Mind Science - Contemplative Inner Science

This session monday morning was hosted by Joel Levey and Finn Voldtofte. Michelle Levey and Michael Lindfield were co-signers of the announcement, but due to change of room we never came to co-host the session – a least not in same-time-same-space.

The purpose was to experiment with and learn from experiences so far on sensing into the middle and engage what emerges in an intentional inquiry.

10-12 people participated (sorry, I wasn’t attentive to the names)

The practise was to sit in silence for a few minutes, centering attention and settling the activity of the mind – and then to hold the intention of directing ones attention from a silent place within towards the middle.

After a period of ”attending to the middle”  start sharing whatever one senses in the middle, but without making interpretations of what was sensed. ”Sense” means see, hear, feel, smell, taste, but also intuit and give it words.

The shared (and from other circles repeated) experience seems to be that something of being comes into existence, or manifests, or emerges, or reveals it self – something that is not a concrete physical form, but is there as opposed to in me and as opposed to the feeling of the group energetics. Even though nothing seems to be there to be seen, it does make sense to talk about that something is seen, felt etc. There can be shared meaning in refering to a size of the middle, a size that changes and can outgrow the size of the circle  - the middle becomes larger than the circle. Individual physical reactions can appear, changes in metabolic processes and other.

When it is established as a shared experience that ”a middle” is present, we can intentionally engage it in an inquiry. At this session a theme was suggested in the invitation: Collective Intelligence and Evolution. But one can also start the inquiry by listening into and give voice to what seems to be the question that can be listened into now.

In the inquiry the shared intention is to keep on giving attention to the middle, listen to the middle, and give voice to ”what the middle wants to say”. So one has to think of oneself as potentially at any time being the one through which the abstract middle can aquire voice. In very practical terms it can simply mean: Speak as you are moved to. A skill to be developed is distinguishing between when an impulse to speak really is from the middle or when it is a personal impulse. The skill is about making one self avaible and letting go of personal fears and desires. The skill is also about showing up in all of your capacity. Any holding back from the individual side holds back the entire field. Holding back is relative to your highest capacity – so you can not tell from the amounts of words said or the brilliance of them wether it comes from fully being on ones own edge or it is really more cleverly hidden holding back.

My interpretation of what we experience is this: Our focused attention towards the middle is a stream of consciousness that calls forth consciousness ”in the middle” – that is consciousness not carried by any of our individual beings. The calling forth is by way of resonance, entrainment or attraction. As we experience consciousness in between us, each of us is called more to the foreground in being present – consciousness expresses it self more intensely in each of us. This in turn calls forth more consciousness in the middle – and we are witnessing the proces of consciousness manifesting by bending back on it self.

One aspect of consciousness is intelligence, so the presence of more consciousness means presence of more intelligence. As it is in the middle we can think of it as collective intelligence. We experience the presense of collective intelligence by enhanced ability to think and reason together.


From the (still few, but repeated) experiments I think I can now draw some conclusions:

•    The word ”middle” has importance. ”Center” is more likely to be understood as a specific point in the center of something with a circumference. ”Middle” is a field. The middle is that which is ”not me, no you, not we, but in between”.
•    It is of importance, and many times initiating and eye-opening, to make the distinction between individual, group and middle, and claiming that whole-group-dynamics and middle is not the same.
•    Being in a group that engages the magic in the middle is an experience of at the same time full personal autonomy and full communion with the group (no sense of separation). That can be a confusing experience from the minds perspective.
•    It is likely that a period of confusion and ”not getting it at all” appears, and it is quite likely that many will sit with that sense at the same time. I think it can be explained as a period of expansion – expansion of consciousness, intelligence, presence – but the expansion is in the middle and leaves the individual in a kind of vacuum for a period. Only in later stages gets the expanded state again filled with meaning, now integrating more complexity.
•    ”The law of instant response” – if the middle is engaged, and you ask a question, you will get a reply instantly. This can be used as an indicator  of connectedness to the middle and authenticity of the question.
•    As the group session comes to an end the middle does not have to. If the group shares the intention of attending to the middle, it can live on, even if the group spreads out and engages other activities. It seems to be of importance here to not think of the session as an experience (and being caught up in thoughts about having had an experience) but as a being together that continues.

Finn