Chaos, Order, Discontinuity and SourcePoint Therapy

Chaos and Order

Dear Friends, this month I have been reflecting on the theme of Order and Chaos, health and ill-health, harmony and disharmony, peace and war, the endless polarities of life in this world. In SourcePoint Therapy we emphasize the importance of the Third Point, the Awareness that holds all streams of consciousness, all energies, all polarities. I’ve been reflecting on the challenge of maintaining that center, that Single Point, the focus, bringing my awareness back over and over to the breath, to the awareness of the breath, spacious Awareness that arises from the fundamental Order, Balance, Harmony and Flow of the vital creative life force energy that gives rise to life. I hear the word Chaos frequently in conversation.

What does it all mean? All these seeming opposites, let’s explore them.

I offer here some perspectives that when I read them again after a long time , I felt a certain sense of the prophetic in them, and my own words were coming back to illuminate the way for me now. The first is a post from our blog from February 8, 2010. The second is the transcript of an awareness session from November 27, 2007. The last is from our SourcePoint book.

Please read on.

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“Discontinuity”

February 8, 2010

Last week I spent a lot of time listening to Ervin Lazlo. A thinker, philosopher and complex systems theorist who started out as a concert pianist, he is the author of more than 80 books, including one of my main resources for SourcePoint-related quotes, Science and the Akashic Field.

He says that when a complex system becomes disturbed it experiences “discontinuity.” The system inevitably changes. It can’t go back to what it was before. You can’t just patch up the system to try to get it to function as it was. It has to find a different way of continuing.

I thought of the relevance of this to SourcePoint Therapy, and to the healing process of body and mind in general. The system can’t go back to what it was before. It has to find a different way of continuing. How many of us have experienced that knowing at a crisis point in our lives? The disruption could be illness, loss, trauma or countless other happenings. In a way all we long for is to return to what was, but deep inside is the knowing that can’t happen, that we will never be as we were before. As we open to that and participate in the transformation our healing accelerates.

Healing involves a certain degree of discontinuity, allowing the system to find a new way of being in the world.

The disruption to the system becomes the ground for transformation and growth. In SourcePoint we emphasize the importance of maintaining the focus on health, the fundamental Order, Balance, Harmony and Flow that is the ground of our being, through strengthening our connection with what we call the Blueprint of Health for the human being, present in all of us.

Connecting with this Blueprint does not return us to some static “perfect” state of Order, Balance, Harmony and Flow. Rather, the information of original health present in the Blueprint is constantly interacting with the constant disruptions we experience.

Health is not some static state to be attained or returned to but rather a constant movement of balance and imbalance, order and disorder, harmony and conflict, flow and fixation.

Laszlo goes on to equate this process to what’s happening in our world right now. (remember, this was said in 2010 already) We are a very complex system experiencing drastic disruption on a global scale, and the implication is we are experiencing a very necessary discontinuity with the past. We certainly can’t continue as we have, and we have not yet found the new way of continuing. I find this perspective enormously helpful in understanding my experience of day-to-day life right now, with all its uncertainty and acceleration; with the sense that old ways and principles no longer apply.

We are living at the heart of a great discontinuity.

And the principles and practices of SourcePoint Therapy have a lot to offer in such a time. What better time to connect with that information of fundamental Order, Balance, Harmony and Flow and let it guide us into our future, in the midst of increasing chaos in the outer world?

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This question is even more obvious and pertinent for each of us, 16 years later. We become very aware that this process of re-forming, or we could say re-birthing, doesn’t happen overnight. This could seem discouraging. It requires faith in the best possible outcome, endless patience, to give birth, to assist in birth, to labor in bringing new life into the world. Here is an excerpt from a meditative awareness session in 2007, that offers some guidelines still applicable for today’s world.

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“It is important to understand the old notions of Chaos and Order are changing and must change. Chaos and Order are not separate from each other, not enemies of each other.

What is called Chaos is essentially the freedom of all possibility, the generative energy from which all arises. From this arises Order, and Order inevitably returns to Chaos.

The fear of Chaos causes the imposition of an unnatural order.

SO IN HEALING YOU ARE SEEKING TO RETURN TO A NATURAL ORDER, NOT TO IMPOSE AN IDEA OR CONCEPT OF ORDER.

You can be interested in energy work and practice, but it is impossible to truly work with energy unless you know how to set aside the idea and concept of order in the way people currently experience it, while maintaining the deep belief and trust in the natural Order. This is not so easy to do.

That is why when people find themselves in fear about changes that are occurring in the world, it is important to understand that the seeming Chaos is an expression of a deeper Order. It is not even as simple as saying, the energies of the earth are trying to balance themselves.

It is something to explore further.

What are Chaos and Order? How does one live in Harmony with Chaos? Balance, Order and Harmony are not principles that are there to impose upon and destroy Chaos. Harmony, Balance and Order are the natural outgrowth of Chaos, the way that life, which arises from that creative, generative energy, creates and maintains itself. “

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As always, exploring in awareness with questions of a cosmic nature, we are left with more questions!

The root of the word chaos means simply “void” without any connotation of disorder. In Greek mythology it was the darkness, or abyss, before creation emerged, in other words, from which creation emerged.

So how do we live in a world in transition, at a time of discontinuity? At a time the old order is shifting and chaos is emergent? That is a continuous question to ask ourselves as we go step by step, breath by breath, into the future.

We learn to live with questions, with not knowing, trusting and interacting with the natural energies of Order, Balance, Harmony and Flow, and the awareness that is our birthright as human beings.

I’ll close with a quote from our book, “SourcePoint Therapy: Exploring the Blueprint of Health.” It is from Chapter 11 “SourcePoint and the Evolution of Human Consciousness.”

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“The evolution of human consciousness demands the creation of a conscious self. From the SourcePoint perspective the goal of the spiritual path is not to transcend or abandon the self, including the physical body, but to transform our experience of existence, recognizing the physical body, individual consciousness, universal energy as one. We can come to experience the fundamental nature of the self as the natural Order, Balance, Harmony and Flow inherent in the universal energy. In this transformation a conscious self is born: one that delights in its existence, recognizes its interconnection with all being, and makes conscious choices that serve the Whole. Our aspiration then is to live in alignment with the greater Self of Order, Balance, Harmony, and Flow. The conscious self recognizes its oneness with the natural Order, while still taking responsibility as an individual choice-making entity.

The choices you make influence not only your own personal future evolution but also that of the collective human consciousness. Human consciousness is simply a composite. We are all part of it; we all contribute to it. As people become more aware of themselves as consciousness and energy, as we develop a heightened sensitivity to the subtle interactions of energy that underlie every event, then life here on earth begins to transform.”

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How do we live in such a time? Remembering that quote from Chief Seattle that for a too brief time became a wake-up call to those of us searching a way to live in these times:

“What we do to the web we do to ourselves.”

Yes, we must honor and care for and protect and nourish this web of life, of InterBeing, to which we owe our very lives. If we don’t, if we violate and destroy it, we destroy ourselves.

However, remember, then, also: what we do to ourselves, we do to the web.

Honoring and nurturing and healing our connection to the web, living in alignment with its natural Order, we sustain and nourish it, as it sustains and nourishes us.

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It’s been raining today in Santa Fe, a rare occurrence these days. I walked in the rain this evening, a gently misty rain, so precious, so beautiful. Inhaling its innate healing, nourishing, gentle energy. I give thanks to the rain, to the spirit of the rain. Ravens fly overhead into dark clouds. The mountains breathe. The cold wind that brings the rain gets colder. I return home.

Remember, keep it simple.

May all beings be happy, peaceful, and free of suffering.

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Bob Schrei painting sc1

The Single Point

The Source from which we emerge.

The Ground of our Being.

We can experience its Presence at any moment we choose to shift our awareness to it.

One day, we inevitably return to it to re-emerge.

There is an ancient Zen saying:

“In coming and going we never leave home.”