Hi Yvonne,

I think that's a really important point - thanks for sharing

We often talk about this in the Openhand Course Work. In fact we just went into it in great depth during "Way of the Heart". From our perspective, we've built up mountains internal conditioning and distorted behaviour patterns due to the systems we live in. As a result, the soul is fragmented and constricted within the various bodily vehicles of expression. It is this constriction that causes the pain and suffering.

Of course we could simply avoid it by ignoring it or trying to paint a more rosy reality. However, I believe we really need to ask what is the purpose of life? To me, the purpose is to unleash the full, unfettered and unrestricted expansiveness of the soul. To find our most authentic expression in every moment and let it loose. To express the One Life in all its glory and shine light into the deepest darkness.

What stops us doing this? It's all those areas where we tighten, get stuck, go into negativity, doubt, fear, blame, etc etc. So if we allow it to, and the ego doesn't resist, deny or dissolve our true path, the soul will take us exactly into those areas of maximum discomfort so that we can release our fears, dissolve our identification, expand into them and liberate ourselves. Once this old consciousness is dissolved, we stop creating those fearful/suffering patterns of behaviour. From our perspective, it is the only authentic and real way to be free.

Over time, even though we may continue to confront tightness, the suffering itself disappears because we're simply not identifying.

If we consider karma for example and of the horrific circumstances humanity has lived through during our history, then you can be sure we are each carrying the pain and suffering of that in our causal bodies - that's the very reason we're incarnated: to confront this energy again and loose our attachment to it. To me, this is the only real way to Enlightenment and Ascension.

So my advice to anyone would be to keep confronting the tightness and pain when it comes up, go deep into it, become intimately familiar with it until it no longer has a hold over us - it no longer defines us. Then when the attachment to the pain has gone, feel the soul expand into it. In all the course work we've done and where we've used this approach with people, the uplifting effect is truly breath-taking!

Chris

Every time I'm amazed to see how a certain subject is discussed here and it's just about what I'm being through at the moment.

For example, previous Saturday was like burning in hell for me...I don't remember when I last time have been through such a horror...

In such an awful state all kinds of discouraging thoughts were running in my head: like - "Where is your God?!" or "That's it! It's here again! You fell again.." "You will never get out of this horrible place.." etc You know..life is bad, all is bad...I really thought I was dismissed back to my low and dark existence.

But then I said: I give up...rest my case.. Whatever happens - I don't care. Live, die, healthy, sick, happy or sad, whatever..

and then suddenly I found myself in some kind of quiet state, and while feeling obedient, at the same time I felt free.

My body was tortured, weak, sick, tired...I felt as if I was ran by a truck. But at the same time, for the first time, I really didn't mind.

The day after I was in the bus on my way to work, listening to music...I felt as if I had a clenched fist in my chest, but somehow now I could relax it..and when I did..what can I say? It was pure happiness, freedom, kindness, I don't know how to describe it even... I had tears of happiness and a permanent smile all my 1.5 hours on road.

..I read Chris's book again, for the third time, but this time I really understood what was written there about 1st and 2nd gateways, not logically, theoretically, etc, but really knew what he is talking about.

All those words - letting go, expanding, opening, wholeness, etc could not limit the meaning anymore

The next week I begun to become dense again...Like collecting denseness. I guess more of the stuff is coming up. this time I don't even expect it to lead somewhere, to bring me somewhere, or to mean something. It is just happening, and I'm looking at it, and expanding above it; it feels as if I'm coming up the stairs. I see the stair, I step on it and coming up..

And here is this post and Chris is writing:

It's all those areas where we tighten, get stuck, go into negativity, doubt, fear, blame, etc etc. So if we allow it to, and the ego doesn't resist, deny or dissolve our true path, the soul will take us exactly into those areas of maximum discomfort so that we can release our fears, dissolve our identification, expand into them and liberate ourselves. Once this old consciousness is dissolved, we stop creating those fearful/suffering patterns of behaviour. From our perspective, it is the only authentic and real way to be free.

thanks for your response Chris, I feel that I am driven to be my authentic self, and I really believe that the only permenant way, with no avoidance is to, instead of running away from the tiger is to turn around face it, throw away the gun, as the tiger is an illusion.I have recently been through one of the toughest parts of my journey so far, I felt I was going mad, but knew behind the turmoil that it was a bluff. It was the worst experience mentally I have ever experienced.As I said earlier it seems to get tougher the more you go through,but I believe that you can cope with more.
Internally I was asked if I wanted to let go of my 'stuff' (going way back) and then again I was asked and so on, big issues in my life. In fact it was like all the fears I have ever had were coming at me the strongest they had ever been. I was being challenged are you ready to let go, I'd take a deep breath in and say yes, and wait to see was in store for me. At it's peak I was saying ' ok Gremlins you keep throwing the shit and I will catch it with a smile on my face, and I mentally shaped it into coins and deposited them in the bank of the Soul!.The words Dark night of the Soul kept coming to me, along with other phrases.For a fleeting moment I shouted out loud I don't give a ---- about dying.
After the euphoria that followed I felt/feel confused, similar to when I first woke up. I felt I was dying, that is the old me is dying, and I am in a transitional period 'waiting' to know what to do next.I sort of feel in limbo.I have given up/ let go of what I was/have been doing.Now I am at home sort of not doing a lot, knowing the more I want something to happen the more it will ellude me.Also I have been trying to work out if I am still supposed to be with my husband and this is a big issue with me at the moment. One I have wondered before, again when I first woke up. He is such a good person, and in some ways loves a lot of what I do i.e. simple life, nature etc.
I supposes I want to feel free, not tied to anything or anyone, but I also say to myself I can't just float round the country, or can I?
I feel at the moment a sense of wanting to be part of a community really, where people understand where I am coming from, feel I really belong to. I have had really really strong feelings of helping people these last few years, but a while before I went through this major stuff lately I began to sense I have to finish sorting myself out first, so I have stepped back from the helping. I imagine I will be ready for this in time once more.
Any feedback would be useful,thanks.

Hi Yvonne,

Indeed it does feel like a "dark night of the soul" as you say. For me, when working with people, I find it exceptionally powerful to apply the Five Gateways route-map to what people are experiencing. In that way, it's possible to understand where we're at and why we're experiencing the things we are. I'm finding constantly that people working with me on it are having tremendous benefit (thanks Yulia for the kind words of confirmation).

So as I read your post, I find myself asking what kind of Gateway experience is this? And my intuition tells me the journey is leading you right to the threshold of Gateway 2. Actually what it means to be truly walking the path.

What causes me to feel that is because your inner state of consciousness seems to think that your choices still need to be made by something you do as opposed to something you are being.

So your contemplation about staying with your husband. Now I know this is truly very testing, even an earth shattering thing to have to face, but it is one that truly tests whether or not we are committed to walking the spiritual path, whatever that may cost.

As difficult as it may sound in such circumstances, in fact you don't really have to labour over a choice of what to do. The key is to keep looking deep inside and unfolding how you feel to be - IN EVERY SINGLE MOMENT. Then let what you do become a natural expression of what you are being - IN THE MOMENT.

So if you follow this completely, then you simply will not be able to make certain choices because they'd contradict what you'd be feeling to be from the soul. It's like the soul simply would not allow you to 'enter that house' (metaphorically speaking), because it would constrain and confine.

This happens the more we turn up the volume on the soul until beingness guides our every step. There's simply no need to 'work out' what to do in the mind. Doing becomes an obvious choice of being.

In this state, there simply are no such boundaries as contracts like marriages for example. It leaves us completely able to be free.

I would say if you're already asking the question whether you should stay in the marriage, then the marriage has already ended in the way it currently exists. It's just that the mind is trying to hold onto the past and not accepting of where your soul now is. In any case, how can such an important agreement be sustained when there is such a fundamental question at its foundation?

Does this mean you should leave? As in leave the proximity of your husband? It could be yes, and it could be no. It all depends on how you feel to be and whether or not staying in the matrimonial house serves your higher purpose. Does it constrain? or liberate? Does it support? or crush? Does it contradict? or does it empower?

It could be that the relationship ends as it currently is but then a new relationship forms that is more open and free. One which respects where your soul now feels to be. One that respects you need to be fully integral and whole.

It could also mean that you are indeed supposed to leave. How should you decide? Again, you simply don't have to. Find out how to be then keep expressing that until it becomes abundantly obvious what to do.

This is what it truly means to be walking the path. Most people think they're already doing it but really they are not at all. Their choices are still shaped by mind led emotions and conditioning. Or else by denial, suppression and lack of internal sensitivity.

The soul is absolutely awesome. It is totally without limitation or constraint. Given the freedom, by the ego, it will do WHATEVER it is given to do at WHATEVER the apparent personal cost. Even if that means leaving a partner, even if it should lead to the death of ourselves another. Yes you're right, the soul is not afraid to die, but neither is it afraid to live!

That's the awesome majesty of the soul and we get to taste its true essence in the most testing circumstances like you're experiencing now.

With deep love and empathy

Chris