Many who come to our monthly Satsangs are looking to recover from trauma incurred in childhood or as an adult in an abusive relationship. An ACE study looked at the ramifications of childhood sexual abuse on our adult relationships and health, and found it was not only more prevalent than thought, but people suffered poor mental and physical health years after the abuse ended. Talk and drug therapy are useful, but often do not seem to remove the trauma at the root. Meditation is frequently suggested to help with the anxiety and depression that often accompanies the stress of living with a past or presently occurring trauma. The meditation we offer is a living meditation, one that points to who or what we are. As Awareness, in a movement of Wholeness, we come to realize that what we are can never be and has never been traumatized. Trauma occurred, trauma was experienced, suffering is present, but it is merely what we are experiencing; we are not the experience. When looked at closely, we can come to once again know that which is before the emotion and the trauma. When we ask, Who or what am I?, we get the direct experience of Nothingness/Absolute before our mind kicks in attempting to fill in the blanks. For many of us, it can take a few sessions of inquiry before identification with the mind chatter softens enough for us to be able to recognize ourselves as Stillness, the silent vastness that is present directly after the inquiry. The silent, expansive vastness does not have borders and is unaffected by anything experienced in this apparent life unfolding before us. Rediscovering what is always present, our true nature, is key to diffusing the mental and physical stress that our biological bodies and minds are enduring or have endured.
May you know yourself as this Peace, Bec and Steve