By whose authority do daffodils bloom?

By what magnificent hand do the soft petals of my heart respond?

One of the most challenging hurdles to spiritual transformation is the transition from “looking externally,” to “knowing (experiencing) internally.” Here, inside of that experience, there is no dogma or ideology to protect us from direct experience. The potential blossoming of our innate belonging to the whole (holiness) has space to bloom (know itself ).

When we are still, the heart has space to respond. Habits of self-concern recede. We step into a field of Consciousness that “transcends and includes” (Ken Wilber). In the Evolutionary Collective (evolutionarycollective.com) practices, we call this “being on the inside.”

Centuries of soiling Scripture with layers of dogma, has made it largely inaccessible as a “living word” (access point for direct experience). Secular groups who wish to connect “within wholeness” rather than “from conditioning,” are creating new languages to express their experiences of connection within and through Source. Scriptural phrases such as  “the kingdom of God” become “being on the inside.” Both describe something far more vast than the enmeshed conditioning of our separate selves.

I did not grow up going to church regularly, and my first exposure to Scripture came through a Bible study course at age 13. I literally “heard” Scripture through direct experience. The teacher and I continued to read Scripture together weekly, after all the other students withdrew. Each week, a golden Presence flooded the room — my body felt alive and resonant, I felt lifted and upheld, and unspeakably peaceful. Because of this profound experience,  I read the Bible each night for the next three years. How could I not? The mysterious “golden Presence” was a regular visitor. I felt at home and unafraid. At the time, nothing within me resisted it.

With no cultural or religious structure to help integrate this experience, being “on the inside” (of this vast intimacy), left me unable to ground it in everyday life.  Normal activities continued like a distant busyness around me, but my true life was on the inside of this magnificent field — appearing at night, and holding me through the day. I remember having no condemnation or judgement whatsoever — even though I knew my peers would not relate. It seemed that I was held “on the inside” of … something … more real than life.

Like many, I have learned to layer over such vulnerable openings to God/Spirit/Source. Perhaps because not doing so guaranteed becoming a cultural and/or religious “outcast.” Today, an overpowering impulse to share these words runs through me. We need to help each other remember. My deepest wish is to commune with others who also deeply wish to step beyond fear-filled habits of separateness. By engaging in this activity and exploration, we challenge the dark authority of collective and individual shadow, and its paradigm of suffering.

Relying solely on our private meditations and religious belief-paradigms cannot effectively challenge collective fear patterns. Our collective and individual shadows hide out behind unchallenged fear. From here, we resist making inroads into the shared mystery of our mutual belonging. Our only agenda is preserving the self that we have been conditioned to “think” we are.

Nonetheless, through courage and willingness, we practice dialoguing from within the truth of our inherent non-separation. Our pain becomes One pain, our Joy becomes One Joy. We slowly learn to relax and listen beyond our fear and its entourage of needs. The mind discovers alignment with the heart and its deepest Yearnings.

Internet is highlighting global teachers of this paradigm Consciousness shift. Last month, I was on a teleconference with spiritual teacher Thomas Hubl. Our number was 5,400 from around the world. I Skype weekly with a Korean woman. Her Yearning reflects my own. She calls me “sister.” She laughs at my un-integrated bits of “shadow” that surface. She cried with relief at recognizing the profound trust emerging between us.

Relating to another from within the wholeness of our being changes EVERYTHING. Where there once was mechanistic (i.e., unconscious) distancing, there is only the thrilling recognition of our awakened (liberated) hearts. There is no fear from this place of being “on the inside” or “within the Kingdom” because nothing stands outside of it. Because we choose to communicate from within the already-whole dimension of our being, false structures of authority — both internal and external — reveal their lack of substance.

Like Dorothy and her friends, we discover the Great Oz is a sham. We have been bowing to an external authority that only exists in our conditioned minds! Unchallenged fear has been the authority — collectively and personally. Our global crisis is its most visible manifestation.

But we continue to practice … together … because we have tasted the Divine within and between us. This field of mutuality carries the divine potential to birth “heaven on earth.” We are willing to be shaped, and orchestrated, by something unknowable and yet devastatingly intimate.

Relax and listen my friends. “Be Still and Know.” Something mysterious and wonderful is touching the soft petals of our hearts.

Namaste.