We would like to talk of something quite momentous actually, but also quite a small thing, and this is the idea of a ‘Dual State’.
We have found that the Dual State often occurs when people are journeying and sometimes even when people are meditating. To begin our understanding of the Dual State, we will talk about journeying.
Journeying:
Sometimes after journeying people say that “nothing happened for them” and they were “completely awake” or “it was just black” and this type of thing. Our response to that is that there is always something happening. It doesn’t matter what your experience is, there’s always something happening.
With one journey group recently something very interesting occurred to illustrate this. We had a participant there doing a journey and they said: ‘Oh nothing happened, I was alert and awake for the whole thing’. Soon after, we were talking about the vibration the drum creates. One of the reasons we have the drum and the singing in our journey circles is to create this vibration and the vibration works in the body, it moves things, it vibrates the fluids and the cells and creates, if you like a new state of being in the journey. This discussion prompted the person who stated that nothing happened in their journey, responding: ‘Oh I remember, yes I remember being quite alert, I remember because I could feel this there was no breathing and then all of a sudden there was a big breath and it happened a couple of times’.
And this is an illustration of what we would call the Dual State. So, people feel like they are alert, they feel like nothing is happening and they are just lying or sitting there with their eyes closed listening to the drum, the chanting and so on, but underneath that there is activity occurring and that’s what we understand as the Dual State.
Now some people can move in and out of the dual-state quite easily. For example, when Caroline is channelling now, she’s channelling us, she’s in one state, but if somebody came, one of her children for example came and asked her a question she could answer them as Caroline and then come straight back and continue on in this channeled conversation, because she is in the dual-state.
Meditation:
Most of you know there is this idea with mediation that you are either in the present or you are allowing your thoughts to move away so that you are not constantly inner-thinking and people often find that when they are in a meditative state or when they are trying to meditate, all of their thoughts crowd in, crowding, crowding, crowding and they are trying to push them aside and banish them.
We would call that again a Dual State.
If your intention is to mediate, if your intention is to slow the body down, to slow the mind down, and if you have an intention in a journey or in the mediation of something very specific, you might be healing something or you have something that you want to work on or, if you have an intention or an idea of what you are trying to achieve, even if you have the thoughts crowding in and this kind of alertness, you will also be experiencing yourself on another level.
The other thing that you are working on, whether its mindfulness or clearing your mind of thoughts, the intention will be working on another level, so you are in the Dual State.
The reason we are saying this to people, why we are wanting to tell people this is because people often feel that they haven’t achieved anything in their journey or in their meditation or they feel are not doing it right or you know they don’t feel they’re getting the best or the most out of it.
Never underestimate when you are going into either any meditative or journey space, that something is always working when you are in there. Even if you have no particular intention except that you are going to journey, that is your intention. I am going to journey. I am going to meditate, I want to be in a meditative state, I want to be in the journey state. This is in itself an intention.
As soon as you make that intention and you make the conscious effort to do it, even if you feel you’re alert and you feel that your are not in the meditative state or in the journey state, make no mistake that you are always working in that space. There is always something happening and that’s what we call the Dual-State.
Incorporating Dual States in everyday events.
The Dual State can be quite a thing to be able to achieve in your everyday life because you might be in the situation where you are at work, or in a stressful situation and so in that situation of course what does your body do? Your body reacts physiologically. It will do things that will sustain you, to sustain you to keep you going, to keep the body going. That of course causes you more stress, and that response to stress can cause more stress!
If you can bring this Dual State into your everyday life, in those moments when you are in a stressful situation and you are peaking in that stress. At that moment you can say to yourself: ‘I’m going to go into the meditative state. I’m going to go into the journey state’. So, what happens is you will still be alert to what is going on, but the effect on your body, and when we talking about the body, we’re talking spirit, mind, emotion and physical, the impact on the whole body is lessened or is spread over a wider field, it’s not just affecting the emotional or the mental, it is able to move through so that all of the body can take part in that stress load and all of the body can help and that’s the state of the meditation, of the journey.
You still have the alertness to what is going on but then you have that other state where the body is working together to provide this Dual State where things can, in the physical body and in the emotional, mental and spiritual senses, can really move more freely and be more supportive to use.
So, you are not living on your adrenalin or your stress hormones, you are actually in the journey/meditative state but alert. Yes, you are acting in the particular way to deal with the situation, but at the same time you are intentionally moving into the journey, or the meditative state to assist the body with the processing of what is going on.
Because that’s the important part, the processing. Very often when you are in a state of high alert, or a heightened state, processing cannot occur and because processing can not occur it will clump and become hard and it will be very difficult to move through that and you will find often if you have been in a very stressful situation that later on you might break down, you might cry or laugh or go out because you need to move it through the body you need to process it in some way.
If you can process it in the moment and remain alert and remain on point, you will find that you will have a much more fruitful experience and the health of your being will be supported and not diminished and not sapped in that moment. It will actually be supporting each other.
So that’s the Dual State. We think it is a really important aspect to bring into your life and you can’t bring it in unless you really understand it and you really know that whenever you make the intention to meditate, to journey, whatever the word is for you, even if you feel nothing is happening, when you make that intention, when you consciously make the movements and you sit down and you listen to the drum or you sit down and you start your mantra, and so on, you are creating the space for the Dual State. Even if you feel alert as soon as you intend and act, the work is being done.
You are in Dual State.
Thank you so much and many blessings to you all.
Brad and Caroline.