Hikari Aikido Dojo

In our existence here we tend to live from our assumptions, beliefs and life conditioning which, when formed into a conclusive sense of value can run our lives in an automatic, habitual and unconscious expression.

When we live our lives from this manner, we can be caught up in a realm of the social, educational, theological and philosophical perspectives and may never look beyond these assumed institutions to realize that we have taken most of the status quo of these organizations as the basis of our life.

The tendency from the input of this in our lives seems to be to think we know who we are, what we are doing and are for the most part placing major trust in this past along information trail that is based mostly in one’s self survival agendas that physical life seems to demand.  There obviously is a certain necessity for survival, but to not know you base your whole existence on this un-inspected agenda should hopefully awaken your ATTENTION.

Almost everything we do in one way or another is geared toward self survival and we as a collective take it for granted and we don’t know we are involved in this linear consensus behavior which seems to govern our whole existence.

In order for us to come to grips with this insight we either may have had some awakening experiences that directly started to show us that we have been hypnotized by this agenda or we realized we had been moving along on a heresay agenda that we have never felt we needed to deeply inspect and now we find ourselves having to find a way to show us the way in the form of the search.

This search can take many forms, some people take up therapy, which may bring about a summation of what your history is, how you may have reacted to your life and in the end may show you your story.  A view of this could be history is what actually happened and what your point of view from your memory is really a hack job of your opinion about what you think happened.

Most of this is a perception and interpretation about how you categorized your ideas about what you think happened even though if others were there watching the episode, they would probably all have a different point of view which isn’t what you recorded and experienced.

We see from this simple example that what we define as reality is only a perception which is the end expression of many other aspects of one’s makeup such as reaction, interpretation, conditioning.  So, in looking at this view that one has come up with, the mind’s meaning making machine is in full gear and we tend to believe it without really inquiring into how all of this content was created.

Many people are looking into the arenas of yoga, meditation, zen and other psycho physical disciplines which promise us many benefits and outcomes that are purported to be way above all the rest of the western approaches and yet if you look, they are not truly aligning us with the Absolute, they are helpful in health, both mental and physical, but again, these are survival orientations, they can help in transformation of negative positive attributes that bother us, but won’t lead to transcendence into being, doing isn’t being.

This essay is meant to bring to light some other higher Principles that have not been organized to allow the spirit to enter the realm of our practice. We have been told that Master Uyeshiba professed that Love was the guiding Principle of Aikido from his Enlightenment and that some of the step down Principles, so to speak, were non-resistance, non-conflict, and non-harm, in order for us to practice taking care of humanity.

These have been the realized and somewhat idealized basis of most of the philosophical perspectives in a general sense so that we had an enlightened path to base our practice on in a psycho physical world, seeing as Principles aren’t really seen, but can be practiced, integrated and lived through our daily lives and our Aikido practice as long as we pursue them consistently and embody their influence.

I have practiced and contemplated our art for many decades and in the last ten years have had other insights as to what helps our practice for the purpose of realization in spirit to come forward as new, more effortless Principles that help realign us as Consciousness Awareness and Flow.

Since we are for the most part practicing a purely defensive art, we are waiting on the energy directional force to show us the way, so we are having to deal with the Unknown. We don’t know who, where, when or if there is energy arising that might be of consequence to us.

In opening ourselves to the vast Unknown, we find a whole new world of discovery and creativity because we are stepping outside of the grid of our ego mind default structure whether conditioned from birth, most likely, or we are relying too much on our own kata training or a combination of both.

The Unknown is our doorway to greater understanding since it is where all our real knowledge is gleaned. We step beyond what our thinking says it should look like, into what it is “as it is” in the moment.

When we can we get our training down to the slowness that is necessary so we can open ourselves to trusting the process purely, and then from No Mind start to see how we are really trying to control the issue instead of understand it as itself, then we can start to practice from an omni-directional open-endedness.

In awakening to No Mind we are allowing ourselves to trust the Unknown and become intimate with the vast input that we have been blocking that comes from beyond the conceptual realm in staying only with thinking how things are and confining everything to it.

One of the biggest steps in trusting the Unknown seems to be founded on nothing but a leap beyond the tangible, but in all reality this is where we have always been, the Freedom of our Innocence in Consciousness.

To step into the No Mind of the Unknown opens us to the realm of Formlessness in that we NOW are not grasping for a concept to rely on as our guide but NOW are swimming freely in the Light of Principle that is our true home as it is our True Consciousness Nature that has been obscured by the seeming world of SEPARATE OBJECTS that is projected by our conceptual ability to want to label and control through duality, is it safe or dangerous?

In our practice of Aikido, we don’t view the other person as separate in that we are blending with their energy as it seemingly arises as the form emerges from the Unknown. In order for us to realize Formlessness we need to absorb their energy as it is and NOW engage in the dance of the universe in that we awaken to the Truth that there never was SEPARATION, only an obscured Misunderstanding that we are limited when we are really standing as an expression of Infinity.

So, in practice we are formlessness to the seeming form that the other seems to be and through this Principle we can NOW be Open ended to whatever energetic form is emergent in the moment. Being Open ended allows us to have an omni-directional free space to what is as it is and allow us to FLOW with the emergent energy spontaneously.

As we allow ourselves to access the Principle of Open-endedness, we are starting to combine all of these Principles into opening to our Presence which as my previous essay, “Presence is Non-resistance to Infinity” invites us to the Presence of the TRUE NOW which is not what many tend to confuse with the relative term, the present, which is only a way to measure your movement or perception in a time based relative relationship.

As Presence, there is no ego mental intention, only Being, allowing what IS to show us “the way of no way”.  Our Source Essence has emerged through all of the conditioning, assumptions, beliefs and conclusions that we have lived as who we are and NOW shines as its joyous Free nature.

We are NOW able to be our Free Attention that is not attached to the world, so to speak, but we are NOW living from Truth that transcends everything and is a Transparency that helps set you free from the tyranny of the mind, obsessive thoughts, ego default constructs and the realm of the unconscious that has held us in its energetic clutches.

The Absolute is outside the mind’s ego construct that is functioning as the self survival agenda and yet is not separate from anything and is “what is” prior to we will say to the “mind’s meaning making machine” that eventually becomes the perceptive mechanism that the person believes is a direct perception and interpretation of reality.

The mind is an aspect of Consciousness, a power of Consciousness in a limited expression that has the ability to see the world in a separate and categorical view and thinks because it can do this that it has control of life and reality, this is the self survival function that seems to take over one’s whole existence.

Sincerely, Will Gable