RELATIONSHIP - SourcePoint Therapy

Hand of God Robert Schrei drawing

drawing by bob schrei

touch everything so gently
do not disturb
it is all so fragile
so precious
so irreparable
oh, we think we heal
and yes, we do
and no
we never heal
everything
is in a constant state of wholeness
at the same time
it is eternally broken
there is the wound
the inexplicable wound
of just being alive
accompanied moment after moment
by the almost unbearable
sweetness
of
just
being.

We begin this exploration of relationship in today’s world with a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh’s little book: The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the PrajnaParamita Heart Sutra.” As you read this quote, imagine holding a book in your hand, reading from it, feeling the texture of holding it in your hand.

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without trees we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-“ with the verb “to be” we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.”

Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to relate the paper page of the book to sunlight, to the logger who cut down the tree, to the bread the logger ate to sustain himself, to the mother and father of the logger, and to the reader’s mind who perceives the sheet of paper. “You cannot point out one thing that is not here – time, space, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists…”

This book was published in 1988. Already things have changed dramatically. Nobody reading this is looking at an actual sheet of paper and may never have occasion to. If we trace the interbeing of where this current medium of expression comes from, we have to go a lot further into and around the web of its existence.

This communication appears on a screen on a device manufactured in a factory somewhere that may or may not have involved human beings. The device was packed and shipped most likely by human beings. The substance from which the device was made is, what, I don’t even know, but it was undoubtedly manufactured somewhere. Rare minerals, I am told, are needed for – something- and I don’t know where those come from, although I could look it up. And be told by AI how minerals are involved. Eventually the device is delivered to me in a truck marked with the word Amazon, by a person who drops it off and continues on their way.

So there’s lots of human beings along the way, of every race and gender, and each one of those is connected with this device, this medium. And each of them have to eat, receive the light of the sun, have their own stories. It’s likely that many are sustained by ultra-processed food, which brings the energy of chemicals and artificially produced products into this current complex web of interbeing.

This exploration as I write it allows me to see more clearly how dramatically our separation from the fundamental web of being is accelerating. Our awareness of our inter-being is rapidly disintegrating in the complexity of the current human life.

We have to wind our way backward through human being after human being and machine after machine to get to our fundamental inter-being, our breath, our bodies, to earth and air and fire and water, forests and rivers and seas and stones, deserts and mountains, sun and stars and moon, all the intricate expressions of life that are woven together naturally and that we have been ripping apart for some centuries now. The human being has become expert in destroying healthy relationship.

As we as human beings continue on this journey, I think many people now spend more time with their devices than with actual humans, and what they know of the human comes in the context of the device.

So what is “relationship” in today’s world?

That’s not a question I am prepared to answer, because I don’t know.

It’s been pointed out to me that I belong to the last generation to fully grow up and come to adulthood in an “analog” reality. Inevitably my view is going to be different than someone born into this current world. And perhaps is irrelevant.

However.

This is where SourcePoint Therapy perhaps has something to offer.

It has evolved simultaneously with these technologies and devices.

Its language resonates with, although does not arise from, the language of modern science – it is a universal language of geometry, pattern, energetic structure and non-locality.

It has emerged from the same Source, our Inter-Being, as many other healing traditions from ancient times to the present, and recognizes the power and significance of these traditions.

It is not grounded in the religious belief systems of any specific culture.

People from many different cultural backgrounds have been able to relate to it and find it helpful.

It is a system of working with energy that is based simply on connecting to the fundamental creative life force energy of Source, and specifically to what we call the Blueprint of Health for the Human Being.

This is the source, the ground of THE human being. Before race, gender, ancestry, tribe, nationality, culture…the original ancestor, what we all share as human beings, what we all have in common, not only all that divides us.

One of the primary characteristics we all share as humans is Awareness.

SourcePoint Therapy can help us develop a greater Awareness of what we all share as humans, and the ground, or Source from which we arise.

In SourcePoint Therapy we emphasize the importance of our connection (relationship) to this fundamental Blueprint of Health. It’s always there, but we’ve lost touch with this greater Consciousness/Energy field that sustains and nourishes us.

SourcePoint provides simple non-sectarian practices to strengthen our relationship with this Blueprint of Health.

And here we come to an important point. Health.

There’s a lot of talk these days about what makes a “healthy relationship.”

But we’re not sure what “healthy” really means.

Strengthening our relationship to the universal energy field of the Blueprint of Health for the human being, we begin to remember that we are related to, and nourished by an Energy/Consciousness that is greater than ourselves. With that perspective we can begin to have a greater understanding of healthy relationship in general – with ourselves, with the world, with other human beings

Right now we are experiencing in the world the consequences of what the human being has done to itself and its environment.

We’ve ignored the fundamental principle of health.

Virtually all indigenous traditions for millennia have taught generation after generation that our well-being and health as a people depend on our relationship with all our relations.

All.

With the sun, moon, star, the rhythms of day and night, winter and summer, autumn and spring, the light and dark….

With this Earth, and all its inhabitants. Instead, in our greed and ignorance, over and over, we continue our mining and drilling, our killing and abusing, our poisoning, and we are destroying this relationship.

With our fellow humans. Instead we now continue the seeming endless cycle of battle, aggression, domination, rather than honoring the ground of community, sharing and co-operation.

With the Energy/Consciousness of the Universal Source greater than all of us, the network of Inter-Being. This is imperative. Call Source what you will. It has many names. We call one specific dimension of this greater Consciousness the Blueprint of Health for the Human Being. It’s one doorway to healthy relationships at every level.

As human beings we’ve been living out of context for too long now, our relationships are impaired and the forces of nature are responding, reminding, demanding that we come together in recognition of what we all have in common.

And that’s why this word “relationship” is so important.

The survival of the human being depends upon it.

Mine and yours and our children’s future depend on it.

Healthy relationship.

It’s that simple.

I write this in honor of the Inter-Being we share, with the wish that the human being will experience a renewed Awareness of our most intimate relationships- with the Source of our Being, with the world in which we dwell, and the responsibility we have to it, and to each other.

“In complex times, simplicity has great power. “