It's Okay to Just Be
"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?"
In September I re-engaged my meditation/non-dual practice via Bentinho Massaro’s digital ‘Meditation Mastery’ retreat.
One night a couple weeks ago, after one powerful session of the retreat, I recorded a video on ‘rooting oneself in the is-ness.’ I shared the video once in a previous post on this blog, but I’ll share it again here for anyone who missed it, and for the context it provides for the words that follow:
After recording the video, I sent the video to the Ouroboros Tribe, along with the following words:
I'm having some really key realizations about where I've been coming from — realizations about how I've often not been coming from being-ness, from is-ness, but from more personal/illusory layers of attachment to/ownership of opinion.
I'm freshly re-discovering the power of coming from the is-ness and this is feeling really foundational, nourishing, peace-bringing, trust-deepening for ‘me.’
I'm re-remembering the gorgeousness of the way in which coming from the is-ness completely re-shapes/re-frames/lightens all aspects of life, and allows for a natural wisdom to arise in word and action.
I shared on this more deeply here, just now, in this video, if you're curious.
In these tectonic times it's so easy to feel like "ZOMG I HAVE TO BE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT ALL THIS"…
But that frantic, reactive energy will actually only produce more of the same.
I’m re-remembering the fundamental axiom that ALL doing is downstream from BEING, and that what we are BEING is far more important/impactful/consequential than what we are doing. This is profoundly clarifying for me right now.
Along with this comes a deep relaxation into remembering that *it's ok to just BE.*
This is huge. If you just feel like being — if the urge to do and change and improve and attain and heal and build is diminishing — that's perfectly fine!
Allow yourself the space to just BE. Feel no need to do anything with the being-ness... just be.
Eventually words/actions/etc will likely again arise of their own accord and will feel exciting and interesting, yet they will then come from a deeper, purer, truer, less-attached, more-effortless, flowing, spontaneous, less-personal place.
And this changes everything.
This is a total game-changer.
It completely changes the texture of your experience.
It allows you to deeply accept whatever is arising for you.
It allows you to flow and trust in such a way that whatever doors need to open will synchronistically open and you know you're always taken care of.
(Though if you seek the is-ness/being-ness simply because you yearn for ease and flow it may be more evasive; whereas if you purely and sincerely are yearning to know God / Mystery / Source / the Truth of Your Being, and you have profound conviction in the existence of the One Power—the is-ness, the all-ness, the being-ness—this will tend to be a more direct path.)
Anywho, this is feeling like a very fundamental re-remembering / deepening of prior realizations and I wanted to share some of the essence of this with all of you.
This is simply one description of one possible experience. Take what is useful, resonant, relevant, let go of the rest.
Release any judgment of yourself if this doesn't feel relevant right now — everything is valid; every journey; every experience.
Be what you are, be as you are, you're peachy and beautiful. ^_^
— JB 💙
Can you wait till your mud settles?
I wanted to share this as a post here because I feel it articulates some key insights that I learn and re-learn again and again.
It’s okay to just Be.
More than okay, truly inspired action can only arise from a deep inner stillness.
This doesn’t mean to do nothing.
It means to slow down and be still first.
"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?"
— Lao Tzu
Tremendous, single-pointed, willful action can arise spontaneously from deep stillness.
Or, stillness can lead to more stillness and more stillness.
It depends what is truly relevant for you right now.
Let the stillness clean you
You can find out what is truly relevant for you by repeatedly returning to the stillness.
Go to the place where you are no one and nothing.
The place where you know nothing.
Empty yourself out.
Clean yourself in the clear, purifying water of silence.
Thoughts and sensations can continue to arise; that’s fine. Notice the space and silence around and beyond and even within the thoughts and sensations.
This space, this silence, is the portal to oneness.
It’s the portal to that weightless, nameless ________ that we’re all made of.
Go to that spaciousness and let it clean you out.
Give everything back to God.
Let go of all your desires.
Become the hollow bone, the clear channel.
When you re-emerge from that silent is-ness, see what returns to you.
The desires and attributes that return to you will be those which are truer for you—closer to your soul.
Those which fall away, were layers of a less-true costume your conditioning taught you to wear.
If we wish to find what is true for us, we must repeatedly return to the spaciousness.
We must repeatedly go to the emptiness and let it lovingly burn away all our compensatory disguises.
This purification process renders us increasingly transparent to the great beyond.
Increasingly able to notice what is really wanting to come through us in this lifetime.
Increasingly able to remember why it is that we chose to incarnate on this beautiful asylum of a planet.
“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
— Goethe
Increasingly able to play this earthly game with pure intent, honor, and focus, as well as the Divine levity which knows it’s all “light as a feather.”
Emptiness has a natural wisdom.
The clear channel produces not discordant screeching, but gorgeous music.
In a culture that can’t stop sprinting to the next item on the to-do list…
The most radical, healthy thing to do is sit still.
And realize that it’s truly okay to just…
Be.
Love,
JB
P.S. I’m excited to share that I’m developing a new 8-week rite of passage & men’s circle called The Sovereign Man — for brothers who feel called to share from the heart and deepen in self-realization, courage, honesty, honor, open-heartedness, and soul-embodiment. To be the sovereign men this world is asking for.
The medicine of the men’s circle has been profound for me, and I feel honored to share it. My current intention is to begin on 11/11/21 and go till 1/11/22. If you feel called to be one of the ~22 brothers undertaking this journey, reply and let me know.
——
Jordan Bates is father of Lila, husband of Tanja, brother of Anna, son of Connie and Dan, and friend of all. He’s a synthesizer of wisdom, visionary mentor, writer, trickster, rapper, lover of Tao, and founder of Ouroboros. Find him on social media and view his latest books/albums/offerings here.
Jordan, phenomenal level of evolution. You give me hope. Play on. Thank you.