How Naturality Enriched My Life (Part 1)

Dear Friends,

I feel a personal obligation to share with you something extraordinary that has been unfolding in my life over the past few years—but especially in 2020. A new life path has presented itself to me, opening the door to experiences of bliss and ecstasy that are unprecedented, at least for me. In the midst of a global pandemic that has challenged me just as it has everyone I know, the power of this path has been unwavering. Regardless of what is happening around me, I consider this to be a golden age in my life.

I feel obliged to share this path with you for a number of reasons, the most compelling of which is that it would feel selfish and heartless of me not to at least try. This is not about personal gain. I am giving this away to you, my friends, with an open heart and expecting nothing in return.
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This is entirely about you. The path of Naturality that I am about to describe is something you do for yourself. Nobody else, including me, can dictate how it should be practiced. All I can do is share what has worked for me, with the intention that you may benefit from this knowledge if you would like. If not, may you find a path that is as fulfilling for you as Naturility has been for me.

So, what is Naturality? It is the practice of embodying Nature. Before I delve into the basics of that practice, please let me explain why anyone would want to embody Nature in the first place. For me, any life practice that encompasses essential wisdom while offering genuine grace begins with one simple idea: This moment is the main event! You do not need to seek elsewhere for joy, love, or fulfillment. Many eminent teachers have agreed with this idea, which is why they have focused on “the power of now” and reminded us to “be here now.” For several years now, one of my personal mantras has been: “Here and Now, Baby!”

To know if Naturality is worth pursuing, ask yourself: Does this moment feel like the main event? If you are living fully in the present, savoring all that the experience of life has to offer, then say YES. Otherwise: Say NO. Then make it so. Find what it takes to enrich the life you are leading right now so you can know this moment to be the main event, beyond any doubt.

Where can you find that? Happily, the world is filled with wisdom teachings that can help you be present in the present. I have had the great privilege and honor to experience a number of these. For a lifetime, I have been an explorer of inspiration, which I see as the experience of being: fully alive, awake, alert and aware; connected to a limitless source of creativity and delight; and aligned with one’s core essence or true nature.

Of all the paths I have explored, none can compare with Naturality. Remember, I am speaking only for myself. As I have learned to embody Nature with more consistency, I feel that I have struck a vein of gold in terms of my capacity to experience inspiration and live fully in the present moment. When I embody Nature completely—something that seems to be happening with increasing frequency, intensity and duration these days—I know what it means to live in paradise, perfectly aligned with Nature.

To me, Nature is the wholeness that connects everything in the universe, including humanity. Even though we humans have come to see ourselves as separate from nature, this dissociation is just an artifact of our own minds. As has been discussed previously on this blog, there is no doubt that we live in nature and that nature lives in us. This being the case, how could we exist as anything other than Nature?

And that raises another question: Is Nature conscious? Of course it is. Even if consciousness is only to be found in the human realm—a proposition that seems dubious, at best—then consciousness exists in Nature to the degree that we humans are conscious while also being a part of the natural world. Given that Nature encompasses everyone and everything, if there is something to be, feel, think, know or sense, Nature can be, feel, think, know, or sense it.
When I embody Nature, I am able to experience whatever Nature can experience, and I do so here and now, in this body. If you think about it, this is a heavy, heavy notion. In Nature, there is illness, pain, suffering, despair, aging, death, decay, imbalance, ugliness, toxicity, hatred, selfishness, aggression, competition, and other qualities that we seek to avoid. It makes you wonder why anybody would want to experience that.

At the same time, there is also: health, pleasure, inspiration, joy, vitality, birth, growth, balance, beauty, nurturance, love, sharing, peace, and cooperation. And Nature clearly favors one end of the spectrum over the other. That is why, when you look at the natural world, you will find more flourishing than languishing, more benefit than harm, and more community than isolation. Nature seeks not only to sustain itself but to thrive, tending towards the qualities that maximize its capacity for both.

That is why moments of Nature inspiration, when I embody Nature fully, are such peak experiences. I describe what I undergo at those moments as “the greatest feeling in the world.” If there is something greater to be felt in this life, I have yet to discover it. I surrender to the rhythmic, cyclical pulse of creation that reverberates throughout the cosmos. Nature is constructing this dream we call reality in perpetuity and in every corner of the universe. I happen to know what that feels like because when I embody Nature, all of it is happening in me.

At those moments, everything that exists or that can be known lives in my body. Do you know what I am talking about? If not, I look forward to clarifying this experience in Episode 7 of the NATURE AM I podcast, which will come out in early August. Yes, I am claiming that in moments of Nature inspiration, you can gain access to all the knowledge in the universe. That does not mean you will retain it. The capacity for retention depends on a set of mental abilities, called the Deep Six, which I described in great detail in Deep Creativity. All of these abilities can be cultivated.

I will continue on this thread in my next blog post. In the meantime, here is something you can do to open yourself to the practice of Naturality:

1.     Find a comfortable position: seated, reclining, or lying down.
2.     Focus on your breathing, making sure to breathe slowly and deeply through you nose.
3.     Repeat the following words to yourself (at least five times), either silently or aloud:

                            I LIVE IN NATURE.
                            NATURE LIVES IN ME.
                            NATURE AM I.
4. Take in whatever feelings or sensation are happening in you.
5. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post.