Awakening in Wholeness and Love Session Coming to Salt Spring
An interview with Rod Taylor
by Julie Hampton of Salt Spring Island, BC
Julie: From your quote, you are saying that awakening is a natural process. Can you comment on that in more detail?
Rod: Yes, it is going on in each of our lives and throughout all life. We are tapping into the evolutionary nature of life.
Julie:Secondly you mention that respectful and skillful support can accelerate that process. Please talk more about the support that is needed.
Rod: Whole being non-dual awakening to me is a true paradigm shift, a quantum leap. Life is moving us in that direction within the pace of our own natural life circumstances and at some point we will need and benefit from support, and from actively leaning into the benefit and necessity of involvement with others as we move into living non-separateness with all of life.
Julie: So what does that mean in terms of my individuality?
Rod: Whole being awakening requires full realization and living of our individual self along with realization of non-dual wholeness with allness — this is embodied whole being awakening with the simultaneous joy and fullness of the finite and infinite coexisting in wholeness and love.
Julie: So somehow in non separateness you are saying that myself as a separate and individual self is still there? And how does the individual self matter in terms of a universal awakening?
Rod: Realizing our individual self along with our infinite nature is the ground of love to be discovered and lived in relation to every other aspect of life and as the very fabric of life. Each person is unique and therefore each person’s awakening will be unique in the context of realizing their own individual nature simultaneous with the realization of the infinite wholeness of all that is. Our own individuality MATTERS as a divinely human aspect of manifest creation, as do our individual relationships with every other individual aspect of wholeness.
Julie: How do we do that? What is some of the support that you mentioned in the quote that can accelerate the process of awakening into this whole being awareness?
Rod: In whole being non-dual awakening we do not get to choose which parts of our self and the world we awaken to, we awaken to all of life as it is. Therefore, the doorway into our realization must be through ourselves, including the parts we have felt are wrong, not complete, not desirable—not to make them perfect but to live consciously into and through them.
Support includes, whole being activation from someone who is living an integrated wholeness of this kind; the imparting of knowledge that can help us be with the self in new ways that hold paradox and embrace our imperfections; and coaching for the real circumstances that are arising in a person’s life, in an atmosphere of shared, respectful, mutuality and trust.
Julie: What do mean by whole being activation exactly?
Rod: A significant factor in quickening our whole being awakening seems to be the opportunity for our own subtle nature to feel the quality of wholeness being lived by another person established in that stage of life and resonating to that mode of functioning within one’s own nature, much like when one tuning fork is vibrating, other tuning forks in its vicinity also begin to vibrate.
Julie: What can the reader expect to find at the upcoming gathering?
Rod: In this gathering we will meet together and enjoy a mutual exchange, whereby we respect each person’s personal story, background, and knowledge, and share with each other and learn from each other in a mutual way that gives individual and group relationships a role in discovering and opening to the nature of ourselves and to others and to life. We will do an optional open-eyed gazing meditation in which we can meet in presence with each other. I will offer some knowledge for coming into relationship with ourselves in a way that can move us toward living in more wholeness, and I will answer questions about this awakening process that participants wish to bring up.
Julie: You say in your bio that you are a teacher of Waking Down In Mutuality. Please explain what that is and what kind of people are attracted to it.
Rod: Waking Down in Mutuality is a unique, highly effective, catalytic approach to whole-Being awakening that was founded by Saniel Bonder*. It is offered by a group of awakened teachers who work individually and collectively to support people awakening within the context of their own lives and in mutuality with others.
The kinds of people who are often attracted to it have come to the point in their lives where they want to more fully live their authentic self and they realize the things they have been doing are not resulting in fully accomplishing this. Some people have been on long spiritual paths searching for consciousness awakening and now want to be involved in a successful awakening approach that includes embodiment and heart awakening dimensions in the awakened realization. Others have not done much formal spiritual seeking but are interested in developing more wholeness and capacity to deal with challenging personal and life issues. The age range for participants spans from youth in their late teens through those in late retirement, with increasing numbers of people in their twenties and thirties awakening and becoming involved in organizing, mentoring and teaching activities, to support others growing and awakening through the Waking Down in Mutuality work.
*Footnote: Saniel Bonder was a founding member, along with Ken Wilbur and others, of the Integral Institute and is a co-founder of The Human Sun Institute.
Contact Rod:
http://www.awakeninginwholeness.com/contact
