February Practice Resources: A Practice Rooted in Evolutionary Love ❤️

February 2021 | A Practice Rooted in Love

In The Life We Are Given, one of the supporting principles of ITP's philosophy states: "the world's primary tendency to manifest great goods that are hidden in it. That tendency inclines us toward extraordinary life, which can best be realized through integral practices."

This marriage of theory and practice that informs ITP is, at its core, guided by what we could call an Evolutionary Love. In times of stagnated progress or difficult challenges, we can take comfort in a practice empowered by a universe that seems to want us to succeed. As the Indian mystic Ramakrishna said, "The winds of grace are always blowing, but we have to raise our sails."

This month's newsletter is an opportunity to return to the theory and vision that informs ITP. In these exciting and critically important times in human history, we hope the resources below help you embody a practice inspired by love to inspire the ongoing advancement of our selves and the world.

Wishing you blessings of good health and peace!

“We have suggested that cosmic evolution as we know it, from the big bang to the present moment, is finally an expression of Eros, of love. If this is so, how then can we doubt that love stands as the highest and most fundamental human impulse?”

- George Leonard and Michael Murphy

The Life We Are Given

LISTEN

Michael Murphy & Adam Crabtree in Conversation on Evolutionary Love

Listen to Michael Murphy in conversation with author, psychotherapist and CTR scholar Adam Crabtree on the subject of his upcoming book,

Evolutionary Love and the Ravages of Greed. Love is one of the 12 attributes reflective of our evolutionary nature, as outlined in Murphy's The Future of the Body. Adam states that through the participatory exercise of love, we become shepherds of the evolution of the universe.

Listen to the Recording

READ

We Are Love on a Mission

Only you can be you. As love naturally wants to share itself, so you want to share what is uniquely yours, making explicit your contribution to the world we live in. We are love on a mission. Read ITP International board member, Christina Grote’s, guided meditation to infuse yourself with evolutionary love, and see yourself blossoming into the fullness of your highest potential.

Read the Article

WATCH

Sunflower | ÆSTHESIA

Gift yourself 5 minutes of loving stillness while enjoying this beautiful and meditative video filmed by artist Ashley G. Garner. "Sunflower" is from the series ÆSTHESIA, with audio recorded of an actual sunflower's electro-magnetic data using Plant Wave.

Watch the Video

PRACTICE

Soft Eyes: An Alternative Field of Vision to Engage with the World

An exercise from "The Silent Pulse"

A Search for the Perfect Rhythm that Exists in Each of Us

by George Leonard

For most of us in this culture, normal vision entails focusing the eyes on specific formal entities, giving them shape, cultural meaning, and name. This kind of seeing, which I'm identifying with the term hard eyes, is basically analytical, having the effect of separating figures from the ground in which they may be said to exist - creating "objects" and drawing sharp edges between these objects. Seeing with hard eyes is a positive act; it requires reaching out into the world. With hard eyes we can read the fine print.

Hard eyes are appropriate for many, but not all, situations. The visual mode I'm calling "soft eyes" provides an alternative.

This mode is receptive rather than positive, synthesizing rather than analytical. It involves letting the visual world come in rather than reaching out to bring it in. With soft eyes we tend to perceive a whole field of vision in terms of the energy and motion that make it up, rather than perceiving the collection of discrete objects that exist within it. There is less than the usual distinction between figure and ground. With soft eyes, peripheral vision is enhanced, the depth of field appears to be greater, and colors seem remarkably vivid.

Using soft eyes entails not just adopting an alternative visual mode, but also entering an altered state of being. Once you've mastered the art of soft eyes, this state can be achieved in a split second. Let’s begin:

Begin by standing, with eyes closed, in the balanced and centered state. Here it's especially important that your shoulders and lower pelvic region be relaxed; soft eves are practically impossible to achieve with tense shoulder muscles or a tightened pelvic region. Breathing, as always, should be spontaneous.

With the pads of the fingers of both hands, very gently massage both eyeballs through the closed eyelids until the eyeballs seem to soften, if only slightly. Then let your hands drop to your sides, and take a moment to check that the arms are totally relaxed.

Become aware of your breathing. On the second or third incoming breath let the eyes open and let the world come in. Do not stare or try to keep from blinking. Do not reach out with your eyes to focus on any object or any point in the visual field. This is not a matter of throwing the eyes out of focus. You might say the eyes are focused on infinity, but even that wouldn't be entirely accurate. It would come closer to suggest that the eyes are focused on nothing in particular. They are simply open.

Now let yourself become aware of the entire visual field, giving no part of it any more importance than any other part. Let any movement or shape or color be an integral part of the whole field, related to everything else in it.

Leaving the feet planted firmly on the floor, rotate the body to the left and right from the hips, letting the arms swing freely. In this movement, soft eyes can sweep the entire sphere of vision and effortlessly compute the relationship of everything in view. You might note any increase in the depth of field and the intensity of colors.

After this, you might try walking around, practicing the use of soft eyes with a moving field. Note that you can shift from hard eyes to soft eyes instantaneously.