The Journey Continues – Chapter 8

The Journey Continues is a sequel to Journey of a Lifetime: A Group Story and continues the account of the group’s journey through more than thirty years’ work.   We continue to post a chapter each month.  Here is this month’s chapter. Please Note: Copies of the book are available from Sydney Goodwill. 

CHAPTER EIGHT – Movement in Identical At-one-ness

It is quite a challenge to put words to the experience of identical at-one-ness without robbing it of its depth or even doing it an injustice. However let us proceed. As in the first book Journey of a Lifetime it may be useful to present a picture by way of an ongoing discussion between two co-workers.

Author: “What is emerging is emerging. We may think ‘it is still in there’ but only because we have to find adequate ways and words to define it – talk it into being, into expression, into objectivity. It is in fact already here. It has captured our total attention and it will influence our way of working, of seeing, of knowing. It can never be said that it is in any way exclusive to any group – it is emerging into human consciousness but must be apprehended by the group or groups. As we talk together about this newly emerging phase and its nature, we are assisting it into expression – it is the work we are doing. There is no doubt it is impinging upon group awareness everywhere and will be interpreted according to type and area of working.

“I also notice the effect – or actuality – that we are ‘somewhere else’ all the time even while fully present at some anchorage on the physical plane. This realisation continues to grow in clarity as we work together because we are always essentially together and in every subtle sense. This next phase is not only in need of definition but also needs to be anchored.”

Co-worker: “Yes. It is as though I am somewhere else also even while fully present here. And I am aware of the thread that runs through everything. When we are in rhythm with the undulating flow from the inner to the outer planes time virtually disappears. We meet the moment, the need, even the demand and yet there is no stress – we move with the inner river that moves through everything or moves everything through.”

Author: “Here we are, finding terms to define the experience. One should never need to define experience – it is defined in our very own awareness with all its subtleties, its shades, intensities and qualities. However, we seek to share the experience with others – to open the door if possible to a way through. The ‘door’? The door is not a door. There is no door. There is only that obscuring veil composed of all our beliefs in separate states of existence, which may seem real enough on the outer level of our lives but which have no existence in the subtle and true realm of our being. We have said all this over and over in one way or another, through one topic or another. Where to go?”

Co-worker: “Earlier we saw how life-sharing worked through our respective areas of group function and work on either side of the planet. At particular moments we were aware of shared presence, singleness of being, and extra impetus of energy. But the realisation has moved now into the awareness, the state, the experience, that is a constant. It is unchanging. It is an awareness of identification, of life-sharing, that is present in every moment. It is not something we call upon. It is ever present. Or we are ever present within it.”

Author: “It is that which stands on the edge of human consciousness at this time and invites participation. It presumes we already have clarity of thought and freedom of expression. It is a realisation of great freedom – the freedom of being – that which we truly are. We understand it signals a movement from the soul aspect into the life aspect. It is with such understanding that we approach the work of the future.

“Our experience has deepened. We recognise the capacity to identify together, consciously, within a state of being. It makes no difference where we are in the outward sense. The realisation of togetherness in every dimension, in thought and in the work is inevitable. It is not just known as a possibility. It is experienced.

“This can also happen with a group entity. The Group has become an entity. Just as the soul on its own plane is already an initiate of all degrees, we are all in process of becoming in actual expression what we are in essence. In that sense we become this. We are this but are using the word ‘become’ in the sense of conscious realisation of it. A group can become a ‘single entity’ in the same sense. So identification moves on, not just between two people, but also among all in the group and then progressively between groups. This is dependent upon the understanding that the whole group is a subjective unity without division in consciousness. There is nothing standardising in this recognition. It assures the freedom of expression of all groups on the outer plane while it reveals the source of their life and strength as together they work out planetary purpose according to their moment in time.

“We are recognising a state of Being within which we live and move onward to a conscious participation within it. We have not created it – it has always existed. We have become aware of it and aware that we cannot exist apart from it. Those who do not understand the true nature of freedom may feel that something is about to be imposed upon them or taken from them. ‘Where is my freedom if you take my will? No one is going to take my will.’ Christ revealed the lesser will is superseded as it is merged with the greater Will. What has anyone lost when moving to a greater expression if divine purpose guides rather than personal reasons, purpose and desire?”

Co-worker: “We discussed identical at-one-ness in Journey of a Lifetime and now we are recognising a movement within this realisation, a deepening, a greater understanding, not only of the experience itself but its effects as we work out in the world. It has its own radiatory quality. Even if we look at just two people experiencing identical at-one-ness with one another there is nowhere that either starts or finishes. It is a complete unity. No divisions. One would never consider dividing one’s own individualised being into separate parts, sections or segments, and similarly as we experience identical at-one-ness why would we ever think to separate this one being into two, or parts? And still each retains their individuality of expression, and together become more intensely and expressively themselves.

“There is an experience of complete freedom, complete movement. It is freedom from the lower planes of expression. It has an effect throughout our own living, throughout our environment, throughout our group. It has an effect as we work with other groups and we might share the experience of one such event that took place when I visited your city.”

Author: “When the two of us were making a presentation at the meeting place of another group, we were aware that connectivity and receptivity was immediate and continued throughout the afternoon. It announced that we are all a part of the movement in the one work and the one world group. The effect was a free-flow through and between everyone and everyone’s particular mode of service – it is all one work. Some of those gathered in that room commented on the unity expressing. In such an experience there is the recognition that we are all workers and we are all together in that meeting room and we all have various areas of expression in service in the outer world. We have always been together. We branch out into whatever is ours to do but are we not companions on the Way? Have we not always been? ‘We’re back! Haven’t seen you for ages but have we ever been apart?’ It is touching on a point of identification. The sharing of thought and ideas is an aspect of the greater sharing of life.”

Co-worker: “So we describe an experience of identical at-one-ness, of shared presence in a presentation mode. An awareness of being the same being presenting, as thought the in-breath and out-breath were one instead of two. No hesitation to pick up or put down a thought or word, carrying an idea from one to the other, between us.”

Author: “Completely coordinated without effort or pre-arrangement. And even interesting to watch the very nature of it organise the field within which it would express.”

Co-worker: “And no matter what the question or comment from the group, after some presentation by the two, the participants stood within that field, the life of the moment, and people began to realise that.”

Author: “We actually were an entire group researching together, realising together. And it was obvious. One could feel that essence flowing through the whole room and the company there.”

Co-worker: “Right through to a point of questions about programs in form. We had been speaking about the subjective, inner life and then there was an awareness of the inner to outer activity – it is all one – and that this group, as a group, was helping to support the outer activity from a subjective stance.”

Author: “And the realisation that whoever was present, representative of various groups, we were all a unity in the work as a whole and within that we moved as one. That element that was there, shared by the two, that life-sharing experience, moved through the group. It incorporated the group as a whole and what the group experienced was life-sharing in whatever way they endeavoured to define it in comment at the end. It seemed a new experience for some people and one that appeared to be quite elevating.

“This is just one single example of life-sharing or identical at-one-ness recognised, lived between two people, moving out in their work together, incorporating every last person in that particular moment, in that particular piece of work, experienced together. This is one example but is there anywhere these two may move that life-sharing does not enhance the work? And there is no need for both of them to be standing on the same platform in close proximity because life itself has no requirement that outer forms be beside one another to express in unison.

“So whatever the work, whatever the individual expression in identical at-one-ness, life-sharing, it carries the note of life itself. The door opens. The energies flow through into whatever work we may find we are participating within and at whatever distance or wherever on the planet.

“As group workers become more clearly aware of their inseparable subjective unity this realisation will be more readily understood and expressed.”