From IP to Holistic Learning Toward WPL AWIn addition, activities like counselling and much of what...

Whole Person Learning – Inquiry, Research and Application

From Integrating Practice to Holistic Learning: Toward Whole Person Learning


© The Oasis School of Human Relations

Contents

Preface ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 2

1: Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Compatibility or Conflict? .................................................................................................................................................... 3

The Eclectic Practitioner ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

The Integrated Practitioner .................................................................................................................................................. 4

2: Integrating Practice ............................................................................................................................................................ 7

Language and Terminology ................................................................................................................................................. 7

Non-conscious Phenomena .............................................................................................................................................. 8

Integrated Practice and Holistic Learning .......................................................................................................................... 8

Holistic ............................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Mystique and Peer Relationships ...................................................................................................................................... 10

Different Realities ............................................................................................................................................................... 10

Integrating Practice ........................................................................................................................................................... 11

3: Education, Learning, Teaching ........................................................................................................................................ 13

The Nature of Knowledge .................................................................................................................................................. 13

Cultural Influences ............................................................................................................................................................. 13

Learning ............................................................................................................................................................................ 14

Learning and ‘Experience’ ................................................................................................................................................. 15

Teaching and Learning ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

Fields of Consciousness ................................................................................................................................................... 16

Pre-verbal Experience and Learning ................................................................................................................................. 16

Levels of Awareness .......................................................................................................................................................... 17

4: The Power of Relationship .............................................................................................................................................. 19

‘Meeting’ with the Other .................................................................................................................................................... 19

The Place of Love .............................................................................................................................................................. 20

Diversity in Meeting ........................................................................................................................................................... 20

Practical influences ........................................................................................................................................................... 23

Fields of Meeting ............................................................................................................................................................... 23

The Re-emergence of the ‘Person’ .................................................................................................................................... 24

Embodied Beings .............................................................................................................................................................. 25

5: The Transpersonal: The Extra Dimension ..................................................................................................................... 27

Symbolism and Imagery .................................................................................................................................................... 27

The Paradigm of the Person .............................................................................................................................................. 27

The Transpersonal and Presence ...................................................................................................................................... 28

Invoking the Transpersonal ................................................................................................................................................ 29

Transition ........................................................................................................................................................................... 30

Mindfulness ....................................................................................................................................................................... 30

6: The Shadow Perspective in the Transpersonal ............................................................................................................. 33

Working with the Shadow .................................................................................................................................................. 34

Appendix 1: Summary: Integrated Practice ....................................................................................................................... 35

Appendix 2: Themes, Concepts and Ideas from the Integrated Practice and Holistic Learning Co-operative Inquiry ...... 37

From IP to Holistic Learning Toward WPL AW 29/11/11 15:01 Page 3


© The Oasis School of Human Relations2

Preface

This document draws on the written record from an 18-month Co-operative

Inquiry into Integrated Practice and Holistic Learning. It creates a coherent

and unique exploration of what it means to be holistic and/or a practitioner.

The discussions, ideas, dilemmas and concepts that arose during the inquiry

have been explored and expanded upon by the authors in the development

of the manual. Many voices, therefore, will be heard and discussion threads

are identifiable throughout. The themes that developed within each module of

the inquiry, together with their attendant ideas and thoughts, are described in

Appendix 2.



© The Oasis School of Human Relations 3

1: Introduction

Contemporary professions have little or no understanding or insight into the need for utilising a range of approaches and

disciplines. Educational practices are so determined to maintain the status quo that, in many senses, they are deformed.

There is so much knowledge around that no single profession or practitioner can hold it all.

The work of Donald Schön1 highlights the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches. One example he uses is that of

road building. In making decisions in this area he notes the incompatibility of the needs of the environment and the needs

of the community. We have yet to grasp the true social costs of many initiatives, weighed against the benefits.

Schön goes on to explore in detail the level of integration that will be needed for our current world situation. Multi-

disciplinary teams, he says, will have to be the norm, yet we are far from being aware of this need and far from being able

to put it into practice. Practitioners will not have the knowledge base or the practical expertise to assess all the costs and

benefits and so they will have to work on trust. The transitional stage is the professional who can see the wider

perspective and work in a more holistic way. All this is very well put by Schön. Integrating practice continues to be of

interest to the practitioner who is becoming more and more inclusive in what they take into account.

Compatibility or Conflict?

Today, there are so many different kinds of ‘practice’ where one person is offering themselves to another in a helping role

that the whole area is a minefield of claims, counterclaims and assertions. The titles taken by people for themselves and

their work can either clarify what they offer or confuse completely. Different people use the same words and descriptions

in very different ways; different descriptions, notably ‘integrated’ and ‘holistic’, are often used interchangeably. In exploring

what integrated practice really means and what it can hold for the reflective individual, it becomes necessary to examine

certain terms in order to discover their relationship with and relevance to integrated practice, such as:

• Holistic learning and holistic practice

• Whole Person Learning

• Education, learning, teaching

• The transpersonal

• The power of relationship

• Language and terminology.

All of this gives rise to a number of crucial questions, including:

• What makes for integrating practice?

• What makes for a holistic practitioner?

• Who is interested in Whole Person Learning?

• Who knows and who cares?

1 See Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1984




The Eclectic Practitioner

Any activity that is practice-based will take things from all over the place and integrate them into itself if those ‘things’

(practices, ideas, concepts etc) give measurable improvement – this is especially so in helping perhaps more than any

other activity.

In the past this borrowing from other related disciplines was described as ‘eclectic’. However, the term ‘eclectic’ has

become far too loose and woolly, often giving the impression that all the practitioner has done is gather together a ragbag

of bits and pieces that he or she fancied, and in one stroke is up and running as an ‘eclectic’ practitioner.

However, to be an eclectic practitioner once had quite a currency. It implied you had much experience of different

approaches and somehow brought them into a coherent form of understanding of practice. To describe oneself as

‘eclectic’ in the 1980s, when the helping world was evolving fast, was a mark of distinction. Not so now. To be eclectic is

to be frowned upon. It suggests waywardness, lack of discipline, intellectual hedgehopping and rootlessness. It is

important in these days of heavy-duty qualifications and accreditation to have roots and to make clear what they are.

It is interesting to note how far things have changed. In part this is due to the proliferation of training programmes and the

need to lengthen them in order to make them ‘respectable’ (giving the appearance of academic rigour) and make them

appear comparable to other forms of training. In addition, activities like counselling and much of what is termed ‘therapy’

was originally developed in the 1960s as an ‘eclectic’ activity since people were interested in exploring what worked in the

absence of any agreed theory or worked-out standards as to what was required. You might argue that after a time these

things are no longer so hit and miss, however, you only need to stop and think for a moment to realise that something as

complex as human helping is never going to be reducible to a single definition. Nor are its practices going to be

modifiable to a single all-encompassing description that applies to everyone everywhere. Helping in this sense will always

be ‘eclectic’.

The Integrated Practitioner

Then the debate moved to the ‘integrated’ practitioner, as though it was a much more serious enterprise to integrate

something than it was to know what worked and to be able to use it. And, of course, ‘holistic’ practice has been around

for a long time, as has the term ‘whole person learning’. The paradox of these last two terms is that there is so much that

makes up a ‘whole person’ that no practitioner can hope to become conversant, let alone skilled, in it all – body-mind,

educational theory, psychological dynamics, systems theory etc. And, after all, a ‘holistic’ approach can only be that – an

approach. No one can possibly pretend that they can bring to their work with a person something from everywhere or they

would offer such a smattering of all the possible elements it would lack credibility.

Yet for all this, these terms do strike at something that goes beyond traditional ways of seeing the person and responding

to them as though they are only the ‘site’ of their difficulties – as though those difficulties can be separated from the rest

of them, isolated and fixed and then the individual can go his or her merry way. We all know that simply isn't the way it is.

So, many of us are pursuing the grail of integrating new ideas and approaches into our practice and striving all the time to

be more holistic and offer more of a whole person approach. But how do we do it and where do we go for such

preparation?

Confidence in practice, further development and a recognition that there are many ways to integrate a variety of

approaches to create a personal, unique blend of practice is more and more common amongst folk who have an interest

in practice and their own development. Once they have a firm grounding in their own model of practice, finding what else

fits and how to extend and expand the range of their own competence is often part of what keeps alive an interest in the

questions of working with people. For many, attending workshops and longer courses are all part of that acquisition of

further knowledge and understanding, along with some kind of developmental relationship (supervisor or other

developmental alliance).




However, there comes a point, too, when other people offering what they know about how they think it is done, needs to

be done, or should be done is no longer a viable or challenging way to learn about how you do it, what else you might do

and what else you might include usefully. In other words, whilst we all have things to learn from others there is a risk of

becoming a workshop junkie, a confidently dependent practitioner who is all the time learning from others and overlooks

the practice wisdom that they actually possess.

We often talk about being able to ‘speak your own practice’ and it is evident that there are any number of approaches that

can usefully inform a broad-based approach to working with the person that is based on relationship – there isn’t just one

way. Speaking your practice can get more and more intriguing as well as complicated as a wider range of experiences and

phenomena are included in the work. In the same way, giving an account of what influences you feel operate on you, in

what kind of situations, with what kind of effects is, in part, daunting but does also offer the potential for taking

understanding and learning further.




2: Integrating Practice

Language and Terminology

Language does not always help in this search for understanding and meaning. In some cultures, for example, there are

many words for love that describe the different kinds of relationships where love will manifest itself, such as parent/child,

lovers etc. Responsibilities go along with these more specific meanings, as is seen in India where there are commitments

and obligations in a specific way. In our culture there tends to be the emotional charge rather than an act of commitment

or obligation.

Interpretation of words is difficult. We need to work at this and refine the process until we reach the point where we can

state: when we say this, we mean this. Perhaps there is a difference in a language that emerges out of an experience to

that used when talking about an experience. In cultures, languages can be interrupted and experiences arrested which

may have a profound effect on their further development. Experiences may be lost, language may be lost, spiritual

traditions masked by others that are superimposed upon them, all of which will then be very hard to retrieve – if they ever

can be.

Changing the metaphor, changing the language makes a big difference. ‘Stepping aside’, for example, is very different

from being ‘objective’, which suggests a distance, a coldness, an objectifying. When we leave this room, we are gracefully

withdrawing. We know the space is always here and can come back to it. With clients, it is possible on a non-conscious

level to gracefully withdraw 10 minutes prior to the end of a session. There has to be a balance between being with the

client in possibly deep work and the strictures of time and other boundaries. A key seems to be how to do this

‘gracefully’. This concept gives the sense not of leaving, but moving to a different space.

A further question is, ‘What obligation is there on us to take what we learn and transmit it to the world out there?’ It is

important to explore the motivation for doing this. Unless this is explicitly expressed, it will take a lot longer for the world

to become aware of what working in this paradigm holds and means. A holistic practitioner will come to mean someone

who can work with a number of techniques. As we expand into consciousness, if this all remains implicit we are colluding

with all those who have certificates etc, who then go on to claim that they are holistic practitioners.

Do we need to describe our practice? Perhaps having a certainty in what I bring that the other will be able to connect with

means I do not have to describe my practice. Perhaps there is a difficulty in expressing practice from a new paradigm in

the old paradigm. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to find the language or the means to explain knowing and

understanding when we are in this paradigm but we do in the other realities. This is an alien way of talking in society – a

language, and perhaps concepts, which would not generally be understood.

It may be that we will need to find a new language; to explore how we express what we know. Many of the images and

reactions seem to be in the pre-verbal state and it is important not to be afraid of words – even if they do not currently

fully explain, expand upon experiences and insights and understandings. There must be a procedure of knowing

language. Within the whole notion of language many questions are raised, including:

• What are the words communicating?

• How is this meaning communicated?

• How may this meaning be communicated without certain senses, e.g. sight and hearing?

• Are the words and the person’s inner reality congruent?

• Is there authenticity?




Yet, the common state for most exchanges between people in the current paradigm is that neither party is really

consciously aware of what they mean, what they are feeling and what is really happening between them. The client is

always at a disadvantage. The exchange is on the practitioner’s terms even if it is described as our terms; the practitioner

will teach the client enough of the rules for what the client needs. In the new paradigm, the client has as much a part to

play in working out the relationship as the practitioner.

Non-conscious Phenomena

It is important to examine carefully what an experience is. You don’t know how much you are controlled by what you don’t

know. If you operate solely from the psychological, you couldn’t know that the transpersonal is an influence. Once you

know, does it have to be present for both people for there to be an influence? Or will it be there anyway?

How do we know which phenomena to attend to? What is the effect of attending to them? In our traditional culture we do

not look for anything other than the purely physical. It is important to pay attention to the psychological element underlying

the physical phenomena. This is a mode of understanding that is relatively sophisticated and No Boundary by Ken Wilber2

is recommended for more information in this area. An organising principle is something around which you build your

practice. For example, you may decide you can only work on ley lines, but then it is possible to confuse the belief with

simply realising that this is only a way of focusing consciousness to get into the place to do whatever it is you do.

Integrated Practice and Holistic Learning

The terms integrated practice and holistic learning are often used in the general world of helping without any considered

reflection of what they actually mean. All four words, in whatever combination, have enormous implications for how one

person works with another. More so, they have implications for how one person relates to another/others. This seems to

be the key.

Within all of this, and inextricably linked within it, is the presence of the transpersonal.3 It is an awareness of this added

dimension that brings any encounter into the realm of the integrated and opens up the possibility of different levels of

meeting. Now it becomes possible to meet at a much deeper level, to be open to the greater forces present in the

universe, to begin to discern the connections and to stay connected more and more.

Integrating practice is only possible if the practitioner is continually looking at their own process, exploring integrating

themselves as a being. As we develop, learn and understand more of ourselves, how we operate, what gets in our way,

our ‘shadow’, and our link with the Divine, we find there is automatically an equivalent increase in integrated ‘practice’.

The two are inseparable. I am the practitioner – it is not a role to pick up and put down in set situations. It is a life-long

process. There is no attempt at separating out parts of the person – either the other or me.

There is a fundamental difference between an external comprehensive, coherent account of ‘I must acquire different ways,

then I’ll be integrated’ to ‘I am the integration of the practice’. If I am sensitive to my own process, this will lead me to the

next place I need to go: trusting in the process and aware of delusions. Integrating practice comes out of engagement

with my own practice and not with a system of knowledge, which is the antithesis to current educational practices. If I

believe people haven’t got it, can’t ever have it – who tells them they have got it? Then they have to keep being reassured

they have it and so they never believe they have it internally. The question is, ‘How do people exchange external approval

for internal authority for what they do?’ It is about accounting for oneself in a totally different way and being awake.

2 No Boundary, Ken Wilber, Shambhala Publications, 19913 See Chapter 5: The Transpersonal: The Extra Dimension.

Relationship, meeting, presence, ‘being’, are all fundamental concepts held within the deeper meaning of

being integrated and holistic in one’s approach to life: because this is what it is truly about – one’s

stance to life in all its arenas and all meetings and encounters.




One pitfall is that these terms are so woolly that they can be used to make a claim of practice without any definable

agreement about what that means. Holistic is often used interchangeably with ‘alternative’ – whatever that means. There are

those who train in short courses in massage, for example, who know a set routine and then call themselves holistic

practitioners. The way in which someone runs their business will also reflect the style of the person – so the person makes

it holistic, or not. Therefore, it is essential to have an awareness of all the terms and their meanings before taking it to

anyone else. The step beyond this is where holistic learning and integrating practice come together, transcending the roles.

Holistic

The term ‘holistic’ first came into vogue in the 1970s. There was the recognition that people learn in ways other than in the

intellectual/mind. The knowledge that it was possible to influence unconscious body systems, such as brainwaves, came

about through biofeedback research; subliminal learning was, therefore, possible. In the last 30 years more and more

people have become interested in increasing their capacity for learning – not just as an intellectual process.

Holistic learning involves the person far more in the learning and is about bringing the subconscious and the conscious

together. This is very different from person-centred learning. This then is not about the stance that the person takes to the

other and is not about how they relate; it is more about bringing together all parts of learning in the person: emotional,

physical, physiological, spiritual, in the conscious and unconscious. The contrast between this approach and that of

current educational practice is huge, with the latter perpetuating its own controlling paradigm. Opportunities for holistic

learning, which were present more in primary schools than in secondary schools, were lost with the National Curriculum.

Even Steiner schools are based on the needs of the soul and are not, therefore, holistic.

The term ‘holistic’ came from frustrated researchers who felt they were not getting heard in their findings about learning,

such as that how one feels and the condition one is in will affect how one learns. In terms of research they were heard, yet

the influence on practice was minimal. Holistic learning is about one’s stance to the world and to the person: to wait and

see what needs to happen, at whatever level release is most needed: a sense that there is nothing to teach, but that it is

about creating a safe place to let the person grow into their own learning.

The question of how far one can make interventions and still remain holistic is a key one. A selection of ways in which to

encourage this safe climate is needed whilst allowing the presence of intuition. There is a dilemma in the role of the

practitioner in relation to the stated needs of the client and the perception of the practitioner when it can be in conflict

with those stated needs. The issue of the practitioner taking away the ‘right’ of the client to their own stated needs is a

very important one. How valid can it be for the practitioner to unilaterally override, without any contract or discussion to

do so, the needs of the client? How far does one trust one’s own intuition and knowledge and understanding of the client

in going with that before it could become intrusive to the client?

The situation of the ‘naïve’ client/practitioner and the ‘holistic’ client/practitioner is important. Attunement is involved in all

this too. For example, a practitioner might ‘know’ with their hands what the client needs, even though the client is asking

for something different. After the piece of work, it is acknowledged that the practitioner was spot on in what they had

sensed. This is the dilemma in working holistically rather than mechanically – how far does one follow that attunement,

that intuition? When a holistic practitioner and a holistic client come together there can be a very real release which

enables learning. There is trust in more than just self and the other but also in the whole process. A prerequisite for this to

occur is being able to put aside all those paradigms outside and get in touch with whatever is unique to the individual in

relation to what the learning is about.

If the practitioner is not working mechanistically yet the client has certain expectations, how much does the practitioner

put in simply to keep them happy? Do we collude or compromise to keep someone happy? The naïve client will have a

primitive belief of what is needed for it to ‘work’ and others can have a sense of a checklist for a piece of work to be good

and/or effective. This includes an element of competition between the ways different models do things and this dimension

holds the hidden issue in integrating practice and holistic learning of how practitioners prioritise different elements.




Mystique and Peer Relationships

Many practitioners who call themselves holistic or integrated are encouraging a mystique and, in that sense, they are

setting themselves above the receiver of their expertise. This is the complete antithesis to holistic in its truest sense.

Demystification is important. Within the concept of the expertise is the example of the one who uses expertise to gain a

role, such as the one who would use ritual to ‘cleanse’ an area. This is displaced stuff and one of the paradoxes. It inverts

everything and creates a new form of snobbery. It is unwarranted, unsolicited and an inversion of the peer principle.

There are many issues around public confidence and trust in professionals in the wake of the Shipman murders and the

Bristol heart surgery scandal. Mystique does not reassure and is not useful. Doctors want more involvement and

collaboration; patients want medical staff to be more accountable. The significance is in the stance the practitioner takes

to the client group.

An interview with Noam Chomsky gives a very clear contrast. He gave up his career and became a free critic of American

policy both internally and externally. When asked if there was a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans he

said yes, but that it does not make a difference to the society that emerges with either party since neither were promoting

active participation amongst the people. Here is a man of his eminence not needing any role or status and having

confidence in the relationship.

Chomsky, someone of huge personal power and intellect, genuinely enters into a meeting, a dialogue with someone else.

There is a genuine interest in communication to the other person, not in dogma but wanting to be in it. That is where the

equality comes in. Here was someone clearly with a gift and a willingness to share that – no kind of superiority. There is

something fundamental in this about the holistic element: acknowledging greater knowledge and sharing it in a way that

doesn’t demean the other enables them to understand more and to get in touch with themselves. Whereas most people in

interviews address the audience, Chomsky was meeting the interviewer and staying in the meeting as though the

questions were the purpose of the meeting, and therefore he did not have to wear his vast authority and power.

It is important for integration to be able to put barriers down. To be able to meet the person, accepting, open, with no pre-

judgements – then, contact is possible as real soul-persons.

Chomsky is keen not to be elevated above others whilst some, like Jiddu Krishnamurti, are protected and keep a distance

between their personal lives and their ‘performance’. This creates the impression that they are different. Claiming privilege

and status in practice creates a distance so the practitioner can be kept as a semi-elevated figure. John Heron

undermines this separation, this distancing, and he is deeply committed to the peer element. Eric Cassirer also made

others aware he had an ordinary life.

Different Realities

Carlos Castaneda writes of two different realities: tonal and nagual. The first is the day-to-day reality and the second a

dream reality that is both personal and obeys universal law. The more one is attuned to that reality, the more one can

influence events in a non-rational way.

We each carry our presence with us and others might pick that up. Some may see something but in not knowing what it is

would be unable to honour it, since it is unlikely that anyone without the perceptual refinement would pick it up. This

raises the whole question of when to use the language of other realities. When am I inflating the experience at this level

because it sounds more romantic and more attractive? The complex explanation need only be considered if there is no

simple explanation for the phenomenon.

We need to be in touch with our own soul before we are able to connect with an other in this way.




The question is, ‘How far is it possible to take personal authentic presence into situations where this understanding is not

present?’ There is something, too, about being in touch with one’s own inner authority, speaking with authority whilst not

being authoritarian and not abdicating one’s own power either. It is important to own what one has and this can then

enable others to own what they have.

When individuals meet ill-defined situations the anxiety and uncertainty this creates can trigger old patterns. One example is

the person who will step in, when not appropriate, to rescue by doing some sort of number, like the ‘cleansing ritual’. There is

also the question of how far one is colluding by not putting oneself out. As a practitioner one has to be careful where you put

yourself because, for instance, if you are always in arenas where people are learning things which you have already learned,

you no longer need to be there. In forums where you would be stretched, you need to be able to put it out.

Holistic New Age practitioners deal with this by not addressing ordinary explanations for such phenomena or by talking

about it differently, as in the ‘tear in your aura’ example. They are always looking for these kinds of explanations instead of

the ordinary, so no one will say, for example, you are acting out of your need to be grandiose – this would not be

acceptable. All this would be going on along with those who are sincere searchers and they have to find each other pretty

quickly. This is a big question. How do you carry yourself into a place where there are conflicting paradigms operating?

Perhaps there can be a sub-conscious recognition of like-minded people in that kind of situation.

Integrating Practice

The practitioner creates the field in which the client does their learning – the action. There is an essential force we all tap

into and that is our birthright, which the social system keeps hidden and of which it disapproves. We learn how to step it

down because it is too much to manage, usually through repression and social inhibition. The challenge is around

releasing this potential and letting the energy loose without being destroyed by it. If it happens too suddenly the container

(i.e. the person) may not be strong enough to hold this kind of energy.

The issue is how to anchor the integration of this knowledge in order to make it manageable – getting to know that energy

in a gradual way; stripping away the layers of explanations that are put between the person and the power – the elemental

force and archetypal energy. If we are working with clients, we have to be willing to work through our own thresholds to

help them move through their thresholds, possibly for the first time.

Most people back away from the awesomeness. They may get a glimpse of it in healing and then go off to keep hold of it,

getting lost in the energy trip rather than engaging in the journey that takes us to that place. We have to try to come out

and do whatever it is from a spiritual place; retaining awareness of the awesomeness, the pain, the power and all that is

part of the divine connection to underpin all that goes on in one’s life.

Perhaps if one is living one’s understanding of the concepts of integrating practice and holistic learning rather than talking

about it, the words and language will follow. It is important to avoid demeaning others in their understanding of holistic

since this may be their starting point, yet we do make judgments. The judgement (or assessment?) is critical: it is making

an evaluation. If someone has badges on, it is important to engage in why. That then makes me state where I am. Life as

learning leads into the idea that we start from the person we are – not the client, not a fictional person. If one works from

the self this is what makes it integrated, not what the practitioner does. That is the gift you want others to have and not

break them into bits.

When the whole field is approached in a holistic way, we are made conscious, and this is when further exploration may

become difficult. Perhaps this is one stage of the journey: of being conscious of one’s abilities, approaches, being.

Integration is a lifelong process. The model that is emerging seems to be that if I am consciously increasingly aware of the

We do not need a practice based on the premise that the practitioner has all that the client needs; we’ll

find what it is you need.




possibilities to be a whole being, ‘being’ then becomes an underlying element. If I have the concept that practice comes

out of that being – that I operate from that, out of my being I meet the other in their being – then the bits of practice

become available expressions of my being.

This is a very different set of founding principles of practice, alternative to traditional practice. Where a practitioner is

insecure in their being, they need badges to sit in the room and claim to be holistic.

Once one understands that one operates out of being, one does not have to be interested in practice and so on. Over

many years working with Eric Cassirer, he never said what it was we were doing, and yet the learning was enormous. If

healing powers are in people they are not going to be passed on – that makes them a commodity in so many training

sessions.

The Peter Sellers film Being There, about the gardener to the president, is a real example of what we are talking about. He

was a very simple soul. He was asked questions and he would have answers that bore no relation to the question asked,

yet they worked, so people kept coming back with more questions. He became a Guru to the president but he was

mystified since he knew how simple he was. Yet everyone else made of him whatever they wanted.

There is a conspiracy about how the world operates – i.e. if everyone believes it is a certain way, it is true. It is possible to

be effective – whatever that would be in this paradigm – by being innocent; the innocence is the power, an innocence

which is very different from naivety.

When you are working out of being, stripping away those things that get in the way, others can make of

you whatever they want.




3: Education, Learning, TeachingLearning can be going on without being consciously aware of it at first.

The Nature of Knowledge

Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi4 explores the nature of knowledge. One form of personal knowledge is ‘knowing

how’, but this form of knowing is not academically testable and therefore it is not valued in current society. Often, a

craftsman does not know how they do what they do. It is mysterious but it is not necessary to have a transpersonal5

perspective to see that those with this kind of knowledge have a great deal to offer. Yet, if the transcendental is present,

something else is added to the picture. Craftsmen often have the kind of relationship with their materials that we may call

transpersonal.

There is also knowing in an intellectual, conceptual sense, where the gathering and retention of information is highly

valued and the main desirable outcome. There is knowing in the sense of an understanding, an inner awareness and

knowing which goes beyond facts, figures and data.

It is possible to transcend knowledge: to pass through phases of amassing knowledge, techniques, approaches, academic

backgrounds and theories as a way to identity, and move towards the awareness of self. This kind of knowing is much

more about knowing about one’s self. It is about being able to acknowledge that one is a valued and important member of

the universe away from a role, away from what one does. This is not to decry knowledge but to transcend it and accept

that we are more than what we do and what we know.

Our current education and training systems are primarily geared to supporting and emphasising the gaining of information

in order to fulfil a role, a job in society. Society, in general, finds it difficult to manage those who would step out of this

norm and enter another paradigm. It would threaten the status quo and challenge others to look at their places and

positions, and so the establishment wishes to prevent this happening. When I can step out of finding identity in what I do,

a whole new world opens up – being who I am. When I can find this place I am responsible for amassing what I need to

know; my journey, my path will lead me to what I need to learn, need to know.

Cultural Influences

There is still a strong cultural belief that learning is not ‘real’ learning unless it involves conceptualising. Power is given to

those who can conceptualise – even if they have not learned how to ‘do’ the activity. This is crucial when we remember

that most areas of human activity include performance and not just thinking.

However, we do not have to apply acquired knowledge in the way it was taught; it can be extended to use it in the best

sense. This would represent a shift from technique to synchronicity – listening to self and client. In this context it is

important to be in the place of ‘being’, letting go of the need to ‘do’ something. Perhaps when one works out of that

other reality, there is something about knowing it will work without knowing how. Yet, one cannot always know it will ‘work’

so perhaps it is about having an understanding of what one is doing and also letting go of preconceived ideas of a model

and letting it happen. The internet is a modern example of information being shared without the trappings of status or

excluding those who do not have the right or enough knowledge.

Part of a new way, integrating practice, is to value all forms of knowing, such as working with the dream

side of things and the restoration of the sacredness of that kind of learning.

4 Michael Polanyi: Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1974.5 The transpersonal refers to the spiritual dimension of human life and there are a number of ways of approaching this aspect of development. Our view is that the person is a person only in relation toother people and that together we have deeper connections that transcend gender, culture and ethnicity.6 See Chapter 4: The Power of Relationship for an in-depth exploration of this.




What we attach to the word ‘learning’ is also significant. ‘Learning’ implies conceptualisation whilst ‘awareness’ does not

hold that implicit link. Integration includes the capacity for disintegration and knowing that an individual will flow in and out

of both states. It must be considered that the acquisition of skills and techniques is a basis for later development. In a

very real sense, yet sometimes on an unconscious level, we all know what we need, so having someone else give the

information perpetuates the current system of power and status being invested in such skills and knowledge. This also

prevents individuals from gaining an understanding of their own capabilities, their own innate ‘knowing’ and their own

power. Once again, this gives rise to the mystique.

If the general principles are available then one’s own specific technique does not really matter. However, it is evident that

once any system becomes unconditionally accepted it loses its life: people stop thinking about the odd, the unusual, the

exceptional, and the different. As more structure is put around a body of knowledge, its outcomes become more set, yet it

is not the system that protects, but the body of wisdom. The question is how to build my world on the common world.

The body can innately know something yet it is hard to step out of years of conditioning that says that the head, the

intellect, is of more value.

There is something about giving one’s self permission not to be restricted by how other people say it should be in order to

make life safe. In many areas of human life risk and challenge has been removed in order to keep people ‘safe’. Yet it has

been observed that in other cultures even the very youngest children are left in unguarded villages, in what we might see

as a dangerous situation, without accident. The cultural mindset is important. That culture would appear to live in a force

field of energy whilst ours is a force field of fear and separation. It is also a culture where each has to look out for

themselves and where children are seen as precious, so they have to be protected.

Accidents will happen in direct proportion to the culture becoming separated. Separate individualities find their own limits

in every phenomenon and there is no common shared force field. Frontiers are being pushed for each individual to find out

for themselves into more and more extreme situations. There is no common basis of trust. The more safety conscious a

culture becomes the harder it is for anybody who does want to test himself or herself. The question is, ‘How do we get a

healthy culture when all are separate entities, where we can explore and find realities for ourselves and not get lost in ego

expression?’

Learning

An exploration into learning included the following areas:

• Can people pinpoint a moment, a turning point, in their learning?

• Can they actually say what the change was in terms of why?

• What were the elements?

• How have they contributed to the rest of their lives?

In the action phase of the Inquiries it was difficult to find anyone with the depth of experience and awareness to be able to

articulate their feelings on these questions. There were generalisations; they just understood, they just knew, and this was

as far as it got. It was even harder to say how it affected their lives and none of the people asked had done anything

specifically in their lives as a result of it.

The findings revolved around greater understanding about the integration of learning rather than the actual learning and

what its constituents were. Almost in an instant the knowing was integrated and therefore individuals found it difficult to

express or say what it was. Because it was integrated, amnesia came: it seemed like they could understand and then do it

and that was it. It was hard to look back and see the change and whether it changed their lives. Integration can mean

absorption and the learning became such a part of the being of the person that they couldn’t track it.




People did not know how to slow that process down. It did happen, there must have been a point at which they knew

they were on a threshold and then they could do it. Skill is needed to ask the questions such as, ‘Remember what it was

like just before, immediately after, just after’, and keep cutting down the time slot until they’ve got it. People will wriggle

because it forces them to be conscious about what is going on underneath.

Assimilation and integration of learning is really important. We can go on learning and learning and learning but there must

be a point at which we contain it in order to integrate it. This is about how long, how deeply, how to hold the containment:

if we hold it for too long we become stuck, if not at all then we float off: a delicate balance to find. Piaget’s developmental

cycle explores this and how to assimilate what is learned.

Learning and ‘Experience’

The differences in learning a physical thing and conceptualising a theory are important. Different people learn in different

ways: by reading a page of instructions perhaps or by needing to be shown how to do something. If there is something

one really cannot understand and then suddenly the understanding is there, scales fall from the eyes. This is different from

learning something for the first time and practising it. There are different levels of thinking, and being unable to learn may

be more about the fear of the subject or lack of confidence. Being able to relax into it and opening up to it can take away

the blocks. So for example, playing with maths and not even realising that it is maths can help tremendously. In that way

one is immersed in it, patterns are forming without one even being aware of it.

Blocks are a conceptual decision out in the world; we can’t have a block to maths, we only know that when we come up

against certain phenomena our functioning goes into a certain state. So if one ‘plays’ with maths, for example, it dissolves

the capabilities of that consciousness to decide they are in maths, instead they are in their experience and not their

block. There are two elements here, the external conditions for learning and the internal process. The individual learning

process is important and it is linked to the external. That is how teachers can teach – because it is possible to say to

someone what is needed to make it possible to learn. And learning, of course, is not just about being in school or other

formal places of ‘education’.

Teaching and Learning

If someone is attuned to how something is being taught, then it is received easily. If they are out of tune, then that mental

connection is not there and learning is less likely to be achieved. In the teaching relationship, one key factor is the sense

of the teacher showing interest in the person as well as the subject. Two different teachers presenting the same lesson to

the same students would be received very differently. It is about how the teacher meets with the others in the group. For

example, the teacher needs not only to know the subject but also to be aware of readiness of the students to receive it,

communicate a personal interest, and to have a sense of where they are in their own difficulties. There is a lot going on if

the person is really engaged.

Although there is an awareness that our current cultural attitudes towards knowledge, learning and education are far from

ideal, it is important not to trash underlying principles at the altar of each finding it out for themselves. The term ‘teacher’

has huge connotations for many as a consequence of formal educational experiences, yet it is important not to dismiss

everything whilst still acknowledging that these terms are loaded. Collective information and knowledge is important but

knowledge needs to be personalised by the person receiving it, and this is not what is encouraged in our society.

A further consequence of the traditional educational approaches and attitudes towards knowledge is the restricted

understanding of ‘knowing’ to the extent that free expression is not allowed. There is something about creativity and

freedom and the way that our society discourages, denies and disapproves of them. As more people touch into the

different way, they have to unlearn all kinds of programmes that say things like: ‘I can’t do that’, or ‘You must do it this

way’. In the right conditions humans can work together to discover things, yet society is geared to make sure this does

not happen.




This raises further questions:

• Can we ask these questions concerning integrating practice without a critique of the social world in which we

operate?

• Is there an underlying challenge to make all this explicit?

• Can we evade our planetary responsibility if we take this on?

Eckhart spoke of co-creativity, social conscience, and of union that is meant to bear fruit. There is the potential to live and

co-create together and a key concept in integrating practice is to know the timeliness of letting go when certain elements

are no longer needed. There is a tremendous difference between the eclectic, bolt-on approach, and the approach which

operates from the person, from their presence, from the relationship that is created. There is a danger that if you draw on

things with different philosophies it can be messy. If one does not understand the meaning within, if it is not rooted deeply

how can it be explained to another?

Fields of Consciousness

There is a theory that there is a field of consciousness prior to anyone being there. Those present can, however, be

responsive to it. If both become attuned to it, we resonate together and open up to all the possibilities of what is there –

which are more than both of us. Then we can reach the place of no longer believing that our learning must be based on

knowledge. It is about taking the layers off, uncovering what we actually know. Each will complement the other’s knowing;

will influence and enhance each other’s knowing.

The knowing may be different for each individual in the specifics, but it will be linked. If we explore this notion of

consciousness there is a lot of shared knowledge. It is important to trust that the ‘knowing’ is there; that we are all there

with it already in some way. When I know what I know and when you know what you know, we will all know what we know.

There is a formlessness that is preverbal and learned through the senses. Progressively, we learn language to distinguish

experiences and then move into conceptualising them. The more abstract it becomes, the further you are away from the

raw experience. Language is the tool to allow each of us to be unique, to know that our experience is not the experience

of the other. To not know that one is an individual and to only feel what the group is, is the tribal way. The balance

between these two is difficult.

The aim is to re-connect: not to lose a sense of being a separate entity whilst knowing that one is not isolated. It is

possible to be so aware that it is difficult to tell where one begins and one ends; two states of awareness at the same time

are possible. At the pre-verbal stage there is no distinction of self and then we begin to acquire a sense of self, becoming

more individual, which is where most stay. It is possible, however, to reconnect with the other without losing self to do it.

Pre-verbal Experience and Learning

The pre-verbal is a place of:

• Knowing

• Feeling

• Being in the present

• No boundaries, because they’re not formed yet.

When experience becomes almost overwhelming, we create a way of communicating our experiences. In observing very

young children (from seven months to almost 12 months) they know what is going on. They join in – there is extreme

observation.




If someone is in a relaxed state their whole body can speak to them and throw up images of what is going on. Then it can

be useful to concretise it and shape it if they want. The question then arises, how can the helper enable others to do this?

It is important to recognise the difference between using that space (preverbal) as a retreat and using it positively. Pre-

verbal trauma can create illness in adulthood and the pre-verbal state lasts for quite a long time. It is a long time before

we become really competent with language. It is possible to use the pre-verbal sense of knowing to get back in touch with

what is going on in us now. There are different ways of going back into this state. It can be a resource for the present and

it can also be a way of finding a sense of the source of stuckness in the past. Pre-verbal capacity is a good way of coming

to understand more of this phenomenon.

Levels of Awareness

There is a link here, almost paralleling that process, with the delineated hierarchy identified by John Rowan from the

pre-personal through to the transpersonal, an issue also explored by Ken Wilber in No Boundary. In the Freudian world

everything that is thrown up is pre-personal and is of no significance; in the transpersonal perspective there is the risk that

one can interpret everything as a transpersonal reality. Rowan says that some elements throw up pre-personal elements,

some transpersonal and others somewhere midway between these two. There are several places that one’s experiences

can be ascribed and much depends on the individual’s worldview and the significance they attach to each experience.

Each experience contains elements of all levels – it is the meaning that the individual gives to it which will be crucial in

determining how it is viewed, ascribed and described. Sensitivity is needed to realise what is present.

The helper’s experiences may either enhance or inhibit how sensitive one may be to another’s experiences. A woman with

children herself, for example, would seem to be more likely to feel the birth experience than a childless woman and, even

more so perhaps, than a man. There is, however, still a resonance with the experience through one’s own birth. It is

interesting too, that re-birthing was invented by a man who was reliving his own birth.

There has to be a ‘knowing’ that is not connected to the consensus forms of knowing. Two adults do not have a

consensus language, for example, for the birth experience in that pre-verbal state, simply because there were no words

for it as babies. Therefore, something other than language is required – presence. This presence is generated out of the

very being of the practitioner.

This raises many questions for helpers: whether there are pre-dispositions to connections with some people more than

others through gender differences, for example. It is evident, too, that if there is rapport and presence then, as long as the

client is willing to do the work, this will happen.

It is the presence, the embodied being, the relationship that is the key, rather than solely the specific life-

experiences of the practitioner.




4: The Power of Relationship

For many years, there has been a great deal of research into the development of the person. Maslow and others have

added to the discussion with descriptions of peak experiences and different levels of experience and awareness. The

following is a brief outline of different stances and levels of development that highlights the importance and place of

mindfulness and the relationship.

1. Pre-ego: undiscriminating field of awareness; the infant without language.

2. Ego formation: congealing consciousness into sense of self whilst open to ineffable experience simultaneously.

The child grows into a sense of itself, ‘Look at me!’

3. Ego: narrow field of identified awareness. ‘My personality is me. I am separate.’

4. Wounded ego: over-identified attachment to threatening sources of experience from the past. ‘I am both without

needs and at the same time I am deeply in need of special attention.’ Ambivalence and sudden shifts of position.

5. Open ego: relaxed field of open awareness. ‘I am present to my experience.’

6. No ego identification: mindfulness of process and person. ‘I am present to myself and that which is before and

outside me. I am distinct but not separate.’

‘Meeting’ with the Other

There is a real and crucial difference between those who are working solely out of the theoretical, intellectual model and

those who make use of their experience, their knowledge whilst bringing themselves into the relationship. This is more

about meeting with another on another level – the level of two spirits meeting. It is a much more powerful place of meeting

than, perhaps, a patient to be cured, or a client to be ‘fixed’ where the power and control is implicitly, or even explicitly, in

the hands of the ‘helper’.

Jung says that depression is being without meaning – which, in effect, is the unmanifest. It is an important part of the

creative process, needing to gestate and find flow and rhythm. A black hole is a collapsed star; all matter and no energy,

and that is what depression is. It needs something to free it and this has very important consequences for how we view

depression. It can be seen differently, not as a ‘problem’ or an illness as our culture tends to, but we can be more

sensitive to how the process can be released. Depressed people tend to look at the ground and so they are not taking in

as much light; deprivation of sunlight and serotonin has been linked with a higher incidence of depression. Mediterranean

countries, for example, are less depressive. However, this may be attributed to their culture, being more open and

expressive than northern Europe.

A willingness to be open to meeting is important. A willingness to meet as equals is also important and possibly needs to

be made explicit in some way. This raises the question of how this can be done. Being equals, perhaps not in theoretical

learning, in experience or even understanding but in the very real sense of being two individuals, two spirits, two souls

who are equally valuable, equally capable, ultimately, of finding their own solutions and in partnership with each other

rather than one ‘doing’ something to the other.

Presence, embodiment and mindfulness lead to engagement with the other and ourselves. It is about

the balance between being and doing.




This raises many questions for practitioners, including:

• How to practise with equals, yet still earn a living?

• How to speak one’s practice – as an integrated practitioner – to one’s clients?

• How to transfer working with peers to working with clients?

• Can a ‘meeting’ be really equal when one person is paying the other?

The Place of Love

Love is a decision, an act of will, a commitment to being in the world in a certain way where one is not dependent on the

other and one can choose how to express that. In our culture love is confused with a feeling – one which will come and

go. It is also seen as needing someone else to bring this feeling out, an awakener of love. They then become important

and the belief is that they have something I need. We always need to check with ourselves – what is best for me? This will

mean that there will be times when I close myself off when the other has an intention that is not helpful to me. Love in this

sense is quite different from the emotional attachment to anyone else through needs, passion, romance and so on. In this

way one becomes a witness to one’s own life in a way that will enhance opportunities to universal love. All the time we

seek others to complete us it is ‘control folly’ and a lack of attachment to the outcome is a key in all this.

In all spiritual traditions there are two points of view about love. There are those who say it has to be earned, then, with

work, they discover it has always been there and that it does not have to be earned, in fact that it cannot be earned. This

is yet another paradox. The work involves the removal of ignorance and self-delusion. Our birthright is always to be in the

place of love but it becomes obscured.

The concept of loving attention is important and relevant to this discussion. ‘Healing works on the frequency of

compassion’; this quote has a real resonance and is indicative of an approach beyond that of conceptualisation. Where

one has attention, things can move. There is a lifetime of understanding in the phrase ‘loving attention’.

Diversity in Meeting

Every meeting is different; every meeting, by the very definition of the word ‘meeting’, will involve more than one person.

As soon as there is more than one person involved, there are added variables that will influence how the meeting takes

place and how – or even if – it develops.

When one becomes more conscious of the many elements which can be influential in a meeting, it becomes more

possible to be both more aware of the kind of meeting taking place and also to begin to influence the meeting. It would

also seem likely that someone working from a place of ‘presence’ with awareness of the energy and the level at which one

is meeting another will be able to choose at which level to meet them.

It is possible to identify certain kinds of meeting. This can be another useful tool for examining what is present in the

meeting thus leading to greater awareness and to greater possibilities for enhanced learning. Each is useful whilst

focusing on a slightly different perspective. The main classifications are:

When one knows one’s own connection there is no dependency on the other for what one wants. This

requires discipline and is a rigorous process.




1. Voluntary/involuntary (or conscious/unconscious).

2. Level of meeting.

3. Moving towards/moving away.

1. Voluntary/involuntary (spontaneous): in some meetings, there is no intention for a meeting. They can be involuntary

yet very powerful and of a quality not often experienced in ordinary social contacts. The conditions needed to experience

the connections, the meetings, are present but it is not a conscious decision to experience them in the way they occurred.

They are all the more powerful for being so unexpected. These meetings could not occur in the way they do if only one

person is open to them. There has to be a reciprocal meeting before the experience can be complete and overtly

acknowledged – though not necessarily by words. This gives rise to certain questions:

i. How much can a transpersonal element be overtly present in a meeting if only one person is aware of that

dimension?

ii. How much does this dimension flow through the person rather than being accessible from a skills ‘tool box’?

iii. What conditions make these kinds of meetings possible?

iv. How many similar opportunities might be missed because one is insufficiently ‘present’, ‘embodied’ or aware?

2. Levels of meeting: there are a number of levels at which two people can meet, including:

i. Superficially social.

ii. Intellectual.

iii. Interpersonal.

iv. Interpersonal.

v. Transpersonal.

i. Superficially social: these are those occasions when the subject matter does not move beyond the mundane and the

banal, such as the weather, or the ‘How are you?’ game where each knows that the other does not want anything other

than the accepted norm of ‘I’m fine’. In one way, this is not a ‘meeting’ at all in the sense of having a real relationship.

It may be, too, that there is only one who does not want or who is unaware of the possibilities of other levels of

meeting – effectively preventing them from happening. If the willingness to shift is not present in one then it is unlikely

there would be much of a shift in the relationship even if the other is open to it. There would need to be a co-operative

element within the relationship to change the level at which it is operating. The concept of choice is present too. There

are some meetings which someone, even with a deep awareness of relationship and meeting, may choose to meet a

particular person on this level. This too would inhibit the other person from deepening the meeting.

ii. Intellectual: a meeting of minds: this can be a very rewarding way of meeting and the stimulus of an academic

discussion is one example of this. Much can be learned, challenges issued, knowledge and understanding gained yet there

is a crucial element which is not around – that of a relationship between the people. There is a greater relationship with the

subject matter under discussion than between the individuals present. It is possible to have intellectual discussions from a

place of presence but this then takes the meeting beyond a simple meeting of minds into other, deeper levels.

iii. Intrapersonal: the level at which an individual is aware of their own internal reality to a greater or lesser degree will

influence the level of meeting. Awareness of one’s own processes, own prejudices, own internal reality at a given

moment will all have an effect on the kind of meeting which will take place.

iv. Interpersonal: the point at which the attention moves across to include the other person. An awareness of inner

processes can then be integrated into how one relates with the other. This is when meeting begins to be really

interactive; it is the point at which one is able to move beyond one’s own needs and concerns to include those of the

other in a very different way.




v. Transpersonal; spiritual: the level at which the possibilities become endless. There is more than the individuals

present in the meeting. This is where, in one way, the relationship takes on an identity of its own and becomes a very

different animal. The occasions when both are open to this element and willing to explore its presence and what it

means are a gift and contain potential beyond imagination. The concepts of an embodied being and having presence

belong in this level. It is evident that only someone awake to these possibilities is likely to be able to awaken this

dimension in another person.

3. Moving towards/moving away: elements here include:

i. Withdrawal.

ii. Seeing possibilities.

iii. Ebbing and flowing.

iv. Drawn together.

v. Fleeting connection.

vi. Meeting of souls.

i. Withdrawal: there are meetings where an individual deliberately and consciously withdraws. Examples of this

might include:

a. When I feel the other person is invading my space in a way which I do not find appropriate.

b. When I feel ‘swamped’ by the other. This leaves me feeling drained of energy; a sense of being ‘sucked dry’.

c. When I feel too much is being demanded.

d. Occasions where the other is trying to be more intimate. I am aware of the possibilities but choose not to

develop the relationship.

e. Times I am unwilling to accept the invitation for greater ‘meeting’, perhaps through fear or through uncertainty.

It may be that the other person is not aware of either the effect they are having or why they are unable to get what they

want. This, of course, is not a helpful response because it drives them into trying even harder to get what they want,

which leaves the other wanting to withdraw even more.

ii. Seeing possibilities: these are those occasions where there is a sense of possibilities for meeting but they are not

taken up for whatever reason by one or both parties. It feels as though there is a level under the actual words and

overt relationship which is present but which is not alluded to and which is not acted upon. There can be occasions

where both have been aware of this and also when only one is aware.

iii. Ebbing and flowing: one example of this was apparent in a teenager at the time of the imminent death of her

mother; certain things were touched upon and then moved away from. The opportunities are given, greater depth is

tangible in the atmosphere, but not spoken and the possibilities are not taken at that time. There are many

relationships where there is this experience of ebbing and flowing – a greater ‘togetherness’ at some points than

others. Questions arise from this:

a. Do I deliberately voice areas for discussion or wait for the other to open them when they are ready?

b. Do I, does the other, consciously move from one level of togetherness to another or is it unconscious or

both/and?

c. Are there other influences during a meeting which affect this depth?

d. Am I being resistant to greater closeness in some way?

e. Is the other being resistant?

f. Is it simply a natural rhythm within a meeting?

iv. Drawn together: boundaries between individuals feel permeable. There is a definite sense of real connection being

possible: an immediate contact with a strongly, overtly spiritual and transpersonal presence. It is this presence which

enables a meeting to be deep and close on a first meeting. A sense of common ground, almost of fellow travellers

meeting and sharing experiences in a safe environment and a desire to know more, to share more.




v. Fleeting connection: as in a chance meeting of eyes, yet there can be a very deep connection – unspoken yet very

real and very present for both. Even in the unspokenness there can be a ‘knowing’ that both experience a similar

reaction. This is the level of meeting another human being on a level way beyond the usual in a brief moment.

vi. Meeting of souls: there is a ‘knowing’ way beyond that of either words or intellect. There is a connection between

‘I’ and ‘Thou’; a connection between two souls who can recognise each other for who they really are, whilst simply

acknowledging the bodies they currently inhabit. It can be very unexpected, powerful and cannot be planned for. In

such a meeting, there is no loss of individual presence even though there is such connection and union: union without

merging; without loss.

Practical influences

There are many practical aspects that can influence how we meet with someone, whether in a formal helping relationship

or simply in our day-to-day relationships. They are already well documented elsewhere and include:

• The time and energy available

• The place of meeting

• The purpose of meeting

• Impetus for meeting

• Physical/emotional/spiritual wellbeing at the time of meeting

• Willingness to be open

• Willingness to receive/give

• Pre-conceived ideas of how a meeting ‘should’, ‘will’ proceed

• Prejudices: such the appearance of a person

• Past history of meetings and/or experience of this person

• My perceived role: by me and the other

• My very personal response to that person

• Awareness of self

• Awareness of different levels which are available

• Awareness of ‘presence’, of the possibility of being an embodied being.

Fields of Meeting

As we have seen, some meetings take place at a purely interpersonal level without the other elements being present but

when working from a transpersonal perspective it is inevitable that each element will be present in some degree. In this

scenario comes the awareness of how the whole is greater than the parts and of how more is seen of different parts. A

useful metaphor as an aid to understanding is two expanding circles in a field.

Figure 1: Field of Meeting




The question to ask then is, ‘How do I work in this field in each meeting?’

1. Some meetings I enter as a small element: I experience the client as taking up more space. Their lack of

experience in meeting reduces my capacity to be present.

2. Some meetings I enter as I happen to be: because I feel the other can cope with this and adjust the shape to

how we are meeting. This feels like a peer meeting.

3. Some meetings I expand my space in relation to the whole: something comes through me – this is when I am

working in some kind of transpersonal way.

In the first scenario, I make myself small in order not to overpower the other person whilst in the third there is a definite

sense of something happening and I free it up to be bigger.

The Re-emergence of the ‘Person’

John Heron’s book, The Complete Facilitator’s Handbook,7 is a useful resource when considering and reflecting upon the

concept of the ‘person’. Presence is a crucial factor and, in this concept, it works from the ground up; building different

layers and capacities out of being an embodied being. When two people meet there is no requirement for the helper to

have any skills at all if they have presence. In John’s belief, skills are an expression of presence whereas Egan believes

that if someone has skills this is sufficient to be helpful.

This gives rise to fundamental questions for the training world. Until now, I have believed that skills alone are insufficient

but I have never had the explanatory power to give full understanding. If presence arises out of embodiment one cannot

escape that, yet skills can be acquired with no link to presence.

Heidegger, an early 20th-century philosopher, is a philosopher of being. He was from a western tradition but he has

broken ranks with the way the tradition has been developing. He has been a well-spring for most of the interesting

philosophers in this century and the existential movement is a direct descendant from his work. Being and Nothingness8 is

a rewrite of Heidegger’s Being and Time9 and it explores the existential framework of authenticity and the concepts of

being present to and present with. Parallelled with the ideas of an act of good faith, authenticity, is awareness there are

also acts of bad faith, inauthenticity. Bad faith is when an individual takes on a role and is deliberately hiding behind it.

The 1960s saw the arrival of an awareness of personal accountability and responsibility never previously acknowledged or

experienced. There was the realisation that we are responsible for the planet, for our political life, for our personal life and

what we do. This was the time when movements appeared – feminism, ecology, human potential, civil rights. Since then

they have largely disappeared. It is now, as we step into the 21st century, when these ideas from the 1960s are re-

emerging. For most of the 20th century we have had two opposing political concepts; collectivist socialism and

democratic individualism. Both of these oppose the person. Democratic individualism is about the individual but not a

person in relationship. The underlying theme of the 1960s was a beginning of a non-traditional personal responsibility,

political awareness and way of helping. If a person is in relationship one does not need monolithic organisations to work

within. However, if you don’t work in the system and the system has a crisis there is usually a conservative reaction. This

is one influence in the disappearance of those radical movements.

Rogers, also part of the 1960s, postulated a radical approach which is now seen as no longer valid. It is possible to take

anything and turn it into a collectivist model or an individualistic model by ignoring the person and, rather than taking

radical notice of the person, simply take out what appeals and graft it onto an existing paradigm. This is what happened

to Rogers’ person-centred approach.

7 John Heron, The Complete Facilitator’s Handbook, HPRP, Guildford Surrey, 1977.8 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Washington Square Press, 1993.9 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Wiley-Blackwell, 1978.




Heidegger had deep suspicions of the way science was being used for technological purpose. Humanity is seen to be

making progress technologically because it seems to bracket off the consequences of those advances, consequently

there is further alienation of people as embodied beings.

Embodied Beings

We only ever meet each other as embodied beings in this plane, therefore we always have a physical presence. As

embodied beings we meet with the transpersonal realm ‘out there’. In a meeting, our bodies also say things about us

before anything is even said and this is not often taken into account. Embodiment is greater than the physical – it

incorporates the soul. In so many of our cultures feelings of embodiment are suppressed, we conform to external

requirements. In this way any possibility of embodied experiences is distorted.

Perhaps there is some form of continuum from unembodied, relying solely on techniques and skills to embodied where

skills and techniques are transcended into presence. Self-awareness and development help us to move along this

continuum and it may become possible to consciously choose where to operate from on this proposed continuum

depending on the needs of the client. It is very different meeting someone with a shared perspective of the embodied

presence and it can also be difficult to walk around with an embodied perspective amongst those who do not share it.

There is so much contrast in our world; there is much writing about divinity and divine presence yet there is also much

degradation and misery engendered too.

If I see myself primarily as a personality, a lot of what comes through in energies, sensing, influences will be screened out

as thinking that this is me going ‘loopy’. If one starts as an embodied being and open to all those energies, then they are

no longer screened out but incorporated and integrated. It then becomes possible to make use of that and to become a

wider presence. The thinking goes – personality gives who I am so I have to hold onto that so the gremlins cannot get a

hold. A lot of difficulties and emotional issues are tied up with this limited understanding of the sense of presence and the

suppressing of the other influences and planes. In an embodied state the transpersonal fuses with all meetings – it is the

ground of all being. Religions frequently do not allow for this personal presence.

In the 1960s there were many radical ideas but perhaps they were partially lost because there was not the way to

integrate them into the current structure. That generation is now older, in places of power, with children and perhaps more

are aware of the possibilities and the different paradigm.

It is difficult to stay open and work in this paradigm especially in a culture of competition for research grants, for fame, for

progress in work places, for advancement and so on. This style encourages people to remain separate. If we keep with

the embodied person in relationship it means being in relationship and this is much greater than an intellectual coming

together. If one works out of presence you have to be modest because you can’t know how much you did. It is possible to

be so modest that you say that you didn’t do enough, and, at an ego level, maybe you didn’t, but by your presence you

did, although this is often still not recognised by many. ‘Soul murder’ is when someone’s innate capabilities are so

undermined that they are made to feel incompetent.

Working from the place of an embodied being holds many wonders, pitfalls, consequences and unknowns. The box below

highlights a few thoughts.




Box 1: Thoughts for Working from the Place of an Embodied Being

Thoughts for Working from the Place of an Embodied Being

Plan for the probable; consider the likely; work with what’s required; let the possibilities

take care of themselves.

The authentic power and expression of the original vision is socially prohibited.

Guidance may always be available so long as we don’t have expectations about what

form it should take.

Life is an ongoing experiential event.

Being open to everything that is there in the moment.

Open to responding in an unplanned way.

Energy fields are always there.

True to self versus how to be with others.

How to create a relationship between being an embodied being and the wider reality in

order to experience life as a potentially continuously transformative process.

The risks of being in flight from the self or of withholding from the other; of losing one self

in the other as a means of remaining absent from oneself.

Moving into the unsafe from the safe – self-challenge.

The more willing I am to disclose, the more others do so also.

We don’t often get the full vision, but we get a touch or a glimpse, a subtle fragrance of it

all that reminds us of all that is promised.

Breakdown is often a breakthrough – a form of spiritual emergency.

Why would we want heaven on earth when heaven is its own place and so is this?

Higher learning: inspiration, imagination, intuition.




5: The Transpersonal: The Extra Dimension“The person is a spiritual reality.” John Heron

Symbolism and Imagery

What, if any, is the difference between symbolism and imagery? Do they have a connection with the transpersonal? The

language around the meaning of the words themselves will influence and possibly restrict one’s understanding of symbols

and images, yet it is important to go back to find some starting point, some point from which explorations can begin in

order to extend understanding.

There is a clear difference between an icon and a symbol:

• Icon: a picture of something specific

• Symbol: contains a resonant range of meanings.

The poppy can illustrate the difference: a poppy worn in the buttonhole is an icon – for the poppies growing in Flanders’

fields; the blood of the dead soldiers is a symbolic element.

Symbols encompass more than the symbolic ‘thing’ itself and are not connected to that ‘thing’. How then can this be

used in understanding more deeply and can there be more understanding in communion? Could this also lead to less

understanding and to greater misunderstanding?

Symbols are all about experience, and myths and symbols abound in folk tales. In some cultures symbols have very

different meanings – often contradictory and paradoxical. The circle, for example, is seen in many ways: as a symbol of

eternity; an entry into a void; an enclosed space or the power of the sun. Language itself is a symbolic form; it is a set of

symbols we use to point the way to something. Yet some sounds, e.g. ‘Mama’, do have a link, an almost universal

meaning and power. There may be a fundamental cultural meaning but individuals will also have their own experience on

top because there are sets of associations that make the meaning and experience disparate for each individual.

Symbols can be two-dimensional or three-dimensional; they are visual, either internally or externally. Sounds are more

usually linked to memory association and pictures (as in old languages) are pictograms.

An example: it is important to nurture the divine within. A candle, for example, gives light yet it also flames: it is a mirror of

connection to the divine/life force within. Focusing on a candle may give the opportunity to allow what one knows within

to come into consciousness. A candle can be the path between the divine within and drawing on the divine without.

Candles are the flame of life; a sign of energy. How do we keep the connection and do the mundane? It is about bringing

the divine into the mundane.

The Paradigm of the Person

What is the paradigm of the person? If there is not a transpersonal dimension what is your view of the model of the

person?

This is one account of a person as a spiritual being – an undifferentiated presence in the world as an infant. The infant is

given shape/conditioning which congeals the ego. The erratic nature of experiences and the uneven process causes parts

of the ego to become hard and have great holes where things pour in. There is imbalanced progress. Given a fair chance,

human beings develop ego and at six or seven years old they are in touch with the numinous. This gradually fades in

childhood and later adolescence. Acquisition of language has a great part to play and it becomes more important to ‘say’

than to experience if we are not careful. This is especially so in a culture like ours where we are taught to ‘talk about’

rather than ‘experience’.




The person is not an ego: the person has an ego. But the ego opens itself to let more in only in those places of sensitivity

or reminders from past places. If it does not express itself in a straight fashion, it will create distortions. Therefore one can

have all kinds of experiences and there are all kinds of nodules, holes. If one is open to being responsive and has

mindfulness, it is possible to distinguish different kinds of experiences: genuine expressions of the transpersonal, distorted

expressions of the transpersonal, and experiences resulting from ancient pathology. It is possible to begin to make sense

of experiences personally and transpersonally and it then also becomes possible to distinguish when an experience is a

genuine transpersonal experience and when it is an ordinary everyday experience.

Lots of models and explanations say it is either/or. If one is spiritually developed, they say there is no need for any more

emotional work. If the ego is so damaged in one way, then there will be compensation and individuals can do horrendous

things in the name of religion or spiritual practice. Openness to working with others in a trusting and mutual atmosphere

enhances the potential for more to be learned, experienced, understood. The more spiritual experiences there are along

the journey, the more impetus there is to look at the emotional and not to separate the two.

There is much here about our human power and how our egos are distorted. The capability to perpetrate what would be

described as horrific acts is within all of us. We all also have the capability of being the other, Ghandi or Mandela, for

instance. The spiritual being is able to reclaim, be mindful and recognise that choice. The great majority of human beings

are asleep and therefore they are unable to make a choice. In this sense the universal energy is not good or evil: this

definition depends upon how it is received and used.

There are always choices; choices to heed messages, such as dreams. One can choose to say it is only in the car, in the

shop, in the room, in the… Many in the Church, as in other major faiths, have sought to encourage the belief that the

divine is without and not within, but this is a power and control issue within the Church hierarchy. There is the choice to

step away: to step back too. The name given to this essence – the Divine, God, the Higher, the Beloved – is not important.

The transpersonal is already here; it is informing the universe always: it is not that we discover it; rather we re-discover it.

Once this is understood, the transpersonal becomes only more of what the experiences are that are available. It is one

paradigm that includes all.

A well-lived life of a human being may have nothing to do with the Divine. Many clergy are deeply fearful of God even

though they encourage a belief in Him. They live their whole lives repressing the divine. It is possible, too, to have

thoughts without feelings. This is unlikely in those who are in touch, but there are people who are not in touch and not

aware. Many years of philosophical writing in this country has disassociated thinking from feeling, encouraged

disembodied thought.

An important element of this is the acknowledgement that there is significance in every meeting. With awareness, one can

allow the significance to emerge; however, it often seems to be the case, that if you start looking for it, it becomes elusive

and/or distorted. It is about having the state of mind and presence in which the significance can emerge. Openness,

mindfulness and willingness in communion are the key factors.

The Transpersonal and Presence

A major part of the learning so far has been in relation to presence and being, and that the terms integrated practice and

holistic learning are actually subsumed within a transpersonal perspective. If I recognise that then I am now much more

personally present to myself than I was a year ago. If I am more fully aware of the energy to bring to a situation; less

daunted by doing what is needed; if I have recognised that I am the other side of a threshold that I have been living on for

a long time; if I am having a more fulfilled time of activities than ever – if all this is going on then how come there are

situations that I am not responding to effectively?

• Do they represent new challenges?

• Are they major issues?

• Are they reminders and echoes of familiar issues that require a new level of attention?




Without getting taken into the shadow for its own sake, there is going to be some throw-back, some that present

themselves even as we open up new ground and even before the issues that are strongly characteristic of this stage begin

to appear that throw up unfinished work from the earlier time. We don’t move through a threshold only when all work is

done. We move through with a momentum to meet new questions in new ways, to find an enlargement of response, but

there is still work to do from the time we have moved out from.

If personal power is where the practitioner gets their potency from and that form of power is related to how far they are

plugged into the transpersonal then the point at which concern enters into the calculation is when the transpersonal is

eclipsed. To bring personal calculations to bear on the powers of the universe, ‘the whomsoever, whatsoever’, is to defy

the gods and there are consequences to that in all traditions however they describe it.

To act as though one is a mere nothing has consequences too and it is not necessarily a holy martyrdom. The popular

view is that the more one claims to be ego-less, i.e. not there, the more the transpersonal is able to work through you. Far

too many people adopt a refusal to be who they are on these grounds. If they are a vacuum, nothing much is passing

through them. They are holding up the flow. Only by doing our part can the transpersonal do its part. It is a matter of

balance and how to maintain that balance and learning how to sense it situation by situation.

But how do we decide the balance and how do we maintain it? How do we sense it situation by situation? Staying

connected and centred helps, but it is also a part of our development to not be centred and to be off balance in order to

learn.

Invoking the Transpersonal

Working consciously with the transpersonal is a powerful and, in some senses, unpredictable experience. In some ways it

is totally unfathomable and yet the effects and the influences that occur in one’s life are experienced in many ways.

There are many reactions, responses and questions raised by the notion of invoking the transpersonal and experimenting

with different ways to do this in one’s life:

• Could saying you do not want help invoke a negative response?

• Perhaps it is possible to identify the transpersonal at work by asking it to appear in different ways and to be able to

recognise it

• Perhaps the transpersonal is impersonal: it is non-emotional, non-attached and therefore the actual difference is

the way we are; in either being open to it or closed off

• The transpersonal is always present and perhaps the key is how it is manifested through us and others and leads

to greater creativity and healing.

Pasquale said:

“Earthly things have to be known to be loved: divine things have to be loved to be known.”

All this means that we will never get statistics but a stronger and stronger sense of how it operates. It is feasible,

therefore, that you could go to new places and work with different groups, and your relationships would sometimes be

conducive to that positive reaction and sometimes not. There are two types of people:

1. People who have spiritual belief.

2. People who have spiritual experiences that guide their lives.




Eric Cassirer said that if one is coming from the right place in oneself it will work, whatever is said. There can be many

distractions, such as how it is going to be received, but if that is not there, it cannot help but work. John Heron

comments: “Transformation of being and skills of the soul are only embodied in the person and not in the written record.”

Transition

There is something important about the moment of transition. There comes a point where to do more is to be ‘efforting’

and yet there is also the point where if I do less I am not doing my bit. Does it matter if I don’t do anything? This raises

questions about the work. At some level I need to be able to communicate how it works. It also raises questions about

what I do; the effect it has. There is commitment to being a human being in the world and yet as an embodied soul my job

is sometimes to not do more and to be with what is. This raises yet more questions and dilemmas:

• When do we step out of the human into the soul?

• When do we step out of the soul into the human?

• How do I experience the transition?

• There is a danger of delusion in all this, in not being able to explain it

• Non-conscious processes that enable opportunities to appear – is that a skill?

• It is useful to trust one’s self at times more; yet at times some people need to let go and go with the process

• Is just being enough?

• How do we know it is helping?

The transition point needs to be discovered by each person; each will be different and unique for different people, different

situations. It is so intangible, it can feel like a dance. It can feel to be absent because I am too busy ‘doing’ what I’m doing

for my own ends, yet at other times it is very different.

Mindfulness

The concept of mindfulness is important. Mindful of where I am in relation to me, in relationship to the other, in relationship

to the Divine. This raises further questions:

• Where is the transitional point?

• When in the place of mindfulness will I ‘know’? Yet, how will I know?

• How will I know if it is ‘right’?

Grace comes into this. Patterns are always in place where we do not know the ‘waters’; grace lights the way, brings

confidence. One cannot go faster than the next step. In the world, there are a lot of opposing forces to this way of being

that encourage people to pretend that they are trusting. There is something about being with others to explore the

scenarios so that we are not hiding from our self in pretence. This is like seeing a marker in someone else even if we

haven’t got one of our own.

Mindfulness in all that we do is key, but should not be over-inflated since the human ego is present too. If we are mindful

there is a choice in moving belief systems. What gets in the way of being with the divine? Thought processes may be part

of this. Choices are always made, even if it is at a non-conscious level – this is part of the human condition. Mindfulness is

present when one attends to internal events for personal development.




Trusting the process of mindfulness is closely connected with being true to oneself and, in order to be true to oneself, one

needs to know one’s self first. Basil Hume is an example of someone who lived as true to himself as possible and

everyone has this potential, yet each will attain varying degrees of wakefulness. The aim is to be as true to oneself as

possible in that moment. A ‘fully realised being’ is someone transparently human as a vessel for the infinite to manifest

itself.

Modesty is also linked with mindfulness: the integrity of self assurance, not being unnecessarily deprecating and not being

over inflated in view of your role in the universe. If the vessel is not ready, one can burn out by trying too hard. There is no

need to do anything more, be ready to simply accept it.




6: The Shadow Perspective in the TranspersonalThe shadow: unwanted projections, unnoticed potential.

The shadow is a useful term but very loose. If part of what it means to be in relationship is about personal presence, yet I

have to attend to the transpersonal as well, how do I get the two in balance? If it is just about being a channel, where am I

in this? If I see myself as the healer, it is a grotesque egotistical claim and another deformed ego gratification. So there are

questions about how the shadow can be dangerous, leading us to seek social approval and recognition. Judgement is not

the same as being judgemental: the shadow stuff is connected to that.

The whomsoever/whatsoever is a dangerous form of power to call upon if you want social approval or recognition: it is

unmanageable and untameable. If you decide you only want so much of this power and calculate the degree, how do you

have any certainty it will remain at that level or that you will be able to control it? If you adopt the stance of the

transpersonal and you have to give up everything for it, does this mean that you can give up responsibility for what takes

place in that relationship? This can lead to struggling with what that might mean.

The transpersonal can be a way of being as defensive and as ego-ridden as any other way. One can make claims that do

not stand. One particular pitfall is if a practitioner is in a sophisticated practice with a naïve client who is not able to

recognise their level! If one sees all practice through the transpersonal perspective how does the shadow operate? Does it

have a new perspective, new risks? Are the risks higher? It is not up to you to decide where the power goes. Given an

account of it, the critical part is to go away and see how it works in relationship.

It is one thing to pretend that you can have the power on your terms and another to give yourself up to it in the hopeful

belief that you have now resolved ego issues. You haven’t; they are just as present as ever. The difference is that you are

having to subdue the ego, manage the ego in relation to a deeper recognition of what moves the universe and what is not

so important to attend to in practice and in life. So the transpersonal now becomes the source of the work – managing its

call and its requirements shapes how you do what you do. How many of us are really up to this and of those who say they

are how many of us pull back at some moment?

Perhaps we are all entitled to be reserved and shy, nervous and scared of such feelings from time to time, but there are

times when, if we are not careful, we hold ourselves off some action out of calculation – and that calculation is made out

of the preservation of the ego. Then the shadow appears. We then have to find some transpersonal justification for the

restriction, some plausible rationale for the step. Presence then comes down to attention identification and seeking to

remain as we are; power then reduces down to personal will, self preservation and a narrow self serving of one’s direct

interests (they may be expressed as universal values but they are nevertheless personally held and it is this that is the key

to their degenerate use).

The ego is no longer a necessary vessel for the transpersonal to flow through but a container for all manner of vain and

worldly ambitions or negations. Freedom is the right to act without concern for the interests of others or the effects upon

them; accountability is surrendered in favour of my own personal preference erected into a right of choice. Dialogue is

then replaced with exchanges that have no real connection and action is reduced to going through the motions. How we

emerge from such a slippage is not going to be easy. Self-deception, self-inflation, conscious and initial relationships, co-

creation partnerships all reduce the dangers of the process becoming embroiled.

Hubris and cowardice are two important aspects of the ego of which to be aware, especially when working with the

shadow.

1. Hubris: the desire to have more influence than an individual can responsibly manage. A form of grandiosity and the

need to be important or decisive in ways unrelated to the requirements of the situation, using the circumstances as

the justification.




2. Cowardice: the sentimental belief that an individual is required (for some reason) not to play their full part or make

their unique contribution to events with a full participation. Since any contribution can only be evaluated after the

event, there is the danger of believing that your contribution is mature only to discover that it is something else

later.

In evaluating what a mature response might be in complex and difficult situations before we face them, we allow ourselves

consciously to meet fears, inhibitions and uncertainties that we can then work on as part of the preparation.

Working with the Shadow

How does the shadow appear in a transpersonal encounter, in any encounter? The shadow is the degenerate ego of the

person whilst power and presence is part of the transpersonal dynamic yet it can degenerate into personal will,

attachment, investment (power), needs and attention seeking (presence).

The grid below shows some of the risks of holding oneself in a grounded way. How might I lose it and in what ways? It is

possible to monitor situations that are at the edge of my learning: where I would not manage myself automatically in a

clear and centred way?

It is also useful to look at routine meetings and compare the two. What are the differences? Recording what happens in all

meetings will give greater understanding, awareness and considerable learning. This is one way of developing a technique

to develop awareness of the transpersonal and one’s inner strength. This could change the routine meetings and heighten

understanding of all manner of things.

Box 2: The Ego, Power and Presence

PowerThe way of things

PresenceResonance/mutuality

AttentionPower

Self-willPresence

UniversalityThe vessel - EGO - The trophy

Authenticity




Appendix 1: Summary: Integrated Practice

• Clients do the integration; practitioners claim to integrate

• Whole Person Learning – integrating our experience; most want to integrate into their practice

• If give up role/status/vocation, practice is more widely available

• We consider everything rather than what is appropriate to ‘profession’

• Transformation of self

• Growing rather than collecting tools

• Process in order to get the learning; it is how it reaches into us

• A sense of ‘being with’ another without having to ask

• Instruments for one another

• Technique: what can be done to someone else

• Learning: how this affects me, is what I then take out

• Technique-only therapists will practise differently

• ‘Meeting’ is a powerful and important concept in how awareness of integrated practice, holistic learning and thetranspersonal ‘live’ in the world

• There are different levels of meeting from social, intra and interpersonal through to the transpersonal – meeting of twosouls

• Many, many things influence how we meet with the ‘other’

• Mutuality/peer element crucial: mutual responsibility and accountability

• Different meetings don’t require the same level of presence

• Bearing witness and having witness transforms further: can be verbal and experienced at the same time

• Creating new thoughts in the moment

• Culture discounts sharing of experience to enrich self and others

• Intent: wanting to meet the other; soul meeting strong connection

• Shared responsibility makes a difference to level of input – known relationship

• Can you create the relationship required if the other’s place is not clear?

• Helping systems have in-built difficulty of anxieties and dependency – clients ill; therapists whole – and white coatsmaintain the barrier

• All effective healers promote self-healing




• Language can be both a barrier to understanding and a good means of communication

• Communication is closely linked with language: how, when, if

• There are many ways of communicating – not just verbally

• Transpersonal power is a dangerous one to use if you think you can control it

• The transpersonal shadow is a very real element

• Divine/sacred – within and without sacredness of all things: often conflicts with official Church dogma and culturalpatterns

• Bringing the unconscious to the conscious

• The transpersonal is manifested through individuals depending on levels of openness, connection, awareness

• No separation between the person and the practice in ‘integrated’ practice

• Holistic, integrated, transpersonal, learning: how view them is indicative of one’s stance in the world

• Presence is the manifestation of embodiment

• There is much more than ‘I’

• The person and their stance determines whether a meeting is holistic and/or integrated

• BEING not doing

• Walking your talk

• I /Thou

• Unembodied Embodied

• Skills and techniques only, along continuum to transcending skills into PRESENCE

• Mindfulness in all things

• Avoidance of mystique and role dependency

• Integration: a life-long, continual process

• Holistic: no separation of emotional, physical, physiological, spiritual

• Breaking out of the old paradigm concerning:

• Knowledge and valuing non-conceptual knowledge• Education, teaching, learning and knowledge

• Social critique is inevitable when exploring these questions: society is happy to maintain the status quo, which makesdifficulties for living a new paradigm in the ‘ordinary’ world

• As one is more able to meet one’s self, one is more able to meet the other.




Appendix 2: Themes, Concepts and Ideas from theIntegrated Practice and Holistic Learning Co-operative Inquiry

Module One

Key Words/Phrases

Listening to self/otherBeing with someone

Merging/convergenceConventional focus

Soul transforms to spiritualRhythm; energy; trust

Miasma — seat of the soulPower is in the relationship, not in individuals

Is the ultimate in integrated practice the flow of energybackwards and forwards in relationship?

SpiritConnection to self and widerTranspersonal connectionWhomever

ClientSeparation & connectionShare accountabilityCongruence between self and clientAttending to shifts in self and otherAttending to prompts from left fieldShare responsibility

Integrated Practice witha Transpersonal Core

Practitioner3. Variety of flexible responses1. Touch at all levels

All of me appropriately to clientFull attention to relationship with other

2. Keeping shit stirredLack of investment in outcomeStaying open to higher selfConnection to self

The SoulThe soul is the interface between the human and ‘whomsoever’; upwards and inwards.Soul: that part open to the ‘Spirit’; suffuses mind and body and is an active part of all that is.




Module One: continued

Knowledge

Being

Intellectual/conceptual Understanding(inner awareness)

Transcend knowledge

Away from role Transcendental Embodied

Learning about ‘knowing how’

Meeting

Theoreticalmodels

Bringing selfto relationship

Social

Different levels of meeting

Transpersonal

Intellectual Interpersonal

Intrapersonal

Two spirits meeting

Willingness to meetas equals

Openness

Language

How to communicate? What to communicate?

Do we need to communicate?




Module Two

Unconscious Conscious Mutuality

Responsibility Accountability

Engagement

Open Awake to attendant questions

Embodiment(see below)

Presence(see below)

Quality of MeetingPower of Relationship(see below)

Different Paradigm

Walking your talk Social identity

Social expectations

I/Thou

Symbolism and Imagery

Power of metaphor Preverbal

Meaning without language

Main Themes

Power of Relationship

Interpersonal Intrapersonal Transpersonal

Whole greater than the parts

Being Human Different states

The Helper

Practical influences on ‘meeting’

Time Place

Purpose Wellbeing

Openness Energy

Prejudices

ConsequencesSpace

Presence

Inner authority

Religion not allowpersonal presence

Skills not needed

Skills transcendedModesty

EMBODIED BEING

Embodiment

Unembodied:skills and

techniques only

Skills transcendedto presence

Incorporatesthe Soul

Suppressed in manycultures

In embodied statetranspersonal fuses

with all meeting

Relationship(Much more than intellectual coming together)




Module Three

Further thoughts/ideas

A fully realised being is someone transparently human as a vessel for the infinite to manifest itself.Is just ‘being’ enough?

When step out of human into the soul?When out of soul into the human?How is the transition experienced?

‘Walking what you talk’.

Being ‘Meeting’ Immediacy

Letting go of outcomes, assumptions, ‘doing good’Expansion

Enough to go round

Fear stops trust

Love

To oneself

The wider

The other

Presence

Church not allow within

Within/without

Name not important

The Divine

Engaging/disengaging

Individualinterpretations

Language

SoulIn touch with own soul, thenmeet as real soul persons(See questions below)

What influences does it have?

What is the power?

How know ‘it’ is important?

Transpersonal

Barriers down

Meet the ‘person’

Open

Accepting

No pre-judgement

Integration

To me/other/divine Grace In all things

MindfulnessBringing the Divine into the mundane Modesty

Maintain inner work Not over-inflated

Main Themes




Module Four

Knowledge/learning/teaching

‘I’ am the integration of practiceShifts from technique to synchronicity

‘Being’ and letting go of ‘doing’ Need restoration of sacredness of learning other than conceptual

Healing enabled by intention/acceptance/allowingThere is a body of knowledge that is universal — society maintains restricted sense of learning and teaching.

Integrated Practice comes out of engagement with ‘my’ own practice, not a system of knowledge.

Holistic as ‘alternative’

‘Holistic’ (see next page)

IP through HL differentfrom IP and HL

Language

Past conditioning

Setting apart

Depends on role

No relationship

Inversion of peer principle

Mystique

In touch withown innerauthority

Notauthoritarian

Presence Knowledge/learning/teaching(See below)

Willingness to meet/be open

Sacred relationship to creation Dialogue

No mystique Meet as equals

Relationship

Carry presence within selfAttunement

Genuine interestin communication

Main Themes




Module Four: continued

Holistic/Holistic Learning

Person involved learningWilling to work throughown thresholds

Creativity and learning

Attention

Focus

Coming together to create

Balance of Assimilationand Integration

‘Awareness’rather than HL?

Subconscious/consciousbrought together

Sensitive towhat is there

Emotional/physicalphysiological/spiritual

brought together

IP the field,HL the action

How far can makeinterventions and remain

holistic?

Stripping away layers

The person makesit holistic

Bearing witness Being Not ‘client ill/therapist whole’

Giving up role/status Growing, not collecting tools

Soul connection Whole Person Learning

Trusting self Meeting

Relationship

IntegratedPractice

Additional thoughts

When holistic practitioner and holistic client come together, real release and learning enabled.It requires HL to find what HL is!

Can we evade planetary responsibility if we take this on?Is there an underlying challenge to make all this explicit?There are basic polarities between ‘ground’ and ‘being’

Can we ask questions about integrated practice and holistic learningwithout a critique of the social world in which we operate?




Module Five

Ego elementHow acknowledgethe transpersonal?

Inner Wisdom Required by Whole PersonLearning

Creativity& Healing

Invoking inmany ways

Transpersonaland practice

Power Bedrock term

Presence

To be in themoment

When legitimate?

Manipulative

Grandiosity

Degenerate

Use of power

Shadow

Attentionseekingneeds

Attachment Investment

Personal will

Pre

Tom

Transpersonal

The Sacred

All is sacred

And the Holy Spirit

How does it manifest itself?

Always present

Are transpersonaland sacred

interchangeable?

Healing - asacred space

Healing willtake place




Module Six

Attunement

Integration

Life-long process ‘Being’

Learning

External conditions

Internal process ‘Beingness’ ofteacher, key

Transpersonal(See below)

Connection

Physical

Words Invoking in many ways

Grounding

Different ways/language: same essence

Still spaceVisualisation

Stripping away that which gets in the way

Sacredness/meeting

rds Invoking in many ways

Main Themes

GraceAs know self,know Holy Spirit

Whole - wholly human; holy human

All around, alwaysAcceptance

As meet self,meet other

more

Willingness to

Be open Understand

It is manifested throughself and others

Non-emotional/non-attached

Always present

Staying connected

Will it absent on request?

Church - divine ‘without’Own self-worth, not others’judgement

If use for personal power,defying gods

Shadow - can be asego-ridden as any other way

Transpersonal

When in right placein self, it will work

Balance of self andtranspersonal

Only by doing own part,transpersonal

Willingness to open selfto face own shadow

Dangerous power if want socialapproval or recognition

Openness

More open to transpersonal, more integratedMore space to let things inLess need to stand in world in particular wayLess need to be seen in particular way




Module Six: continued

Further Thoughts/Ideas

There are people who have spiritual beliefs and people who have spiritual experiences that guide their lives.‘Earthly things have to be known to be loved; divine things have to be loved to be known.’If working out of being, we’ll find what need. No longer need to be interested in technique.

Spiritual trials perhaps more and more the way in which journey manifests itself.Discernment and rigour in being alert to own potential shifts and how don’t quite stand in our truth.


From IP to Holistic Learning Toward WPL AWIn addition, activities like counselling and much of what...

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