Non-duality, Authenticity and the Body

Non-duality, Authenticity and the Body

This is something I struggled with for years.

I felt the real benefits of body-based therapies and somatic practice, but there was still a quiet belief inside me that this was somehow a lesser path compared to those who focused only on nonduality.

My devotion for the body and non-dual awareness has continued, but over time something has become increasingly clear.

The nondual state that so many teachings point toward, the sense of direct intimacy with everything and beyond everything, is only ever known through the immediacy of the felt sense in the body.

More recently, and more importantly, I have seen through my own experience that one of the main reasons so many of us feel cut off from this natural awareness, and continue to suffer inside the illusions of the mind, is because of the layers of tension and holding in the body.

These contractions narrow our perception and keep us repeating the same patterns again and again. I love the radical message of nonduality, the deep rest that comes when there is nobody to protect, no separate me to maintain, no time and nothing to chase. A complete sense of freedom.

But when the body is still shaped by old habits and conditioning, when it is held in contraction, these openings come and then fade again.

They appear for a moment and dissolve like mist. At the School Of Embodiment we support the natural unwinding of these contractions.

Instead of approaching the nature of self through the mind, we work through the body. We soften the physical sense of the separate self, which in time leads to a softening and dissolving of the thought made self in the head.

Because we are such cognitive creatures the top-down approach is usually the most tempting. It gives a feeling of control and safety that the body often does not.

The world of feeling can seem unknown and unpredictable. But it is inside this discomfort and this fear that something real can unwind.

Here we can let ourselves dissolve in a way that is natural and authentic.