Dear body:
I am sorry I strayed from knowing how to be with you.
Please forgive me for all the times I mistook you for for my identity. Please forgive me for all the times I focused on your appearance and your function rather than feeling the aliveness inside of you.
I love you.
Thank you.
Dear Wise Women,
When we began our gathering today, I shared the following message from a card that I drew before you arrived:
”The great teacher Jesus Christ said that whenever two or more are gathered in his name, there will be he, also. What this means is that when we work with others for the highest good of all concerned or for a spiritual purpose greater than our own ego needs, we receive more Divine guidance and spiritual power than would be possible through working alone. Understand the power of partnership - whenever you work with one or more synergistically, your power becomes exponentially greater than it could ever be individually.” - Dr. Christiane Northrup
THIS is what happens when we circle and, no matter how many times I experience it, I simply cannot stop marvelling at the MAGIC! So, once again, I thank-you for creating this space and this magic with me!!
Today, we continued the exploration of the Ho’oponopono with a focus on how this prayer can be applied to our physical bodies. It is no surprise that the Ho’oponopono philosophy beautifully supports the traditional teachings of Qigong as well as the more current teachings of teachers such as Eckhart Tolle. Ho’oponopono is a wonderful way to liberate the body.
To begin this exploration, lets first look closer at what Eckhart Tolle calls the inner body:
Equating the physical sense-perceived body that is destined to grow old, wither and die with "I" always leads to suffering sooner or later. To refrain from identifying with the body doesn't mean the you neglect, despise, or no longer care for it. If it is strong, beautiful, or vigorous, you can enjoy and appreciate those attributes - while they last. You can also improve the body's condition through right nutrition and exercise. If you don't equate the body with who you are, when beauty fades, vigor diminishes, or the body becomes incapacitated, this will not affect your sense of worth or identity in any way. In fact, as the body begins to weaken, the formless dimension, the light of consciousness, can shine more easily through the fading form.
Ego arises when your sense of "Beingness", of "I Am," which is formless consciousness, gets mixed up with form. This is the meaning of identification. This is forgetfulness of Being, the primary error.
Although body-identification is one of the most basic forms of ego, the good news is that it is also the one that you can most easily go beyond. This is done not by trying to convince yourself that you are not your body, but by shifting your attention from the external form of your body and from thoughts about your body - beautiful, ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin - to the feeling of aliveness inside it. No matter what your body's appearances is on the outer level, beyond the outer from is an intensely alive energy field.
Your inner body is not solid but spacious. It is not your physical form but the life that animates the physical form. It is the intelligence that created and sustains the body, simultaneously coordinating hundreds of different functions of such extraordinary complexity that the human mind can only understand a tiny fraction of it. When you become aware of it, what is really happening is that intelligence is becoming aware of itself. It is the elusive “life” that no scientist has ever found because the consciousness that is looking for it is it.
What I call the “inner body” isn’t really the body anymore but life energy, the bridge between form and formlessness. Make it a habit to feel the inner body as often as you can. Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.
As much as possible in everyday life, use awareness of the inner body to create space. When waiting, when listening to someone, when pausing to look at the sky, a tree, a flower, your partner, or child, feel the aliveness within at the same time.
Your physical body, which is form, reveals itself as essentially formless when you go deeper into it. It becomes a doorway into inner space. Although inner space has no form, it is intensely alive. That “empty space” is life in its fullness, the unmanifested Source out of which all manifestation flows. The traditional word for that Source is God.
- Eckhart Tolle, Oneness with All Life - Inspirational Selections from A New Earth
Sinking into the sensation of our inner body and feeling its the aliveness within allows us to release the pain and negativity that has been held by our beliefs about our outer experiences in the world. One very powerful way to access this healing stillness is to practice Ho’oponopono with your body:
I am sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you
In a Hawaiian temple every physical healing is preceded by a Ho’oponopono, the reason being that the spirit must be healed before the body can be. Healing begins when we accept ourselves, forgive ourselves and love ourselves. I love you. I love myself. ‘I love you’ means ‘I love myself’. The subconscious makes no distinction between the inner and the outer.
- Ho’oponopono, The Hawaiian forgiveness ritual as the key to life’s fulfillment
Goddesses of truth, THANK-YOU for our rich conversations and our amazing Qigong practice!
With love,
Patti