You might notice that from moment to moment, or in relation to an apparent life situation or personal struggle, that there is an urge or questioning - what do I do about this?
Such struggles can be very powerful entry points for exploring the nature of experience, particularly if they are relational in nature or feel like a constant urge 'to do' or think about 'what to do'.
Through exploring experience through the flow of compassion we can honour our human experience as the intelligence of wholeness, meet struggle or problematic situations as this intelligence, whilst working with 'shadow', or what I prefer to name 'refracted radiance' in its dynamism as the flow of experience. These apparent struggles also offer a very potent opportunity to explore the experience of being 'the personal thinker'.
This blog post is in two parts. Please explore gently and engage as your moment to moment experience. This first post explores the flow of compassion as your nature. It is, in my experience, very important to come to know and recognise the movement of compassion in moment to moment experience. This supports us in not bypassing our human experience through interpretive overlays or excessive coping practices, including 'spiritual' practices and positive psychology. Recognising and following the flow of compassion is also the heart of shadow work in a nondual context and is core to reparenting as presence.
The second post guides in exploring the infinite nature of our normal ordinary present moment experiencing, naturally loosening interpretive problem focussed overlays in conscious thought. Together these two posts support us to engage deeper insights beyond what we think we know in relation to our problem or struggle whilst simultaneously recognising the illusion of separation and moving into spontaneous action as the wholeness of experience.
Inner and Outer, Self and Other

"There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! "
SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
There tends to be two ways or points of focus that this question - 'what do I do about this?' gravitates around in the search for resolve (ending a problem or improving a situation):
Looking to fix or change the situation through what feels like the external or outer reality. Practical steps to improve the situation or change experience to a more preferred situation.
Looking to explore our personal struggle in what feels like our inner experience. If there has been struggle that is ongoing and seems to colour a range of our experiencing of life, this is usually the natural indicator to move into what we experience as our inner world.
The mastery, both in realising the true nature of experience from moment to moment, this here beyond interpretation, is in recognising that these are two modes of the same thing.
If there are practical, obvious steps to take in the moment then there is likely a sense of clarity or obviousness to this which, although may feel a little 'unpreferred' or 'preferred' there won't be much of an energetic charge. That is, it will feel impersonal and effortless without much questioning, thought, feeling and emotion which isn't referring and repeatedly confirming ideas about 'what is happening' in experience. Impersonal in this sense being that the action doesn't feel fuelled by beliefs about 'self or other' or heavy overlays and thought streams about what the situation is and how it must be changed, handled, or coped with according to these beliefs.
If there are a lot of these thoughts, based on ideas of the past and future, this can be an invitation, should we so choose, to be curious instead of acting. To explore the nature of our here, now experience. This also very naturally moves us into a way of experiencing the struggle from the intelligence of impersonal wholeness. That is, the underlying unity, intelligence, and aliveness of all life.
Compassion
First things first, it is important to do the compassionate thing. If you are feeling a sense of distress or state of emergency then there is here always unconditional and impersonal compassion moving through your field of experience.
If we pay attention through the felt sense, compassion is navigating towards an experience of an in the moment sense of safety, relief and release. This is the natural spontaneous capacity in service to the bodymind experience and very simply focusses on basic physical and emotional need in the moment.
For example, it will move you to exit a situation immediately that doesn't feel safe or if exit is not possible in the physical it will cause the bodymind to freeze and dissociate. It will prioritise warmth, shelter, food, and a space to explore yourself and your experience in this context, to be present with the felt sense of experience from impersonal awareness. It focusses on present basic need and is not concerned with our personal sense of identity, whether we are right or wrong, what has happened in the past, what might happen in the future. It is uninterested in proving beliefs to be right or wrong, changing apparent others, winning, or trying to transform a situation, including how we are perceived by others or how we perceive ourselves. It is always pointing to the unconditional release that is now.
This compassion is you. The impersonal you. When it is moving from a personal or separate sense of self it can show up as a looping of fear, anger, and control based on past or future based experiencing and concern. These are the indicators that compassion is here, it's just showing up through distortion as a pushing and pulling on experience. This distortion has no effect on the unconditional and impersonal compassion that is always moving in your field of experience. This is a flavour of your true nature which is always and only ever present now.
Tea and a Blanket - Follow your Resonance
'Tea and a Blanket' might for you be a walk, a rest in the forest, a snuggling into bed, a bath. Maybe, if there is more of a movement of activity then it might be something like drawing, painting, cleaning, doing some woodwork, meditation, or 'spiritual practice'. Follow your resonance in the flow of experience. You are safe and there is noone here but you. You can do what you want, what feels good, what feels nourishing. There is noone here judging, comparing, or telling you what to do. Just you as the flow of compassion. You're not fixing or trying to change anything.
If you are feeling the need for coregulation then compassion might also be moving you towards being with another whom you trust that can support you to co-regulate. The natural world is very good for this too and one of the major benefits is that it doesn't try to resolve. It's just being, in unity, and isn't concerned about the personal problem. Not because there is no care, it just doesn't know about it because there aren't thoughts in nature that create a sense of separation. Nature doesn't conceptualise or interpret.
Softening and opening
When we are experiencing compassion through distortion, which has a fear and anger, self and other, inner and outer vibe, the experience of mind naturally narrows focus and this focussing works to block out all apparently unnecessary information. It does this cumulatively through learning and creates hierarchies of importance with regard to the infinite raw sensory data that is constantly vibing as the aliveness of our experiential field. For our exploration it is this field of raw aliveness that we opening to.
For the sense of separation, this narrowing of focus is pointed towards interpretation - what thoughts say about what is happening and the myriad semantics and implications which are based on self and other, inside and outside.
Following the flow of compassion supports us to move into gently opening and softening our focus so that we can feel safety in exploring the wholeness of the experiential field. Despite the incredibly heavy handed focus that our consensus culture places on interpretation - what is thought to be known about reality from moment to moment - it actually is only a tiny proportion of the whole field of experiencing which is the totality of reality and the expression of the source of all life.
Perception shifts from a narrowing to an opening and softening of focus naturally when safety and effortlessness is recognised. When there is no longer, through the sense of separation, a need to defend and protect.
Safety and effortlessness, like compassion, are natural givens. That is, they are simply flavours of the true nature of experience, which is you, in the same way as wetness is a natural given to water. Safety, from the personal or sense of separation appears as a seeking for security and a fear of insecurity. Effortlessness from the sense of personal, self and other, inside and outside experiencing, appears as a loop of trying and tiredness. These are the energetic polarities which only appear through thought and interpretation. They arise out of the natural givens of effortlessness and safety when viewed through the lense of separation and the belief that there is an internal world that we are, in comparison to an external world from which we are apart.
A good indicator that you are simply following your resonance as the flow of compassion is that any activity will feel less and less focussed towards an outcome. You will be naturally easing into a more natural present moment only awareness and the felt openness, softness, and effortlessness of this.
If life in general or in relation to a particular situation is appearing as struggle, we might say that compassion is feeling quite wavy. In this sense it might not feel like a direct flow into a sense of openness and impersonal awareness. If there are 'happenings' compassion is here responding in perfect attunement.
Remember, compassion is always moving towards relief, release, effortlessness, and openness and will prioritise physical safety and basic needs in creating opportunity for opening and softening focus in being with present moment experiencing. Compassion isn't concerned with right, wrong, better, worse, more, or less. It's just here.
Simply noticing how compassion is vibing in your field of experience throughout struggles and problems is incredibly powerful both in supporting our experience of struggle and in realising the self as the totality of reality.
This Existence
Now that you have followed the flow of compassion you might notice that a state of emergency or severe distress has passed although it is still very natural to be feeling tension, lots of thinking about the situation or struggle, and a need or urge to 'do something about this' or 'work it out'. We're not trying to fix or change any of this but now you might notice a sense of there being space and openness within which whatever is being experienced is occurring.
The thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions are feeling more free in openness without so much of an urge to act or resolve right now. We are now in a position to explore the nature of experience with interest and curiosity. Safety is recognised and there nothing that must be done. We are in effortlessness with less of an immediate need in our human experience to know, be right, to resolve, or to make experience now be any different than it is.
From here, simply notice existence. Just the simple fact that existence is here. Feel that. Feel the simple sense of existence.
Notice. This simple sense of existence includes everything. All experiencing is in this existence. There may be thoughts about what is in existence, but these thoughts are also in existence. There is also vision, sound, touch, taste, sensation all in existence. Feel this. Notice. Keep exploring gently this sense of existence. Notice how totally effortless this is. Existence is totally effortless.
Allow the noticing of existence expressing as thoughts, feelings, vision, sound, touch, and taste to flow naturally. Allow the sense of perceiving to simply flow where it flows and go where it goes. Just relax into this for a while. Notice, that wherever perceiving expressions of existence goes, it never leaves here. It never goes outside of experience. Where would outside of experience be? See if you can find a space outside of experience. Also notice that it is safe to allow perceiving to flow as it flows and go as it goes through sensing - through the building blocks of life.
Keep returning when you remember to the simple sense of existence. Of being. Notice that it has nothing to say. It's just here. Just existing. Always effortlessly switched on with nothing to say or do about itself. It is effortlessly being itself through the flow of itself as experiencing. Just rest here for a while. Hang out with the radiance. The switched on, effortlessly awake, deeply intelligent existence, the creator of all life as moment to moment experiencing - without trying to make this something else.
Rest here, being existence.
second post coming soon 🤍
Beautiful! 🤍