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A Cellular Dance Of Oneness


This is the extended and full version of the Interview 'A Cellular Dance Of Oneness', published as the leading article in Oracle 20-20 Magazine in Atlanta, GA, USA in May 2010.


Joe: (Joe Jenkins, Lilburn, Ga.)  I attended one of your workshops in Toronto in October, and I felt a great expansion in myself when the person you were working one on one with began to have a deep inner experience. What causes this?

Florian: The connection you felt is actually something that is with all of us all the time, but we don’t realize it. In order to understand how this is actually working, we first have to know who we are, and then explore what life is and how to be genuinely alive.

So let's begin: As we are here together, we are aware of this moment, aren't we? I am sure everybody can very simply understand that once we are paying attention to this moment, we can notice that there is something here that is aware. Something that notices the sounds, that notices the conversation we are having, the inner reactions of the mind, feelings and the body. So there is an awareness of the experience of now.

That awareness is prior to everything. It is that which sees all, from moment to moment. Everybody is it. That’s who WE ARE. Yet, we usually jump over this and do not notice that we are already aware of everything that is happening. 

So just for one instant, give your attention to the fact that you are already aware. Whatever is happening right now, there is an awareness of it. And just that simple recognition, what does it do to your experience right now, which is manifesting in the physical body?

Joe: It makes me feel easier, like I can breathe more freely - more relaxed.

Florian:  Yes, exactly. What is actually happening is that we are shifting the attention from the content of experience to that which is aware of the content. That is the fundamental shift that people call awakening or enlightenment or knowing yourself. We are conscious of that which is aware instead of focusing on the content of our experience. What I mean by content is: all thinking, feeling and the sensations of the body.

Now we can move on.   We have seen that there is awareness of the experience, but what is the experience itself? Where do we find experience? Is it us; or is it the body that has an experience? Please have a precise look.

Joe: For me, at this moment, I  feel the energy in my body. I am experiencing that and also what comes to me through the senses.

Florian: Yes indeed. This moment is an embodied experience. All of life is an experience of the body. Scientists say about 80 trillion cells are organized in a particular way that enables experiencing. All sensations happening in the body and nervous system we refer to as the experience of now.

What happens is that most of us think there is someone called an 'I' who is an interface   we think we need between consciousness and the body that experiences life. If we see that WE ARE consciousness, and that THIS BODY is having the experience of life in this moment, then what is that 'sense of I' that causes so much trouble?

Where is that apparent identity that feels like a me?

What we recognize is that the “I” operating is only a focus, an unquestioned habit to pay attention. That habit, in fact, IS the 'sense of I. When there is no focusing, in that spaciousness, there is not much of a sense of I.  But when the focus of attention returns to be narrow and exclusive - it creates a sense of I.

Funny enough, we all believe that there is an “I” operating independently of anything else. But all it is – is a habit to focus. In fact all that happens is a play of different focuses. According to the habit of focus, there is either a strong sense of “I” feeling narrow and not very free; or the sense of “I”  dissolves in a wider and inclusive focus. It is then that we gradually begin to experience oneness with everything.

As you are reading this, please take 10 sec. of time to experiment with different focuses. First, try a tight focus – and see how the body feels. How does the experience of the body change when there is a tight focus?  How does it feel with a wider focus? What is the experience?

This simple experiment shows us that the experience the body has is a product of attention.  The experience that the body has right now is a direct product of an unconscious habit to focus.
 
Joe: How do we get to that experience of having a wider focus most of the time?

Florian: First, let us distinguish between awareness and attention. In this moment, does the awareness do anything? No, the awareness is here only. We don’t even know exactly what it is. All we know it is something that sees. It is like a screen that is motionless in itself.  That is awareness.

Awareness can become attention. Attention is like the 'arm of God', reaching out to become aware of objects, internally or externally. It is the dynamic aspect of awareness, functioning like a spotlight. So attention is like the drop in the ocean. Awareness is the ocean; and when a drop separates from the ocean, it becomes attention, and through attention objects are created, and can be experienced as separate objects.

You experience this every night when you fall asleep. The moment before you fall asleep, that habit of focus falls back into consciousness, as if the drop returns into the ocean. That’s why we enjoy sleep so much. When you wake up, the ocean becomes once again a drop, and with that focus, the sense of “I” together with the world appears again.

Joe: How can we get free from this unconscious habit of focusing? How can we make it conscious?

Florian: What most of us learned growing up is that focusing is a means to get what we want, and to avoid what we don’t want. So the gift of attention - especially in our western culture - has unconsciously degenerated to a mere instrument of wanting and achieving. We use it to pay attention to everything we feel safe with; and exclude everything from the focus of attention that we don't feel safe with. This automatic reflex seems to give life direction...

Joe: Yet it also limits our life dramatically and costs us our freedom.

Florian: Right. That is the primary human experience. Running on a narrow focus, we become more and more unhappy because we don’t see much.  It’s like being stuck inside the tunnel of our own focus. When we become of aware of how unhappy we are, we start looking for a more promising object to focus on, like enlightenment. But what people are unconsciously yearning for is a naturally open and relaxed focus.  That’s why we love holidays and enjoy sexuality and sleeping. We are looking for finally being able to let go of the habit to focus.

Joe: How does this affect our experience of life, how our body feels?

Florian: When our system habitually runs on a narrow focus - depending on how narrow it is - we lose contact with our embodiment. As the focus becomes wider, we relax a little bit and in that wider focus the body inevitably starts to become more conscious. With that connection, of course the body feels included and met. The body begins to feel safe. From the perspective of the human body, when the body is seen, it automatically feels safe and can easily let go.

Most people have no clue what it means to be at ease in their bodies because we have never learned to meet the sensations of the body without wanting to change or fix them.    

In that instant when the focus gets a little wider, many people become almost shocked how much life there is in the body. We then realize there are things in our life that we have never learned to be safe with, for example: sexuality or aggression. Our body has never learned to be safe with those experiences, so either we control them with a lot of spiritual, religious, social or behavioral concepts, or we deny them completely.

Joe: That has definitely been my experience. I can see how I have used spirituality to cover the stuff I didn’t want to deal with.

Florian: Right.  That’s what is so funny. Spirituality is nothing more than a certain focus, and in that focus our human experience that is here all the time (it never ended) is often excluded.

I am spiritual, so why should I deal with sexuality? I am spiritual so why should I deal with anger? I am spiritual so why should I deal with my family? But a spiritual focus is also only a focus. We may have been focused on money before where our object was money. And then we become spiritual. But in fact we are only shifting the focus to another object; now let’s call it enlightenment. What we have been changing is the object being focused on, but not the focus itself.

When we realize that both objects are not working, that is the moment when awakening can happen. When we become aware of the mechanism that generates the objects - which is the focus - attention can relax, be open up and eventually shift completely towards its own source - which is consciousness itself. Only then we can genuinely include the human-ness fully.

Here is the rest of the interview not printed in Oracle 20-20 magazine:

Joe: Does the awakening take place on its own? I mean, it’s not me doing the awakening because what I consider me would not know how to do that. Who is doing the awakening?

Florian: The 'sense of I' is the narrow focus itself. How can a narrow focus overcome itself? It can’t. It has to let go of this narrow focus, and then it dissolves in that widening. You relax the focus. The body feels tight when the focus is operating, so all you need to do is to listen to the body - when the body produces a feeling of tightness, narrowness, a sense of pain. I call it 'Ow'.

Joe: In me, there seems to be a certain level of 'Ow' that my body seems to be happy with, and it doesn’t even generate the thought that there is anything wrong.

Florian: Exactly, that is the problem. We are so used to living with a certain degree of pain, of contraction, that we can hardly imagine that we can ever possibly be at ease. It’s almost resignation. We have made ourselves relatively comfortable in life, but that’s it.  It’s like we are bouncing back from the possibility of being at ease and peace that seems to be almost unreachable for the human mankind.

Just to clarify: having a comfortable life and feeling relatively happy is not bad. It is just not the end of the line, as we could see recently all over the world amidst the crisis we are having. I am not speaking about having a relatively comfortable life, with a couple of experiences of ease. I am speaking of being free and at genuine peace which is far beyond having a comfortable life.

Joe: What if I don’t hear the signals my body is sending me because I am so used to this level of contraction?

Florian: Let us explore this. Most of us don’t feel much. We are fairly numb, and our bodies are kind of frozen on a certain level. Our nervous system has lost its capacity to be fully alive. It is not fully insensitive, but it is also not fully sensitive. Life is there, but it often is experienced a little lukewarm.

We can sense that a certain elasticity, a certain transparency, a certain receptivity of the body is not there. The body is only used to control life, and there are layers of fear and shock energy in our nervous system that have not been met.

As long as these have not been consciously experienced and met, the body freezes at a certain stage of aliveness that usually people never overcome. It’s not bad, but it is also not really juicy. This is a very tricky level of experience, because when we become aware of that level in our bodies, we have not a clue what to do with it. The body feels frozen, and what we do, we try to stimulate it with all kind of external or internal stimulations.

The body wants to be alive. As it is not alive our environment offers, invents or substitutes something to generate a temporary sense of enjoyment and artificial aliveness. This can be achieved through work, drugs, sports, sexuality, and other external stimuli. Also with contemporary spiritual and religious means like concentration, meditation, singing, breathing techniques, prayer and so on, you can stimulate your system and give it kicks of certain senses of aliveness. Yet the bottom line is: all of this is a product of doing, will and effort. We’ve got to do it, and it only works as long as we do it.

Joe: So we can use mundane and spiritual activities the same way..

Florian: Yes. When we stop doing it, the level of non-aliveness reappears sooner or later. As everyone who e.g. meditates knows, after a couple of hours of meditation, the whole structure returns again. Then we have to extend. We have got to double the doses. And after a while the nervous system even gets used to that; and we have to kick a little harder, meditate a little longer, take more drugs or need more stimulation to come to the same level.

We are caught up in a 'more-loop' and in more seeking - we are reinforcing the desire for more. Underneath, the system remains numb. That level of frozen-ness that is actually a shock reaction in the body mostly has never been met. It can be quite shocking for us when the focus starts to widen and we realize that everything is still there, and that it was just overlayed with some kind of activity. When we are mature enough, we may meet someone who is able to meet us on these levels of experience. We have a chance to finally, slowly and gradually give a little bit of attention to those layers in the nervous system so the body literally can de-freeze from its own frozen-ness.

Joe: That is what I find so valuable in your approach. There are a lot of people I like who speak wonderfully about consciousness and awareness, but your approach gives me the experience of spaciousness and freedom inside, not just up here in my mind.

Florian: I am happy to hear you say that. Indeed, noticing your self as awareness - which is what people call realization of the Self - is not automatically a synonym for being free. As long as this realization is not fully embodied, and the body has not re-integrated into its natural state of ease and peace, there can not be the human experience of freedom. There will be an experience of freedom as awareness which is fantastic. But the experience of BEING FREE as an embodied reality can only be experienced when the body is fully included. Only when we slowly ease through these layers of disintegrated stress in the nervous system will the body feel safe. And when the body feels safe, it freely opens up automatically. Suddenly the whole system opens up to all of life instead of only consciousness. Then there is a direct, all-inclusive experience of oneness. Then the body feels one with everything and IS free. It is not only up here (showing to the head), but the whole cellular structure starts to be available to feel life around us freely and joyfully.

Joe: Now you are answering my real question that I could never word, because if you asked me, are you the Self? Are you Awareness? I would answer yes I know that, but I still don’t have the everyday experience of freedom. Most of the time my body doesn’t know that. It still feels like it lives in a hostile environment.

Florian: Exactly. And that hostile environment may not even be here now. But as the cells of the entire body carry neuronal memory of various moments of overwhelm and unfriendly environments, they produce a constant repetition of a sense of threat though it may not be there in reality. It just feels so real to us, that our whole behavioral structure responds as if there is still hostility around. We know it's not there. We have it clear in our heads. But most of us - even after we have realized that we are consciousness - the body continues believing that there is hostility around, and we’ve got to protect and defend ourselves, though we already know better.

Joe: You are saying that even after we realize that we are consciousness, a process of integration must still take place in our body?

Florian: Absolutely. The first step is one single moment of realizing consciousness as the only reality. In that immediate opening up, suddenly consciousness becomes aware of the entire structure of the mind - and of also the body, with all of the sensations it is still carrying. The problem is we are not used to including and meeting the body, and we don’t feel safe with it. So we instantly exclude it again, deny it or forget about it. Mistakenly we believe, once we realize being consciousness, it’s all over.

In fact, it is exactly the opposite. In the realization of consciousness, you actually realize that everything you did before was trying to get away from your own experience. If this is clear - which is a tremendous disappointment - and we may have the willingness to drop back into the human body; in that descent of consciousness back into the body, it starts to meet all these dysfunctional layers of discomfort, stress and disintegration that have never been met before.

In that meeting - which means giving it a little bit of attention - the body can begin to ease and discharge stress, discharge old 'holding on' and fear energy that may have even been inherited from generations. That descent of consciousness dropping back into the human form is when consciousnesss embodies. That is what I call: the body transforming into an expression of consciousness.

Joe: So what you say is that after 'awakening' there is a profound integration process needed in order to be genuinely free. Is that right?

Florian: Yes. In the beginning, when this recognition of consciousness happens, it is like a big 'Wow'. It is a full expansion, immense widening and letting go of everything the system held on to. All is seen as unreal, and all concepts drop in one single instant. Yet to the degree the body is not fully and genuinely included, the void - the absence of any objectified experiences - this spaciousness becomes a new reference point.

Suddenly, the 'sense of I ' subtly sneaks back in and takes the void as a new reference point. The space that we ARE becomes an object. We walk around claiming that we do not really exit, that nothing is real and all that stuff. The 'sense of I' has identified with nothingness. It has turned being space into an experience rather than BEING IT. Then being space unconsciously becomes a disembodied space out, and we begin to lose contact with normal life.

Though for some it may be a lovely space out, it is still a space out, and there is pain in it. Normally in that space out, we lose contact with things that are a normal part of life; our families, the capacity to earn money, the body. All of a sudden, it is all considered being nothing. If you are lucky, you get into trouble. If you listen to the trouble you get in - and I got in trouble with my wife and other aspects of daily life - and if you let this in, you realize that spacing out wasn't it. It is like falling from paradise. You start to realize that hanging out in the void is just another illusionary projection of the mind that has cost you genuine contact with the richness and fullness of life.

In that moment there is a willingness to drop back into the human form, and the quality of consciousness becomes a living human reality.

We could call it heaven comes to earth rather than hanging around heaven and having no roots anymore. I think many people who have been on the spiritual path these days are becoming suspicious of hanging out in a bliss bubble - in that void - not fully connected.  There is no experience of oneness. It is an experience of space, but it is not being free and feeling ONE with everything.

Joe: How does this happen for us, this dropping back into the human form?

Florian: If you are mature and willing enough to explore deeper, you will question even the void. Only then and when you really begin to listen to the body, the dropping into the human form can happen. You fall back into the human experience, but it is returning as consciousness into the human form, as before 'you' were living as the 'sense of I'.

That is when the whole circle becomes complete, when self realization sets the body/human experience free. Then there is both the realization of consciousness and the experience of freedom in the body. Only when they go together, can this be a living reality. This is what many people identified with spirituality miss. In dropping back into the human form, you actually reconnect with life. The body returns to its own capacity to be genuinely alive, and to be safe with the full impact of life. We start to feel everything around us as our own self.

Joe: I had that experience in your meeting and workshop I attended. I could feel that depth, that clarity. It was beautiful, and I felt it in my body. Let me finally ask you this: Is it your experience that when the pain and stress energy in the body is gone, is it gone for good? 

Florian: Yes. Once it has discharged from the system, it is gone. That means that the body returns to its natural functioning. The cellular structure of the nervous system transforms from disassociation to association. Many wise men, over the last thousands of years have said that being genuinely free demands a full transformation of the entire neuronal structure, back from stress to ease. That’s what is fully included in the meetings, workshops and retreats. It is an invitation to everyone to realize themselves as consciousness, but also assisting people to slowly drop into the body because there they can experience freedom. When they go together, there is peace.

Joe: And that is a great value for me in going to your meetings, because it is modeled for me and I get to immerse myself in the experience of it. I need that.

Florian: Yes. But actually it is the body that needs it (laughter). The body demands inclusion because in including the body, we are including life, we are including the earth, we include everybody. Then this experience of oneness is. It is not made. It is not thought, not a concept or philosophy. If we bring this invitation to the people through our conversation, and generate a little curiosity, then I think our conversation was really of value today. Then we can enjoy together the Celluar Dance Of Oneness.

Joe: Thank you, Florian.

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