The Holding Sky of Awareness

The source of this book came into my awareness in 1994, at a time of great emotional pain. My marriage was disintegrating, a reality that I neither wanted nor felt I could accept. A portal, to deep and previously encased pain within my being, opened. I wrestled with this pain constantly. I found it overwhelming.

            In March of 1994, I was grieving deeply on the floor of an upstairs room in my house when I realized that I couldn’t do this anymore. I didn’t know what to do and I believed that the pain would destroy me. I couldn’t see beyond my grief. For the first time in my life I cried out for help, to whom I did not know. Like an abandoned and frightened child, between sobs I cried, “Help me! Help me! I can’t do this anymore!” Then I lost consciousness for what seemed a short time.

            When I became aware again, the silent word “write” was in my head. I got off the floor, grabbed a pen and began to write in a notebook. The sentences came without effort and I felt calm as I transcribed them. This is what I wrote.

          “The pain isn’t the point. It always passes. And when it does, I am what remains. At the end, there is peace and silence. While there is pain, you doubt that the peace and silence exist. But they do.

          The only way is through the pain. There are no easy ways. If easy ways existed, the whole world would be at peace. Resisting the pain creates war. So have your pain. Sob and sob on the floor, night after night, and you will see that it will ease. This pain is not for anyone else but you. Your pain. Stop making others responsible for it. You have it inside and it wants release and acknowledgement. It is the equilibrator and will restore inner balance.

          After the storm of pain begins to subside, the dawn will begin to rise and you can let go of it all. Peace will come. What you will be then is what you have always been but never realized. What you knew as you, you will then know as false and not you. You will have shed it easily. There will be no need to hurt yourself or others. There will be no need for divisions but only acceptance and ease and love.

          Then you will know that this happening now was all necessary because of where you were and where you needed to come. You will then know that you resisted this process very much but also knew that you could not remain where you were. This process takes time. Your time is ripening but there is more pain and more resistance to the pain yet to come. But you will stay with the sobs and anger and see them through and the pain will ease. You will wake up and find yourself anew. You will look back and bless the struggle.

          It is all as it is to be. Have faith each day. Ask for help and I will assist and guide you. It will be given and you will make the journey. But ask, as you did tonight, and it will become easier. I help all who ask. Your struggle has a purpose. Your pain is your guide and friend and where you must be. Peace will appear.

          This is the way it has always been throughout the ages. I have seen. It has always progressed in this way. I will not fail you as I have never failed others willing to ask for help, seek their truth and acknowledge their pain.”

For the next ten years, writings like this came to me and I transcribed them. They usually came into my awareness after I had written in a journal about my thoughts, feelings and life circumstances. Discharging all my usual mental contents onto the pages of a journal seemed to open a mental space for the writings to enter my awareness. The ordinary journal entries were about the drama of my life. The transcribed writings were from a place beyond my personal drama but they counseled and comforted me and addressed specifics of my personal circumstances.

For a long time, I believed that the source of these writings was outside of me. I called that source, Father. I didn’t know if Father was an angel, spirit guide, universal mind or other disembodied entity of some sort. I only knew that these words that came to me were wise and loving and helped me a great deal. I very much felt like a child learning from Father.

The initial writing was right. My pain did ease. I divorced. I experienced a three year period of grief with steadily declining intensity. I realized that this grieving process was only partially about my marital circumstances. It was a process of discovering an enormous amount of pain within, much older than my marriage. I learned that I could tolerate the pain and that it would pass. I learned that it wasn’t necessary to completely understand the cause of the pain. Simply being present with the pain and allowing myself to experience it deeply appeared to be the key elements that led to release of the pain.

In 2004, the character of these writings changed. They became more generic, addressed no longer just to me but to all human beings. They are about the human experience of spiritual transformation. This book you hold is composed of the writings since 2004.

A fundamental concept in this book is that spiritual transformation occurs through detaching self-identity from the ego. This requires sufficiently expanded self-awareness to see the ego for what it is. In this book, this process is termed “ego dis-identification.”  Since the word ego means different things to different people, I would like to offer my understanding of the concept of ego as it is used in this book.