To contemplate literally means to bring together, as one, two templates. For human consciousness this means aligning the forms of the outer worlds with the configurations of our inner worlds, bringing together, to name a few dichotomies, the visible and the invisible, the material and the subtle.
Contemplation is a journey, first, towards a fresh experience of wholeness and, from there onwards, into a sense of oneness with all creation.
Below you will find some of the key principles outlining the human voyage through different stages of consciousness and awareness . They focus on the shift from self-reflective awareness to contemplative awareness and what occurs when we commit to the transformational work involved in this crucial transition.
A life of contemplation is an ongoing invitation to commit to practices of silence, stillness and solitude. The purpose of remaining in silence and stillness is to develop a capacity for objectless awareness, that is, a detached observation of our inner and outer worlds evolving and revolving until they lock into each other as one, revealing our living presence in the world, our light shining bright in the temple of one love.
Contemplative practices guide us through the pathways spiralling towards the centre of the pattern of our lives. They gently usher us into the empty space of luminous presence so that we may recognise the radiant beauty and goodness of our own essence emerging from unity of body, purity of heart and clarity of mind. They faithfully convey us through the waves of letting go, letting be, letting come and setting free. They shape the discipline that arises through the breath and releases us into the powerful gravitational field of transformation.
Contemplative awareness is what awaits us on the other side of self-reflective awareness, when we dare to pierce the veil that keeps us tethered to object-focused awareness and the cataphatic practices that maintain the ontological distinction between object and subject. Contemplative awareness is the harvest of apophatic practices taking us beyond our habitual framing of reality and into unitive consciousness where all dualities dissolve in oneness as we fall apart.
Contemplative awareness is the dimension where we encounter reality, face-to-face, through the eye of the heart. To get there we dismantle the eye of the strategic mind attempting to create reality in its own image from the dimension of egoic awareness, the sounding board of the ‘I’. Along the journey we tenderly observe and embrace, as part of the human condition, how determined the strategic mind is to maintain, at all costs, the structures of personhood that operate at that level.
Yggdrasil Living Wholeness stands on the sacred land of Bornholm nourished by the wisdom tradition upheld in a powerful constellation of fifteen medieval churches set in the figure of a seven-pointed star. The centre piece of this constellation is the round church of Østerlars, the parish church visible from the property, a historical landmark of Denmark.
When we give ourselves to the powers moving through Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, we are first invited to encounter the land of Bornholm in an unfiltered way. We get down on our knees, put our hands into the soil and commit to love’s labour through our acts of self-emptying. The land of Bornholm takes no prisoners and asks all of us. It is a place of velocity and intensity, a combustion chamber fostered by thousands of years of spirituality both Norse and Christian. Here, like Prospero exiled on an island, we can’t run away from who we are, nor avoid the next threshold of understanding we are being rushed towards, despite all our attempts to slow down. So, yes, we will fall apart, or rather the egoic structures we have outgrown will be shed, sometimes dramatically, and we will be encouraged to let go of the ‘rough magic’ that brought us to these shores.
An encounter with reality, on its terms, often equates a life-shattering experience which will, and should, leave us feeling naked and raw. Fortunately, three components – (1) the land of Bornholm, (2) the living wisdom tradition and (3) the property dedicated to Yggdrasil Living Wholeness – create a container able to hold us as we engage with powerful transformative circumstances. Together they form a portal able to transmute obsessive and compulsive thoughts, unexamined desires and immobilised patterns of co-dependency, even when the outer conditions suggest that we need to go ‘cold turkey’ to step out of outgrown habits because there is no buffer zone when we crash into absolute reality.
Humans have produced a rich lexicon for describing the shattering of the mind that occurs at the heart of the subjective experience of the Absolute, alternating between the dark nights of the self and existential crisis. In the same spirit, there is a prolific repertoire of practices for staying steadfast on the rim of intelligibility, moving through the experience and coming out on the other side transformed and whole.
There is no doubt that contemplative practices, grounded in objectless awareness, push us to walk a very fine line where the distinctions between spiritual awakenings and mental health breakdowns become blurry and tenuous. Without a trustworthy lifeline we could easily inflict upon ourselves self-limiting beliefs and disparaging judgements hurling us back into the labyrinth of our mind. For these reasons, I always remind myself to welcome, and honour, my shattered mind, to consider the experience as an initiation, a gateway beckoning me onwards. I remind myself that it is not who I am in wholeness of selfhood that vanishes or is destroyed, but rather the obsolete egoic operating system and, paradoxically, in that disappearance more of who I am is revealed.
In the past years under the guidance and protection of Yggdrasil, I have learnt that when I consent to move through the body of pain, and not hold back, I will discover joy beneath the suffering, compassion and true love beyond the grief and losses. This is what it means to die to self so as to awaken to Self, to cruise the waves of consciousness ferrying us from the personal to the transpersonal and to be humbled by the cruciform nature of the human experience where reality meets relationality and the sacred flame of the refiner’s fire.
Contemplative practices help us fully engage with the odyssey that shapes the second half of life. They encourage the transition from psychological integration towards spiritual growth. And, having welcomed and tenderly held the shattered mind, they provide invaluable insights to help us rebuild ourselves.
The second half-of-life odyssey shepherds us, sometimes against our best interests, into the cruciform nature of reality at the confluence of the vertical and horizontal axes that support growth. The vertical axis drives cognitive development and the emancipation releasing us into the next dispensation of our life. The horizontal axis pulls us into the intimacy of relationships where we can practice contemplative intimacy with the unknown, where mature mindfulness and grounded sensitivity grow, where intellectual maturity and human flourishing thrive, where contemplative awareness and restored alignment dwell.
Beyond the initial steps where we align the body, the heart and the will, the odyssey teaches us to cultivate sobriety and equanimity, to balance intelligence and compassion. Too much power (intelligence) and not enough compassion will keep us endlessly roaming in the self-centred labyrinth of our mind protecting our compulsive attachments and their reckless and abusive actions. Too much compassion with little intellectual maturity will send us drifting in realms of sentimentalism. Therefore, in order to remain steadfast and unwavering on our bespoke wisdom path, we learn to open our hearts to the quiet procession of spiritual companions, also walking the stormy edge of the intense evolutionary thrust, and the grace of being called to be transformed and released, anew, into world.
The purpose of an odyssey founded on self-knowledge, the classical Greek ‘know yourself’ axiom (vertical axis), is to grow in inner freedom and to move through the false dichotomies of the mind-body split. But self-knowledge is also about abolishing the separation between I and the other (horizontal axis).
Spiritual growth is stretched between two pillars: contemplation and spiritual companionship.
Contemplation and spiritual companionship go together, side by side, in support of a spiritual life where we walk and operate in growing freedom by self-emptying ourselves and freeing ourselves from all forms of co-dependency.