Tachiba and Relationships

Posted on April 1, 2010 by mcallister

Even though I don’t have much occasion to the use the Japanese I learned when living in Japan, certain words will cycle up in my thoughts because they are particularly appropriate to express something I’m experiencing. Tachiba means literally a “standing place”, with connotations of “perspective” and “point of view”.

On my recent trip to Florida and back I was reminded of how the world is experienced differently, simply by standing on another part of it. As my yoga teacher used to say, on the manifest level its all relative, time, place, and person. Not only is Florida physically different from Colorado, plants, weather, wildlife, and being by the ocean rather than the mountains, but different people live there with different orientations and interests.

If I had gone back to Japan, or to Europe things would have changed even more. The who, what, where of my life changes just by standing in a different place, because it changes my relationships with places, people, and the planet.

Even before this trip I had been thinking about my internal tachiba, which is key to how I relate especially to other people. Where do we stand in our own being? Are we in our heart or our head? Are we focused on our body or our soul? What aspects of ourselves are we in relationship with, in identification with, or out of touch with?

Having a relationship with someone else is like building a bridge, it needs two ends, the foundations for the span that connects. The closer these foundations are to each other the easier it is to build the bridge. Our personal tachiba is like one of these foundations, it is the place where we stand, and the place we relate from. If you are wanting to relate to someone whose tachiba is their emotions, their second chakra, and your tachiba is your mind, your 6th chakra, then it may be a stretch. Not impossible but more of a stretch than with someone who has their tachiba in the same place as yours.

If you want to cultivate a relationship with someone whose external tachiba is different than yours, you might go on line, or to the bookstore and read about where they live. You might even go there, learn the language, live there for a while.

Similarly if their internal tachiba is in a different part of their being, you can explore that part of yourself, learning how to create a new internal tachiba for yourself, to be comfortable in your emotions, your mind, heart or soul. Or the shift may be one of deepening in the same aspect; deeper in the heart, or the soul. Until we can relate to that part of ourselves, and build a new internal tachiba, our end of the bridge of relationship is loose and shaky.

To relate effectively to someone on a certain level or in a certain aspect we have to explore it and know it for ourself. We have to have a level or aspect of relationship to self before we can stand there and relate to someone else in that way. Otherwise it is all mental illusion and a costume parade.

If I imagine that I’m going to Florida, but am still in Colorado, especially if I’ve never been there, very little will really have changed. If I go, but only for a few days, it is not the same as taking time and living there. If I go for several months or more, then everything begins to change.

When you do your human homework and learn to stand in those parts of yourself that have been unfamiliar, you change your tachiba and all your relationships to yourself and to others change as well. To find the heart and soul relationships we all want requires us to explore our own hearts and souls, to create new tachibas in those parts of ourself from which to form these relationships.

Enjoy your travels and the new or renewed relationships you create as you go.

(© 4/2010)

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Love and Fear

Posted on March 15, 2010 by mcallister

I once spent a summer hanging out at a friend’s house where they had a nice pool. I used to like to sit under the water, where it was quite and still. Sometimes I would hold my breath waiting for the impulse to breath to rise up in me, feeling the body tensing and going into fear. Of course all I had to do was stand up, so this was body fear not mental fear, and I would try to relax into the experience, until I choose to stand up and breath.

Years later I read stories of spiritual teachers, who, in answer to student’s inquiries about enlightenment had led them to water and held them under. When the student was released and burst to the surface gasping for air wanting to know why this had been done, the answer was: when you have as great a desire for the divine as you have just had now for air, you will be close to your goal.

Is the drive to breathe a love of air or a fear of death?

You may say what’s the difference? and perhaps you are right. I suspect, however, that in the case of spiritual pursuits there is a big difference. Are we on a spiritual path because we have a passionate desire to know the divine aspects of ourselves or the universe, or because we are afraid of aspects of the human experience? We may think that we are choosing Love over Fear, but often we are simply seeking a release from Fear.

When we move towards Love not out of Love, but running from Fear this may be a good starting point, but it is probably not the ending point. Can we really merge into a state of unconditional love, when we are still afraid of our fear?

This is why we need to face our fears, to come to terms with them so that we are no longer afraid of them. This is not about being completely fearless, as that is physically impossible. As human beings we have fear built in, as we do hunger. But it is only when we are fearful of hunger, or fear, or anything else that it runs our existence. When we are familiar with fear, cultivate a relationship with it, come to know it almost as a friend, it is simply a state of our physical/emotional being that can serve us. When we no longer identify with it, and we can consciously choose the Light and Love for their own sake, drawing towards them through Love itself, rather than because we are running from Fear.

“Love is the Answer” is about Love as a goal, but more deeply about Love as a Way, as a process that carries us to that goal.

This is why its so important to do what you love, or love what you do. Not just because it will make you happy, or to be successful, but because then you are cultivating the state of Love, of connection, and this allows you to naturally move your attention from fear, to clear and cleanse the denser bodies and open space for our subtler aspects. It is how we learn who we deeply are and how we connect to our internal source of oxygen. Then happiness and success will naturally follow.

So no matter how simple, small, or “trivial” it is, find places in your life to explore and practice what you love, just because you love it, knowing that you are practicing Love itself and inviting it into your life on all levels, big as well as small. Becoming as little children, connect to the Love inside yourself. It is like having an internal air supply, there is no longer a need to be afraid of being under the water.

(© 3/2010)

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Initiations

Posted on March 1, 2010 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Many years ago I was living in the Bay Area. There was a yoga teacher who had been cropping up in my life for a while. Friends had talked about him. I had read his book. Then I moved into a house where his photo was on the bulletin board. Finally I was going to a weekend program. I actually had the classic problems getting there. My car wouldn’t work. I had to take a train, a bus, walk across a shady part of town after dark to get to where I was going to stay. The teacher wasn’t there in person, but it was a great weekend and I felt like I had started on a path, said yes to Spirit, that in spite of the challenges I was willing to keep moving forward. I also felt that Spirit was in some way with me more directly after that.

Over the years there have been other teachers, other initiations, other times when I have said yes to Spirit. Some of these times have been formal, with a physical person from whom I was about to receive instruction. Many more of them have been between me and Spirit, when in myself I said yes, knowing that I need to keep walking towards Spirit and not give up. Sometimes there has been resistance, physical or emotional. Sometimes I am offering myself and hoping Spirit will say yes.There has been crying aloud in the night and soft entreaties, all the variety written by the Sufi poets a 1000 years ago.

Later that year in California I lost my job. I was working as a programmer then and living in Silicon Valley, which was in a recession. I had less job experience than was being required under those conditions and not having much luck finding a new position. One day I interviewed at a company that did military contracting work. I had studied physics and they had some pretty cool equipment. I don’t think they offered me a position, but I had already made a choice not to follow up, as it didn’t feel congruent with my sense of self. I said “yes” in a different way that day.

Probably you have said yes in various forms, yes to Spirit, yes to connection and relationship, yes to self, to Self, to following your heart. And perhaps you have wondered, like me, “so haven’t I done that already? why do I keep getting “tested”? why do I keep having to say yes so many times? Will it ever end?

Reflecting back I know I was always on “my path”, even before I knew what that meant, and Spirit was always with me, even when I felt out of touch. But over and over there have been times to say yes. To go to another level, to come back to a relationship one more time, to open to the divine, to take the job that your heart wants rather than one that pays more. To face fear and say yes to love, in so many forms, so many “initiations”.

Recently the thought came to me: Perhaps this is free will? that we have the chance to say yes with every breath, not once and its over like signing a contract, but choosing in every moment, every action to remember that we are connected to Source and to act from that place, rather than from feeling disconnected. Every moment the universe unfolds anew, and we choose again, to love, to be connected, to face towards Spirit.

We are not tested because we have done something wrong, but so we can build a new muscle and form new habits. Initiation is not a single action of mind, but the ongoing process of feeling it in heart and soul. You take a marriage vow but that only begins the process of co-creating the relationship. Repeated expressions of love for a partner are perhaps as much a way of connecting to Love as they are a requirement of insecurity. The masculine says, but of course I love you, I said so once didn’t I. But the feminine needs to feel it in the moment, and knows that it is an ongoing process that needs attention and validation or it fades away. We are all both masculine and feminine, the head that says yes and thinks we are done and the heart that needs to keep saying yes in each moment.

All the little places where we say yes to relationship, with ourselves, our Self, with others or with the divine, in spite of the busy-ness and the pressures. Rather than being frustrated with this, is this not a joy? to be asked to remember each moment, the easy ones and the hard ones, that we are part of creation; we are a manifestation of divinity, no matter how cranky we are before morning coffee.

Perhaps this is the reason that traditions use mantra’s connected with each breath; in others you remember to surrender before each action. This is the “price” of free will. This is devotion, a muscle we build. Not a slavish, unconscious devotion that we experience in the material world, but a devotion of joy and longing and bliss to who we are as spiritual beings. It is an affirmation of your Self, and as you drop more deeply into it, it comes alive, you come alive, the repetition feeds you in the ways you deeply long for.

“Saying yes” is not a mental action, figuring out the right answer is not how it happens, it is a feeling in the heart and in your being. There is a joy, when we know and affirm that we are connected to source, source affirms us back, and that we experience as some level of bliss. I invite you to find ways of saying yes to yourself and to Spirit, to joy and love, by making room for them in your life, moment by moment, and remembering always that you are part of the Divine experiencing itself. Let your heart and soul guide you in this. Know that you know how to do this.

(© 3/2010)

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Spirit as Tour Guide

Posted on February 15, 2010 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

When I was still in college I started doing massage on my friends. I hadn’t studied anything so it was purely intuitive, but it seemed to work fairly well. I would use my fingers to “look” for places that were tight and then work on them. I realized that I could extend my mind into my fingers and through them into someone else’s body, finding knots that were deeper as well as those on the surface.

During that time I came to think of this work as leading my friend on a tour through their body. As I touched them it would bring their awareness to that part of their body. Some places were open and relaxed and felt good when I brought their attention there. When I found some tension, however, it was like saying, “hey, do you remember this? are you ready to let go of it?” then some “massage” would help create a context for them to release it.

Over the years I’ve experienced some powerful physical healers, and in doing so have learned deeply that the more I can open and be present the less it hurts and the more “effective” they are. They were leading me on a tour of my body, bringing my attention to a place, and I would follow, open and release. Its really a joint process, we co-create the healing together. Perhaps you have had similar experiences.

On the other hand if a body worker is not really paying attention, or is working mechanically, or following habitual routines, something is missing. It may even be painful, especially if they are fighting my tension, trying to fix me etc. They are not leading, but pushing; automatically I resist and there is no healing.

A conversation with a friend recently helped me connect this old experience with more recent experiences in pure energy healing. I was explaining that often it is the simple attention of the “healer” on something that allows it to shift. I remembered a time when I had an issue that I had worked with for many years. I had analyzed it, knew the back story, everything. I remembered one night in a class when someone was reading things in my space. She spoke about an old energy I had worked with for many years. I had analyzed it, knew the back story, everything, but it never shifted. This night she read it and then immediately observed that I had just released it. I didn’t do this consciously, so on one level “it just happened”. All she did was look at it, and speak to it, and my being released it. I often wonder if all healing can be this easy?

I have had the same experience reading others. There is a great power in witnessing and naming something neutrally, ie without judgment. So often, energies just want recognition.

But whatever the reason/s, in my conversation I realized that this is the same as the massage tour through the body. Energetically there is a more direct “viewing”, no fingers in the middle, but it is still letting your attention tour through a person’s space, and as you speak what you see the other person’s attention follows. It comes to things and you say, “hey, do you remember this? are you ready to let go of it?” If they are ready it moves instantly. In other cases a bit of energetic “massage” is necessary to help it release.

Taking it one step further, and my friend made this connection for me, this is how spirit works with us all the time. Its often called karma. When we are holding something that’s incomplete, or stuck, the universe creates situations that mirror, poke, or activate this energy. Often these situations repeat, each time the universe is asking “hey, do you remember this? are you ready to let go of it?”

In life situations “letting” go often means being neutral, relating to a situation without attachment or resistance. This was well illustrated in “Groundhog Day”; a slightly silly movie, but it does get this very right. Its not what he does with the day, but the attitude he brings to the day that matters. Whatever you call it, Life, the Universe, Spirit, God/Goddess, personal mirrors, the things that happen to us, that present us with “challenges” or healing opportunities, are the universe’s way of giving us a massage, asking us if we are ready to let go of whatever is stuck. They are a stop on Life’s tour through our being.

In traditional t’ai chi training a teacher will throw their student against a wall over and over, each time using a tension in the student’s body as a handle, asking the body, “hey, do you remember this? are you ready to let go of it?” When you can let go of it, there is no more handle to be thrown with. When we have let go of the things we are holding energetically, emotionally, mentally, nothing in the universe can throw us. But then the universe would have no reason to try anymore anyway.

So the next time something in life throws you, ask yourself “hey, what am I remembering here? am I ready to let go of it?” Give yourself permission to make that choice, no judgment. Maybe you are, and maybe you’re not. But if the answer is no, you might want to work on it before the next time the universe comes around and asks again.

May all your “tour guides” be gentle, and may you have the courage to be listening the first time.

(© 2/2010)

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Reflections of Beauty

Posted on February 1, 2010 by mcallister

Remembering beauty. A vision of nature, a sky, an animal, vast mountains or a few snow flakes. A work of art that you saw, or heard, or felt. A dance or sport that you lost yourself in. A child or partner. Let that experience of beauty well up in you, filling your heart and your body.

Who are you now as you experience beauty? Gently float that question on the lake of your being and receive the answer in whatever form it comes. You know it already, allow it to come to you. Breathe gently.

For most of us, when we experience beauty in this way, we say it moves something in us, inspires us. It is a way to come closer to divinity, expressed through the beauty in front of us. We cultivate these experiences, each in our own way, seeking works of art, places in nature, people or things that are beautiful, as if they are separate from us.

Focus now on that part of you which was “moved”, that part of you that was able to experience the beauty outside. Perception is a resonance effect. The eye can absorb a shade of light because there is atomic resonance. The heart can feel and be moved because it has these states within itself. You recognize and are affected by beauty in the world because you have it already inside yourself.

You, your soul, that which is divine within you, is stirred, not by absorbing something external, but by the resonance: part of you is awoken within you. It was there all along.

We easily believe, when we see a sad movie and we cry, that it is a part of us reflected on the screen that is crying. We remember our own sadness and release a part of it. But do we accept that when we see something beautiful and we soar, it is also a part of us that flies. Know that it is.

We recognize sadness because we have that within us. And. We are elevated by the sublime, because we have that within us too. Your experience of beauty in the world is an experience of a beautiful part of your Self. The worldly beauty only reflects your own beauty back to you, awakening, reminding.

Settling now into your beauty, let these memories lead you back to yourself, to your soul. Recognize and own your immense soul beauty. Being there, know that it is your Self that you are experiencing and deepen into it. Don’t ask how, know that you know, and let it happen.

Now look at your hand, or around the room, or out the window. Bring that state of beauty you have found within to all that you sense, and you will find it beautiful all too. When you are aware of the beauty that is alive in your heart and bring it to your senses it will be alive in everything that you experience. It is simply a choice in awareness; to see from the soul, from connection, from inner beauty. The divine is always experiencing the divine, which is in everything. Practice awareness of this and let the world reflect the beauty that you are.

(© 2/10)

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