A library of talks and excerpts from Michael.

 The Bells of Silence

I’m going to say a few words now about the kind of processes that I expect will be going on today.

Some people here I know, but some of you I’ve not met before, so I don’t know what your expectations are or what you would like to happen, but we’re not really going to work therapeutically today.

I work in the spiritual dimension, and the spiritual path leads from a life centred in the ego to a life centred in the essence. To make that change is extremely difficult, because when we’re centred in the ego, that seems to be what reality is, and we identify with that, with our choices and preferences and ambitions and so on, and outside that there seems to be really nothing. And if suddenly something happens – which can happen – and you find yourself losing your sense of identity, then it can result in a great panic. The feeling is that if it stays, then you’re going to feel completely lost and not know who you are, or what anything else is. So that movement from ego to essence is seldom made, and yet something inside everybody – well, many people – longs for something beyond what appears to be life and reality as it is commonly seen. And making that step is essential for someone who wants to really find their true nature.

Now, what the Work I do can achieve is to awaken in you certain subtle energies and centres, which can be experienced as a personal reality. And if one connects with these inner subtle energies, then one feels that one has somehow found some in-between ground between the ego and some universal nature. The experience of yourself on these subtle levels is personal and at the same time also impersonal. It is personal because you can taste it, you can experience it, you can be with it, and there’s a feeling that this experience, this sense of connection belongs to you, so it’s personal; and it is impersonal because that taste of the subtle realm is really the same for everybody, so it has the feeling of being universal, too. And to experience yourself as being an individual and unique and at the same time part of the whole of life is a very beautiful experience. And then from there one can explore things that are impossible to be experienced by a separated ego.

I mean, the ego by its very nature is always separate. It belongs just to that person, and the view of the ego is peculiar to that particular ego, and all our ways of seeing things are different from one another. So because it is individual and separate and belongs only to the person who owns that ego, it is therefore bound to be separate from everybody else and everything else.

The basis for this ego is set when we are very young, maybe by the time we are three or four years old, and everything is then afterwards built upon that basis. And therefore it’s been with us, really, as far as we can remember, recall and know, nearly all of our lives, and so that feels as if it’s who we are. And because of its separation, that means also that it is limited and repetitive. We go on seeing things in exactly the same way, reacting in the same way, having the same preferences, more or less, for the whole of our lives, and we’re kind of trapped by that.

Of course, when you’re totally identified with the ego, you won’t feel trapped, you’ll think this is just the way things are. But if you begin to question it and wonder what else there is, then you begin to become aware of the way that you operate in this confined and restricted and repetitive manner. And at that point, if you are determined and intelligent and have a longing to know more about yourself and life, then you will start the search: ”Is there something else? Is there some other way of being? Is there some way that I can be myself and at the same time not feel so isolated and cut off from other people and from a sense of the universe as a whole?” So maybe we start doing some meditations of some kind, some explorations, and then we begin to experience things that we haven’t experienced before. But then those experiences are always related to the original centre, to the ego centre, and so you say, ”Right, now my reality is expanding, my understanding, my experience of myself is expanding,” but still the old centre is the one that holds all these new experiences, and that is, of course, advantageous and beneficial, but still you are trapped. It is just that the place you are trapped in becomes larger. You don’t feel so restricted, but you still feel, in a way, confined to your own personal outlook.

So once you start to question it, then this ego, instead of being somehow self-satisfied or just feeling, ”That’s how I am and that’s how I have to be,” starts to become discontented. And to the extent that it is discontented, it starts making more and more experiments to see if it can find ways of reducing the grip that it has on you. And yet the idea of leaving that centre behind is rather terrifying, because there seems to be no alternative, or the alternative seems to be just the unknown, darkness, empty space. So there’s this great desire to take a jump, to leap out of the prison, and at the same time a great fear of not finding anything there to land on. And that’s very understandable, and many people stand on the edge of that ego reality for their whole lives, feeling a great desire to go beyond it and yet not finding a way to give up everything that is familiar and jump into this abyss, as it’s known in Zen.

But if, as I said at the beginning of my little talk, you can awaken these subtle energies and centres in you, then that’s like a net that will catch you when you jump. It’s part of you, you’ve awoken it, you’ve realised that it’s an aspect of yourself, and at the same time you feel it has provided an escape from the constrictions of your personality. And as I’ve said already, these subtle energies are personal and at the same time they are impersonal. They are personal for the reasons I’ve outlined, and they are impersonal because they are everywhere, and so when you connect with them, you feel you are connected with everywhere, because you can experience not just yourself being in those realms, but you see that these realms don’t belong to you, they are something that, in a way, you have fallen into, and there is a place for you to be in these subtle realms but at the same time these subtle realms extend in all directions.

Now, I say that they are everywhere, and of course that means also that they have always been there and always will be there. And yet up to now you haven’t found them. And that is because to find them you have to vibrate at more or less the same rhythm or the same pace as those energies. When you’re vibrating with ego energies, then you’re not sensitive to them, so in a way you can’t go directly from the ego to these energies. But if you stay open and sensitive, then the place in you that is harmonious with those energies can start to vibrate in response to those energies. And one way that can happen is through the process of resonance.

You probably all know moments and examples of that. If you have many tuning forks around, and you hit one tuning fork, then all the other tuning forks start to vibrate. And if you have a bunch of fireflies that are winking at different rates, and then they meet together in a cloud, if you wait and watch, sooner or later they will all start to flicker on and off at the same time. And another example is that if a group of women are living together or they’re exploring something together, then it is quite common, if it’s over a long period, for all the women to start menstruating at the same time. So in a similar way, if we are in a space together like we are now, and I can vibrate at the subtle level, then something in everybody else that corresponds with that level will begin to awaken and participate in that reality. And also, the fact that it’s operating in one person means that the energy that is universal in this vibration is invited into the space. Then it is present in a way that is available to human beings.

(silence)

So I’ve just been sitting here for half an hour or more and chatting with you, talking about processes, and already what I am talking about is working – in some of you very strongly, in some just a little. So the process is very different from the normal processes we have to achieve something. Normally when we want to get somewhere we have to do something, or do a lot, but for this process you don’t have to do anything, really, you just have to be open and receptive and let go a little of your normal processes of thought, and then something that has been underground begins to emerge and take you in its arms.

(silence – church bells can be heard ringing nearby)

Well, I don’t know if you know this, but the purpose of church bells is to interrupt the life – the ego life – so that you can be reminded of what is beyond it, which in Christianity is Jesus and God. But silence can also do that. It can interrupt the life, the thoughts, the normal processes, and bring you into the moment.

In our life, each instant follows on from the last, and each instant is different from the last as we move through our activities. But in a deep silence there is no process going on really, there is just this moment, and then this moment, and then this moment, and then this moment. And you feel the moment there all the time.

(a long silence follows)

Talk given during a seminar in Zürich, 1st October 2005