Dear Sensory one,
waterfall
I read of a woman who finally achieved boundless self love through her sense of touch. She used one hand to tenderly and slowly caress the other and her arms, shoulders, legs and feet – truly registering the sensations of her own gentle touch on her skin. Take a moment just now to slowly stroke your own hand and arm and you will immediately see how this could be.
Rumi is said to have achieved enlightenment using sight in a gazing practice – extended soft-focused gazing into the eyes of another. He followed his physical sight inward until he saw the god within the other – that God within all things – and then he saw it gazing back at him, as nothing less than himself, in unfathomable divine love. This practice transported him to another level of being.
Quan Yin is said to have achieved enlightenment by listening to the sound of ocean waves and the space between them. Alternately, I have heard it said she listened to waves lapping on a lake. Or the sound of the river. Is it known where she lived and what, therefore, she might have listened to? I don’t know. But she followed her physical hearing with such attention that she fell into the space between the sounds, where that which is God resides.
Whether drumming and dancing around fires, a dervish in their concentrated spin, Rumi gazing, Quan Yin listening, the miracle of self-caress, one thing is clear: sight, sound, touch, taste, movement – the body is built to help achieve enlightenment, not hinder it. The senses can be sacred doorways opening to expanded worlds.
See, listen, sing, breathe, touch. Take time to use your senses for their greatest potential. Even taste… a meal spent feeling the sensations of food in your mouth, really savoring and tasting it with heightened awareness. Truly experience your sensations when engaging with your meal through sight, taste, touch, smell and sound. Even this common act done with mindful open-hearted attention can lead to ecstasy, or a depth of silence, or such profound gratitude that all else falls away.
There is no need to leave your body to ascend, it is meant to assist you along the way!
I think that’s something wonderful to consider!
~X💜Mayet
