My Experience
with Authentic Living
~Tsukina Blessing,
Student of Western Sufism
for seven years and ALI student for one year
Noticing a change in me, an old friend asked
me recently how it's been. It's been an
amazing journey to an authentic life. I feel
as though a beautiful melody that was always
there but mostly inaudible has been born
into the world, and many of the old screechy
parts of myself are fading to background
noise. There is peace, fire, and joy in my
life, instead of frustration, hope, fear and
disappointment. I'm more spontaneous,
capable, and present. In practical terms,
what this means is that my husband tells me
I'm a lot easier to be around most of the
time; I no longer find myself in fits of
impotent rage when dealing with my family of
origin; my career is still stagnant, but
that's no longer a source of frustration or
anguish; and my satisfaction rating of life
in general has gone up 1000%.
How did such a transformation occur? I've
had years of therapy and years on the Sufi
path, but for the recent change, I have to
credit the last year working with the
Authentic Living Institute. A friend in the
work said to me "I now realize that nothing
in the world out there supports my real
being." The Authentic Living work helped me
to see how I had created a projection of the
world that supported the false ideas of
myself that are my ego structure. And there
came a moment when, having seen enough of my
own ego patterns, and having had enough
experiences of the amazing reality that I
was keeping myself from experiencing with
these patterns, I could simply see that the
ego life was not where it's at. There was no
charm or allure in those patterns any more.
They are no longer a source of safety and
comfort, but of desiccation. The ego is not
morally bad, just boring. All my life I've
heard about slaying the ego, renouncing the
ego; it sounded so violent, and so
difficult. For years I used mental ideals
and false will in the hopes of refining the
ego, to little result. And finally there
came the day when I let myself realize that
the false was unsatisfying, dry and dusty,
and reality is the very nature of
satisfaction, juiciness and aliveness.
Now, this is no Pinocchio story, where I
suddenly woke up from my wooden and
mechanical life to shout "Look papa, I'm a
real human" and dance with the cat and the
fish. The realization happened in a moment
out of time, but the process of becoming
ready for that realization took time. And
the integration is taking time, too, but now
there is the joy of understanding that the
process is the point of the exercise, not
just the way to some far off goodies.
So what does this process look like from the
outside? One weekend a month, about 20 of us
meet together with Michael Torresan, the
director of the Authentic Living Institute.
We spend some time covering intellectual
models and then set out to explore an aspect
of reality and the aspect of ego life that
prevents us from experiencing it. All this
occurs in the context of a group of
dedicated, brave, ordinary people longing,
seeking, and working to know Truth and live
from it. We'll do some meditation, and a
breath or chant practice to create an
experience of the divine quality we're
working with, then we'll explore the two
sides of the ego's response to disconnection
from that quality. So, for example, if we
were working with strength, we would examine
the position of the weak one, the victim,
and the position of the falsely strong one,
the angry one. We would break up into groups
of two or three and explore how we use anger
to stay small, or ask the question what
scares me about having my strength?
These questions and exercises sound simple
enough to be banal, but the results are
amazing. How often do you spend 10 minutes
of concentrated clarity devoted to
understand the truth of yourself? The
quality of the discovery is deeply
influenced by the field of the group. As
each person works, others witness from a
place of non-reactivity. When I am serving
as a witness to another's process, I am
simply seeing, hearing and sensing. I am not
thinking about what sort of socially
appropriate, emotionally supportive or
spiritually insightful response I am
supposed to have. I'm not trying to fix
anything or even necessarily keep the story
straight in my head. It is enormously
freeing, and there is something quite
pleasurable about watching the truth unveil
itself.
Although at first it seems terrifying, it is
amazing what it does to have one or two
people witness my exploration. By their
attentive, non-judgmental presence, I am
sustained to deepen my self-understanding.
There is constant confirmation that not
everyone will laugh or be angry at me for my
thoughts and feelings. I am freed of the
need to entertain others or defend myself.
As my ego reveals itself to me, I can
explore my reactions to being seen, my
longing for validation and my fear of
exposure.
As we have developed trust and skill over
the year together, the group has become like
one big learning organism. Seeing each
person's ego shines light on my own, since
ego is a repetitive and boringly uncreative
set of strategies. Sharing experiences of
essential states helps me become more
precisely aware of a state in the moment and
helps prevent me from denying or devaluing
it later. And having these states in an
environment with other people gives me a
constant testing ground - if I am feeling
that the fabric of the universe is made of
love, does this apply to the guy across the
room who has a frown like my father's?
As I am writing, I look at why this work is
valuable to me, since it is one of the most
important things in my life. I have long
believed that my life is to be of service to
others. And now I can see clearly that I
cannot begin to be of service until I am a
human being, rather than a collection of
habits and patterns. This work has helped me
understand and integrate my past learning
and experiences in such a way that I can
begin to be in contact with reality, rather
than living in a world of projection. This
is the way that I see where I am needed and
provide help - by being in touch with the
moment-to-moment unfurling edge of reality
and realizing myself as that unfoldment in
action. I hope that in some way this article
may be of service to you.
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| Tsukina Blessing has studied with guides and
teachers of three streams of the teachings
of Hazrat Inayat Khan. She is a Healing
Conductor in the Sufi and Dervish Healing
Orders, a Semazen in the Mevlevi Order of
America. She is a student of Raphaelite
Work, a hands-on healing approach in the
Sufi tradition, and a practitioner in Jin
Shin acupressure, a marriage of Chinese
medical wisdom informed by modern
psycho-therapeutic understanding. If you are
interested in scheduling a session in either
the Seattle area or Port Townsend area,
please contact Tsukina at 360-732-5033 or
tsukina@yahoo.com
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