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Playing with your Pain-body
September 19, 2008
In biology, it is a truism that the growth of the individual in uterus mirrors, or "recapitulates" the evolution of the species. This is also true for the individual Self -- we are each, in our growth and maturity, mirrors of the evolution of our culture. And in our immaturity we reflect the worst of our culture, too.
The pain-body is immature, like the worst of our culture.
As Ekchart Tolle says, the pain-body is a life form. Like qualia, the pain-body is a primordial form of life which has taken up residence inside our consciousness. Like qualia, the pain-body has a compelling effect on us. However, while qualia evolves, our pain bodies don't.
Is it possible to evolve pain-bodies into a higher life form? No -- and that is the wrong question, anyway. However, if we play with our pain-bodies the way we play with the qualiadelic experience we can divorce ourselves from their power over us.
We live in a symbolic world, filled with traditions, and it is a scary thing to let go of them. But if we change the routine we can transform the tradition. Likewise, when we consciously ritual into our pain-bodies, they too will be revealed as deep-set, personal traditions filled with routines.
Conscious ritualing lets us transform traditions by changing routines. The lesson of the qualiadelic experience is that what seems so permanent is not, and we can let it go.
Tolle mentions the long term suppression of the female principle and the collective female pain-body. It is no surprise that women have so often been at the heart of conscious ritualing throughout history. Historically, as in the last hundred years, women have created the space for rituals that nurture growth rather than conformity, expression rather than power.
Our pain bodies, like our ideas, are extremely qualiadelic. Pain bodies, at bottom, are only the festering seeds of undeveloped ideas, We go back to them all the time, but unconsciously, and so we reinforce our dependence upon them, rather than learning to give them up: an immature child learns to let go of its toys more easily.
Conscious ritualing matures us.
We create the space, the moment in time for ritualing. We venture into the unknown and we can try on the curious objects of attachment we find stored away in our pain-bodies as if they were an actor"s props.
As Tolle suggests, "to do whatever is required of you in any situation without it becoming a role that you identify with is an essential lesson in the art of living that each one of us is here to learn." The framework of ritual provides a space to learn that essential lesson. By playing with our pain-bodies consciously, with controlled spontaneity, they lose their attraction -- we no longer identify with them. We are more like actors, playing roles, to express something deeper in ourselves, something which all people and all things share.
When we return to our everyday lives after ritualing we have reinforced the freedom of expression which our pain-bodies have suppressed. This expression is "awakened doing" -- the manifestation of pure consciousness.
Ritualing is a technique for transforming the symbols for both Self and Community. The qualiadelic experience is a way of seeing that goes along with that transformation. By learning to recognize the qualiadelic attraction inherent in the world around us we enhance our apartness from it while still staying involved in it.
We have created a world that needs fixing, so we must engage with it. Ritual is an age-old tool for dealing with crises. Qualia is an age-old tool for developing symbiotic relationships. Both ritual and qualia are widely misunderstood, but they are two original methods of survival. Let's put them to work!
Be Qualiadelic. Be Conscious. Change the routine.
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