to believe.

But what I hope will happen in the course of this program is there will be a shift in point of view so that instead of believing what you think,

You are going to start believing what your body tells you.

And the thing about the body is that it is a constant unfolding process and there is no sense of final truth ever.

There is always a sense that your point of view and your perspective is going to be continually corrected by the body.

And hopefully by the end of this program there will at least be some general sense of devotion toward your own inner being and the wisdom that the body holds.

You know,

In Western culture the body is the slave to the mind.

We drive our bodies,

We starve our bodies,

We build our bodies up.

But basically we use our bodies as a kind of slave to fulfill ego ideals.

And in this tradition that I am teaching you,

The ego becomes the willing and humble and devoted servant of the body.

Meaning that it listens to the wisdom that the body is constantly portraying.

The body is far more intelligent than the mind.

If I bring a piece of fruit and I hold it right here in front of you,

And maybe it is something you like,

You are going to go,

You know,

I like that fruit or I don't like that fruit.

But your body actually is telling us something very different about how that fruit actually is to your body.

Is that fruit nourishing?

Is that fruit,

Does it bring joy?

Does it bring sadness?

Is it a fruit,

Do you want half the fruit?

Do you want a quarter?

Do you want the whole fruit?

You know,

The body is incredibly nuanced and it is objective in its responses to the world.

Whereas the mind isn't.

The mind is always so caught up in hope and fear and you know,

Does this fit in with what I think and what I want and so on.

The mind is completely confused.

The body is not at all confused.

It is objective,

It is accurate and it can be totally trusted.

And hopefully through this work we are going to begin to get a sense of how to actually really listen to the body and to pay attention to what is coming through to our awareness,

Our conscious awareness.

Reviews

I recognized a deep resonance with this one, reminding me of trekking retreats and similar experiences of being in touch with something barer, of nature.

Simple yet beautiful example on what true spirituality is and the importance of being in touch with the body aka the subconscious mind aka the akashic records

Amazing insight alternative way of looking at spirituality and the body really interesting can't wait to learn more

Very interesting. I have always felt that your gut instinct or how something makes me feel in my heart, to be truth that should not be ignored.

Thank you 😊 this is very interesting. I felt my body respond and in doing so, the fear in my mind was exposed. I will investigate further.

Wow, so many seeds sown in my mind in listening to these teachings, thank you

This talk is one of the clearest and most inspiring summaries of my spiritual orientations and I share it often.

O.M.G. I listened to my body and it brought me here. What a journey. You have clarified my next steps and shown that it is possible. Thank you. 🙏🏽✨️💖

Very, very insightful!! The principles Dr. Reggie teaches align beautifully with my studies of The Human Design System — how it’s the body that holds incredible intelligence and wisdom . ☯️🙏🏻 I’m off to find more talks by Dr. Reggie. Such a soothing voice, too.

Your shattering my concept of my life, people and religion, yet it feels so very true. I think on some level I have been getting this sense of what you are saying for years, and that’s why I am open to it. Wow. I’m sitting here stunned. Thank you.

One of the best teachings/lectures about the spiritual path that I've heard. I highly recommend.

🙏🏼

Amazing..definitely resonated with me. I want to find out more 🙏 thank you Dr Reggie 🌻

"The body is far more intelligent than the mind... it's objective, it's accurate, and it can be totally trusted." I love this talk. Thank you🙏

Very helpful and clear insights for the spiritual path, so many ideas came together in this two for me. Thank you.

This talk is exactly what I’ve been searching for to begin to tap into the wisdom of the body as part of my Spiritual path. I can’t get enough! Thank you Reggie!

Fascinating now I understand (on a deeper even) why my decades old yoga practise is so important to me. I thought it was for my mental health, however, it’s much much more it’s bringing me into my true being!! Thirsty for more RR discussions. So thrilled to have discovered this conversation.

Useful. Thank you.

wow. This was an amazing talk. lots of food for thought, or not thought 🙏

I’m blown away by his wisdom and ability to put it into words in such a beautiful way every time, thank you so much for this guidance!