by Zulma Reyo
All of us believe we experience life as it is. We use our senses and think the information we receive is accurate. Yet every aspect of our lives is influenced by conditioning that determines our preferences and limits.
If something we depend on as much as our senses can be manipulated by convention and consensus, what about our inner world?
Is it possible for us to really perceive one another? Can we know life or another person directly? Most significantly, can we ever know ourselves?
We might not care if what we live is ultimately Real. It may not matter as long as we are delighting in what our senses send us. At first it may not seem important if what we intuit to be our real Self* is quite different from what others appear to see and know. As long as the dream brings pleasure and the satisfactions we think we want.
One day we realize that all of that is simply not enough. We realize we crave authenticity and depth.
Some of us become tired of the suffering and pain that accumulates with every condition we impose upon our relationships with the world.
Perception and love
To perceive fully amounts to love. It is so deep, so ample, so transcendental while being immensely physical and immediate that there is no room for anything but appreciation.
Many of us are either unaware of what and how we are feeling or even if we are feeling at all. Some of us might believe we are truly feeling and allow these distorted feelings to rule our lives.
This does not mean that once we decide to truly feel, the process is automatic. Neither does it mean that once we make up our mind to love everything and everyone we’re able to do so.
Genuine feeling and real love is painful! The initial opening to our real Selves is experienced through emotions, but emotions alone are incapable of embracing the breadth that only happens at the heart.
And, the consciousness of the heart opens only when we are willing to transcend emotion that has been accepted and embraced.
A loving friend
The truth is that most people simply can’t unlock the treasures of the heart because they are stuck at the level of emotion – warding them off or indulging in them. Or they build empires upon the foundation of the thinking mind that renders us incapable of accessing any feeling.
Discovering authentic love opens the passageway between inner and outer, between the isolation of self and the amplitude of the world.
True intelligence and perception does not come gratuitously, nor in parts, nor does it come in isolation.
If we are lucky, help comes most naturally through the unguarded space accessed by the presence of a sincere friend, the kind that allows us to feel whatever it may be that we do, without labelling it or steering us in another direction or expecting reward or retribution.
This kind of friend, with this sort of love, knows and trusts that left to ourselves we’ll find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Focus and power
Something special occurs when we permit ourselves the profundity to which our heart longs for and which our minds, heavily dependent upon the sensations of the body, avoid at all costs.
When we reach this new depth, we discover that it is not empty or fearful. Rather, it is full of joy. It is illuminating.
We bring our energy home to a true sense of our Self that is power itself.
The NEXUS approach
NEXUS is a unique approach to Self discovery based on awakening and applying the intelligence of the heart.
Work on the Self consists of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual preparation. This occurs in meetings pre-arranged according to need, possibility and inclination. Programs are organized together at the first session.
The process may happen in any one of three ways:
• Sessions can occur once or twice monthly.
• Individual Intensive retreats may be scaled to three day or one to three weeks’ periods with pauses, assignments and projects in between.
• Classes and trainings are available for the student who wishes to learn or train in a subject of his choice through a suitable tutorial program.
Whichever arrangement is chosen, the participant must be willing to execute the meditations, exercises and practices suggested.
Only then is a massive energy shift assured that opens up both inner and outer perception, as well as unexpected, utterly individual possibilities for each of us.
How NEXUS works
NEXUS work takes place on two fronts, that of the personality self and that of the soul or Self.
Together, we review our appreciation for the physical body and breathing, the emotional intensity of depth and exaltation and we explore the mind.
Sessions encourage us to face challenges that are literal opportunities for self discovery.
We must invariably face and surmount the knots, blockages, judgments, fears
and pain that are caused by our separation from ourselves. The work requires dedication and perseverance, a discipline that emerges naturally from our yearning.
As the battle over segmented fronts is won, a new structure of Self emerges, one that has been building parallel to the demolishing of the old blocks. One that is infinitely more resilient and appropriate for our expression and particular purpose.
NEXUS and the heart
NEXUS is all about awakening heart intelligence but what does that mean?
Quite simply, that which enables us to realise fullness is not the rational mind but the intelligence of the heart – what the heart knows. This leaps over logic, categories and processes to extract literal diamonds from our life experiences.
It is the only force that our instincts will listen to, that has enough power to command.
Only when we awaken the power of the heart can we perceive without intermediation and discover the world, others and ourselves as it is, in beauty and perfection. It is upon this that we build the remainder of our creative lives.
A Modern School of Self
NEXUS is a modern school of Self, where the final product is the perfect orchestration of all the selves we compose – the personality self, which is composed of many sub-personalities or what my teaching calls Elementals and the soul or spirit Self working in harmony together.
Let us use the metaphor of an orchestra for a moment. You are the conductor. Your emotions, thoughts, life experiences, habit and opinions are your instruments that need to become in tune and perform as an orchestra.
I am the producer, quite literally. Because I am not you but I am your friend, I see your true self. I also see what instruments make up your orchestra – what you have to play with, as it were.
Together, we will discover ever more exquisite harmonic excellence. You will be in tune with yourself. Nothing will ever be the same.
*The distinction between ‘Self’, capital S, and ‘self’ is vital to NEXUS and all of my work. ‘Self’ is the soul or spirit and ‘self’ is the personality.
