compiled by Jim Traffater in 2024, excerpted from trilliumawakening.org
Allan Morelock said “It is not by great personal effort that we find true freedom in embodiment; nor is it discovered by idleness. What catalyzes the recognition of being Divinely human is intentional and persistent association with those who transmit its living grace.”
Allan Morelock said “The transmission is based in the steadfast acceptance of the paradox that we are both the limited human and the infinite conscious presence, simultaneously.”
Amy Conger said “The transformation on this path that I’ve seen in myself and others is palpable, tactile, and significant.”
Ardith Dean said “Fulfilment for me is feeling, following the messages of my heart and following my prompts that lead me further into my spiritual evolution.”
Ardith Dean said “Fulfillment, to me, is having the opportunity to create a safe environment to meet and hold with deep respect and heartfelt tenderness the vulnerability of self and other.”
Ardith Dean said “Fulfillment for me is embodying the fundamental consciousness that you are and that I am in each moment the remembrance is there.”
Ardith Dean said “We are Divinely Human and it is wonderful to drop deep into the reality of our own unique expression of our Divinely Human Self.”
Bill Epperly said “I bring a relational style and a lifetime of experience to my work as a Trillium Awakening teacher. I see our relationship as a form of spiritual friendship in which two share the ongoing adventure of walking the spiritual path.”
Bill Miller said “Once we stop resisting being here, we see and feel ourselves and all existence in a whole new way and are free to create via an open-hearted relationship to life.”
Bonita Williams said “I feel like without a mutual commitment and investment in relationship, that it can’t take place. It can’t be one-sided. And when that doesn’t exist, when there’s not an equal commitment to mutuality or relationship, then it’s OK to walk away. You can’t try to practice this with everyone. I feel like that’s a limitation. But it’s OK. If you feel like the other person is not invested or committed to this process, it’s not going to happen.”
CC Leigh said “Mutuality is a practice that is very challenging and enlivening and it does create the possibility of a powerful sort of deep intimacy that is still rare on planet earth.”
CC Leigh said “A felt sense is how the body experiences any situation or issue, whether from the past or happening in the current moment. A felt shift is what happens when the thinking mind “gets” what the felt sense is about. It’s almost like the body wants to be heard and understood by the mind, and is pleased when that occurs.”
CC Leigh said “We do well to keep in mind that awakening typically comes in three steps: first is the shift into a new state, sometimes called a glimpse (Illumination)…the next is the subsequent stabilization of a new quality of awareness and identity (Realization) and finally there is further development which follows upon stabilization as the Whole-Being is reconfigured in light of the new condition (Integration).”
CC Leigh said “The reason for an ignorance of our true nature is partially a result of a natural and inevitable process that occurs early in childhood called “loss of Being.” It results when some intrinsic, essential, and divine aspect of the child is not seen or reflected back by the parents.”
CC Leigh said “Embodied awakening is a spiritually transformative process that brings with it a new capacity (an ability to experience oneself as both impersonal Consciousness and personal human, simultaneously) which also takes some years of integration before it is fully functional.”
CC Leigh said “Greenlighting has been proven to help catalyze awakening and integration through freeing up energy and attention from the places in the body-mind where it has been bound.”
CC Leigh said “There are many degrees and subtleties of the Mystery that can be discovered by one who seeks to take their awakening as far as humanly possible. This map is not intended to be comprehensive so much as practical. The further we go in our collective love, investigation, and expression of awakened Being, the more we realize that idealized descriptions of ‘enlightenment’ as some sort of a static, utopian state are more fantasy than reality.”
CC Leigh said “Realization is just the beginning of another, even more intensified period labeled the Sacred Reconfiguration, – a re-configuring of the body-mind to allow greater freedom and range of expression.”
CC Leigh said “Mutuality among peers has more latitude to engage directly in the hot zones than teacher-student mutuality. Perhaps ‘imperative’ is more applicable here, than latitude – there is so much potential for deep healing and empowerment that engaging this way can be highly desirable.”
CC Leigh said “Our typical response to the subtle feeling that we’re insufficient or unworthy and therefore cut off from Source is to try to compensate and prove that the opposite is true. We strive to achieve or to have that which will prove that we ARE enough, or good enough, or worthy, and we suffer from the constant subtle nagging thought that we aren’t.”
CC Leigh said “The period of Sacred Reconfiguation is a time when the experience of Consciousness becomes more evident in our day-to-day lives as well. A useful analogy is that of a lamp with a dimmer switch: at the time of the Whole-Being Realization, it is as if the lamp of Consciousness is switched on but set on the low setting. While it never goes out, it can and will at times be overshadowed by strong thoughts or emotions.”
CC Leigh said “Imagine exploring the mysteries [of existence and your True Nature] in mutuality with others similarly moved by the love, investigation, and expression of Being. And imagine how a mutual commitment to being authentic and respectful creates a safe space for revealing and healing the broken, wounded places of the psyche that inevitably come with being human, leading to ever-greater freedom to be here in, and as, the fullest expression of your true and total Self.”
CC Leigh said “Once we have learned to bring compassionate Presence to our personal feelings, thoughts, emotions, impulses, and reactions, the next major phase of our evolution is to bring this self-awareness and compassionate Presence into all our relationships. We are motivated to do this not just to be nice to one another, but because other people are also intrinsic parts of Onlyness and are not essentially separate from us.”
CC Leigh said “The Soul, as the meeting point between infinite Consciousness and finite matter, partakes of both–experiencing the Onlyness and the separation simultaneously in an endless Mystery of dynamic creation.”
CC Leigh said “Listening is another of the key ingredients that facilitates embodied awakenings. Conscious, whole-being listening requires an ability to listen both inwardly and outwardly.”
CC Leigh said “We are avid consumers of self-improvement technologies designed to counteract the core belief that we’re not sufficient, and it is all fueled by the thought that it’s up to ME to do something to make everything come right, both with myself and with the world around me.”
CC Leigh said “Heart-awakening requires healing work that includes re-parenting by one’s self and also by others to help soothe and heal the wounds we acquired throughout life, especially in childhood. Only by facing and addressing the places where we closed off our tender hearts can we allow Heart to reopen to the receiving and giving of love, caring and deep compassion for ourselves and for one another.”
CC Leigh said “In mutuality among peers, there is more latitude to freely express what’s arising and not hold back. In fact, it is desirable not to hold back, because that withholding of information can be interpreted as a form of dishonesty that prevents real and deep intimacy.”
CC Leigh said “After the shift of embodied awakening, our most tender, innocent, genuine self is available to a greater degree than ever before. We may find that we are rather clueless about “who we are” at that point and discover many new things about what works for us as we take risks and try out new ways of being and communicating that are more authentic.”
CC Leigh said “Imagine that whatever doubts, frustrations, disillusionment, or even despair you might be feeling about your own ability to penetrate the mystery of existence and discover your True Nature are the very signs that you are nearing the point of breakthrough and that the key ingredient is your deep heart longing to know.”
CC Leigh said “I see that there are many different types of mutuality and that understanding the potentials and the limits can take us a long way toward actually fulfilling the potential here. Where there is a power differential, it is appropriate for the one in the power position to bear the responsibility for the bulk of the holding.”
CC Leigh said “Far from being dissociative, being with whatever arises from Presence is quite associative as well as furthering healing, integration, and a greater awareness of the totality of what we really are.”
CC Leigh said “Imagine the relief that comes from finally reckoning with and resolving the existential tension at the core of your being. Enlightenment is entirely possible, for you, in this lifetime, and it is our fulfillment to catalyze and nurture this until it becomes a lived reality for you.”
CC Leigh said “It’s not about fixing or getting rid of anything. Instead, it’s about sensitively and compassionately listening to ourselves and each other from the standpoint of Presence: that which naturally and effortlessly registers, holds, and cares about whatever’s arising in the world of form.”
CC Leigh said “The embracing of the human element was fraught with “challenge to the max,” and integrating the many aspects of our natures wasn’t always pretty or smooth or as nice as we’d like it to be. I found myself being repeatedly humbled by my own very human limits, and strangely ennobled by them as well, as in ‘broken open’ or tenderized. To this day I am very much an ongoing work in progress.”
CC Leigh said “Imagine there is a supportive container in which you are truly, deeply, profoundly met and seen, in all your conscious radiance as well as your very human limitations. Not only seen but welcomed just as you are and invited to come forward more and more into your fulfillment as a divinely human being. [The Trillium Awakening community is such a container.]”
CC Leigh said “Mutuality requires that if you are feeling unseen or misunderstood, you bring these feelings out into the open and speak them to the relevant parties, instead of keeping them to yourself where they fester, or just grumbling to your friends.”
CC Leigh said “A ‘glimpse’ of the cosmic perspective will often seem so freeing and uplifting that, after it fades, the experiencer begins seeking ways to regain what was experienced and lost and attempting to make that into a permanent condition.”
CC Leigh said “I am eternally grateful for the grace that this work has brought me, that enables me to be present to all of this, that permits me to find redemption in even the simplest of things – like moments of real connection between two souls just doing their best to be conscious here in this divinely-human Mystery.”
CC Leigh said “Wholeness and freedom comes when we neither suppress, exile, nor overly identify with the aspects of ourselves that naturally show up in response to different situations we encounter.”
CC Leigh said “During the Sacred Reconfiguration, we will inevitably find ourselves alternating between times of authentic self-expression and times of automatic response based upon prior conditioning. We do well to notice and honor what is most nourishing to us–that which we naturally turn toward as a flower turns toward the sun–for therein lies the key to our greatest fulfillment.”
CC Leigh said “The teachers of Trillium Awakening effortlessly transmit the awakened condition, and we offer deep meetings, direct awakenings, and empowered living, in a transformative crucible of optimal conditions for unfolding your full, divinely human potential.”
CC Leigh said “Greenlighting is a form of conscious mothering, or re-parenting, which is very healing to the parts of us that did not receive enough of this unconditional acceptance as we were growing up.”
CC Leigh said “Imagine individualized attention from awakened teachers who, through transmission and interaction, open you to the alchemical secret: that the direct route to awakening and integration lies not in striving to rise above your human tendencies but in falling totally INTO them, consciously. [The Trillium Awakening community has such teachers.]”
CC Leigh said “Mutuality is a practice where more and more aspects of ourselves, including our divinity, come alive through our interactions with one another. It involves risk and daring, and it requires courageous willingness to act from integrity and stay present even in the face of discomfort, without any assurance of outcome. It is not some utopian ideal. It is very challenging.”
CC Leigh said “As we evolve and move through different layers and dimensions of our totality, we may find our center of identity shifting through ego, Presence, Ground of Being, or even the Absolute. We are all these. And within all that we are, we find the center of our unique personal identity dwelling in the Heart. It is our Soul.”
CC Leigh said “Although there may be an initial ‘fall’ into the Heart as a part of the awakening process, the full awakening of radiant, compassionate Heart-essence is a complex process that must evolve over time. Awakening cannot be complete without awakening the Heart, because the Heart is the seat of the Soul and also our connection to the Divine and to unconditional love.”
CC Leigh said “Mutuality is strong stuff, a leaning in when you might want to be anywhere else, to really find the bottom line, to speak the truth, to growl and howl as well as purr. It takes a lot of time and work to be able to lean in with one another like this, but the payoff is living at a level previously unimagined.”
CC Leigh said “This path does not seem to be what many people would call ‘enlightenment,’ but it is so rich, full, passionate, and downright REAL that I find myself quite satisfied to be exploring this Life as it is, without expectations. It is my fervent hope, prayer, and intention that all beings may be so Blessed.”
CC Leigh said “Mutuality is not always a straightforward thing, because the listener is human and has limits on what they are able to take in at any given time. Sometimes it takes several back-and-forth passes before there is resolution.”
CC Leigh said “Once you have opened up the dimension of body-wisdom, it becomes possible to enlist the body’s support for experiencing the base-state that is ‘wellness of Being.’ This, in turn, opens up a natural flow of vital energy that promotes greater health on all levels.”
CC Leigh said “For most people, Realization does not provide instant transformation such that one’s life becomes a perfect expression of what was recognized in the embodied awakening experience itself. The conditioned patterns of behavior are too subconscious and deeply rooted for that to be the case for any but an extremely rare few.”
CC Leigh said “I find myself more and more seated in the unshakeable realization of unbounded Consciousness and enjoying the profound Wellness of Being inherent in it. And the more my heart is broken by my own pain and challenges as well as by the human condition itself, the more I am blessed by the gift of Divine Compassion that is also inherent, though latent, in this awakening.”
CC Leigh said “What we’ve been discovering through our collective practice in this work are greater degrees of wholeness, trust, autonomy, and freedom of expression, profound compassion for the difficulties of being here as conscious beings, and relationships that are richer, more authentic, and more fulfilling than anything we had dreamed of.”
CC Leigh said “There is a common tendency to mistake initial sudden shifts (glimpses) for a stabilized condition. In the Trillium awakening practice of evaluating awakenings there is often the caveat ‘let’s see how it shows up over time’–which allows for the possibility that an awakening might not yet be stabilized fully and still needs some further cultivation.”
CC Leigh said “We in the Trillium community have cultivated a remarkable capacity to meet one another deeply and invite the raw truth to be brought into the room, even when it’s difficult material to hear.”
CC Leigh said “While there is a rough sort of linearity about the embodied awakening process, the various elements will show up in different ways and timing for each person–and some elements may not show up at all.”
CC Leigh said “Embodied awakening is the beginning step of a realization that has far-reaching potentials we are just beginning to tap in our mutual explorations. It’s not an easy path to tread, but it’s real, it’s compelling, and no one who really engages it seems to be willing to give it up.”
CC Leigh said “I definitely experienced a fair amount of disillusionment about the ideal of mutuality, that maybe we can’t really do it, or give it more lip service than we give it actual practice, that we’re not good at it, and look how it failed and how it failed us. The bigger part of me, though, says that mutuality is just a baby, like a puppy—it makes mistakes. We’re just learning and we don’t have it down.”
CC Leigh said “Bringing feedback is a scary thing to do, because you never know how the other person is going to respond. The hoped-for ideal is that they will listen respectfully and say ‘I hear you, I get why you feel as you do, I will take that in.’”
CC Leigh said “We are continually discovering ways to help people navigate this passage most auspiciously by engaging these three gateways: awakening Consciousness, dropping into embodiment, and sharing deeply with others in mutuality.”
CC Leigh said “Sooner or later, the impulse of Being itself will move us to step up more fully to our Life, and to encounter our destiny which may well land upon us with finality that is inescapable. Our attempts to live small and avoid this encounter ultimately prove futile. And whether the outer appearance of our lives is grand or simple, what’s important…is the fundamental encounter with issues of choice, meaning, and personal power.”
CC Leigh said “The body inherently knows ‘wellness of being.’ This is a natural state (when the body is not sick), and we gain more access to this state as we awaken to our Conscious nature.”
CC Leigh said “While a variety of states from the mundane to the mystical are available to all people (at least in theory) at any stage of their evolution, stages unfold in a more-or-less linear fashion, always proceeding toward greater evolutionary complexity and coherence.”
CC Leigh said “It is only after awakening to our divinely human nature that we have our whole Self – an established center of feeling-awareness that can now more directly participate in the co-creation of our evolution and our experience in the manifest world of things and relationships.”
Cielle Backstrom said “As the shards of the glass that had separated me from this reality fell around me, I exploded like a supernova. Suddenly I found my limited nature simultaneously centered in all things. I was all things. It was awesome, unbelievable, yet True. Namaste took on a new meaning. My eternal nature bows to itself as found in all things, as found in you.”
Cielle Backstrom said “Some part of you has not forgotten the connection your essence has with Source. You may have an on-going realization of this connection. Or maybe it is an intimation that surfaces at times during meditation or dreams. Some part of you knows that you are precious beyond words.”
Cielle Backstrom said “My limited nature is my body, my ego, my mind, intellect, emotions and feelings. And I am also you.’ Something whispered inside that there was more to my limited nature. ‘I am also you.’ The denial that had separated me from that Truth was like a thin pain of glass…that shattered with the recognition.”
Cielle Backstrom said “Energy that has been bound due to past stress, unresolved disappointment, loss and trauma ties up so much life force. And as life force becomes available, we discover how easy it is to relax into who we are and to glimpse all we are meant to be. Awakening unfolds as gracefully as the leaves on the trees unfold in the spring.”
Cielle Backstrom said “When I can step back into what is really my true nature, that which is holding All, all of you and all of me, and not reduce either you or me to one of the expressions one of the juicy, myriad expressions of who we are, then I am not in conflict with you.”
Cielle Backstrom said “Throughout my journey of shifts and awakenings, inquiry statements have been helpful. Before awakening to the reality of my conscious nature, I would sometimes pause in the middle of activity and ask my self one of more of the following questions: ‘What am I feeling now?’ or ‘Who knows this feeling?’ or ‘Is there any sense of self that comes before this feeling?’ or ‘What wants to be known now?’”
Cielle Backstrom said “The Goddess of awakening comes when we open to transmission and are willing to surrender to and trust in Being, Consciousness, that field of non-change and pure potential for change. After that initiation fully takes place, we are able to fully step into our own sovereignty with Self coronation. We claim our realization. We are able to walk in our power. We stand in the Truth of who we are.”
Cielle Backstrom said “I realized that the Whole-Being Realization was more than just an embodied feeling-witness consciousness; it was a true and awesome knowing that I was not just the unmanifest basis of all creation, but also that I was centered in all manifest creation, all things simultaneously. Non-separateness was experienced on the level of the unmanifest, but also on the level of manifest creation.”
Cielle Backstrom said “Mutuality is when we stand or abide or rest in our true and total nature while making room for the other to also be standing, abiding, resting in their true and total nature.”
Cielle Backstrom said “I think if I could have awakened by just thinking about it and using my mind trying to figure out how to “do” it, I would have woken up 30 years ago. My process clued me into the need to include other paths to lead to a Whole-Being awakening. I needed to listen to the wisdom and truth of my body, emotions, and soul. I learned that an important step to awakening is to free up energy and attention that has been bound as a result of limiting beliefs and past trauma.”
Cielle Backstrom said “One of Greenlighting’s many real and lasting benefits is that it allows us to free up energy and attention that has been bound – especially energy that has been bound due to past stress, unresolved disappointment, loss and trauma.”
Cielle Backstrom said “I find that much of the growth that takes place is the continuous unraveling of ‘stuck places’ in me. As these stuck places unravel, I increasingly have more energy and attention to live life in greater freedom, wholeness and love.”
Deborah Boyar said “The Rot is a core evolutionary process of the cocooning chrysalis. It is a composting of withered fruits. It is the foundation for the integration of the whole person with Consciousness. Decomposed matter yields energy.”
Deborah Boyar said “I am drawn to the rich simultaneity of personal growth and satisfying service to humanity that involvement in Awakened Mutuality confers. It’s not something I choose; rather, it is the shape of my Being, regardless what I’m doing. So I naturally gravitate and am magnetized toward a group of people who are being, doing, and transmitting that together.”
Deborah Boyar said “Spiritual practice can at times enforce dissociation and underlying trauma. If this trauma is not integrated, it occludes our capacity to know ourselves in both the shadow and free dimensions of our being. Trauma overwhelms our ability to cope and disorganizes our nervous systems, leaving broken zones where we seem to have very limited choices.”
Deborah Boyar said “Many traditional forms of esoteric spirituality emphasize the importance of awakening to the transcendent Consciousness Principle of existence. The nature of Consciousness is timeless, unchanging, absolute, and therefore radically free of the slings and arrows of relative existence. Awakening to Consciousness is of fundamental importance to any truly transformative spiritual path and is the foundation of the Trillium Awakening process. Embodying that awakening is the lifelong work of integration.”
Deborah Boyar said “The path of mutuality is in many ways a response to the problems inherent in the one-way student-teacher relationship that develops if a teacher is seen not only a trusted guide, but also the ultimate, unquestioned authority. Although a student’s recognition of the greater wisdom and experience of a teacher creates an entirely natural and appropriate kind of functional hierarchy, there are various ways to inhabit that relationship.”
Deborah Boyar said “I am deeply committed to exploring healthy, vibrant, nourishing forms of student-teacher relationship as an essential aspect of my work, including catalyzing development for individuals to become teachers who serve others in their own right, and continue passing the torch of awakened presence and Love.”
Deborah Boyar said “Although our psychological patterning must eventually be understood through the story line of our early lives, neither talking nor emoting can restore balance to our deep brain structures, where the raw experience of trauma is encoded in our protoplasm. If we are able to reorganize this fundamental level of our biology, our access to free awareness can grow.”
Deborah Boyar said “Healing accelerates when energy trapped in the nervous system has an opportunity to discharge, renegotiate, and reorganize its locked-in fight, flight, and freeze responses that have remained in the body after the original traumatic incidents occurred.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Whole-Being Realization enhances your relationships by your growing compassion, for yourself and for the others who share the human predicament.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your initial Whole-Being Realization those parts of you that are not really “you” will begin to fall away leaving the you before all of the conditioning and trauma. Your life becomes an ever-greater expression of your truth and may change in many ways.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Confidence in Being generates greater confidence in all areas of your life. The initial Whole-Being Realization begins the journey of remembering and living your authentic nature that you can confidently step into.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Because of this initial realization, we become more loving, accepting people on all levels. This is because as we expand the experience of our Self, we recognize that we and them no longer seem separate, that we are all interconnected with and interdependent on each other and when we judge others, we are also judging ourselves.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your initial Whole-Being Realization you begin to discover who you are when you’re not totally ruled by your old patterns and conditioning, and when you’re less afraid to be here. You recognize that this is who you’ve always been but have been afraid to be because those around you could not accept you unconditionally as you were. You are a unique expression of life with specific gifts, talents and abilities and now you’re free to express them.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Not merely a personal phenomenon, Whole-Being Realization awakenings also include the recognition that all phenomena, objects, and others are of the “same essence” as your Conscious nature.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Awakenings may be sudden, as in a flash of insight, or can happen more slowly, “oozing in” over time.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Recognition of Consciousness as transcendent to all is an essential element of Whole-Being Realization.”
TATC Discovery Course said “An extensive phase of awakening as background Consciousness is not necessary in order for awakening to happen.”
TATC Discovery Course said “With your initial Whole-Being Realization your Conscious nature becomes tangibly and unshakably awake.”
TATC Discovery Course said “There is an awakening to consciousness as the infinite transcendent ground which is always registering everything while remaining untouched and unbounded.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Perfection is not a prerequisite for awakening to your conscious nature—nor is being free of ego. Perfection is not an outcome either. And perfection is not possible. It’s an unattainable standard that causes us untold suffering.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Sometimes the recognition that all phenomena, objects, and others are of the ‘same essence’ as your Conscious nature comes as a ‘flashing forward’ of Consciousness into the entire field of awareness and experience, creating a sense of non-separateness or ‘Onlyness’. At those times, you get the recognition that ‘It’s just this.’ It’s just this present now and nothing needs to change, it just is.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Awakening to initial Whole-Being Realization — non-separate Conscious embodiment — happens directly, fairly early in the process for many. It’s like the work opens up psychological and physical space within us that allows us to re-inhabit our bodies once again. The sense of dissociation we may have been experiencing prior to the realization disappears. This may happen quickly or occur over time.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Embodied awakening is intrinsic to this path, meaning your Conscious nature is experienced as inextricably melded with your body-mind (rather than standing apart). In this, we realize that infinite and finite are not truly separate but represent the totality of what we are and existence is. This movement into the simultaneity of infinite and finite allows them to play with each other consciously in the exploration of the great mystery that we are.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The paradox of simultaneity becomes ever-more apparent: discreteness (distinct separateness) is simultaneous with seamless unity. There becomes no way in which to actually separate the limited from the unlimited, the finite from the infinite. Not only do you experience a paradox, you are the paradox.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A benefit of the Trillium Awakening work is the realization of your heart’s desire to achieve and embody a profound awakening to your authentic self.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A benefit of the Trillium Awakening work is a further deepening and integration of your awakening.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A benefit of the Trillium Awakening work is relief from the distress of feeling insufficient, isolated, confused, or unworthy at the core of your being.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A benefit of the Trillium Awakening work is increased capacity for deep intimacy in relationship. This arises in part because over time you develop a profound empathy with others as you heart opens more and more.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A benefit of the Trillium Awakening work is ongoing support as you deepen in your awakened life. This arises from one-on-one sessions with compassionate teachers, small group work, sittings, community activities, mutuality circles, and online and residential events. Relationality is one of the petals of the Trillium Awakening work. It’s one that is taken seriously.”
TATC Discovery Course said “There are many benefits of the Trillium Awakening work. One is increasing kindness toward yourself. Another is patience with others. There is an ever-deepening connection with reality as well a stronger sense of identity that arises from the recognition that you are a unique expression of Life. There is no one like you and there never be another like you. And we can see that about everyone else.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Core Paradox is the prime mover of all experience and human behavior, because it drives a search for an “answer to the problem” of your existence.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The term ‘core mystery’ evokes the sense of mystery and wonder that is equally true about your fundamental nature as it is felt when you are relaxed and open as opposed to the sense of contraction and pain. Both are paradoxically true and life will continually give you dynamic fluctuations between these felt states as you spontaneously contract and open.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A sense of contraction and pain can be especially pronounced in people who have not yet fully embraced or relaxed into their paradoxical nature, yet it can and will occur at times in those who have awakened, as well.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The juxtaposition of finite and infinite creates a ‘rub’ or tension at your core that you mistakenly interpret as you’re being ‘wrong,’ ‘bad,’ or ‘unworthy,’ but it’s only the paradoxical condition of your divine and human nature—as yet unrecognized.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Core Paradox is not the same as core issues: Core Issues are unique to each person having some flavor of rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal, and injustice, and have a personal story associated with them. The Core Paradox is the fundamental sense of split at the center of one’s self that is initially experienced as existential angst, personal confusion, sense of inner discomfort, or feelings of separateness or insufficiency. It happens because individuals are simultaneously both finite, limited human beings and infinite consciousness, non-separate from the entire cosmos.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Core Wound or Paradox is a fundamental split at the core of our sense of self that is subtly experienced as existential angst or feelings of confusion, separateness, or insufficiency. That angst makes it feel as though there is something fundamentally wrong with us. There’s not. It’s just our recognition of the split between matter and spirit.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Landing is a falling into, relaxing, and then living in and as the core paradox/core mystery, which is the paradox of simultaneity: both freedom and limits.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Core Paradox does not need to be ‘fixed,’ but only brought into full awareness. It’s the recognition that duality will always remain duality and will never disappear. And that the nondual will always be nonduality. The paradox says that both are possible at the same time and that paradox causes the existential angst deep inside of us. It’s unresolvable.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Core Paradox arises because you are both a finite, limited human being AND infinite Consciousness, non-separate from the entire cosmos, occurring in a paradox of simultaneity. This Core Paradox can evoke the sense of contraction and pain that is especially pronounced in those who have not yet fully embraced or relaxed into their paradoxical limited-limitless nature yet can and will occur in those who are awakened as well.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Persevering in the intensity of the work means hanging in there, even when there is little visible progress.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Daring to reveal what you normally hide helps everyone see that they are not uniquely bad or unworthy (something we all secretly fear is the case). We have much more in common than we realize.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Daring to express emerging aspects of your awakening brings further clarification, deepening, and integration of your unfolding divine nature. And the fears you thought looked like a bottomless abyss become a threshold you can safely walk through.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Grasping the means of your own realization means finding your own way rather than following a standardized path. This approach is greatly encouraged. This doesn’t mean that you do the work on your own, it simply means that the teachers understand that realizations and understands that come from within the individual have more impact than those “truths” told to them.”
TATC Discovery Course said “By bringing forth our truth in the moment, we get to see that we are all in the same predicament, more or less, we’re humans having a human experience. And even though our life experience is unique it shares many similarities to many others. When we see this, we realize we are not alone in this journey.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Many times as children we were told to ‘Be Seen and Not Heard’ because as children we don’t have the filters around speech that adults have, thus we say ‘truths’ that may be embarrassing to the adults around us. We are told that what we are saying is not true even though it is. We are made to feel shame around our authentic expression. Dare to speak your truth, even when it might be unpopular or seem shameful.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Coming out as all that you are, letting others see your tender, shy parts — which are often expressions of your authentic (unconditioned) self can be terrifying at times. We live in a society that sees tenderness and emotions as weakness and many times we have been taken advantage of or traumatized when revealing our tenderness and vulnerability to others. No wonder your tenderness has been in hiding. It’s been waiting to find a safe enough place to show up. We welcome you to that Sanctuary.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The orientation to relating in mutuality is key to real fulfillment in the awakened life.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your Whole-Being Realization your soul-nature may also begin to shine forth in divine archetypes.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Whole-Being Realization is only a beginning. It is only through further maturation in the awakened life that the full potential begins to be manifest.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your Whole-Being Realization you may experience deeper abidance in and as the divine ocean of Being.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your initial Whole-Being Realization you may experience increased enjoyment of divine life-energy, love, and bliss. This may last from a few days to several months or more. We sometimes call this a honeymoon period before the work of Sacred Reconfiguration kicks in. Some do not experience this honeymoon period and go right into the Sacred Reconfiguration.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your Whole-Being Realization further developments are possible in both awakening and in embodiment. The mind clarifies more, the heart opens dramatically and inhabiting our bodies deepens. This is an open-ended process. There is no final resting place because there is no goal. We are evolving Beings and there comes a time when we relish the ”new” as it births into reality moment by moment.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After your initial Whole-Being Realization your soul-nature begins to radiate qualities of inner peace, clarity, empathy, wisdom, equanimity, compassion, higher insight, etc. while paradoxically also permitting the full range of human experience and expression.”
TATC Discovery Course said “In Whole-Being Realization, there is a welcoming of all emotions and intuitions as essential aspects of your authentic nature.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Whole-Being Realization allows one to fully experiencing sensual delight as well as painful limits—the whole range of physical phenomena.”
TATC Discovery Course said “After the initial Whole-Being Realization, your center of conscious awareness may shift from being in the head to being located within and as your whole body.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The initial Whole-Being Realization allows you to be deeply impacted by life’s ups and downs, not attempting to protect yourself unduly from this impact, nor to deny your potential reactivity to it. The re-connection with our bodies brings forward a lot of the qualities we thought we didn’t have any longer: love, compassion, power, resilience, patience and strength, to name a few, which help us handle the vicissitudes of everyday life. We are so much more than we realize, and our initial realization opens us to those potentialities that were hidden for so long.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Whole-Being Realization allows for an intimate investigation of broken zones and meta-patterns, freeing up energy and attention that is then used to further you awakening.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The initial Whole-Being Realization allows one have novel, spontaneous and unconditioned actions to be more freely available. Life begins to resume its natural flow as we relax into our experience of Being and let the current take us where it will.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The initial Whole-Being Realization allows one to become more enlivened, free self-expressive, more integrated and less dissociated over time. Awakening to the infinite and unbounded dimensions may have a variety of flavors such as infinite expansiveness, pure love, or unshakable Being. What is common to all is the juxtaposition of the infinite with the finite, the absolute with the relative, living the divinely human paradox.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Whole-Being Realization allow one to enter into full direct contact with all levels of your being, including your personal and cultural history, your environment, and your body, emotions, mind, intuitions (subtle senses), and spirit.”
TATC Discovery Course said “We greenlight self and other in our human predicament, including our so-called ‘faults, failings, and shortcomings’ as well as our gifts and strengths.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Greenlighting is an affirmation that your strong feelings are an intrinsic part of being fully alive.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Our fundamental position is that you are already basically OK and you don’t have to radically change yourself in order to awaken. Let what wants to arise come forward in it’s own time. Take a break from the need fix yourself, even if just for a moment.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Greenlighting does not mean we sanction the acting out of hurtful speech or action.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Greenlighting is saying ‘yes’ to your experience and thoughts, regardless of whether they fit any pictures of what is ‘spiritual’ or ‘desirable’.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Greenlighting helps relieve you of the shame you may feel about your humanness and over time, it leads to ever-greater degrees of freedom and trust. The shame we carry is a burden we can safely release over time as we gain more perspective on our lives and the events which influenced us greatly.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Greenlighting ultimately brings greater awareness, aliveness, and discrimination to your experience and thoughts and enables you to express more of your divinely human potential. With greenlighting we can finally relax from the strangle-hold we’ve had on expressing our authentic emotions, thoughts, physicality, whatever, and sit in the totality of who we are without being judged as wrong or shameful.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Not just a passive acceptance or resignation, greenlighting is a radical acceptance of whatever is currently arising in order to bring it fully into conscious awareness where it can be integrated and dynamically transformed. This doesn’t mean we get to dump our stuff on others. It’s an owning and integrating of our unprocessed conditioning, past trauma and unexpressed emotions. It’s also the recognition that others may trigger us, but they are not the original cause of our reactivity.”
TATC Discovery Course said “In Greenlighting there is a welcoming of what lies underneath what is arising, inviting it to come more fully into awareness so it can be seen, felt and integrated. All individuals are encouraged to Greenlight themselves and others in their human predicament including all their faults, failing and shortcomings as well as their gifts and strengths.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Relational Mutuality means being willing to listen to reports of injury resulting from our words and/or actions and take responsibility for making amends.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutuality is holding of the other with profound, conscious listening and reflecting.”
TATC Discovery Course said “In Relational Mutuality Heart openings and increasing flow of love can naturally arise in various stages of your process.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutuality is seeing and being seen, hearing and being heard, understanding and being understood. When we are met in these ways, we feel the inherent interconnectedness with others and the world.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutuality is honoring your own true and total nature while also making room for others to be doing the same.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutuality is often messy and imperfect; there’s a lot to learn and even more to unlearn. Becoming more open and honest in our relationships helps a lot. We don’t always get it right, but our relationships become much healthier and deeper especially if the other is will to meet us halfway.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutuality is furthered by a willingness to be responsible for the consequences of our behavior through the practice of Relational Mutuality (sometimes called ‘coconut yoga’). This relational yoga helps use recognize our impact on others and to take responsibility for any relational restoration that needs to be done even when we’ve done nothing wrong. It doesn’t mean we take the blame for every instance of relational breach, but that we recognize a breach has occurred and that restoration is possible by acknowledging our contribution to the breach.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Each interaction in this heart space of mutuality potentially reinforces your ability to speak and act from a deeper, more expansive, inclusive place in your Being. This is mainly because one feels safe to express their deepest wounding in a container of mutual holding and love, and also because one finds their own inner strength being empowered and nurtured by others who really get who they are.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Wounds created in relationship (as most are) are revealed by and most deeply healed in and by relationship. This is the beauty of mutuality. You enter a container, some might even call it a cauldron, in which the alchemy of metabolism and digestion of our relational wounds can take place in the presence of others who are going through the same process.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Relational Mutuality is a process of being sensitive to our effects upon one another even if there has been no conscious intent of harm. In this context, we may recognize that something we did caused another distress, and we apologize for their distress. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily did anything wrong, but simply that we activated another by our words or actions and that we accept some responsibility for that. We also recognize that if the other is activated then they are triggered and must do some inner work also.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Relational Mutuality or ‘Coconut Yoga’ is when we ‘allow our foreheads to fall to the floor like a coconut falling to the beach, with a loud thud’, in other words, we bow down and make a sincere apology. It is recognizing that even though we may have done nothing wrong, we did have an adverse impact on another human being, and we are truly sorry for their distress and pain.”
TATC Discovery Course said “We experience mutuality not as a utopian ideal but as a very real, intimate, and honest mutual engagement which furthers our individual and collective unfoldment which in turn creates a container for deep love and trust to grow.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutual interaction furthers Whole-Being integration by bringing you encounters with your broken zones of old patterning and unconsciousness. The container of mutuality does this by helping shine the light of awareness into the dark corners of our mind.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutuality is agreeing to stay in communication and try to work things out as long as the situation remains respectful of everyone involved. One sees and calls forth the wholeness in one another through vulnerable self-expression, compassion, conscious listening, and reflection helps one recognize and claim their own authentic nature. At no time are individuals made to feel ashamed or guilty around their innate expressions of Being as most were as children.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Mutual recognition can help call forth your divine aspects, qualities and gifts.”
TATC Discovery Course said “During Radical Embrace, attention is directed to how your body registers any issue that is “up,” then that issue (or reactivity) is invited to come fully into awareness and even be ‘lived’ for a while.”
TATC Discovery Course said “In the process of Radical Embrace, you may be asked to see, feel, describe, become, bring Presence to, and experience what is arising – organically moving toward healing and integration.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A distinguishing quality of radical embrace is the greenlighting of whatever states are arising without trying to change them before they have had a chance to be fully felt, described, experienced, and integrated.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Radical Embrace is a natural process of investigating and integrating your (positive or negative) conditioned responses, broken zones, and shadow issues to permit greater freedom and authenticity in your self-expression and relationships with others.”
TATC Discovery Course said “With Radical Embrace – the willingness to allow and accept all of our current experience without judgment – we bring the quality of inner sensing to help embody subtle awakening experiences of expansion, consciousness, bliss, deep peace, etc.”
TATC Discovery Course said “With Radical Embrace, we make room for one another to speak from our places of wounding, conditioning, or reactivity, even when it sounds unflattering or decidedly ‘un-spiritual’—because it brings about deep healing in the places we need it the most (the parts we’re ashamed of).”
TATC Discovery Course said “In the process of Radical Embrace, the natural wisdom of your body and Whole-Being may be revealed, resulting in the mending of all kinds of internal divisions or “splits.”
TATC Discovery Course said “With Radical Embrace, we support one another in bringing Presence—awareness, curiosity and compassion—to our issues so that they can evolve naturally and be integrated into our whole selves.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Sacred Reconfiguration is a period of re-working and re-shaping the body-mind to bring it into alignment with the new understandings given in Whole-Being Realization; this is what stabilizes the realization.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Sacred Reconfiguration is often cyclical in nature, with periods of rather intense immersion in your shadow material and broken zones followed by new openings and greater spaciousness, followed in turn by even deeper “falls” into your human limitedness.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Sacred Reconfiguration leads, over time, to greater trust and ease of being in the midst of the ups and downs inherent in the human condition, and also to profound compassion for ourselves and one another.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Sacred Reconfiguration – the oscillating pattern of falling into unconscious broken zones and times of profound awareness – allows an ever-increasing freedom to just Be.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Sacred Reconfiguration is a passage of integration after Whole-Being Realization that is characterized by re-experiencing your most deeply held conditioning and beliefs about yourself and the world.”
TATC Discovery Course said “During the Sacred Reconfiguration which can span 4 to 5 years after your initial realization, you revisit conditioned ways of being with greater conscious awareness and clarity. The ability to sit in the place of the witness gives you broader perspective of your early woundings and traumas and you begin to see the larger context in which that wounding and trauma occurred and thus are able to more readily metabolize and release them.”
TATC Discovery Course said “During the Sacred Reconfiguration, the time after your initial Whole-Being Realization, there is a deepening of divinely-human integration. What this means is that as we release and work through our conditioning, we begin to experience the essence of who we are beneath our protective shells. This essence is pure and untainted by our life experience and connects to the mystery that we are. That mystery has a sense of divinity to it and thus the Sacred Reconfiguration is that time when we integrate our divine nature with our human nature.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Transmission helps precipitate initiatory changes in students.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Our X-factor: Our unique, awakened-and-embodied transmission, including gazing meditation, helps catalyze awakening both as Consciousness and as non-separate conscious embodiment, what we call Whole-Being Realization.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A non-verbal level of transmission is being communicated via body-to-body gazing meditations where eye contact is made between teacher and student for a brief period of time (up to a few minutes.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Initiatory changes ultimately lead to the initial Whole-Being Realization and continued unfoldment as a divinely human Being.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Some people feel something occurring between the teacher and themselves while gazing, but many don’t experience anything out of the ordinary. That is because the transmission is a subtle event whereby the radiant, awakened-and-embodied Being-force of the teacher is effortlessly and spontaneously communicated non-verbally via resonance to the student through proximity, gazing meditation, writings, focused intention, or other ways of being together (i.e. telephone or video platform).”
TATC Discovery Course said “Everything in existence vibrates at unique frequencies. Trillium teachers vibrate at a particular state of Being that acts like a carrier wave of Whole-Being Realization which can have an effect on the individuals around them. We call this Transmission and it can lead to initiatory changes in those who are working on this path. This often shows up as a sense of expansion, bodily activation and / or new possibility as well as deep feelings of love and total acceptance. It can also lead to experiences of intense psycho-emotional release in which old conditioning and brokenness are brought to the surface to be healed.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Sometimes initiation brings an intensification of the ‘tight squeeze’ of your life where you feel that you are about to explode and release all that you’ve been holding back your whole life. This can be terrifying at times, but this becomes the crucible that our transformative process works through – squeezing out of who we thought we were to realize, once the wringing has stopped, who we actually are – divinely human.”
TATC Discovery Course said “We use the term transmission to represent that resonant field that causes an evolutionary change or initiation in another. Transmission may be cause by the coherent energy of the teacher energy or simply a neurologic response of mirroring another we see as a model. However, it shows up, initiation is a sign of a heating or quickening and will help bring about a deepening into all of whom you are.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The paradoxical condition the teacher is living is inexplicable to the rational mind, but the body and Whole-Being can and do understand it. The teacher in essence templates the awakened state to the student’s body-mind which then reconfigures to match the pattern, but in their own unique way.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Rot is a transition period where our old ways of living begin to unravel and it may be accompanied and driven by the feeling ‘I’m not okay and must do something about it,’ but the fixing strategies no longer work.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The transition period in which the old way of living begins to unravel may be experienced as simply a flatness or loss of interest in formerly-engaging activities, it may include feelings of discouragement, failure, or even despair and grief. The old fixing strategies do nothing to resolve these feelings and experiences.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The transition period in which the old way of living begins to unravel may occur is actually a time for getting real with what is—rather than what you wish were the case.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Unraveling the old ways of living is the primary means of escaping the hypermasculine impulse to keep on striving to be better, or to avoid feeling the pain of being human – it just undoes itself, organically.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The transition period in which the old way of living begins to unravel may occur is actually preparing the ground for the quantum shift of Whole-Being Realization. At times it may feel like a part of us is dying, and in effect it is, we are rotting out of or dying to our old way of existing on this planet. ” ‘‘
TATC Discovery Course said “There is typically a transition period before the Whole-Being Realization in which the old way of living begins to unravel may occur which is quite dramatic, where our usually methods of fixing and seeking may be undermined or ineffective. This time can be quite disorienting. On the other hand, it can also appear to be a very subtle or internal experience that has little effect on your outer life, like a candle being gently blown out.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A turbulent period of transition may occur in which your habitual ways of being and trying to make life work begin to unravel. You’ve reached the end of what society can offer you, you’ve sensed there is more, but until you see through the old way of being, the old way persists like a nagging cough and the new seems just beyond the horizon. Trust that the desire to move through this will get you to the other side.”
TATC Discovery Course said “In the unraveling of your old ways of living, you will find that any new formulas for success you try, will fail, leaving you in a free-fall or groundless condition that can feel disorienting, perhaps even devastating. It’s about letting go of the seeking and being in that horrible-ness or wonderful-ness that you will open the space awakening to occur.”
TATC Discovery Course said “There will come a time when we become aware that we have spent much of our lives trying to avoid the discomfort of being human, either through using formulaic approaches to try to control and change ourselves, or through trying to escape through meditation or other disciplines (the hypermasculine impulse).”
TATC Discovery Course said “Awakening to the infinite and unbounded dimension of what you are may have a variety of flavors, such as infinite expansiveness (emphasizing the head center or awareness), or pure love (emphasizing the heart center), or unshakable being (as in whole body emphasis).”
TATC Discovery Course said “What’s common to all Whole-Being Realizations is the juxtaposition of the infinite with the finite, the absolute with the relative, the divine with the human: the living paradox.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Whole-Being Realization is your awakening as Consciousness and non-separate Conscious Embodiment. These two distinct realizations are often experienced as two separate phases of the awakening process.”
TATC Discovery Course said “With embodied awakening the Conscious nature fuses into feeling-union with the body-mind, becomes self-aware as the core paradox, and realizes its existential nature as the same essence with all that is –the “Onlyness” that heals the spirit/matter split.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Awakening into non-separate Conscious Embodiment is what we call the initial Whole-Being Realization.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The initial Whole-Being Realization is a permanent shift, inaugurating a new stage of personal unfoldment as distinct from a state of consciousness, which comes and goes.”
TATC Discovery Course said “A distinct passage of awakening as Consciousness (either transcendent or embodied feeling witness) occurs for some but is not required for experiencing initial Whole-Being Realization.”
TATC Discovery Course said “We cannot jump straight from where we are to an awakened state. This happens occasionally but typically a lot of preliminary work is necessary. There does come a time before the Initial Whole-Being Realization when there are temporary glimpses and oscillations, when Consciousness shines forth (as a spiritual or peak experience) for a while, then recedes into the background.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Consciousness (so to speak) awakens (up), embodies (down), and recognizes its oneness with all things (out – relationality). All three elements are intrinsic to Whole-Being Realization and are symbolized by the three-petalled Trillium flower. And the interplay of all three leads to deeper and deeper realizations over time.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The initial Whole-Being Realization requires integration over time for its fullness to be realized. We’ve opened up enough space inside us to land back in and re-inhabit our bodies, but this is just the start of a beautiful and sometimes arduous path toward wholeness. This process will unfold for the rest of your life.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Specified Trillium teachers offer ‘Whole-Being Realization clarifying conversations’ which can be a very helpful adjunct to the process of identifying, speaking, and fully owning this profound shift. These conversations are required for further advancement in the work as a mentor or teacher, but even if you’re not wanting to follow that track in Trillium Awakening, these conversations help one identify places that might still need to be examined and greenlighted to deepen your awaken.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The initial Whole-Being Realization is a permanent shift into a new stage of your life. It’s not about expansive experiences but about where you’re living from all the time. At that same time that life is experienced from a different perspective, it also hasn’t changed at all. Life becomes paradoxical.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Confidence and trust in Being increases over time and eventually becomes unshakably stable, permeating and informing all of life.”
TATC Discovery Course said “While not doing away with the challenges of being human, a fundamental sense of wellness and Presence grows stronger over time and giving us a greater capacity to face what life brings our way. We also develop the capacity to stay ‘centered’ when drama and conflict come into our lives which enables us to respond rather than react in those tough situations.”
TATC Discovery Course said “Initially called the Core Wound, there exist an existential angst at the core of our Being. This angst effects every facet of our lives as we unconsciously respond to its presence and the tension it produces. Whole-being relaxation replaces the tension of the Core Wound allowing us to experience it more as a Core Paradox or Core Mystery – our existence as a finite body and infinite Presence.”
TATC Discovery Course said “There is always potential for further awakening of the Conscious nature, and you are encouraged to stay sensitive to this, and find you own best ways to cultivate these awakenings.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Trillium Awakening work can be of great benefit for those who are encountering the existential pain of being human.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Trillium Awakening work is for those who find themselves naturally leaning toward embodiment and relatedness.”
TATC Discovery Course said “The Trillium Awakening work compassionately supports those who are hoping to awaken to their true and total selves, and is most effective for those who are beginning to question and unwind from their habitual ways of being and doing.”
TATC Discovery Course said “There comes a time in our life that we begin to question the current social paradigm in which we are living. This is probably a good sign that the awakening process has started. A critical question arises “Where do I turn to get help at this time? There are so many spiritual traditions to choose from.” The Trillium Awakening work is for those who are in the process of awakening or even already awakened and who are seeking companions and guides who understand what they’re experiencing.”
Fax Gilbert said “For me awakening is a movement into who we are as consciousness, who we are as a person and who we are in relationship. A Whole-Being awakening. This movement can have specific transition points (recognitions, peak experiences) or can emerge as more of a flow, where the integration takes place gradually, as with a sunrise. The awakening(s) coalesces into an ownership of a more comprehensive identity grounded in Being, filtered through our mind/body and expressed in relationship.”
Fax Gilbert said “Since awakening and the Whole-Being Realization, I’ve been appreciating a deeper value of gratitude – the disposition to open to all of what life brings. This level of appreciation is less dependent on circumstance, but on my deepening identity with the divine paradox of life itself. A deepening value of surrender to the “Being” that is living me and everything else.”
Fax Gilbert said “Character is more personally revealing when we discover what and why we avoid doing, speaking, feeling or being than it is when merely trying to conform to some external definitions or ethical guidelines.”
Fax Gilbert said “Dorothy didn’t find an omnipotent wizard to solve her problems but, through her journey, she and her companions manifested heart and mind and courage and love. And she did find her way home.”
Fax Gilbert said “In order for mathematics to adhere to its laws, it had to awaken to an abstract wholeness fundamental to the functioning of its numbers, the zero. Similarly, a spiritual recognition of an Absolute identity is fundamental to the wholeness of our Being and the range of identities it embodies. The zero, in life as in math, can never again be seen as just ‘nothing’ but as that which represents a “fullness beyond emptiness” whose awakened presence connects us to every particle in the universe.”
Fax Gilbert said “Mutuality born of an openness to engage, listen, reflect, withhold judgment, and clarify, along with self knowledge and feeling for timing, is fundamental toward a comprehensive meeting that can move us from head to heart. A meeting that has the potential to acknowledge different views and yet hold each viewer with respect. This kind of relating needs to be learned, experienced, and practiced. It goes against a lifetime of doing just the opposite and is foreign to the polarizing nature of our digital communication technologies.”
Fax Gilbert said “Trillium’s group dynamics of awakening are all designed to safely bring forward the innate knowledge and intelligence of each person toward an expansion of identity in all directions: up – to an ownership of our conscious nature; down – into our personality, proclivities, and patterning; and out – from our heart into our relationships.”
Fax Gilbert said “Whole Being Realization is the awakening that has emerged from this Trillium work and represents the synthesis of our identity as transcendent awareness, conscious embodiment and non-separate interconnection. As our appreciation of each of the three major facets of creation matures and integrates, our experience will reflect ever more refined realizations and stages of connection leading to a sacred ownership of who we are as both the author and expression of all that is.”
Fax Gilbert said “I feel that the exploration of our spiritual nature must involve the deepening of relationship with our divinity, and this would involve some sort of inner mutuality – the limits of our human identity relating to the wholeness of our divine identity. In my experience the catalyst for this, as for any mutuality, is trust, openness and holding. The mechanism is attention. In order for mutuality to deepen our connection, there must be trust in the Other and in the process.”
Fax Gilbert said “In mutuality we’re creating a framework so that something more than the sum of the parts can take place when there’s a relationship. Mutuality is a mutual awakening, a coming together of individuals to create something that’s different, more, a greater wholeness.”
Fax Gilbert said “Divine mutuality, like interpersonal mutuality, is cultivated through attention. Meditation, a daily awareness of gratitude for what is, association with like-minded people who activate this identity, speaking and writing from this wholeness or reconnecting with the essence of a familiar spiritual tradition – all can engender and strengthen a divine mutuality.”
Fax Gilbert said “More and more moments present themselves where wholeness of being is present not just as a seamless knowing, but as a lively feeling, a poignancy which merges both the flow and point values of life. Moments where the boundaries, limitations and pain of human life are experienced as a tender holding as if held in the lap of an infinite Presence. Where distinctions between inner and outer blend toward an infinite synchrony that begins to dominate awareness.”
Fax Gilbert said “Embodied life is certainly a dance of opposites, all of which exist within an unbounded transcendent field of awareness expressing itself as the full range of the human/divine experience. Contracted feelings are not outside of this dynamic. They are not the result of a mistake. As difficult as they are to speak and be with, these feelings offer the opportunity for us to receive even the most challenging circumstance.”
Fax Gilbert said “In order to remain authentic to the dictates of both mind and heart, to our paradoxical identities and responsibilities, mutuality is necessary. This authenticity can engender a deeper, richer embodiment of spirit into matter emblematic of maturing Whole-Being Realization.”
Fax Gilbert said “More and more moments present themselves where wholeness of being is present not just as a seamless knowing, but as a lively feeling, a poignancy which merges both the flow and point values of life. Moments where the boundaries, limitations and pain of human life are experienced as a tender holding as if held in the lap of an infinite Presence. Where distinctions between inner and outer blend toward an infinite synchrony that begins to dominate awareness.”
Fax Gilbert said “We may begin to feel comfort and delight in the felt sense of openness that comes with ‘not knowing’ especially in how we relate to the intimate aspects of our being such as awareness or truth or love. A trust grows that more and more of what we need to know and what we need to do will surface as needed.”
Fax Gilbert said “Mutuality is a mystery, really, and just like awakening and embodiment, mutuality is hard to define. It’s more of a structure to allow a kind of magic to happen between people.”
Fax Gilbert said “I’m beginning to look at mutuality as more of a process than as a product. In other words, who’s right, who isn’t, or whatever comes out of it in the form of some sort of coming together perhaps, or not, is less important than how we go about it, what we’re left with in terms of the connectivity we have with the other person or the relationship.”
Fax Gilbert said “To me, holding a possibility of ‘not knowing’ is fundamental to our whole-being realization path. As we move into living from the core of our being, from the awareness of who we are as an amalgam of both human and divine realities, our relationship with what we think we know begins to reflect this paradox. We may become more skeptical of our judgments and assumptions and not participate as wholeheartedly in the mind’s familiar characterizations and its need to plan ahead and figure things out.”
Fax Gilbert said “I’m beginning to see mutuality as an awakening within itself. It’s not a personal awakening, or a personal embodiment, but it’s an awakening that can happen many times in many different ways. As we meet in truth, and as we meet with these parameters in place, then some deeper connectivity–just as we’re establishing between ourselves here–gets connected.”
Fax Gilbert said “The realization of our paradoxical human/ divine existence, which in Trillium we call Whole-Being Realization, is just the beginning of our spiritual exploration, a foundation upon which to really explore our humanness and the divine fullness of the Being that is living us.”
Fax Gilbert said “Zero doesn’t act like the other numbers because it’s not really a number. It’s more like a point of reference whose presence and placement effects numbers in major ways. From the point of reference of who I saw myself to be before awakening, there was no absolute identity. It was as if hidden within all of my experiences, memories, and relationships in the same way that zero hides itself within all numbers. Once awareness dawned, looking at my self from that Absolute point of reference was like dividing or multiplying my personal identity by zero. It disappeared, of no more substance than a thought.”
Fax Gilbert said “Overshadowed by all the doing, our incarnated Being silently awaits the only gift we really have to give: our heartfelt attention. Not so much the focused kind of attention, but simple being-with-appreciation as when meeting an Old Friend who has faithfully been with us through all our adventures, waiting to be seen and invited more fully into our lives.”
Fax Gilbert said “Through the ongoing process of helping each other to realize facets of truth about ourselves and our challenges, what persists over time is not so much the ‘who that knows’ or even ‘what is known’, but the relationship generated between the two. The relatedness that connects parent with child, teacher with student, friend with friend, scientist with search, artist with creation, lover with beloved, devotee with God.”
Fax Gilbert said “This awakened identity is initially experienced as paradoxical. We feel the discomfort of being both simultaneously connected to and separate from life, of being pure spirit in and as the limitations of a body. In one moment, we can feel absorbed in the expression of our political point of view and, in the next, fall into the fullness of our being as expressed in all beings. It is the recognition of a marriage of and beyond opposites, mutually coexisting as us.”
Fax Gilbert said “The medium of mutuality, employed within ourselves and with others, is our practice for being in the collective field of not knowing, for recognizing sensitivities and for exploring what is true for us now. It is a gift for catalyzing continued discovery and integration and is a valuable tool no matter what degree of awakening we’re living.”
Fax Gilbert said “Character is answering the invitation to feel into an emotional contraction and move toward understanding and resolution. When equilibrium is restored, the unconscious holding of tension is relaxed creating the emotional space necessary for the recognition, embodiment and expression of consciousness in the world.”
Fax Gilbert said “For me, an awakening can be a change in your point of reference, a change in perspective. The most fundamental of all awakenings involve our identity; changes in how we see ourselves. These changes in identity are the product of many experiences which at some point generate this updating or reprogramming. In each case, we add or subtract perspectives to a personal identity, the identity associated with our name.”
Fax Gilbert said “I feel that there are two kinds of mutuality: personal and impersonal. We’ve primarily been engaged with the personal. But there’s also impersonal mutuality, which some other groups are also exploring, creating mutuality within the space that we create together as a wholeness and what we contribute to that as individuals.”
Fax Gilbert said “Most of us have the disposition to ignore or actively dismiss discomforting feelings and situations in the hope that they’ll take care of themselves. Shifting into a recognition of yourself as consciousness, which is by nature free and uninvolved, can even reinforce the tendency to back away from the messiness of engaging with our own patterns, others, and the world.”
Fax Gilbert said “Our Divine Presence is itself the cause for celebration and the foundation for our giving and sharing, whether through secular traditions, religious rituals, or personal relating.”
Fax Gilbert said “Strengthening character means becoming more sensitive to what our body is telling us in any given moment, what it is telling us about ourselves and what it is telling us about others in relation to ourselves.”
Fax Gilbert said “Over the years our work as Trillium teachers has been to create a delivery system that translates our knowledge into teaching formats that lead to awakenings.”
Fax Gilbert said “The awakened identity is initially experienced as paradoxical. We feel the discomfort of being both simultaneously connected to and separate from life, of being pure spirit in and as the limitations of a body. In one moment we can feel absorbed in the expression of our political point of view and, in the next, fall into the fullness of our being as expressed in all beings. It is the recognition of a marriage of and beyond opposites, mutually coexisting as us.”
Fax Gilbert said “Character is the disposition that connects our consciousness to our body. Character is that embodied consciousness that moves us into the pain and poignancy of living, and character is that which trusts in the mystery of our being to hold the tension of life as well as the flow.”
Gena Netten said “My great ‘homecoming’ occurred when I had my Whole-Being Realization in 2009, and I realized myself as embodied yet absolutely non-separate Heart of God – the one and only Heart we are all Being.”
Gena Netten said “Increased self-awareness improves the quality of relating with self and others, enhances our capacity for decisions, and deepens our overall well-being. The more present we can be to what is underlying our reactions, thoughts, and feelings, the more wholeness we experience and the more vivid, full and enjoyable it is to be the flow of Life.”
Gena Netten said “A sense of relief comes when we enter this work and learn to welcome and be with all aspects of our human experience. We start to relax because we stop pitting parts of ourselves against one another until, eventually, we come to know intuitively there is no boundary between inner and outer, subject and object.”
Gena Netten said “As we awaken to our True nature, we realize an aspect of that nature is whole, lacking nothing, and never changing. Paradoxically, we realize another aspect of that nature is being the ever-changing flow of Life. Something in our True nature seems to desire more and more experience, development, and realization.”
Gena Netten said “Compassionate clarity has no inclination to shame. It allows us to observe our patterns just as they are, without judgment. It welcomes and accepts the patterns yet doesn’t identify with them. It compassionately brings everything into the Light of consciousness. Using compassionate clarity to attune deeply to ourselves is like being a skillful woodsman who listens intently to the sounds of the forest.”
Gena Netten said “As we identify less with a separate egoic sense of self and more with non-separate Being, we find ourselves guided by a luminous intelligence that calls us into greater awareness. This intelligence works naturally and lovingly in us, bringing unconscious patterns and thought structures based on survival response and separation into the Light.”
Gena Netten said “As we are guided by the Light and intention of compassionate self-awareness, transformation happens. Because the patterns and thought structures are no longer identified with, they start to loosen and unravel. As we hold those patterns and structures patiently, they feel comfortable to align with the higher conscious essence of embodied freedom.”
Hillary Davis said “There’s a place where you’re utterly alone, there are no tools and nothing can fix it, and you’re just in it. That’s where transformation happens; transformation doesn’t happen through tools. It happens when you’re flat up against it and you’re on your knees and you don’t think you see how you can go on anymore.”
Hillary Davis said “After awakening, with the ‘container’ of Consciousnesses holding us and all that Is, we can begin to invite those parts of us to come back home to wholeness. Then we begin to feel more integrated, more Here.”
Hillary Davis said “Would you say the awakening process requires heroic faith or courage? Yes, and we are all heroes. Some have called this process a hero’s journey. And it is. Everybody will come up against the difficulties and find their own courage to keep going. Because when you start the surrender, Being, in its deep compassion and desire to know itself, will support your transformation.”
Hillary Davis said “The question is, how much do you want to awaken — enough to sit with this unbearable stuff? By permitting that scary stuff to be there, we’re finding our way home. Home is there! The energy that has gone into keeping all that stuff down, starts to get freed up and that brings awakening.”
Hillary Davis said “To me, the “down” piece is about opening to feeling – to feel the body, to feel the feelings, the patterning and shadow material, to feel the joy and love that is also suppressed, to live more fully as the totality of who we really are. When we’re young, we think we’ll die if we feel our scary feelings. So we learn to cope on top of our feelings in order to survive. We become removed from our feelings and therefore from ourselves. We lose contact with ourselves.”
Hillary Davis said “The Rot will feel like death to your mind. Something IS dying – it’s your total identification with the mind as who you are. That belief is dying because you’re opening to something far greater than your mind. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you’re going to die. Awakening is partly about death. Death brings rebirth.”
Hillary Davis said “I couldn’t pretend to be nice anymore; my anger and self-hatred surfaced, my repulsion toward people surfaced; everything surfaced during my Rot. Before the Rot I held all these images of myself as being a very loving person and many times I didn’t feel loving at all. In fact, I felt how much I hated and didn’t care. You can start to feel really lonely and alone and you see that you’re not becoming who you hoped and fantasized you would be. But in permitting this hard stuff to be there, transformation happens.”
Hillary Davis said “Many of my students have been people like me, who have experienced critical superegos and a lot of self-loathing, people who have not felt received by more traditional spiritual schools where there is no place for emotion and deep feeling. The hypermasculine types of spirituality tend to put down those of us who are more feeling, who need a particular kind of holding and recognition in order to awaken and further integrate and deepen.”
Hillary Davis said “The Rot shows you that you’re not who you thought you were; you’re unraveling and it can sometimes feel horrifying, exhilarating, bland or anything in between. All your worst fears, the stuff you’ve been trying to avoid: self-hatred, self-loathing, repulsion, feelings of unworthiness — all the stuff that’s been scaring you your whole life. It takes great courage to be willing to permit that to just be there. And in the letting it be there, I have found the deepest love, the deepest nourishment, the deep feminine.”
Hillary Davis said “The Rot is the willingness to start to face into what you’ve been running from your whole life – because there are no more options. You’ve tried everything you could to keep the pain and irritation away in the hope that you would find the magical thing that would make it go away, and now you no longer have the ability to keep running from what is.”
Hillary Davis said “In coming up against all the tight squeezed places, sometimes it’s all you can do to surrender. You have no other option but surrender. And tools are great, practices are really helpful, but they’ll never keep you from having to squeeze up in those dark places where you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know who you are and you don’t know if you’re awakened or not.”
Hillary Davis said “The Rot opens up into great beauty. It permits you to contact yourself like you’ve never been able to before. And in that way, it can bring the deepest joy you’ve ever known.”
Hillary Davis said “Don’t you have to have faith that you’ll survive going into these dark spaces? It’s not about physical survival; you must be willing to die into what’s real. That’s where a teacher can help. If you have faith in your teacher, then you can also have faith in yourself because you know they’ve been through it and survived.”
Hillary Davis said “I feel the decomposition process (the Rot) goes on and on and will till my body dies. I keep coming up against ideas, beliefs, and patterns I’ve been afraid to feel before or couldn’t get access to. Being is forever driving deeper down into what has not been seen yet. That’s just what it does because it has to know itself more and more intimately. So I don’t think it is a process that will ever stop entirely.”
Hillary Davis said “Why would somebody want to surrender into disappointment? Because you want more of the truth of who you are, you want to be free, so you stop struggling and fighting against yourself. So you give in — but that’s not a giving up. And if disappointment is your reality, then yes – permit it to be there.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said ‘Holding space” for another’s process: It is a phenomenon worth noting, that witnessing, a.k.a. ‘holding space’, serves the one who is in process! The very idea … that one person can be consciously, perhaps energetically “held”, and that this makes a difference, whispers to us of the power of attention.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “For some, connection to the Divine may be through a meditation practice; others may turn to indigenous practices; for others, a western religious tradition. In our Work, we acknowledge and welcome these “everyday” openings as connections to the transcendent. In this too, in the deep connections that arise as this body feels its way through this world, we awaken. Day by day.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “On the Trillium path we teach that when our attention is bound by unprocessed shadow material, even entirely unconscious, it governs us. Then we don’t have enough free attention to act with ease in the middle world, or to open to the light of the upper world. In the shadows we can trip, even fall. Some of the obstacles can be cleared; with others we at least need to locate and identify them for our future safety. Doing our shadow work, our down work, helps free up energy and attention to assist in our ongoing awakening.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “Embodied Whole-Being Awakening comprises the expansion of conscious awareness more and more deeply into all realms, embracing the hitherto unseen, and becoming conscious of the way those realms interact with the everyday. One wakes up, down, and also forward.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “Holding a conceptual framework of awakening can help us to relax into that awakening process as it unfolds. Without a framework of understanding, spiritual openings can be confusing, perplexing or even overlooked. As we come to understand our journey we can navigate more confidently.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “Trillium Awakening offers not so much an ‘Ontology’=>what there is or a ‘Cosmology’=>what the universe is, as it conveys an ‘Epistemology’=>how to know. Thus it is oriented toward learning the means to experience both deeply and broadly … more of who each of us is: … ‘awakening’ … ‘becoming aware of’ … the full depth and breadth of each one’s own being – from the deepest shadow to the highest light and flame. Hence there is not an expectation of what your realization will encompass, but rather a validation of your experience … including the experiencer you are finding yourself to be.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “In every encounter with the difficult material, there’s a chance for something beyond that to come along. Not only is there an opportunity for healing, but right THERE, when the encounter with ‘that old stuff’ we’ve been carrying gets lively, the witnessing self grows a bit more powerful. It is a little like weightlifting: a little at a time, we can lift a bit more.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “This map or conceptual framework of awakening gives us an orientation to the journey. To “awaken” means to gradually bring to conscious awareness more and more of ourselves and our surroundings … both the ‘inner’ and the ‘upper’ world come into focus. That is, we become aware of both our deeply hidden shadow material, which is stored in the body, as well as our heights and gifts, and ultimately our oneness with the Divine, the ‘I am That’.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “You can expect that in sittings, retreats, or individual sessions, you will be invited and assisted in the process of connecting with and exploring all aspects of your own being – your personal life – body, mind, soul. Spirit – as it is showing up, uniquely in you. Plumbing the depths, reaching to the heights, expanding into the full breadth of your very particular manifestation in this body, this life, now.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “Awakening to our conscious nature is facilitated when we allow or direct our attention to turn toward and rest as or “’with’ pure consciousness.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “I was reminded of an Andean teaching about what is called in Quechua ‘yanantin’ – complementary opposites … opposites which are nonetheless part of the Whole, and reveal the Whole; in those teachings, the task or practice becomes learning to hold and harmonize these opposites. When I spoke of this with one of the other teachers, another dimension opened. ‘That’, she said, ‘is also how we open to ‘.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “We’re compelled to develop and practice skills which support the Self’s capacity to remain in balance and self-orient. Each event, each thought moves through us like a wave, its trough and peak potentially touching into the full upper-middle-lower range of our being. The gift is that we can integrate more and more of life while ‘surfing’ each wave forward. In practice, we offer a map and tools helpful in developing those skills.”
Jeffrey Backstrom said “Because everyone has received and internalized both cultural perspectives and the specific limiting views of those who’ve surrounded us, you’ll find it difficult to open to some aspects of yourself. The Trillium methodology assists you and challenges you to recognize and affirm, and consciously interact with, all aspects of your own being – both limited and Divine.”
Jim Trofatter said “We don’t talk about Soul in our work as many spiritual traditions don’t. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t there, we just have to explore that potentiality along with all the others.”
Jim Trofatter said “We truly are not broken, not damaged and not less than. We are innately good, loving, capable and whole. There is a realization that no human is perfect and it is by our imperfections that we can explore our genius, our creativity, our potential as humans. What a relief to not have to be perfect!!”
Jim Trofatter said “Our stories are the gateways to our healings. They are not the traumas we experienced, but the content we use to try to explain the trauma. Beneath the story is the felt experience: the emotions, the sensations – that which was too intense to experience when they first arose. We shy away from those and use the stories to deflect the direct experience to something that appears more bearable, less annihilating. We made it through the first time, we’ll make it through the release and processing of it, too.”
Jim Trofatter said “With our Whole-Being Realization we begin to see that we are completely interdependent and seamless with Reality as it spontaneously and continuously arises. Reality has and will always support us because in essence it is supporting itself.”
Jim Trofatter said “Our paths are uniquely our own. Others may have maps of the territory, but that is the path that they walked. Yours may have similarities, but it will ultimately be unique. However, there are many milestones along they way that are common to most paths. They may not occur in the same order or have the same intensity, but they tend to show up soon or later.”
Jim Trofatter said “As we deepen into and move through the rotting process, we realize that everyone else, all those people we’ve been trying to live up to for all those years, are also on the hamster wheel. And we find we have great compassion for everyone else, for the whole tribe, for all of humanity because we’re now consciously aware of just how truly tiring it is to be on the hamster wheel, and how tiring it must be for all those others still unconsciously running feverishly to reach their unattainable goals and to please others on a daily basis.”
Jim Trofatter said “At this point in our evolution, it’s not about freeing ourselves from the ego, it’s about liberating our ego from the conditioning and pain that it is holding in order to keep us safe: safe from ourselves, safe from others and safe from a hyper-masculine culture that is afraid of our uniqueness, authenticity and innate power. The ego is more of a gate-keeper and is not structured for this responsibility of holding; and because of this it has to make do the best way it can.”
Jim Trofatter said “Mutuality isn’t about blurting your truth at others. Your truth may not be their truth. Mutuality is more about holding everyone’s truth including your own as unique perspectives of the Totality of Being. No one person can hold the Totality of All That Is.”
Jim Trofatter said “From my point of view, we have to work through issues in seven domains: our physical body, our emotions, our uniqueness, our heart, our voice, our mind and the transcendent. We are indirectly affected in all of these domains simply by being born a human into a common psychodynamic field known as humanity. On top of that, these domains are directly affected by our families, friends and cultures.”
Jim Trofatter said “We all experience some form of dissociation from our bodies, no matter where we are on the path unless we’ve reached total freedom from our past. There is no goal or endpoint in this work. Reality never stops spontaneously arising, so there is always more to include and explore in our experience of Totality.”
Jim Trofatter said “One day we begin to feel the deep stirrings of our hearts again and that a loving sense of self-compassion, self-love can actually be experienced in a safe place, while relating to others – teachers and other disenfranchised seekers – in a mature and healthy manner. This is so unlike the way most people interact with each other on a daily basis that at first it doesn’t seem real. It’s not the way the current societal tribes functions.”
Jim Trofatter said “This work is primarily for those who have a deep desire to awaken to their true and total selves, their authentic selves. It is place to start unwinding from the whirlwind of society’s demands, a place to get off the hamster wheel and relax for a moment, to take a deep breath and begin to settle into the depths of who we truly are. It is a work that helps us reconnect with our physical body, to embody – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritual – in ways we had forgotten since childhood and we find that as we fully deepen into our body that sense of coming home to who we truly are is experienced.”
Jim Trofatter said “Our realization begins a process where we unravel the constrictions / traumas of our lives, our ancestry and our planet. It’s a journey without a path. It’s a journey toward become a self-aware, embodied, conscientious human being living their life authentically with other self-aware, embodied, conscientious human beings, eight billion of them. The pathless path is unique to each of us.”
Jim Trofatter said “Initial Whole-Being Realization is the beginning of a new direction in our lives, not an endpoint that we achieve. We don’t sit back after it say, “I’m done. I reached the pinnacle of the spiritual path. There is nothing else to do.” It’s simply a new orientation to how we interact and perceive the world.”
Jim Trofatter said “It is hard to do this work by oneself. We are blind to our own weaknesses and strengths. That is why a teacher or some form of witness is necessary to affirm and validate our experience, to give us perspective, and to help with the confusion that is usually associated with our memories of each traumatic experience. This is especially true when we first start out.”
Jim Trofatter said “This is an inward journey, a journey into the mystery of ourselves and Creation. We may be drawn to others who are sharing similar experiences and journeys, but ultimately our journey is ours and ours alone.”
Jim Trofatter said “Heart is not about the emotions, it’s about Love and for some reason Service. The Buddhist call this bodhicitta which is defined as a mind, motivated by compassion for all living beings, that spontaneously seeks enlightenment. When the Heart awakens there tends to be a spontaneous desire to help the planet. At least this was what happened for me.”
Jim Trofatter said “To be human is to be imperfect, but it doesn’t mean we have to be violent or abusive in that imperfection. There are gentle ways for humans to interact with each other even in our brokenness. Our imperfections mean we get to make mistakes, own them, learn from them, and apologize for some of them, when necessary.”
Jim Trofatter said “After being shut down for so long, as our tender hearts slowly, gently, cautiously open we find that we have the amazing capacity for deep intimacy with other people and we come to the recognition that these others are crucial for our unfolding, for our embodied awakening. That mutual, healthy relationship is fundamental to our evolution as a human being. We realize that we do not need to constantly please or be pleased by others, we do not need to cajole or be cajoled by others for our safety, we do not need to manipulate or be manipulated by others to get what we want.”
Jim Trofatter said “So much of our lives are spent trying to perfect ourselves, trying to prove to others – our parents, teachers, peers, bosses, spouses, tribe – that we are capable of living up to their expectations of who we ought to be, all the while foregoing our personnel needs, desires and urges to be who we actually are. It’s tiring, exhausting work that never seems to end because in reality we will never be able to live up to the expectations of others. When we finally get the strength to say “No” to the false expectations and decide to live life according to our authentic desires, then we can relax, and we get off the hamster wheel.”
Jim Trofatter said “Awakening refers to a shift in consciousness, a recognition of the fundamental unity beneath the surface of experience. Development, by contrast, is the slow, layered unfolding of the self’s capacity to hold complexity, embody wisdom, and integrate shadow. Both are vital. And while either can arise before the other, true transformation asks for both.”
Jim Trofatter said “For me, one way to describe consciousness is as the foundational ground from which all experiences, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and even physical reality unfold and arise. Awareness, by contrast, can be viewed as the direct, immediate knowing or witnessing aspect within that field, the capacity that registers or notices experiences without necessarily identifying with them.”
Jim Trofatter said “In the making of mistakes, we get the pleasure to learn more about who and what we are, both physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We will always remain a mystery to ourselves because our transcendent nature can never be fully known, but it can be explored, endlessly it seems, and making mistakes is an essential part of this process.”
Jim Trofatter said “The pain of hitting the wall is a necessary catalyst for inner growth. In our unawakened state, we often live in denial, clinging to familiar patterns even when they no longer serve us. The experience of profound disorientation forces us to surrender these outdated constructs and to confront the emptiness that lies at the heart of our conditioned existence. While this process is inherently unsettling, it also opens the door to a more authentic way of living.”
Jim Trofatter said “Relationality invites you to be real and vulnerable, to let yourself be seen, and to truly see the other, to honor your true and total self while also making room for others to do the same. This is why small group settings and one-on-one sessions can be so transformative. When you share your insights, fears, and breakthroughs, you not only deepen your own growth but also inspire growth in those around you.”
Jim Trofatter said “Our culture is the pond we swim in. It teaches us how we are supposed to interact with ourselves, with each other and with the world around us. It defines what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and we swim in the pond because that is what is familiar to us, that is what is comfortable, that is what everyone is doing. It doesn’t even occur to us that there might be other ponds.”
Jim Trofatter said “Being fully present in your body can bring all of life’s sensations into sharper focus, physical aches, emotional currents, and even subtle energetic fluctuations. This can be an intense and sometimes overwhelming experience. For many, this heightened awareness can feel like stepping onto a stage where every spotlight is suddenly aimed inward. While this intensity can be uncomfortable, it also opens the door to deeper healing and self-discovery, as it allows us to meet each sensation, emotion, and memory with compassion and understanding, a process that ultimately fosters greater wholeness and resilience.”
Jim Trofatter said “We live in a culture that favors certainty, answers, and expertise. From a young age, we’re taught to have a plan, know what we’re doing, and explain ourselves clearly. Not knowing is uncomfortable. It’s often associated with ignorance, failure, or weakness. And yet, on the path of transformation, not knowing is sacred. It is the fertile soil in which new ways of being take root.”
Jim Trofatter said “For someone to accept us just as we are without expectations, without having to please them, without having to walk on eggshells every time we open our mouths. In this work, we find home not just within ourselves, we unexpectedly find it with others. It doesn’t mean that this acceptance always runs smoothly, but that we have the ability to sit in the cauldron of mutuality and work through our differences without creating further violence.”
Jim Trofatter said “One of the most horrible consequences of suppressing any aspect of our authentic nature is that in order to do that we have to consider that behavior bad, thus we make ourselves bad and chastise ourselves for not being able to control the unwanted natural expressions of our Being. This ultimately leads to us hating aspects of ourselves and this hatred is soul-crushing.”
Joanne Lee said “This is a time that’s ripe for leaning into your spiritual path, your deepest trust in Being, your faith in God. And it’s a time that’s equally ripe for tying your camel. Doing what you know to do in the world to keep yourselves safe and well, to keep your loved ones safe and well, to be of service in your communities thereby practicing daily your understanding of the power of consciousness, compassion, connection and community to create a world where we all can thrive.”
June Konopka said “Ever so slowly, I am learning that the Present moment contains everything I need. It contains the next step on my path. It contains just what needs to be realized or spoken.”
June Konopka said “The Trillium path includes a direct transmission from teacher to student. It is a palpable, mysterious exchange that results in the enlivenment of Being in the student, as well as a deep sense of being seen and nurtured unconditionally. This underlies all our interactions, but can be intensified in specific meditation times.”
June Konopka said “Trusting what the present moment wants to tell me is one of the hardest things to do. Compared to my intelligent, analyzing, complex, problem-solving active mind, the information contained in the present moment seems naïve, simple, and not enough, somehow. After all, what can a few body sensations (and/or subtle feelings), floating on a bed of silence, possibly know?”
June Konopka said “This awakening has many facets. The most delicious facet is that I find myself continuously deepening into the present moment….deepening into the silence of my own Being. I often like to sit and just be the Silence, while simultaneously enjoying its blissful manifestation in my heart and body as freely circulating energy, and in the world as a magnificent creative dance.”
June Konopka said “Presence holds it all. It is unmistakable. It knows how to move us to freedom. It knows how to unravel the knots in our beliefs. It knows how to guide us to the sweet innocence of our own hearts. It knows how to give us the peace we long for. It knows how to carry us to the God Source.”
June Konopka said “This is an embodied awakening that is lived and experienced in all parts of our life. We, as God, wake up to ourselves here in this body. This can be a bit of a shock.”
June Konopka said “It is a luxury in this fast-paced world to slowly move from one moment to the next moment watching myself unfold, speaking it, and allowing the body time to integrate each new understanding and experience. Who would think there is enough time and space to linger and take up this precious time, especially when each tiny step seems so insignificant. Each moment seems so ordinary.”
June Konopka said “Sometimes I am in awe at what comes through me as my unique Soul’s desires and expressions. Other times, I am in awe of the Great Mother who births and destroys this precious creation in a rhythm all Her own. The seeking has ended, but the conscious unfolding of Me in human form has just begun.”
June Konopka said “Presence, linked together in moments, appears like a river we might call Life. This Life is intelligent. It seems to know where to go next. It has direction. This Life has heart. It has an impulse to move. It moves with loving compassion in service to Its creation.”
June Konopka said “It seems like my Divine Soul has also awakened in this body, and with ruthless compassion, it is systematically aligning my human personality with its nature.”
Kelly Yi said “Through this Whole-Being Realization, you unfold as your own unique expression of Totality as you feel called. This includes all the wounded parts of your self as well as your highest and most mysterious divinity, from soul to spirit and even beyond.”
Kelly Yi said “My view is that there is not a separate thing any where in the universe and cosmos. We all “inter-are.” The process of awakening is being able to embrace this spiritual truth more and more fully, not just with the mind, but also with your heart, body, and Whole-Being.”
Kelly Yi said “I realized that I was not my body and not my mind but an ever-present timeless awareness beyond them. I termed this awareness God at the time and knew deep in my bones that everyone and everything is That.”
Krishna Gauci said “The recognition of the reality of both the One and the many makes possible a great love for the other, simultaneous with emptiness. For those whose intention remains firm, the world of relationships and “others” takes on a new significance as the expression and manifestation of that which is realized. This is the Heart of devotion. The urge to be true burns in you. This does not create instant perfection, but the desire for honesty with oneself aligns you to a continuous purification as life, not from life.”
Krishna Gauci said “The small sense of self can open into a larger sense of itself if it is seen and felt and acknowledged. The small sense of self is not a fixed entity and it is affected and changed over time by both being held and loved. It is also affected and changed when attention rests in the dimension of Emptiness. This is an organic process that does not reject any part, but rather transforms everything by reaching into the Transcendent ‘higher’ without aversion to the human ‘lower’.”
Krishna Gauci said “Ego does transcend itself by becoming a more expanded ego, a more expanded recognition of what it is. The question of transformation is related to how much “I-am-ness” you are being at any given moment. In other words, the ego will become larger as you develop in the second life! Of course, in order to become larger in the sense that I’m speaking of there will be stretching, but your ego will grow and it will not disappear.”
Krishna Gauci said “This life of limits is never enough, it can always be better and our heart yearns to change it and bring us closer to freedom, peace and contentment. As we look to change our conditions and make them “just right” we are looking in the dimension of change where things will never be enough. Sill, it is our nature as conditioned beings that we cannot help but make these efforts, which can bring us closer, but never close enough. There is nothing wrong in this.”
Krishna Gauci said “Trillium Awakening is a path of spiritual awakening and unfolding but this form of awakening does not imply or require perfection or extensive purification.”
Krishna Gauci said “Our Conscious nature is free of definable limits and yet it is in intimate relationship to this definable life of limits.”
Krishna Gauci said “It’s important to honor our own past and our own inner source of guidance. Regretting how we’ve lived our lives is easy enough to do, but it’s helpful to consider that we were only always doing the best we could with what we knew at the time.”
Krishna Gauci said “Whether we want a better car or we have a burning fire for deeper surrender to The Source of existence, life in form is always about going beyond… It’s never enough. When you find that everything lines up perfectly, you can be sure of one thing…it won’t last.”
Krishna Gauci said “A fully embodied realization of consciousness is a continuous process of embracing every apparent limit that we find ourselves to be involved in and through that embrace bringing it into an ever-expanding sense of ourself. I would like to invite every aspect and possible sense of yourself to come forward and be alive as this life now. Let there be no part of you that is held back from its full flow of being. This is our birthright and is possible through the graceful transmission of Total Being.”
Krishna Gauci said “The benefit of pursuing our desire and getting disappointed is not the life we wanted (but did not get) but rather it’s this life that has actually unfolded. Appreciating and even loving this life for the fireworks display it is, for the vulnerable flower it actually is (despite what we wished it would be); is devotion to Her (as She is).”
Krishna Gauci said “The more we return to bath in the waters of unconditioned awareness where nothing is a success and nothing is a problem the more we become aware of ourselves where none of this is an issue.”
Krishna Gauci said “So while I can appreciate that it is possible to avoid life by exploring your nature as the Light of Consciousness, it’s also possible upon recognizing that you are that light to turn attention back to the world of conscious experience as that light.”
Krishna Gauci said “Our parents understandably believed that it was their job to pull our heads out of wonderment into the very real and limited human reality that they were experiencing. They told us who we were and drew our attention into identification with a body-mind personality. The fact that we were also infinite, unfindable consciousness was usually ignored. The result was a feeling as a child that only our limits were being acknowledged and that we were not seen in our pure potentiality, which of course was true.”
Krishna Gauci said “The nature of the conditioned is continual movement toward the unconditioned through its endless desire to be (more) free and this never-ending approach (and never reaching) is what it is. As far as the Unconditioned nature of Being, there is never any need for freedom for the unconditioned because it is freedom itself. These are the two dimensions of Being which is an absolutely Non-dual Onlyness.”
Krishna Gauci said “We are all already free as the infinite, and totally at rest as That. This is my nature as it is yours, even if you do not yet have full trust that this is so.”
Krishna Gauci said “The more [the Core Paradox] is made conscious the more there is love and compassion in relation to our situation and the situation of all sentient beings. The more conscious our embrace of this situation the more at home we are as the vulnerable sensitivity at the Heart of Life and paradoxically, the deeper our sense of fundamental well-being. We find ourselves experiencing the paradox not as a problem to be solved, but as mystery to be lived.”
Krishna Gauci said “One’s human life lends itself to serve organically without any superimposed moral imperatives. It is the natural way of humanity to live a life of sacrifice when awakened to our fullest nature.”
Krishna Gauci said “This awakening into non-separate embodiment makes it possible to uncover wounds and shadow material that was previously too difficult to access. By investigating emotional broken zones, we free up trapped energy and attention and thereby become fully alive and freely self-expressed.”
Krishna Gauci said “From my perspective the ego in the Trillium path is understood as the basic sense of the ‘I-am-ness’ of identity. As both the highly spiritual sense of ‘I am that I am’ and also as the very human sense of ‘I am Bob’. Whatever the current sense of self is; whether it is ugly or pretty, generous or petty, lowly or exalted: that’s the ego. Ego is not static or fixed but continues to change.”
Krishna Gauci said “There is a very real and living energy of mutual transformation in the process our being together in this deep honesty. There is an alchemical magic in mutuality. We end up functioning as channels of continuous revelation, transmission and Divine communion with one another.”
Krishna Gauci said “We need to be careful that the notion that the ‘little me’ or ‘ego’ or ‘separate I sense’ does not exist does not become a new fixed position, a new dogma that we cling to in hope for relief. The new story for many of us then becomes that we don’t have a story or that we are not our story. And of course we aren’t, and we are!”
Krishna Gauci said “The terms ‘core wound’ and ‘the paradox’ are two sides of one coin and two names for what we actually are, one phrase is what we are and another how it is experienced. Although they are one thing it can be useful to think about it this way: We are the paradox and we feel or register that paradox as the core wound.”
Krishna Gauci said “The path to full awakening includes acknowledging the reality that part of the way that consciousness manifests the universe includes the experience of limits and separateness that are real; they are the activity of consciousness. It is by embracing those limits as real that transcendence of those limits happens. Transcendence happens through the including of everything because everything is the divine including the experience of limits. In this way all three ways or views of experiencing limits are included in one context.”
Krishna Gauci said “It is our tendency to try to conquer the life of definable limits (improving life and self) or to try to leave the life of definable limits (transcending life and self) in an effort to avoid feeling and truly acknowledging those limits.”
Krishna Gauci said “It’s important to recognize that your life is waiting to be discovered and that you have unique gifts to bring it forth. In many ways the Trillium Awakening path is NOT a school in the usual sense because it is ultimately you who shapes the direction of your explorations in the Whole-Being Realized life. This is very exciting as you alone bring to this process your experience and truth.”
Krishna Gauci said “Making efforts to improve your life takes on a very different quality as you realize that nothing in life is enough, whether it is a ‘worldly effort’ or ‘spiritual effort’ that you use, even the effort of “giving up the effort” will not be enough.”
Krishna Gauci said “Our whole teaching about the core wound, which I refer to as ‘essential vulnerability’, is entirely different, absolutely unique. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. When people talk about embodiment, they’re usually talking about walking your talk, getting into your life. And it’s like that with us also, but the means, the main focal point, is the conscious wound, the willingness to be consciously more and more vulnerable.”
Krishna Gauci said “One of the most important gifts that our work has to offer to the Spiritual world of the twenty-first century is the context in which fully-embodied individuated egos can have the room to grow into mature Divinely Human Beings. There is a great potential in the creative aesthetic power that can be unleashed as we move out into the larger world with this more natural, honest, integral vision together.”
Krishna Gauci said “The thing about the Core Wound (the paradox) is that while there no problem and nothing wrong with it, it does have a distinct feeling component. At the feeling level it is the vulnerable sensitivity at the heart of life. When we consciously and experientially (not intellectually) embrace the fact of being the ‘Both/And’ of this Paradox of Onlyness, we are beginning the journey of making the Wound conscious or becoming the Conscious Wound.”
Krishna Gauci said “Recognition and calling forth of the divinity in one another, as well as interactions that bring us into encounters with our old patterns further integrates both the ‘Consciousness’ and ‘Embodiment’ dimensions in each other and ourselves.”
Krishna Gauci said “The capacity for further development after awakening has been distorted by the notion that one’s ego does not exist, or that it is a minor part of us that is merely to be tolerated. Those who are of the ‘kinder gentler’ ego tolerance do not embody the ego in the sense that they do not have a paradigm (or holding container) large enough to allow them to integrate ego in the way the Trillium Awakening path does in mutuality, but at least they recognize that they have one and are not fighting it.”
Krishna Gauci said “The main thing that stands in the way of ego transcending its limits is ego not being allowed to be (limits). What you resist persists. So rather that resisting or even worse denying being (or having) an ego, we live as consciously inviting and allowing the sense of being an ego (and a body) and that is what I mean by ‘embodying ego’.”
Krishna Gauci said “In our current times, mutuality is a catalytic agent that makes it possible to be the ego, to greenlight it and not become the monster that we were afraid we would be. When ego is honored, felt and expressed in the context of mutuality we still are being egos, and yet we eventually stretch into feeling and holding others as we hold ourselves.”
Krishna Gauci said “It must be said that while fulfilling any particular desire is ultimately not satisfying, who can deny the amazing beauty in all of this? The awe-inspiring unfolding evolution of nature and all the achievements of humanity that have arisen through desire. Our futile attempts at lasting satisfaction is an astonishing fountain of creativity. Life uses impossible yearning to create the whole thing!”
Krishna Gauci said “Unless the ‘Little me’ is recognized, invited in and celebrated we are not talking about a fully embodied realization of consciousness. When we do include it, because the ‘Little me’ is not a fixed ‘thing’ but a living process there is an organic transformation that happens over time such that the smaller sense of self opens into an integration (and even surrender) into the Total Being of Onlyness. That’s where this leads.”
Krishna Gauci said “Even when we realize emptiness there may be the annoying sense that we keep showing up and behaving as if we have or are “a self” even when we’ve discovered the truth beyond that. This can be quite frustrating and cause us to doubt what we know. Because our total Being is a stretch beyond logic there is a sort of identity crisis which must happen for full embodiment, an identity shift even beyond recognizing emptiness or no-self into recognizing the Onlyness of Emptiness and Everything (including our human sense of self). The fact is that we are both beyond our personal stories and we have personal stories at the same time! This can be confusing to a mind that feels that life must be understandable logically.”
Krishna Gauci said “To the degree that this teaching is a path of attainment, it will disappoint. To the degree that this teaching is a way to sober-up out of dreams, both worldly and spiritual, it is simply an honest pointing to our condition and situation and a way through. There is paradox here that is very hard to put to language. Underlying all of this is a deep acceptance of the entire process of your own unfolding, including all of your non-acceptance, i.e. Trust in Being includes trusting that your effort to improve yourself will play its part in the unfolding of Being, so don’t cut yourself in half by denying your desire to make your life better or your awakening deeper.”
Krishna Gauci said “Our awakening has everything to do with our transmission and our respect for Individuals, existing as individuals. More than respect, a kind of appreciation that without the individual, we’re at a loss. We’d be diminished without individual voices, distinct voices.”
Krishna Gauci said “The Core Wound is actually not suffering, although it is experienced as such the less conscious it is. This gets tricky because in our path, the way the Wound is experienced is different depending on where you are in the process and so it is actually defined differently depending on how conscious it is. This Paradox of being both non-findable Unborn Unconditioned Awareness and very findable conditioned matter/mind/energy. This paradox needs no solution and is not actually a problem at all, but when we are not consciously being it, it is experienced as suffering and a problem.”
Krishna Gauci said “This impulse toward living life in mutuality is conducive to awakening to your Conscious nature, having your initial Whole-Being Realization awakening and further emerging realizations as well. It is a lifestyle choice that creates a life of continuous deepening, transcendence and integration.”
Krishna Gauci said “Usually we are consciously identified with only one pole of our existence, either the born or unborn. Because we feel the need to be one to the exclusion of the other, we are not aware that we unconsciously compare what we identify ourselves with to what we don’t identify ourselves with.”
Krishna Gauci said “It seems to me that Life is a living Goddess. Like any living being she shows up in ways that I often don’t anticipate, but no matter what choice I make, no matter what road I take, she is always my only partner.”
Krishna Gauci said “Ultimately Onlyness is YOU. It’s true that when that I-am (ego) sense is simply fixed on and only identified with a small part of Onlyness and disassociated from the rest of Onlyness there is then pain and confusion. It is from that shrunken sense of ourselves that ‘acting out’ and all the usual things we associate with the ego as ‘the bad guy’ can happen. What this means is that this is the developmental stage and level in which you are those limits.”
Krishna Gauci said “The key is that when you are honest you add to the richness of others as well as yourself. Mutuality gives you existential sounding boards, not just for the ideas of your mind, but for all of you. It gives us the space to witness ourselves share our ideas and feelings in a context bigger than our own experience and have them reflected back to us from multiple perspectives. Sometimes it isn’t comfortable or easy, but it is through daring to be yourself that you take your place in and as part of life.”
Krishna Gauci said “If our entire sense of identity comes solely from identification with our body and personality, fully showing up for this life would drive us insane. Those who appear to be sane and live in this world without realizing emptiness are living to some degree in a disassociated state, they are not altogether in their bodies or hearts. Being not-quite-here is totally understandable because it would be incredibly painful if you thought you were just a body/mind personality. It’s painful enough for those who are awakened.”
Krishna Gauci said “Trust continues to be developed through the disappointments that arise from both getting and losing what we desire. There is an often-difficult honesty with ourselves about what our experience is around this. This process frees energy and attention that was stuck trying to avoid experience and releases it into a profound feeling of deep connection to life and a simple unconditioned awareness of it. This connectedness is often experienced as a current running through existence that can be a source of nurturance and well-being. It can also be felt as a heat of feeling and it doesn’t necessarily make life any easier.”
Krishna Gauci said “This is an ego developmental process. Along the way we embrace the ego’s pettiness and grow beyond its limits by becoming them. We do not always act them out but we identify with, feel and can sometimes express (even if we are just sharing with a friend or teacher) those limits as part of our process. Along the way the ego has needs and they are to be acknowledged and green-lighted. This perspective of “including and transcending” means that what we’re doing is including limits and recognizing them.”
Krishna Gauci said “We may know that we will never reach perfection and full satisfaction with any of our efforts, but we continue our activity as long as we still have any hope (or fear) related to what we are doing because that’s where the juice is. If we find that life itself has exhausted our hope and fear around what we were doing, we find we no longer have energy to pursue that desire, so we don’t.”
Krishna Gauci said “In the realm of change and improvement nothing lasts. The limited will never reach the unlimited so it will always end in “not quite good enough”. Disappointment wears away hope and fear and leaves us simply here. Being simply here without hope or fear, we once again find we are always free. Disappointment is not a wall but a door.”
Krishna Gauci said “ It’s true that sometimes we can find ourselves rightfully angry. It’s certainly helpful to be honest about wrongs that were done to others and even ourselves in the name of spirituality. There are things in life that are not as they should be, to not admit this is lying and candy coating real suffering. We may have experienced pain in the face of exaggerated claims made and promises not kept. And yet, if nothing else our bitter experiences lead us to listen more deeply to our own needs and intuition.”
Krishna Gauci said “Part of embodiment is allowing ourselves to feel and be present in the body, allowing energy and attention to penetrate all of us. Encouraging people to allow this is a part of the total process, but there’s more to it than that. Our sense of ego must be included into this total life of transformation.”
Krishna Gauci said “The capacity to experience uncomfortable feelings increases our capacity to experience nurturing and pleasurable feelings as well. This ‘stretching’ brings us in touch with a more authentic sense of ourselves and a deeper sense of life in general.”
Krishna Gauci said “Can you be at peace with the possibility that you don’t have the means to validate what the highest form of enlightenment is? That it may be more important to be yourself than to be the Buddha?”
Krishna Gauci said “We were born living as a number of paradoxes, which are impossible for the logical mind to comprehend. The most basic is the paradox of being both the finite and the infinite simultaneously. Because most of us were not greeted into this world by parents who recognized their own infinite nature, we were never fully welcomed in a way that acknowledged all of us. This has led us to deny parts of ourselves by either dismissing our own experience or interpreting one dimension of experience in terms of the other, thus “explaining away” things that pointed us to a fuller experience of ourselves.”
Krishna Gauci said “By doing your own Self-inquiry and examining the difference between that which changes and that which does not, one can discover oneself as Consciousness which is free of all concepts including notions of failure or success. Looking and finding your non-locatable existence (or is it locatable non-existence?) is the essential core and foundation of awakening.”
Krishna Gauci said “Awakening can be disappointing. In fact, if you choose to embrace this tantric fire then disappointment must be seen as your ally, even your friend. Seeing disappointment as your ally, you appreciate the soberness it brings. Rather than believing ‘a path’ can save you, you see that soberness ‘saves’ you by keeping you real.”
Krishna Gauci said “Don’t overlook the obvious. You cannot give over responsibility for yourself to anyone else. Make good use of your teachers and respect the guidance that you allow yourself to make use of. Also remember that no one can relieve you of your responsibility for your life so be careful of those who imply that they can.”
Krishna Gauci said “By interacting with others in mutuality we avoid the tendency to isolate into our own personal subjective sense of things even as we validate it. Empowering our personal truth without testing our ability to be with others in their own truth can often be a liability in our awakening and personal shadow work. In mutuality we have the chance to ‘test’ our new sense of ourselves in the field of relationships and be reflected back to ourselves.”
Krishna Gauci said “The Rot is the unwilled way that the hypermasculine unravels. The Consciousness and Embodiment dimensions explored in the context of Relatedness indirectly allow the Rot to become a productive transition, without any need to ‘fix’ or change. The recognition of the value of this rotting and the removing of all sense of stigma from it is a key to trusting our own process.”
Krishna Gauci said “I am never merely what conceptual thought says I am, but at any given moment there can be an experience of being a particular set of conditions and limits arising in (and as an apparent modification of) Unconditioned Being. In other words, I appear as a limited conditional being, who is deepening trust by both embracing and surrendering as that limited reality.”
Krishna Gauci said “Freedom, peace and contentment are not the result of efforts; they are simply the truth of our nature as unconditioned awareness that is present despite (and in the midst of) our efforts in the midst of conditions. Our experience of the conditional becomes more and more transparent to and resonant with the unconditional. This happens as our resistance to the experience of the limits and conditions is broken down and we are no longer resisting being what we appear to be.”
Krishna Gauci said “The more that we pursue our desires and dreams the more we feel the way ‘it’s not enough,’ even if we fulfill our dreams. The more we become disenchanted with our plans the more we relax into what ‘just is’, even as we’re cooking up the next plan. The more we relax into what ‘just is’ the more our nature as unconditioned freedom seeps through our life and we find ourselves simply Being, even in the midst of doing.”
Krishna Gauci said “From my perspective, we need to be clear about how to be masculine in the midst of mutuality. How to be balanced that way, how to be able to speak our truths in such a way that we actually are willing to and what to do when the other is like, ‘No!’”
Krishna Gauci said “Awakening and deepening trust happen in the midst of our human situation for those of us who have hopes and fears. If you can let go of hope and fear in all of your life, then by all means let go of all hope and fear. But if you find that you still hope for something and fear something else, even after all your efforts of ‘letting go,’ just embrace it and go with it rather than being in denial about it. Live it out; it’s yours to live.”
Krishna Gauci said “Coming to terms with our past without sugarcoating it ultimately means trusting Life while still being honest about how hard and confusing it can be.”
Krishna Gauci said “Our Infinite nature as Freedom, Consciousness, Buddha nature, Atman or the Self is free of all this. We are free of fulfillment and nonfulfillment, pleasure and pain, loss and gain. When attention or awareness is unconditioned by thought and simply dissolves into The Context of what is, our sense of separateness is gone and we are equally distributed everywhere. This knowing of our freedom can remain even when the sense of separateness returns and the thinking mind is back telling us ‘what is what’.”
Krishna Gauci said “By giving yourself over to the sense of limits in their own right as they are, you are basically surrendering to the facts of existence; to the facts of how consciousness is unfolding (as you) now. In this way the sense of contracted ego continues to self-liberate in its own time and in its own way. We are not suggesting here that we glorify our own limitations but rather that when we recognize what they are they become the natural means of liberation.”
Krishna Gauci said “Can we stop all doing? We cannot ‘make a decision’ to ‘not do doing’ that won’t also be a doing ‘not doing’. If we decide to ‘not seek improvement’ and think we are better off for it, then we would do well to notice that we are once again doing something (doing ‘not doing’ and making an effort at not making effort) to improve our situation.”
Krishna Gauci said “The process of becoming conscious as the wound is to: 1) experience the Wound as something that we “have” and must find; 2) Then relax into and feel into it; and 3) Recognize that it’s what we are.”
Krishna Gauci said “The deeper our experience of being Free Consciousness, the deeper is the potential for embracing this life of limits. Otherwise we don’t have the room in ourselves to hold our total experience.”
Krishna Gauci said “[Whole-Being Realization] is a life transition in which there is a permanent and fundamental shift of your sense of what you are such that you experience yourself paradoxically, simultaneously both undefinable and definable. The center of awareness shifts from head (mind) to the heart (feeling) where it fuses into feeling-union with the body/mind, becoming self-aware and experiencing its existential nature as the same in essence with all that is.”
Krishna Gauci said “In this form of embodied awakening [experienced within Trillium Awakening] your sense of identity shifts from exclusive identification with your separate definable human body/mind to an expanded identity as both undefinable Consciousness and the definable human self, with a distinct feeling-sense of being non-separate from all you perceive.”
Krishna Gauci said “Even when we are awake to our unlimited nature, which is absolute completeness, we are also simultaneously awake to our limited nature and that human limitation longs to be fully lived out as well. Whether we live a life of spiritual desire or worldly desire there is nothing wrong with the innate preference to make things better. Making things better is the intelligent, healthy and natural thing that body/minds do.”
Krishna Gauci said “Every opinion and account that I hear from someone or about someone is probably at least partially misunderstood by me. By partial I don’t mean that it’s just part of ultimate reality, I mean that even when I understand it, it’s only a partial piece of their reality and not an account of their whole ever-changing experience.”
Krishna Gauci said “This world needs fully functioning human beings who are really inhabiting their bodies and showing up for their lives. Ironically, fully embracing your body with all its energies entails realizing your nature as the Light of Consciousness. Without the safety that comes with knowing that your most essential nature is untouchable, it is simply too frightening to take full possession of your life as this body.”
Krishna Gauci said “For many of us as children there seemed to be a sense that we were vast, indestructible, magical, beyond the limits of gravity, time and other so-called laws of the universe. It seems to shock some children that when they test the limits of their own powers their parents end up “being right” about reality. For many children this is quite a surprise, because they intuit that they are more than what they appear to be.”
Krishna Gauci said “Every human life is filled with disappointment. The awakening life here is getting real about this and knowing that through embrace of this situation, an embrace that cannot be forced or willed; surrender can happen. Deep trust and the unraveling of resistance happens through our disappointments.”
Krishna Gauci said “Once a person awake to Consciousness intentionally turns their attention to include the world of experience, a process of transformation is spontaneously started. Life can become a divinely inspired story. Not only is a person in touch with their body and feelings, but they also begin to experience their life with such intensity that the urge toward authenticity becomes a fire. Embracing the world of limits is the embodiment of consciousness itself.”
Krishna Gauci said “The clarification of our undefinable Conscious nature paves the way for the recognition of the underlying unity of that formless Consciousness with all definable, lived existence. That Paradoxical Unity of the finite (definable) and undefinable formless Consciousness is known as Onlyness. Awakening to this paradox of Onlyness is known as Whole-Being Realization.”
Krishna Gauci said “Mutuality encourages vulnerable self-expression: daring to speak our truth, even when it might be unpopular. It also encourages the recognition of how others are affected by what we say and do and taking responsibility for our effects on them. It involves the holding of others in respect: profound conscious listening and reflecting.”
Krishna Gauci & Sandra Glickman said “In the more mature phases of the second life, you may find that you become sick of yourself (and sick of others) merely vomiting out reactions (while you are internally just dwelling on those reactions, sinking in deeper and deeper). Meanwhile everyone else is just holding, holding, loving, loving. It becomes very wearing on the group process and (more importantly) wearing on you. Learning to hold this as you move beyond it is not always easy. We begin taking back our power and uncoupling the dominance of the angry wounded child.”
Krishna Gauci & Sandra Glickman said “Once you can begin to discriminate between your authentic sense of yourself and your conditioned being, gradually over time changes can take place. Now is the time to bring in the deep masculine. There is a potential to become a life-long learner, manifesting vision. You may have to work for it, through learning and acculturation, but you are no longer doing so in service to ideals that are superimposed, but rather in service to your own deep impulses of Being.”
Krishna Gauci & Sandra Glickman said “The deep masculine is the self-generated discipline of questioning, discriminating, consciously separating and holding oneself. This is an act of self-and-other care and nurturance in service to your Whole-Being.”
Krishna Gauci & Sandra Glickman said “The Larger sense of ourselves, whether it be as a more authentic self or as the Energetic Soul Nature or even Spacious Being cannot be sustained or fully trusted or stabilized unless the smaller senses of ourselves are allowed and embraced to be integrated. That is a foundation for the more mature phases of our work, but it is not the end.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “As we each take up our torch of self-awareness to explore and deepen into our multi-dimensionality in the Rot, we free ourselves from our outmoded ways of being from the past. As we investigate our shadow aspects and relinquish self-judgment about how we ‘should’ be different than we are, we continue to morph, transform and change in the direction that our soul moves us. These changes stem not from a place of force, but rather from a place of deep patience and self-love (often in the midst of feelings of impatience and self-loathing) as we see and feel more of our impact on the world around us, and register the impact that others have on us, engaging in Mutuality.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “It’s not always easy to embrace the feelings that accompany the Rot– which may include disillusionment, boredom, confusion, lethargy, irritation, anger, fear. But the more we are able to permit whatever is arising, the more we are able to free up our vital life force energy which has been used to clamp down on these emotions, mind states and moods.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “The Rot can be a hell of a ride, but it has great rewards! The Rot–it does a body good!”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “You will need friends, family, practitioners, and mentors, including an on-call therapist, who can really be there for you on this path. Lean on them and ask for exactly what you need. Of course there will be times when others won’t be able to be there for you (that’s life!), so you will also need to learn to be there for yourself. Be your own best friend!”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “If you really want to awaken in this particular way, know that this path is not the path of least resistance. You must approach your inner and outer work with a fresh batch of curiosity and humor. This will help keep you from judging yourself and the world around you too much or trying to have it all make logical sense.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “The joy and freedom that accompany this body of work come about when a student jumps in as a willing participant, bringing Mindfulness to the table of their life. Mindfulness is a hybrid of awareness and directed attention to what is arising in the moment. This practice yields, over time, a more expanded view of life, and a more easeful existence, as the Witness grows within.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “True transformation requires friction. Friction will inevitably arise through interactions in mutuality with peers, teachers, mentors, family, friends, and, finally, within your own mind and heart.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “The beauty of the Rot is that the more deeply we drop into our body and heart, the more direct contact we are able to make with our most essential self, and the more we get a taste of the aspect of ourselves that is unchanged.”
Lena O’Neill Cain said “As we grow accustomed to engaging in deep conversation about what is real–what I like to call “Developing a taste for what is real”– the kinds of people we want to spend our time with may shift. We may change jobs, add or subtract interests, deconstruct outmoded beliefs, relinquish the hold that obligatory events and actions have dictated our calendar, as we examine family of origin and cultural, societal, and gender and/or racially based conditioning.”
Margit Bantowsky said “There’s a recognition that my Whole-Being Realization is just the beginning, not the end! The beginning of an accelerated journey of healing wounds that therapy just touched the surface of. The beginning of an impeccably orchestrated deepening and expansion into more dimensions of who and what I am. The beginning of finally being able to fully live what I’m here to be and do.”
Margit Bantowsky said “This sacred vessel of our Being, this flesh and bones and heart and mind, is the grace through which we can touch, and be touched by, life. What does it take to land inside ourselves fully, to truly incarnate our messy, fleshy, tender selves? We begin by radically embracing our experience, allowing ourselves to be as we are, moment by moment. This life-giving and transforming embrace softens resistance, contractions, frozen places, thawing us back into our wholeness, relaxing us into both material and transpersonal dimensions of self.”
Margit Bantowsky said “As we awaken in our channels of culturally assigned disadvantage, meeting with colleagues who are also awakening in these channels can help us reclaim our dignity, find our truth, and provide support that allows the suffering and outrage to be felt, integrated, and have meaning. Over time, we can then offer our support to others who are just starting to awaken in this social dimension, as well as strategically participate in systemic transformation.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Key to embodying the denser end of the spectrum of our being is working with our resistances. We must embrace with kindness all those parts of ourselves – body or personality – we’ve been conditioned to dislike, disallow, dismiss, hold at arm’s length, or exile. It’s really hard to occupy ‘This’ when there are things about yourself you don’t want to be or are afraid to be (body parts, shape, size, age, illness; introversion, extroversion, selfish, angry, sad, smart, sensitive, loud, commanding). Encountering resistance – which is often composed of shame, fear, and/or grief – is an inevitable part of the process of reclaiming that which we’ve exiled.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Mutuality isn’t about being nice and living happily every after – it includes too much reality for that! However, significant transformation can happen organically when we allow the other person’s suffering to penetrate us, especially when our actions play a part in their pain. This alchemy of mutual vulnerability supports our awakening as our relationships inevitably evoke unconscious material to the surface for integration.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Trillium Awakening is not dogmatic and there is no need or requirement to believe anything we say. Rather, the Trillium path is a powerful and highly catalytic context for experiential, spiritual self-inquiry. In Trillium, we extend an invitation to deeply explore the essential dimensions of our Being, and offer some lenses through which to understand and relate to it.”
Margit Bantowsky said “I believe we all long to be welcomed into the world as we are, to have our brilliance, weaknesses, passions, uniqueness, quirks, loves, doubts, limitations, seen and held in warm embrace by community. Is it okay to be ‘This’? Will I still be loved if I reveal ‘This? Can I be ‘This’ and still belong? A big part of the medicine needed to encounter resistance and drop into – embody – who and what we are in the moment is the love from another human who listens whole-heartedly and holds our flawed humanity and our perfect Wholeness.”
Margit Bantowsky said “While our radiant, vibratory nature can be seen as a movement from the spacious emptiness of pure consciousness towards something perceptible, towards something materializing, it’s still possible, and even common, to bypass the challenges of denser material life by focusing here. When we talk about embodiment, we mostly mean the denser aspects of self: body, emotions, thought patterns, temperament, traits and preferences, so as to avoid spiritual bypassing. Nonetheless, people experiencing and cultivating energies such as kundalini can use them to deepen embodiment.”
Margit Bantowsky said “For me it was Trillium Awakening’s embrace of ALL of who I am that struck a deep, resonant cord. No part of me needed to be exiled, and this soul-elixir of deep permission marked the beginning of the end of my war against myself. As my amazing teachers and mentor created a safe space for me to be as I was, I gradually relaxed more and more into myself. The rigid defenses softened, the vulnerability was welcomed, and eventually I came into stark, naked contact with Reality and saw that It was All One Seamless Thing.”
Margit Bantowsky said “As we say in Trillium Awakening: the good news is that perfection is not required in order to have a spiritual awakening. And we are quick to add: the bad news is that perfection is not bestowed upon spiritual awakening!”
Margit Bantowsky said “However real external reality may be, and however well science can predict, control, map, explain, and measure it, there’s no way to get around the fact that each and every one of us has an internal reality as well. In the western world, the methodical exploration and explanation of this interior, subjective dimension of reality, is called psychology. Eastern spiritual traditions have mapped interior human experiences for thousands of years, while the western version of this young science has been around for only about 100 years ever since Freud pointed out the radical, but in retrospect glaringly obvious, existence of the unconscious dimension of our psyche.”
Margit Bantowsky said “One of the things I resonate deeply with is this notion of vulnerability and the willingness to be affected by others. That feels like the heart of it for me in my practice and in my marriage. What allows the vulnerability to be here? How do we create the container that allows the vulnerability and also the courage, the strength for the challenge, so that it’s safe enough, not pristine and sterile, but safe enough?”
Margit Bantowsky said “One can move the body without really occupying it. I did this for years as a competitive athlete, and believed I was a pretty “embodied” person, especially compared to other people. Only after having my whole-being realization did I recognize how deeply split I had been from my body!”
Margit Bantowsky said “Trillium Awakening (TA) is just another map, or interpretation, of subjective reality. It discerns and describes aspects of subjective experience that are identifiable and recognizable by many people. It points to a particular, valid, recognizable, discernible experience called the recognition or ‘realization of embodied consciousness.’ Trillium Awakening maps some of the common experiences that people have as they relax in this very fundamental way and open to an embodied consciousness realization [aka whole-being realization]. Trillium Awakening’s maps are not belief systems, they are descriptions of actual, direct, lived experience.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Embodiment can be viewed as a range of matter, from subtle to dense. On the most obvious, dense end of the spectrum, there’s your physicality – bones, muscles, sinew, organs, nervous system, digestive system, lungs, blood, etc. Flowing through your body are emotions and thoughts, and also various energies. More subtle yet is your personality, your very own spark of divine uniqueness. And on the farthest end of the spectrum is what Trillium Awakening teacher, Krishna Gauci, calls our Energetic Presence Identity, that aspect of your self where you are radiance, vibration, energy.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Trillium teachers and practitioners have found that as we relax our resistance to life and open to our direct experience, the energy and attention that was bound in defensive strategies is liberated to recognize our unbounded nature. Our patient awareness welcomes home the unconscious aspects of ourselves we have held in exile, and we begin to know our profound Totality.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Psychological projection is not inherently a bad thing! In fact, not only is it natural, there’s a way in which it is even necessary – students must be able to project for as long as they need to, as long as they are unable to own/reclaim those particular, disowned parts of themselves. Thus, a good spiritual teacher recognizes both positive and negative projections from their students and helps hold these projections while gently, gradually allowing the student consciously integrate them.”
Margit Bantowsky said “What we call Whole-Being Realization happens on this path quite reliably and predictably – many hundreds of practitioners have come here for this kind of ‘landing’ and have achieved it within a relatively short amount of time.”
Margit Bantowsky said “In our Western, dissociated, logic-centric world, we have lost our connection with the deep wisdom of our bodies. We are taught to supremely value the mind, reason, rational arguments, science, evidence, and that there is a “right answer” out there that you can figure out with the brain. The collateral damage of this orientation is a profound distrust of our bodies, which can make it difficult to value and inhabit our own.”
Margit Bantowsky said “The realization of fundamental inter-beingness can invite a new level of awareness, responsibility, and ethics. When we come to know that it is all and only One Thing, and I am That, we have the opportunity to admit it’s corollary: whatever we do to another we do to ourselves; your suffering is my suffering. This humbling truth can help us avoid the compelling grandiosity of ‘It’s all Me’ when we choose to become increasingly aware of, and accountable for, how we impact other beings, whether intentionally or not.”
Margit Bantowsky said “One of the key elements at the heart of ‘guru dynamics’ is that of projection. Psychological projection can be seen as an egoic defense mechanism in which we resist and deny our unconscious qualities or impulses – positive or negative – and instead attribute them to others. Projection happens in everyday encounters but gets amplified when there is a power differential – e.g. as soon as a role or a hierarchy is created. We can’t get away from it, and will never get away from it, as long as we have any kind of ‘helping others awaken’ role.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Embodied awakening into essential non-separateness is a path of liberation. Not liberation ‘from,’ but liberation ‘into’ the gritty realities of our social matrix. As we courageously encounter these realities, we bring exiled aspects of our personal and collective shadow back home for integration and are called forward to act with increasing compassion and integrity towards one another. Paradoxically, deep, gritty social mutuality can offer us liberation from the oppression that our awakened humanity longs for.”
Margit Bantowsky said “In the United States we have the opportunity – and many would argue responsibility – to awaken from the complex, unconscious, and pervasive patterns of assigning unearned privilege and unearned disadvantage to people with certain characteristics. As we begin to awaken to the painful realities of how we treat one another in our communities and country, we can ask ourselves the following questions: What kinds of suffering do these systemic cultural dynamics cause? How do we unconsciously and unintentionally participate in these dynamics?”
Margit Bantowsky said “Spiritual students will naturally and unconsciously project both positive and negative qualities onto their spiritual teacher. It’s also very likely that the teacher is unconsciously projecting onto their students. These projections are basically unowned aspects of self – our brilliance, strength, gifts, and our darker impulses such as our vulnerabilities, rage or grief, or desire for power and control.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Sensuality can be a doorway to delight in the physical dimension of being, and this delight can draw us further into embodiment. Pleasure in our bodies interacting with the material world is a kind of birthright, and though pain and danger certainly exist, touching and interacting and enjoying are essential to embodiment. All the senses – sight, smell, taste, touch, sound – can be sources of pleasure and can help us inhabit ourselves more fully.”
Margit Bantowsky said “We awaken from the illusion of separateness into the truth of fundamental inter-beingness. Like an inflated balloon that somehow dissolves, the boundary of the separate self-identity gradually, or sometimes suddenly, dissipates. The thin, invisible film that kept the world “out there” is gone, and we find ourselves inextricably embedded within the entire Web of Life. In fact, we realize ourselves to be the entire Web Itself. Yet we paradoxically retain a distinct, unique body and ego that allow us to navigate material life in space and time.”
Margit Bantowsky said “It is essential to acknowledge that our spiritual awakening happens within a social matrix and won’t automatically liberate us from this matrix. Although life may demand some of us to question the cultural waters in which we are immersed, in my experience most people don’t outgrow or challenge their social matrix without a crisis or at least some conscious effort, even after awakening.”
Margit Bantowsky said “We are, at root, animal bodies. More specifically, communal animal bodies, wired for contact and relatedness. Our limbic systems attune to and regulate one another. I’ve witnessed great healing and openings into embodiment when people have let themselves be physically held in a safe setting – either one-on-one, or in a group.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Our sexuality – our creative life energy – is intrinsic to embodiment. Even if don’t consider ourselves particularly sexual, there’s still a potent life energy inside us that can be attuned to, cultivated, and expressed. Like all other aspects of self, our sexuality can be narrowed or distorted by conditioning and/or trauma, limiting access to our embodied wholeness.”
Margit Bantowsky said “While there may not be a physical way to measure the inner experience of sadness (and external science is doing a lot of work to correlate physical measurements to inner experience), no one can argue the fact that sadness is a common, recognizable experience. The validity of sadness comes from the validity of the experience itself, and that other humans experience similar feelings. The validity of these interior maps lies in the coherence they have with direct subjective experience.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Because social awakening can be so very uncomfortable, it will most likely require a conscious choice and commitment to learning about, and allowing ourselves to be deeply affected by, the deep, systemic dynamics of injustice in our culture, of which racism is but one example. It will also require patient, loving, compassionate support and community.”
Margit Bantowsky said “The main purpose of the Trillium Awakening approach is to help us drop ever more deeply into a conscious, direct, embodied, and undefended relationship with reality, as experienced through our unique psycho-physical subjectivity. This approach honors in the fact that every person’s awakening process is highly unique, yet ultimately brings us to a common experience of whole-being realization which is marked by several key characteristics: recognition of the self as a paradox of a limited, local body and unbounded, infinite consciousness, and recognition of the paradox of being a distinct “uniqueness” while also being non-separate – unified in and as the Totality of All.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Because embodiment, by definition, involves being here, in this body, in this world, resistance usually includes not wanting to feel the essential, existential vulnerability at the core of being a tender, fleshy body that is going to die, in a wild, wacky world we have absolutely no control over. We must meet this existential resistance in order to fully land in, and inhabit, our bodies”
Margit Bantowsky said “There are other schools of subjective exploration that have been around for a long time. They’ve asked and intensely explored key questions such as ‘what is the mind?’, ‘what is the self?,’ and ‘what is the true nature of the human experience?’ For centuries, people (mostly men) isolated themselves in monasteries and put their focused attention on the internal domain: feelings, sensation, thought, subtle forms of energies, explorations of consciousness, mind, etc. They charted these experiences, gave them names, and devised theories to explain what they saw. The validity of these maps and cosmologies came from the direct experiences of the collective. The territories are valid in the sense that they are distinct, recognizable experiences.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Mutuality refers to the practice of relating to the other-as-self, and starts by making room for our own true and total nature, while also making room for the other person’s true and total nature. We see their true, divine, infinite nature, while including their flaws and humanity in their totality. We also deeply respect the logic of their being – the way in which their actions and worldview make sense for them – and allow their experiences to be very different from our own.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Being of service in alignment with the Flow of Life in, through, and as you, can bring a sense of purpose and meaning like nothing else can. It can also be a profound spiritual practice, deepening your awakening on all levels.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Embodied awakening is a deeply incarnated and humanizing process that simultaneously anchors our identity in our unbounded nature. As unconscious material arises for integration and healing our awakening deepens, and we begin to realize the paradox of being both a unique body-mind and the Totality Itself.”
Margit Bantowsky said “As I become conscious of, and awaken more deeply into the challenging realities of our times, I am attuning to my organismic responses and finding ways to be of service. I call this the social and ecological dimensions of embodied, non-separate awakening.”
Margit Bantowsky said “Integrating unconscious elements of our culture can be a doorway to the social dimensions of awakening, and I believe it is essential for realizing our true human adulthood.”
Margit Bantowsky said “In our Trillium sittings and circles we practice whole-being listening and whole-being speaking which involve sensing and honoring what’s real in our physical experience. Our bodies are ultimately trustworthy, and are the source of our true ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ our ‘turn left, not right,’ and our ‘stop’ and ‘start.’ By embodying ourselves deeply, we have more and more access to this innate somatic intelligence which is intimately webbed into, and responsive to, the fabric of life.”
Michael Grossman said “We don’t expect students to be devoted to us, or anything like that. We recognize we’re not the source that’s going to bring forth their realization. Nobody can give you yourself. No individual is responsible for giving you the grace of finding yourself – it comes from within.”
Michael Grossman said “A lot of traditional teachings say you need to purify in order to “get it,” but we say you can (mostly) awaken now and purify later. Many traditional teachings will help the student purify themselves first and then flip the switch, but people don’t get there very fast. It’s hard to clear everything out when you’re not standing as your true Self. In this work, we only free up as much energy and attention as needed to allow the Whole-Being Realization to occur. The rest of the reconfiguration and unwinding occurs later quite naturally.”
Michael Grossman said “In this work people are kind of left floating mentally; they are moving forward without knowing what’s next. With other disciplines, seekers develop an understanding that carries them, and each time they arrive at a level of understanding, they could be stuck there for awhile. Here, there’s nowhere to hang out and be comfortable.”
Michael Grossman said “Trillium Awakening is a group of teachers from diverse spiritual traditions who share a common dharma and even share students. Clearly that’s very different. You don’t find that in most other traditions. It’s a very different approach and a very different relationship between the student and the teacher.”
Michael Grossman said “What I’m finding these days is that I have a deeper appreciation for some of the traditional dharmas. We may have had the idea that we left those teachings behind, but now when I go back and read them I’m seeing the deeper truth in some of them. In the early years of this work, we rejected all of that and then had to experience it for ourselves. I now have more respect for some of those teachings.”
Michael Grossman said “This teaching is very abstract. It’s hard to describe the teaching because it’s a heart/body teaching and not a teaching of mental principles or even practices, so it’s hard for people to plug in. They just have to be there until they start moving along with the wave. The transmission is soaking in. We don’t have as much a standardized practice–although we do have a direction to point to–but nothing very clear and solid when people are trying to get into the work.”
Ralf Humphries said “Whole being source is discovered at the threshold—and, impossibly, across the threshold—of the innermost core, such that there is no longer a threshold, just an effortless free-fall, following a movement that is “in and in and in”, into the infinite interior, which is ever-emerging from a single point, a zero point, that has no size, that itself is not in the field of this existence at all.”
Ralf Humphries said “The Harmony of the Whole is inclusive of all the transient and relative disharmonies that we can hear and experience. Always. There is no full recognition of this harmony without the Three Petal Series of Awakenings that is an evolutionary discovery of the inner music of life.”
Ralf Humphries said “We might find ourselves giving voice to slightly artificial and aspirational ideals of an unreal harmony. And we then might critique them as “dead”. And in the opened space of that polarity, we can find ourselves listening more closely to the song that the word ‘harmony’ wants to sing for us in our whole being auditorium. From there, we can embody and express the whole being truths that we are realizing and let them give birth to the forms that fulfil the journey of self-knowing of the Harmony of the Whole.”
Ralf Humphries said “The movement of Deep Mutuality into Unconditional Relatedness with All is the opening into alive self-knowing of the Harmony of the Whole. It is a Sacred Synchronicity that is never not the case, everywhere, every moment.”
Ralf Humphries said “The new, relational enlightenment is something we activate together—in pairs, groups and collectives of whole-being soul companions. It happens in a space of growing awareness, trust and mutual warmth—where no-one is above saying ‘Sorry’ if they should happen to hurt another person. Being together in the heart in this way, we walk beside each other.”
Ralf Humphries said “Attuning to source gravitates my hands to my belly, and more precisely to the womb (which you have too, even if you don’t have one). It’s palpable. Source is the infinitely inward centre of my body being, the infinite in-finite. It could be anywhere in the body, but it gravitates to the womb. Whole being source is revealed by surrendering to this gravitational free-fall into the infinite centre that we call ‘dropping’ in the Trillium work. In that womb, the miracle of love is the spark that bridges the impossible divide, brings conception, and a new form is called into being.”
Ralf Humphries said “Being Seen, Being Met and Being Loved are three welcoming Beings that hatch the sacred egg of the new enlightenment – relational spirituality. In this emerging story, there is no longer an ‘ego’ which has to be seen through and destroyed. Now, instead, the ego turns out to be the protective shell of a sacred egg that we know instinctively how to hatch. In this miraculous birth process, we come to discover our own self nature—not as an illusion, or a mistake that needs fixing—but as a moment-to-moment living-breathing truth of existence.”
Ralf Humphries said “We walk beside each other as we each move, in an ever-deepening spiral—according to the internal gravity of our own process—through the Desert of Forsaken, discover and drink from the Well of Forgiven, and, in time, realise the Promise of Fulfilment—which, in truth, has been softly calling us, with infinite patience, all along the way.”
Ralf Humphries said “‘Source’ is not another word for ‘consciousness’. It is not simply a word that bypasses the awkwardness and transcendent-centrism of attributing origin and origination to consciousness. Whole being source is revealed through a fulfilment of the whole being embodiment journey.”
Rod Taylor said “What I’ve found in this awakening process is that the ‘practice’ of mutuality emerges into our awakened nature in such a way that it is no longer a practice of ‘doing’ – mutuality becomes an awakened component of what we’re discovering is in fact our whole nature. So we begin to have ‘awakened in mutuality’.”
Rod Taylor said “The more whole we are, the more autonomous we are in our awakened nature. We’re ‘autonomous’ because we don’t need to get the essential data about our own nature from others, and we don’t need to be directed by others in order to know our own nature. This is self-realization.”
Rod Taylor said “The practice of mutuality is a beautiful one precisely because we’re giving ourselves a chance to practice ‘that which in reality we are awakening to.’ We are awakening to the fundamental recognition that it’s okay to be me and it’s okay to be you. And as we meet like this, supportive of each other, we deepen in such a way that we begin to discover this ‘beingness’ or aliveness arising as our self and start to see in the other that deepening and beingness which they are discovering also.”
Rod Taylor said “From the spirit/matter split perspective, when we look as the individual and at relationship, we find ourselves in a state of separation that is reflected in our identification with our individuality, with our ego, with our mind, with our future desires and with our need to be more. We are identified with them, and indeed they are a part of our progress and our evolution in life.”
Rod Taylor said “There is a beautiful way for us to recognize this current unfoldment in mutuality as an evolutionary outcome of the process of individualization that has characterized human evolution leading up to this time. However, an uncomfortable result of this process for humanity has been an increasing sense of split between spirit and matter as we’ve come (more or less) into this individualized stage of life. As we’ve realized more of our individuality, and more of the awareness components of ‘observation’ and ‘witness,’ we have become chronically separated, dissociated – ‘split’ in a sense.”
Rod Taylor said “Awakening is no longer a matter of going to the cave or ashram to be primarily in consciousness. Whole-Being Realization actually requires living in connection with others and discovering the capacity to bring enlivenment of our consciousness right into our bodily, emotional, relational nature. We find that the center of knowing and love is in our whole being. It’s not located just in the head, the heart or the belly, for example, but it’s all encompassing in our nature.”
Rod Taylor said “In our individual process in Whole-Being Realization work, rather than try to fix, overcome or perfect ourselves, we learn to greenlight our current personal nature. Hence, we give ourselves the go-ahead to be limited and hurt just the way we are for a while, so that we deepen with awareness beyond the surface hurts into the deeper hurts, and ultimately into being our paradoxical nature of both finite and infinite.”
Rod Taylor said “The field of mutuality includes a dimension sometimes referred to as ‘transmission’ or perhaps ‘resonance.’ These terms refer to an awakening influence or activation that may arise from our relationship with those who have become well-integrated in their own conscious embodies awakened nature…We can be activated in our awakening both through an experience of mutuality in our interactions with trusted others, and through a resonant transmission in relation to awakened others. In this resonant transmission, our own being can feel the wholeness in the other – and our being begins to vibrate more in harmony with our wholes than with our separateness.”
Rod Taylor said “When we are in a separated condition, there is such a sense of things being wrong, and we want so much to hang onto life, and it seems crucial that we find our way to perfection. But, in moving into the field where we recognize that this life process is actually Infinity or Being arising in us, there is a relaxation into the joy of not just the infinite dimension, but all the joy of being the individual, limited person.”
Rod Taylor said “If we find our way into a mutuality-based approach to Whole-Being Realization, we can discover a new dimension of relating which doesn’t try to fix the other, or have them fix us, but is more a meeting on a ‘feeling’ level of mutual recognition and respect. In this way, we begin to give a new meaning to love.”
Rod Taylor said “I can fully live my individuality, because I’m not limited by only being that, I’m also all that’s arising as me – an all that’s arising as everyone. Moreover, I want to be that wholeness in the presence of others. And there isn’t a conflict as I (and as each of us) discover this autonomous awakened nature. It’s ‘autonomous’ because I don’t need to find my nature outside of myself, but rather I’m actually just living it.”
Sandra Glickman said “We are all marvelous cogs in an overall ‘machine’ (organism, if you prefer) of complex interrelatedness–the traditional ‘web of life’! There is nothing extraneous, unplanned, not useful….everything connected to everything in a specific and unique way….known as we come upon it, from a moment of stepping back, looking from the greater whole! Though the Mystery always recedes, along the way, wonders are revealed.”
Sandra Glickman said “It’s not necessarily about making ‘right’ choices, as these may be from past patterned behavior. So often right and wrong cannot be known, and if you choose and act, you will get feedback from inside and outside yourself, and know the next move. The outcome to a conscious choice is not as painful as not engaging!”
Sandra Glickman said “Creation is the wonder of the Play…all the masks we wear… and others in their masks…the play is the thing!…the Intelligent play…if we could see it all with more light…how exalted we would find it to be! Potent with learning and opportunity! Notice how kids play, very deliberately, innocently: “You pretend you’re the mom, and I’ll be the dad. Who’ll be the baby?’”
Sandra Glickman said “All that we do and share here in this work, Trillium Awakening, begins and extends our connection to conscious nature and the opportunity to co-create. We can’t see anything without the conscious light attending and illuminating patterns of bound-up and fixated light. As divine light increases, penetrating and releasing blocks, patterns shimmer and begin to fall away.”
Sandra Glickman said “Every moment you have a choice–to be a victim of apparently outside or past causes–or to consciously feel the impact of the environment and then choose–co-creating your life in an ongoing way even a little bit at a time. This is truly and deeply wondrous, but you won’t know it unless you engage. Without engaging meaningfully you risk becoming hardened, bored, brittle. When you engage you begin to savor the depth of Being Itself. Awesome! You’ll become devoted to Life, living in non-separateness, as never before.”
Sandra Glickman said “Through trust, we find we can eventually BE ourselves, all of ourselves, from low to high, simple to complex, in every dimension. We find we can survive and even transform into delicious divine food our darkest parts. Through trust we express and celebrate and magnify our Divine and human natures. Trust is big, vast. It is equivalent to Consciousness, to Love, to God. That is what it is. Nothing less.”
Sandra Glickman said “It’s in our nature to pretend. In conscious co-creation, nothing is static, or especially fixed. With light, our potential opens up and we manifest more. We only glimpse a small amount of the whole show of creation, of Being, yet it is so inspiring, it keeps us going! Emboldens us to engage more!”
Sandra Glickman said “Every moment offers an opportunity to ‘choose’. If you stand back and obsess or equivocate–seeing every side as equal for example, failing to discriminate–you lose meaning and dynamism. If you stand around and don’t come into action, then you’re not engaged, and you don’t get clues as to where to move next. Observe what limits you from acting! Out of the freedom to choose something, you can discover how free and unlimited you really are!”
Sandra Glickman said “The more you employ the bright and powerful aspect of Conscious Awareness, the more profoundly you can engage as co-creator in Being! And the more skill you may develop, to glimpse deeply into the wonders that abound in that depth perception!”
Sandra Glickman said “This life is truly and deeply wondrous – you will come to know how marvelous, subtle, intricate, purposeful, intelligent, beautiful it is by diving in deeply, unveiling the layers, and experiencing more of the whole!”
Sanji Hills said “We have to be able to tune into what our own path is – and take responsibility for doing what it takes to move along that path. Many of us have quite a strong (unconscious desire) to have others be the ‘expert’ who can tell us what to do. Or even have a strong inclination to rebel against whatever we are being told to do – but it’s difficult to rebel when there are no specific instructions to rebel against. Or we can just often feel uncertain and confused – not having a clear sense of what we need to do next.”
Sanji Hills said “One thing I’ve always loved about Trillium Awakening is the fact that it takes the big, central paradox of our human experience “head on.” On the one hand, as human beings we find ourselves profoundly limited by our bodies, our thoughts, our emotional reactions to things, and the messy reality of our daily lives. On the other hand, there is part of us that exists totally outside of these limitations – free and unbounded consciousness, in touch with the cosmos. This is called the Core Wound, Core Paradox or Core Mystery.”
Sanji Hills said “We see spiritual teachers who seem to be living in an amazing space all the time – and telling us that we can, too, so long as we follow this practice or that. However, we rarely see them “off stage,” dealing with a stroppy teenage son or their tax returns.”
Sanji Hills said “The paradox of the here and now” is this: to be truly present to our immediate experience, we have to move aside, a little, from our thinking minds. In order to reflect on this experience we have to go back into our thinking minds.”
Sanji Hills said “When I go into the resting or “tucked up” mode, I often distract myself with reading, watching TV (detective dramas!). This helps push away another part which is feeling dissatisfied or a bit guilty about things I haven’t completed, or which are running late. On the other hand, when I push myself to ‘get on with things’ mode, then the desire for withdrawal or rest is often present as a sense of resentment or resistance, at least until I get fully engaged with whatever it is. It can be hard to stay with, and acknowledge, both simultaneously.”
Sanji Hills said “To make progress on our spiritual path, we have to move out of the bind: that we are either this, or that, a failed and very human spiritual seeker, or an enlightened being. We have to confront the fact that we are both simultaneously.”
Sanji Hills said “What does grasping the means of your own realization mean – or feel like – to you?
Sanji Hills said “Our ‘thinking’ mind as well as the parts that give us our sense of a separate self are located in particular regions of the brain. When we pay attention to something other than our thoughts – whether in meditation, through heightened awareness of our deep levels of consciousness, or paying attention to our immediate senses, this helps to activate and energize other parts of the brain and can often lead to an increased sense of peace, wellbeing and joy. So there is growing recognition of the physical – as well as spiritual – reality of the connection between paying close attention to our senses and surroundings and increased level of overall consciousness.”
Sanji Hills said “‘Grasping the means of our own realization’ is an important part of the Trillium approach to awakening. It means that we are encouraged – and supported – to find our own unique route to awakening, rather than following a standardized path. I love this aspect of our work. It says that ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ and that different practices will work for different people, that we might find ourselves resonating to different teachers and mentors, that the time it takes will be different, and that our very experience of awakening might take different forms.”
Sanji Hills said “In wakefulness, perception is vivid and direct. Spiritually awakened people see the world in a very childlike way — struck by the wonder, beauty, and intricacy of phenomena that other people take for granted and don’t pay much attention to. One of the signs of spiritual awakening is that the world is a brighter, more fascinating and beautiful place to them. In particular, they are captivated by nature — the amazing is-ness and beauty of the natural landscape, the sky, and the sea; the strangeness, complexity, and intricacy of animals, plants and other phenomena.”
Sanji Hills said “Few teachers, spiritual traditions or psychologists suggest that being ‘here and now’ is easy: in a sense this is why meditation is called ‘practice’. The primary challenge is how to encourage the busy mind to quiet down for a bit – or how to step aside from our thoughts. However, another key challenge is the fact that when we stop, and become truly present to our experience, sensations or thoughts that we normally avoid – physical or emotional pain, or an uncomfortable truth – can come powerfully into our awareness.”
Sanji Hills said “Many spiritual traditions place an emphasis on slowing down, taking time to appreciate the ‘here and now’ and becoming more aware of our senses. It is at the heart of many traditional meditative practices, such as focusing on our breath, or a lighted candle, as well as modern versions of this such as mindfulness training. And it appears to go both ways – those who have achieved heightened levels of consciousness, or ‘awakenings’ describe how this has given them a heightened sensitivity to the world around them.”
Sanji Hills said “To truly grasp, and live, any paradox … means going beyond the process of logical understanding, embracing rather than trying to ‘fix’ the tension. For me, this meant really ‘getting’ or dropping into, the reality of a level of consciousness that exists beyond our identity as this or that: even an identity as a spiritual being.”
Sanji Hills said “For nearly four hundred years we have been influenced by a culture in which the pursuit of logic, reason and the scientific method is seen to be the mechanism for human advancement ahead of intuition. Never mind if a phenomenon or claim is backed by a huge volume of experiential and anecdotal experience: if it can’t be proven empirically then it is discounted … But our daily experience is one of constant paradox.”
Sanji Hills said “Before clarifying our sense of consciousness, we might be driven forward by a thirst for clarification – or by the stories of enlightenment we have heard. After clarification of consciousness, this thirst or drive may disappear or lack its ‘driving edge’ which can make it rather harder to tune into “what’s next” on our spiritual path, particularly when “what’s next” means confronting some pretty difficult emotions, or making changes in our life that other parts of us would prefer not to make.”
Sanji Hills said “To resolve an apparent paradox often requires a bit of quiet time, going to the deeper level, touching into a purer level of consciousness, until a new insight, or next course of action, becomes apparent. Of course, this usually takes us into the next paradox to be lived and potentially cherished as the next door into the greater reality.”
Sanji Hills said “The other challenge is that ‘feeling the edge’ will take different forms for different people. For some it may feel like a strong burning urge, for others, a soft murmur in the background … How people experience the call to grow and deepen in Consciousness is very individual, so exploring these and similar questions with others provides a great opportunity to become aware of different ways in which Consciousness makes itself felt in different people at different times.”
Sanji Hills said “In the western, developed world where we no longer live in tune with the seasons. Our work life, and our connections with others – with the society around us – may call us to be active and outgoing, even while the body is telling us that this is the last thing we want to do. So we often find ourselves overriding, rather than honouring this inner call to turn inward.”
Sharon Gilbert said “I have found that conscious listening creates a container, or atmosphere, of trust in oneself in which one’s struggles can clarify and resolve into ever-deepening, inclusive, and embodied self-realization.”
Steve Boggs said “The transmission that is at the center of the power of this work contains not only the tendency to activate the recognition of yourself as consciousness, but also to deconstruct the patchwork of braces and coverings you assembled to protect yourself from what often feels like the threats and terrors of human existence.”
Steve Boggs said “Jumping into the river of honesty and self-disclosure usually feels pretty hazardous and unpredictable. It has rapids and even waterfalls but that dangerous river of vulnerability is also the river of atonement. By ‘atonement’ I don’t mean penance or expiation. I mean ‘at-one-ment’ ‘at one moment’ for a moment to be ‘at one,’ whole and congruent. It is also a river of comfort and confidence in their original meanings of “with strength” and “with fidelity” or with faithfulness.”
Steve Boggs said “Any truly transformative work is inherently hazardous and the Trillium process is no exception. If you get involved in this work in any serious way, a lot could be demanded of you not by any of the teachers or mentors but by the force of your own awakening being. If your hunger for realization has brought you to this work, odds are that there is a fierce and relentless dimension of your being that is about to emerge. In truly transforming our basic nature, the stakes couldn’t be any higher and it is a fundamentally disturbing process.”
Steve Boggs said “If you really listen, you will hear a trustable voice within your own Being. It doesn’t speak through a bullhorn but is thunderous in its implications and what it reveals. It speaks in the cries and whispers of your heart which may normally go unheard or ignored. When you let go of all your old habits of self-discipline, self-control and self-improvement, you find to your utter amazement that a current of evolution is moving in you which is not reliant on teachers, teachings, organizations or movements.”
Steve Boggs said “We often think of courage as the ability to act in the face of apparent danger. Courage can also be standing up in the face of expectation when being true to yourself appears unconventional or abnormal. Courage originates from the French word ‘coeur’ for heart making courageous and heartful synonyms.”
Steve Boggs said “When change occurs at the very core of one’s being it can be chaotic. But chaos can be the universe viewed from the growing edge of comprehension. In this ever-deepening awakening, that edge will always be growing and disturbing eddies will always swirl around it only adding to its mystery and significance.”
Steve Boggs said “This life and this world often seem so beautiful and compelling that I am swept up in intensities of absorption – in the moment, in the environment, in the beloved. Something that is intoxicating and challenging at once…I have no thoughts, every perception is direct and uninterpreted and this existence feels so achingly beautiful and precious. I am entirely present in this moment as this moment, in this world as this world, in this body as this body and yet I am formless, changeless and endless. I have always been and here I am anew. I am endlessly creating and eternally identical.”
Steve Boggs said “We truly are magnificent, wondrous beings, yet what we so often feel is the weight of decades of baggage: all the disappointments, the frustrations, the missed opportunities, the moments when we lost our nerve, the betrayals, the regrets, the grief. I honor your deep yearning to know the truth of your life and to be at ease in it.”
Steve Boggs said “Here we are, facing the future, engaged, caring, loving, connected and yet, as these body-minds, we’re all headed for the same death, we’re dying as we’re living AND in another way, we never began and will never end.”
Steve Boggs said “In this journey of endless awakenings, there is always a deeper revelation of who we are here to be that is waiting to be discovered. Accessing this deeper revelation is often a matter of how self-revealing we are willing to be.”
Steve Boggs said “There is a kind of devastation in this process that can feel heart-breaking but what is actually breaking is the conceptual and emotional and even bodily suit of armor that you have worn for so long without even knowing it.”
Steve Boggs said “In becoming increasingly undivided we unpack and depressurize the contracted parts of ourselves and mysteriously, as we become more integrated, we also become more individuated, more authentic. As the cracks and splits in us close up, we don’t become more uniform but more unique. We become more distinctly who we actually are.”
Steve Boggs said “We are living through challenging times when problems that seem both monumental and intractable beset us on all sides. The center of our common life seems to not be holding because our traditional cultural, political, spiritual, educational and commercial institutions all seem to be not up to the task of renewal. When what once was an edifice is no longer, it isn’t entirely gone, it’s just broken into pieces and still exists as rubble which has been scattered.”
Steve Boggs said “Daring to grasp the means of your own realization is central to this highly individualized process. Gumption and daring aren’t often thought of as important qualities in spiritual growth but in this work there may be rockslides and flooding to contend with. There may be gales and ice storms and fire which will give you pause. You will need to find within your self the daring and the perseverance to complete this passage. There’s a reason they call it “self” realization. It happens in and through your self. Others will accompany you; can help point out the way, but ultimately you have to complete your own journey wherever it may take you.”
Steve Boggs said “As the awakening life progresses, the world often feels more and more kindred and intimate and at the same time, dissembling becomes less and possible to pull off. Care for people, the earth, the creatures, this whole life deepens and devotion feels increasingly appropriate. If you are one who is predisposed to great sensitivity, you may find in your awakening life that encounters with beauty, awe, reverence and gratitude become frequent companions on your journey.”
Steve Boggs said “To me, the growth of fervent, impassioned wakefulness is intimately tied to the willingness to be deeply seen. It’s like a yoga class where everyone from the very limber to the very stiff all have an edge of stretching that they can explore.”
Steve Boggs said “My prayer….is that each…will find a way to cooperate with their future self that is struggling to be born, to breathe into the labor pains of this delivery, to hang on that glorious edge and allow this deeper revelation of themselves to occur.”
Steve Boggs said “ I feel moved to say that in our most fundamental, most foundational, most singular, most essential nature, we are free, open, spacious, silent, self-evident, self-validating, limitless, motionless, endless, changeless, beginningless, undisturbed, uncreated, unbounded, unborn, all of the un’s and non’s and in’s we can come up with, consciousness. And that pure, pristine, absolutely undisturbed awareness is continually impaled on the spike of this incarnate life.”
Steve Boggs said “If we just stop for a moment, we may immediately sense that tender, quiet presence that is always there but is frequently missed. This presence is fervent and poignant and yet it contains quiet joy. This place of possibility is where I’m hoping each of our sharing can originate.”
Steve Boggs said “Over time, I have come to feel our human constraint and brokenness as not so much broken down as broken open – open to each moment, each new breath, each successive experience of life in a way that is undefended and uninterpreted.”
Steve Boggs said “Before the basic awakening that in this work we call the Whole-Being Realization, the Core Wound is a wound of tribulation or affliction. It’s a problem or a dilemma we continually strive to solve and after the second birth it’s a wound of love. I say it is a wound of love because there is a profound tenderness and vulnerability that comes with knowing the apparent and unbridgeable divisions between all things are insubstantial.”
Steve Boggs said “I cannot overemphasize the transformative power of deeply embracing the material; the physical, the earthy, the bodily, the feminine; the hidden, the mysterious, the intuitive. This is particularly true for people who have spent decades cultivating the transcendent, the non-material, the light, the one, the true, the pure, the immovable. We often only tolerate our bodies seeking transcendence, dreaming of luxuriating in higher states of consciousness above our physical dimension.”
Steve Boggs said “In my experience, it is often the case that the shyest and tenderest part of who you are is also your deepest and most inherent gift to the world. You will never feel more exposed than when you reveal this part of who you are and at the same time, you will never be more radiantly generous to the world and your life itself may feel like a prayer.”
Steve Boggs said “We need to look to the periphery to find the source of our renewal. We need to find that thing which, while seeming marginalized, both attracts us and scares us. As we explore it, we will find a thread which, if we pull on it, will lead us back to the center where we will find all those others who have followed their threads and together we can, once again, weave the tapestry of trust and begin to reassemble the scattered parts of the edifice of our collective life.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “In our Trillium Awakening path, we describe one of the early stages of the awakening processes as the Rot, coming to the end of fixing strategies that we have followed in the hopes that we would somehow be better than we are.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “If you’ve had your Whole-Being Realization, are you continuing to work your edges and deepen? If you’re still waiting for your Whole-Being Realization, are you working with a teacher and a mentor, are you taking advantage of the mutuality groups, are you exploring the information that’s available out there? I think people can become passive. They may think, “This awakening’s just going to happen.” There’s a way in which that’s true, but you really need to be engaged in the work.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “The larger problem with fixing strategies comes from the word’s original and literal meaning: to fasten securely in a particular place or position. So essentially, when you try to fix yourself, you’re just keeping yourself stuck in some place from which you are ultimately trying to escape! What could be more counterproductive?”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “It’s essential to claim our awakening emergent selves. We awaken as what we are, all our parts. For me, this must include what it is we embody, our Queer, trans, heteronormative, non-binary, racialized, able or differently abled, neuro-diverse, transient bodies. We embody Consciousness as all of this. This is what awakens in this liminal time of constant emergence, living and dying, at one with Self and Other, as finite and infinite. This is the great paradox. There’s room in you for all.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “The next time you find yourself wishing things were otherwise, dare to lean into the way things are and ask yourself: what’s in this for me? There’s a gift under the disappointment that only you can open.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “We are not powerless if we rest in the truth of nondualism: there is nothing that is not Consciousness/God/the Universe. ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.’ We are ‘under heaven,’ here in this human realm seeking our divine nature, which lies in the realization of the Truth.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “What I am feeling into today is the way Being shows up when we have the freedom to rest. When our immediate needs are met, and we are able to live in the flow of what arises. Today, it is ease and well-being, physical strength necessary to keep my home comfortable, the food to sustain me, shelter that is able to withstand the weather. I have love, companionship, and a direct line to the Divine Nature that is in everything.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Judging is an innately human, maybe even incarnate, function of survival. Is this Being I encounter my friend, or my foe? Predator or prey? Poison or nourishment? And this is important to our wellness of Being. But when we shift that simple and important act of discernment of duality to a worldview, we are lost to the truth that everything we encounter is Consciousness manifesting as itself in limited form. It cannot be ‘wrong,’ or ‘bad,’ or even ‘right,’ or ‘good.’ It is Consciousness painting itself onto the canvas of itself. It is a continual unfolding of life’s arising as life. We are passengers, not drivers.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “We tend to dismiss the efficacy of fixing strategies because they distract us from the Core Wound, our existential sense shared by all humans, that there is something missing from or wrong with us. Instead of fixing, we focus on greenlighting, saying ‘Yes’ to all that is within and without, and from there, in the space that is created, we begin to integrate those aspects of ourselves that may feel wrong or bad.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “The more we focus on what we feel is wrong or missing with an aim to changing it, the more difficult we ultimately make it to accept. The more attention we bring to it, the more resistant it becomes to being integrated. Our resistance to acceptance is a kind of calcifying, we shore up the undesirable trait or conditioned response and it gets stronger and harder to release. Attention to change underscores a deep sense that we are not okay, lovable, complete. When we try to fix ourselves, the very goal we seek gets harder and harder to achieve.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “A good deal of our work in Trillium Awakening is about ‘greenlighting,’ saying yes to what is arising. It’s tied deeply into our way to Trust in Being, to radically embrace who and how and what we are in any given moment. The path to realizing consciousness leads us to live in uncertainty, to embody the paradox that we are simultaneously finite and infinite, both / and.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Perception of Self and Other is such an essential part of being human. In the awakening process, we find a new perception, a two-way mirror that shows us ourselves and the other as ourselves. We see that we’re not separate. There both is and isn’t an Other, just Consciousness arising as That.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “The Dharma of Trillium Awakening is, in a way, a Tantric Dharma. It is an outpouring of harmonized masculine and feminine energies. It is not transcendent. It is embodied. To fully know ourselves, our Dharma says, we must come to a place of ‘radical embrace’ of all of our parts. Radical is the right word for it, drawing its meaning from the word radix, or root. We must come to the root of ourselves, and be willing to not just tolerate, or accept, but embrace what we find there.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “I would say that the crux of our awakening is that we discover our true and total nature. We discover it as we greenlight, embrace, and ultimately integrate all the hidden parts of ourselves. And this discovery can take years, a lifetime even. And we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in the constant evolution of consciousness arising as itself in its myriad forms. This sense of our ever-emerging totality deepens our empathy and compassion. We can embrace the world in all its fragmented, disparate parts. This is what love is.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Our work starts with Greenlighting, saying yes to what is. As we Greenlight our experience, our feelings, patterns, and conditioning, we come to a point at which we can drop more deeply into Radical Embrace, which means that we embrace what is at the root of ourselves and we embrace it fully. The difference is between saying ‘yes’ and saying ’come home’ to me.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Consciousness is the undifferentiated ground of Being. It is all that is, all that manifests is Consciousness manifesting as THAT. To me, the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine are manifestations of Consciousness as those archetypal energies: compassion, kindness, nurturing, creation, love, community, and discernment, insight, steadiness, initiative. When I experience the Divine Feminine, it is with awareness of the Divine Masculine, and when I experience the Divine Masculine, it is with awareness of the Divine Feminine. They cannot be separated.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “It’s normal to find others’ repugnant ideas off-putting. But beneath that limited, localized perception, we can lean into and find the love that is at the core of everything that arises. This is the nature of Consciousness ‘bodying forth.’ If we find fault with that, we are missing the point of being here. We’re missing the heartbreaking beauty of our human life purpose, to see, feel, live, and speak our truth in the midst of uncertainty.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “We greenlight what is. We soak up awakened transmission. We show up in mutuality, standing in our own truth as we know it in the moment and make room for the other to do the same. In this way, we live what we teach, that we awaken to Onlyness, that there is no separation from us and the manifestation of consciousness as an Other, an event, or a place.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “To be human is to be a constantly evolving mystery. When you deny the perfection of that mystery, you might as well stick your Self onto a pin and put your Self into a box as a perfectly preserved specimen. You kill off what is always emerging. Let go of your desire to fix yourself, and fly free into your true and total nature.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Awareness is pre-verbal. It arises in the intricate system of sensitivity to the world. It can be gross—the tight shoe or overly warm coat—or subtle—the finest sensation of aliveness in the skin, the organs, and the level of Being, our awakened awareness of enlivenment, with many degrees in between.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Whole-Being Realization is a process, an unfolding, a continually expanding capacity to be with what is…And suffering is part of the landscape we traverse along the way. It becomes a part of our lived experience, more familiar so that we can open our hearts to it with vulnerability, compassion, and trust in the nature of Being. We cannot live and be completely free from pain. To fully awaken as embodied consciousness does not give us a free pass from life’s often unfathomable and painful mysteries, but it does give us more heart, greater sensibility of the nature of our aliveness. It gives us a way to trust in Being.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “I’m discovering a new and deeper understanding of the nature of embodiment. It’s been slowly coming forward in me as I continue to navigate my embodied conscious awakening. My knowing of it is rooting itself deeper and deeper into my very cells, each one an arising of Consciousness. There is no separation between Me and Myself. I know myself in, as, and through, this body. It is a highly sensitive receptor of stimuli.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Our tools of greenlighting, holding, and feeling deeply with and as the body, develop our capacity to live the paradox of our limited humanity and our boundless divine nature. Resting in this paradox brings about an initial Whole-Being Realization into a life of authentically being who and how we are. And as we arrive at this portal of embodied awakened life, we continue to integrate our experience of suffering, which has helped to shape us into the human beings we are. We arrive at our destination: a deepening ability to fully feel all that life holds. And yet the journey is not complete.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Mutuality is an alchemical process. If we can speak our fears, the deep, primal call to survive no matter what, and the old survival strategies that arise out of them, then we can land more deeply into what it means to be human. We are all dying, every moment of every day. We can honor that best by living fully in the moment whatever is arising. When we awaken to our fully embodied realization, we are called to walk the way of the mobius strip, to ride the infinite curve of the inner and the outer realms of Consciousness, to be what we are, finite and infinite and living in these temporary, vulnerable, precious, miraculous human bodies.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “For most seekers, suffering is something to be avoided at all costs through a variety of bypassing behaviors. And yet, paradoxically, we cannot come to the end of suffering until and unless we have passed through it, not by it. To evoke my journey [along the Garden State Parkway] metaphor, if we go through life in the express lane, never taking the roads through the small towns of suffering, we have no experience, no understanding of it. We haven’t seen its byways, tasted its flavors, smelled its odors. It’s not possible to live without suffering, so to pretend to do so by avoiding or ignoring it, is to pass through life being only partly alive.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Something that stays constant for me is awareness. Whatever is happening inside of me in some response or reaction to pleasure or pain, I am aware of it in a full sense. It hasn’t always been this way. For most of my life, awareness was filtered through thinking and confusion. I often didn’t know what or how I felt. Both open-ended, ‘How are you feeling?’, or closed-ended, ‘Are you okay?’, questions led to a confused scramble of thoughts. Often the answer was either inconclusive or incorrect, in either case usually a lie.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “When you consider how many paths there are to choose from today, teachings disseminated by enlivened awakened individuals who gather large crowds both in person and online, it’s priceless to be able to meet one-on-one with a teacher who stands in a safe, ethical, and democratic Circle of other teachers all interconnected through one core teaching, teachers who are branches of the same river. You can choose who most resonates with you in the moment, forging long term relationships with one teacher supplemented by shorter term “tastes” of what other teachers have to offer.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “When we are Divinely Human, we embody the fundamental essence of the Divine Mystery that pervades all phenomena. Those phenomena of course span a rich and infinite spectrum. As embodied Divinely Human Consciousness, we live through this lens, which can be further refracted to include many if not all aspects of the Trillium dharma: Divine Relationship, Trust in Being, Onlyness, Discernment, Embrace. There are so many ways to see the interconnectedness of our dharma. It’s a kind of kaleidoscope of Embodied Consciousness in Relationship with everything that is both as it arises and as it is in its is-ness. There is room in our dharma for all of you as you arrive and arise in your own Divine Humanity.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “This is the gift of our humanity, to feel, to speak, to know, to share, and in sharing to become closer to what unites us: consciousness manifesting as everything, ourselves and all that is experienced as ‘other.’ To be one in the truth of Being.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “There was a period of a few years after my awakening when I simply experienced poems rather than writing them. The things that have for years triggered poetry for me, light, landscape, love, were too precious to capture. I’ve equated the urge for me towards writing to the moments before a sneeze. There’s a feeling of something both entering and wanting to exit me simultaneously. Pre-verbal or at least non-verbal awareness is like this: a heightened feeling of enlivened sensitivity.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Each of us bodies forth as a particular manifestation of consciousness, what I think of as a flavor or a filter. We’re born; we’re infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, adults, elders. We can still be othered because of these differences, but they’re not inherent to who we are in the way that race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability are. These are things that we cannot and never do leave behind. They are the filter through which the world sees us, and we see the world.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Doing awakening work today requires us to lean in to how we embody our lived experience. In the Trillium Path, we awaken as embodied consciousness, which means that we do not transcend who and how we are. We transcend the limitations of who and how we are. It’s a fine distinction.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Radical Embrace is how we begin to integrate all of who we are. We awaken to the paradox of both / and: we are both undifferentiated consciousness and a limited, finite, human person. These two things can’t be separated. I know that I am undifferentiated consciousness because I am in this body. Otherwise, I would live in the spirit realm!”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Sometimes practitioners come to us with a consciousness awakening already in place, but that’s not Whole-Being Realization. That is something that requires us to awaken as our ‘true and total nature,’ integrating all the parts of ourselves, including the shadow. Other traditions don’t necessarily focus on the lived experience. Their focus on transcendence can result in powerful transmission without a grounding in mutuality, which requires ethical behavior.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “We live in these bodies. We identify ourselves in the mundane world as this and not that, or both this and that. We navigate our lived experience this way. We encounter others whose vision may be grimy with the detritus of their conditioning, and they may see only parts of us and respond accordingly. We may be moved to demand our place, to demand justice and equality, to bridge the gap between what is and what could be for ourselves and others. This is how I think of awakened activism.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Everyone’s awakening is different. Everyone’s conditioning is different. The shell that separates us from our true nature may be more or less dense depending on a multitude of factors. But once we catalyze the process, we can be sure that it will take us with it to the eventuality of a deep knowing of all that we are” ‘‘
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “Onlyness is defined as the quality of seamlessness of consciousness with phenomena; the recognition that all phenomena, objects, and others are of the ‘same essence’ as your conscious embodied, non-separate nature. For many of us, myself included, Onlyness is easiest to experience with phenomena and objects, and not so easy with the other. We encourage ourselves to recognize the other as Consciousness manifesting as that. When we find ourselves getting triggered by another in our interpersonal relationships, it’s Onlyness that we need to recognize.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “If you just go to the gym and stand around, nothing’s going to happen. You have to start with the lightest possible weights. A lot of people have trouble with sharing when they first start in our work. They get really impatient and bored with other people’s sharing. But being able to feel into your own impatience with that, in a way, that’s like starting to pick up those light weights. ‘Okay, I need to open myself and relax and know that there’s something at work here that is bigger than us as a group and that’s constructed by us as a group’.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “In order for us to be able to really communicate interpersonally, we have to cultivate an other orientation-it’s really like mutuality-listening fully, being present, perceiving, understanding our own projections. So. when we’re listening to people’s shares, there’s a process in which we have to be able to cultivate that orientation of mutuality to really hear that person. And it can take us a while to get there, but when we do, that’s when the transmission can vibrate more fully.”
Subhaga Crystal Bacon said “There are spiritual teachings that encourage us to subdue difficulty, to repeat the mantra this, too, shall pass. Teachings that encourage us to find our bliss, transcend the body, to treat death as a non-event, in which grief is a weakness, a belief in an illusion. I know that these sorts of teachings have their place; they made up some of the paving blocks on my path. But coming to the place of Sahaj Samadhi, the simultaneous realization that I AM THAT, and that I am also this body, both awareness of consciousness and its lived expression, has changed all that.”
Sughandi Katharine Barnes said “I feel my purpose is to be fully present here and experience everything – all the juiciness and lusciousness as well as, and maybe especially, the heartache – to courageously and authentically live from the core paradox – being grounded in the wellbeing of Infinite Consciousness while at the same time being rooted in humanity, allowing all of myself with love and compassion for the difficulty of being here in this limited, poignant, vitally alive embodied life.”
Sughandi Katharine Barnes said “Awakening is a process. We all experience it uniquely, moving at our own pace and coming to it from different angles. My awakening was initially transcendent and impersonal. I fell into a space of luscious emptiness and experienced Onlyness – myself as everything. This was followed some months later by a second awakening when I fell dramatically into my heart. Since then I am relaxing more and more into my body as my awakening continues to deepen, as various patterns and pieces arise to be seen and felt and integrated into the whole.”
Susan Spensley said “The Trillium Awakening work allows for us to awaken as we are. We don’t need to get totally clear or healed in order to awaken (a relief!). On our awakening path, we do experience healings before and after the awakening. In fact, some inner healings are better addressed after we awaken. Each person’s awakening is unique with intrinsic offerings. Awakening is not static and continues to expand. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Susan Spensley said “Mutuality furthers respect for other/life. Mutuality contributes to forgiveness, if needed. It may reduce the body’s stress responses. Mutuality and Green-lighting both bring sweetness to life. They are soothing balms and warm comforting arms wrapped around us. How fortunate we are in Trillium!”
Susan Spensley said “Mutuality is an art form, as I see it. We may strive to be better at it with each passing day/year. Mutuality requires willingness and the presence of self. If we are present with self, we may be less likely to judge the other. If we are willing, we may be able to engage, or it may take time, as everything with trauma takes time. Mutuality and trauma take time.”
Susan Spensley said “Our Mutuality learning needs time. Some of us are better than others at it. If trauma is an ongoing phenomenon, then it is an aspect of our Mutuality journeys. We may not know if we are in a trauma trigger. We may know/not know if we are fully hearing the other or they us. We may both be trauma-triggered. What also helps is Green-lighting. Green-lighting ourselves/others when we have ‘shut down’ (numbness). Green-lighting if we feel defensive & self-righteous (fight). Green-lighting if we freeze and cannot feel. Green-lighting if we run away or want to (flight). Green-lighting if we’re ‘not tracking’ (overwhelm). Green-lighting helps re-ignite our Presence of Self when trauma has us somewhat ‘off-line’.”
Tatini Goler said “Living in the NOW used to be exclusively associated for me with emptiness along the lines of Zen teachings. Now, 11 years after I landed in my body, (which was what my second birth felt like: ‘Now I am here’), I am living in a very full, alive NOW. And how relaxing it is to have to know only the next moment! Not the ones after that – in fact it is becoming more and more clear to me that the moments after the immediate next moments are disconnected from the whole and a fabrication of the mind.”
Tatini Goler said “I am getting that the part of me that doesn’t die exists separate from the body. This deepening into my unmanifest nature is a great gift and I am surrendering more and more to being with folks on the spirit level. Sitting still, doing nothing (maybe singing a healing song if it feels right), trusting that I am having a healing impact on a dimension that is not physical, which is quite different from what I thought it would be: more hands-on in terms of literally touching people and having conversations with people.”
Tatini Goler said “I feel happy to be part of our collective teacher circle and look forward to our work together to birth the next expression. I continually deepen into the Trillium Awakening dharma as it evolves moment to moment for me individually and for us as a collective. So, nothing concrete at this time but as things evolve, we will share them with the community.”
Ted Strauss said “Arriving into the advanced stages of awakening does not automatically ‘fix’ you or your issues. It does remove the unnecessary suffering caused by resisting What Is (which is an enormous relief), but in doing so, it only brings you that much more present into your actual, embodied reality. After awakening, you will have to deal with your own reality all the more directly, because the pain of not dealing will become obvious and unbearable.”
Ted Strauss said ‘”Ego mind is the problem; to awaken, you must transcend and ‘kill the ego.’ KILL THE EGO!?! That could be illegal, since the ego is YOU in your particular conditioned condition. Do you think the ego and the True Self are two different things? I say that just as Being Is One Thing, YOU are one thing. This is what the realization of Onlyness makes obvious.”
Ted Strauss said “Our view of Life and Being is necessarily colored by our unique capacity to perceive, to intuit and to understand. Each of us is a totally unique filter in Being and therefore has a totally unique view of Life. Each view is ‘true’ in that it is a valid fractal view of the whole. Still, every view is different from every other view and is therefore an impenetrable mystery to others; a Mystery which can, at best, only be partially communicated. This has caused us humans a lot of confusion.”
Ted Strauss said “The awakening process is not what you think. Not only is it not what you think because it’s not what you thought it was about but it’s also not what you think because it isn’t fundamentally about what’s happening in your thinking process…Consider this: everything you have ever read on the topic of spirituality has necessarily come through your mind. Even though there is nothing bad, wrong or unspiritual about the mind, the awakening process is not taking place fundamentally in your mind; it is taking place at the heart and core of your whole Being.”
Ted Strauss said “This work is dangerous because it cuts to the very core of your Being. From there, you awaken and sort out your life. Every particle of your life that is not aligned with your unique manifestation and incarnation of Being must be realigned. If you are not prepared to encounter the worst nightmares and ultimate shattering of yourself at the root, please don’t venture a step further.”
Ted Strauss said “After awakening, everyone will recognize your divinity. This is a common dream, based on the desire to get even with everybody who didn’t see you when you were growing up. Perhaps you imagine walking into the supermarket and seeing everyone dazed at encountering your divine presence, and landing face down at your feet in devotional gratitude for your very existence. Needless to say, this is not likely at all. There will be some who find themselves drawn to you for some mysterious reason, but most people won’t have a clue who you are.”
Ted Strauss said “Awakening means you live with an open heart, always love all beings. WRONG! The heart was designed with the capacity to shutdown in order to protect yourself. And it does so quite spontaneously as needed, such as when you are being dishonored. If awakened meant your heart was always wide open, you’d be constantly subjected to inappropriate and unnecessary pain. You don’t need your heart to be always be wide open any more than you need to have surgical wounds left wide open.”
Ted Strauss said “For very good evolutionary reason, we humans have inherited the basic survival instinct to avoid pain and more toward safety. This mechanism, however, has been rather automatically applied not only to our physical survival, but also to the spiritual dilemma of feeling crucified at the core of our existence. By moving away from the discomfort that is in fact the very foundation of our Beingness, we have split from ourselves and ended up living in every-deepening and ever-tightening layers of painful self-denial.”
Ted Strauss said “Subjective awakenings and objective awakenings are what I consider to be the two primary types of awakening. Objective realizations are so infinite, that I can’t even begin to talk about them. Walking in a large public library or getting how huge is the information on the Internet will give you a basic idea of how infinite are the kinds of objective realizations one could have. Subjective realizations are just as infinite, but like the system at the public library, can at least be classified.”
Ted Strauss said “Onlyness – The realization that all of Being – Absolute, Relative, self and others – is a single, continuous event and that you are it.”
Van Nguyen said “Whole-Being Realization is the capacity of stable recognition, or remembering in the living moment, of an inherent and paradoxical Wholeness of Being, that we already are. Simply put, we each are simultaneously finite and infinite, human and divine—we are both local physical animals and the indivisible Unified Field of Existence, all at the same time.”
Van Nguyen said “The source of that moment-to-moment awareness is the Consciousness body, that you are. In fact, if you feel into it, you are even aware of being “you.” The sense you have of yourself, the sense of I-ness, the entire experiential bodily sense of ‘you’ is an object arising in the ground field of awareness that is you as the infinite Consciousness body. The Consciousness body is what feels, or registers, the matter body as it is happening, or shifting, moment to moment to moment.”
Van Nguyen said “There is only the singular Totality of Radiant Divine Being. One Ultimate Unified Field, that is simultaneously unmanifested and manifested. We each and all are That. Paradoxically, the seamless Divine Self is simultaneously both a diverse individuated multiplicity and a Primordial Oneness. An ultimate paradox of the inherent marriage/unity of the relative and the absolute. Thus, we each and all are both matter and spirit, localized and transcendental, human and divine, simultaneously.”
Van Nguyen said “Where mutuality breaks down is with empathy and self-knowledge and self-awareness. Speaking as a broken soul, having grown up with trauma and abuse and having gone through years of therapy, if a person is very wounded, there will be blind spots in the personality and stunted developmental stages. And if your parents didn’t show you empathy, you may be deficient in empathy and you may be blind to even know that you don’t have the full capacity of empathy. Then you can’t alter that and be empathetic with another person. It’s not there.”
Van Nguyen said “You are aware of yourself as the matter body because you are simultaneously also the Consciousness body. You are aware of yourself as the constantly changing matter body person via the Consciousness body. You are aware of the moment-to-moment shifting states of the matter body by way of moment-to-moment awareness.”
Van Nguyen said “There is only Ultimate Radiant Divine Being, or the Ultimate Divine Self. Paradoxically, Ultimate Radiant Divine Being is simultaneously both unmanifested and manifested. There is nothing/no thing, no one, no where, and no place that is not Ultimate Divine Being. Ultimate Divine Being is an indivisible singular Supreme Unity.”
Van Nguyen said “The Totality of Whole Divine Being, or the Absolute Divine Self, cannot be known or experienced by the individual as some type of Supreme Object, since It is the all-inclusive singular Allness-Totality of Existence. It is utter Measurelessness!”
Van Nguyen said “In the living context of awakened Being-transmission and adept help, by relaxing into, being with, and coinciding with the matter body as is, and by releasing or relaxing the “seeking mode” of your feeling and attention process, you discover the inherently inseparable Consciousness body, that you are. It is revealed to be obvious by grace. The Consciousness body is limitless feeling-awareness, without center and without fixity. It feels and registers any and all states without being changed or colored in the process. It is moment-to-moment, free-feeling Conscious awareness.”
Van Nguyen said “What is aware of or registering the matter body’s stuff happening moment to moment? It is you as the Consciousness body. Conscious awareness. Primal feeling awareness. Primal feeling consciousness. You as whole Being are both the matter body and the Consciousness body. To be more precise and detailed, there is also the intermediary soul body which is both non-finite yet individuated. But to keep the model simple, you are the finite body and the infinite body. You are both local and infinite, moment to moment.”
Van Nguyen said “We exist as embodied Consciousness, or embodied Conscious Is-ness. We are Primal Feeling Consciousness, or Primal Conscious Feelingness, in physical embodied form. Infinite Conscious Feeling in physical human embodiment. Simultaneous, inseparable, and utterly paradoxical. Materialized Is-ness–Matter Is-ness–happening and being, moment to moment to moment.”
Van Nguyen said “The spiritual process of realization and its maturation is unique for each person and unfolds through Grace. Abiding in a mature Whole Being Realization, when we relax fully, feelingly surrender in a moment-by-moment manner, and immerse ourselves, we can melt and merge into the singular Supreme Unified Field of Ultimate Divine Being. In this moment-to-moment, surrendered, full-feeling recognition of this Ultimate Reality, the personal self (or the “personal wave”) is ‘temporarily’ absorbed and dissolved (even ecstatically) into the singular Supreme Ocean of Ultimate Divine Being, That which it already is. There is only That, and That is This.”
Van Nguyen said “You are the living paradox of Primal Feeling Is-ness in physical embodiment. You are a dynamic process as the Consciously Feeling or Feelingly Conscious body-mind (or body-mind-soul complex, to speak more completely). Paradoxically, you are simultaneously both Infinite and All-feeling Consciousness, as well as limited and mortal physical Matter…Conscious Matter. Or said the other way around, you are Materialized Consciousness.”
Van Nguyen said “Consciousness could also be described as Conscious Beingness, or Conscious Existingness, or Conscious Is-ness. So, we might use the shorthand version of this paradox–Matter Is-ness or Materialized Is-ness.”
Van Nguyen said “You are both limited and free simultaneously. The freedom (of the Consciousness body) is an ultimate relief but it is not an immunity from the trials and tribulations of the physical matter body. It is a great paradox. You are the Conscious body.”
Van Nguyen said “Transmission is activation and initiation power. Transmission is the intensification of the paradoxical whole spectrum or Totality of Divine Being–the Radiant Divine Self. There is the magic of spiritual transmission, that is similar to the magic of whole unconditional love.”
Van Nguyen said “There are three Aspects of Ultimate Being that can be recognized, experienced, or felt by us divinely human beings. The Emptiness or Absolute Space of Transcendental Awareness, the all-pervading Aliveness of Divine Energy or Life-current or Kundalini Shakti-current, and the Unconditional Feeling or Supreme Feelingness of Divine Love and Divine Bliss…As divinely human beings, we are actually a materialization of the three Aspects of Whole Divine Being. We are each and all materializations, or manifestations, of Ultimate Whole Being.”
Van Nguyen said “Using the ocean-wave metaphor, the “personal wave” is surrendered to, and thus, is ‘swallowed’ by the revealed Reality of only One Ultimate Ocean–moment by moment, through realized understanding, natural feeling devotion, and Grace. In an ongoing manner, during the course of everyday ordinary realized life, we have the spiritual capacity to remember, enjoy, and recognize (or ‘re-recognize’) this Ultimate Truth through inference, which is fully informed through mature realization.”
Van Nguyen said “Transmission happens in a context of relationship. In simple terms, there is the ‘transmitter’ and the receptive ‘receiver’. The receptivity or hunger of the receiver is what activates or evokes the fuller intensity of the transmission. That which we already are is what is being transmitted. That’s why potent transmission touches our hearts and moves our being and feels deeply familiar. Being/being is being transmitted to Being/being.”
Van Nguyen said “The body is Conscious. The whole body is Conscious of itself because it is Consciousness in embodiment. The body is Conscious of itself as it is manifesting, moment to moment, in all of its varied and shifting states. It is a great paradox, wherein who you are is both finite and infinite.”
Van Nguyen said “In the matured fullness of the realization of the Ultimate Reality, the personal ‘me’ is allowed to be dissolved into the Supreme Unity and Allness of the singular Ultimate Divine Self, or Ultimate Radiant Divine Being, since the ‘me’ recognizes that there is only That, and That is This…All inclusively, I am the Divine Self (or God). All inclusively, we all are the Divine Self. All inclusively, everything and everywhere is the Ultimate Divine Self. Nothing/no thing is not the Ultimate Divine Self.”
Van Nguyen said “Transmission is a resonant reminder of who we already are. Transmission is a catalytic fertilizer and accelerator of our unique spiritual flowering for the realization of the whole spectrum of Being that we are. Transmission is a form of magnified Grace. We awaken through Grace.”
Van Nguyen said “Every and all experiences come and go. Whatever starts, in turn, will inevitably end. The personal self naturally wants to hold onto, and even own, high blissful experiences and have them last forever, or keep coming back in the future. So, too, the personal self wants to be the achiever and owner of the heights of spiritual realization. Through spiritual maturity and fully realized understanding, the focused fixity of the personal self, that believes itself to primarily be a centralized individual identity and the separate owner of all experience and even realization, is deeply relaxed and feelingly surrendered, in the living moment.”
Van Nguyen said “Out of love of Ultimate Divine Being, when we relax attention, in the living moment, and unconditionally open into naturally surrendered full-feeling, we feel and be the Supreme Divine Unity-field of That–That which we already are, now, in this moment, and in this moment. That which is This. Even this ‘this’, too.”
Van Nguyen said “Matter and Consciousness meet in and as the human body-mind being. It is a great paradox–the great paradox of the seamless unity between Consciousness and Matter.”
Van Nguyen said “The matter body is arising in (and is inseparable from) the Consciousness body. You tend to identify as only or merely being the matter body. You think or feel that your personal awareness comes from or is ‘owned’ by the matter body. Or to put it another way, you believe the matter body is the source of your awareness. You forget or fail to notice that you are simultaneously the Consciousness body, too. You are aware of “you” because of the Consciousness body, not because of the matter body.”
Van Nguyen said “Remember you are both the matter body and the Consciousness body simultaneously. They exist-you exist-in a seamless unity. You can’t understand this. You can only drop into the reality of this. It requires accepting, surrendering to, or embracing the matter body, as it is, in a moment-to-moment way.”
Van Nguyen said “Whole-Being Realization is not so much an awakening into some exalted state, as it is more of a ‘remembering’, of who we already are, who we really are—one Wholeness of Total Being—the Wholeness of the Supreme Heart.”
Van Nguyen said “The body-mind is a materialized, incarnated form of the Divine Self, since the Divine Self is paradoxically simultaneously both unmanifested and manifested. We each and all are a simultaneous both/and “sandwich” of the Big Transcendental Self and the local small self.”
Van Nguyen said “When we human beings, individual personal selves, realize this Ultimate Truth and Reality, we are realizing That which we already are, since there is none other than Ultimate Divine Being. Everyone and everything is That already, inherently and eternally. There is nothing/no thing and no one that is not That already.”
Van Nguyen said “ If you have a personality disorder, you’ll awaken with that. Initial Whole-Being Realization doesn’t turn you into a loving, warm, psychologically balanced person. Your capacity for mutuality is going to be compromised, and maybe not able to happen at all. So you can get triggered and project. You may have the ideal that you want to be in mutuality but you can’t do it because you’re triggered and you’re enraged and resentful at that person. Conceptually, you’re trying to hold them, but that won’t yield a true mutuality.”
Van Nguyen said “Spiritual transmission is an invitation to rest in the wholeness of Radiant Divine Being. Transmission is (human) being to (human) being communion in the One Being, the One Divine Self, that we already are. I would recommend thinking of spiritual transmission as more of a resonant field, rather than as an energy beam sent from one person to another. An amplified resonant Field of Total Being.”
Van Nguyen said “Inherent Being is being revealed to individuated Being. In ultimate truth, there is only One Wholeness of Being—the one ultimate Divine Unified Field. There is only That, which is This. Rest and abide in and as the Wholeness of Radiant Divine Being. Paradoxically seamless–an All-inclusive Totality.”
Van Nguyen said “Transmission is a living communication of this paradoxical Ultimate Reality through resonance, osmosis, and catalytic immersion. A bit like plugging into a ‘fire hydrant’ that is pumping out intensified Whole Being juice. A human and divine animal is communicating to a fellow human and divine animal, through the medium of awakened conscious love.”
Van Nguyen said “There are three aspects (or qualities) of Ultimate Divine Being that we are able to experience. These aspects are: Divine Consciousness (supreme transcendental awareness), Divine Shakti-Energy (supreme universal all-pervading vibratory current), and Divine Love and Bliss (supreme all-embracing Heart-core and Mother-matrix of existence). Since Ultimate Divine Being is simultaneously both unmanifested and manifested (or transcendental and materialized), these three aspects–Divine Consciousness, Divine Shakti-Energy, and Divine Love and Bliss–are simultaneously both transcendental and materialized.”
Van Nguyen said “Through the intensification stimulated by Whole Being transmission, we may viscerally experience a mixture of the mind becoming more silent, a feeling of being intoxicated with adorational love-devotion and ecstasy, and the body subtly buzzing with heightened pleasurable vibratory fullness or intensity. The body-mind may become more diffuse or even melted into the seamless Unified Field.”
Van Nguyen said “The full body-mind or the whole body is the conjunction of Matter and Consciousness, or Matter and Conscious Is-ness. Thus, we are Matter Is-ness. This is the paradox of simultaneity. You are both a finite, human, fleshy, warm-blooded animal and Infinite Conscious Is-ness. You are a human Is-ness, or a human Be-ing.”
Victor Antillon said “The starkness of the Core Wound can be pretty daunting sometimes. There is no escaping it in this work.”
Vivian Coles said “For me what’s important is deep listening. So that whether we get triggered or not, in our commitment to work things out, we are able to deeply listen. That takes a skill too that we don’t always consider or think about. That’s really a significant part of all this, to be there with the other person, to take the other person in, to give them space and listen to them.”