Two Worlds—Visible and Invisible:
Two Kinds of Movement
We live in two different worlds. Each world offers its own kind of movement.
In our visible world movement is a big part of our life. We live one place, work in another, shop in third, go to school in a fourth, and so forth. We use vehicles most of the time to convey our body around. Most of our movement has a horizontal in orientation.
We experience another kind of movement in our invisible word. Invisible movement differs in two major ways.
- The movement of the body in the visible world is horizontal over the face of the earth; this horizontal movement we largely control. We can direct this outer movement and—if we choose—embark on a horizontal journey towards self-fulfillment.
- The movement in the invisible world can be either horizontal or vertical in orientation, going down into our inner depths and sometimes outwards into the universe.The invisible movement can become a vertical journey which guides us toward enlightenment. This journey we cannot control.
Here we explore the differences between the outer horizontal journey towards self-fulfillment and the invisible vertical journey towards enlightenment.
Invisible Movement
There is no sense of distance or dimensionality in our invisible movement. There can be an experience of moving through open space. There can also be a sensation of something moving within our body.
This might be a feeling that the whole invisible world is moving. It could also be an experience that a particular area is moving. This is especially true for our heart, our belly and our solar plexus. These are chakra centers in our energy body. When a chakra opens, we feel movement towards that chakra. When one area develops more feeling, we feel motion towards that chakra. This movement shift towards greater feeling is what we are calling invisible movement.
Our invisible world as a whole can seem to expand and shrink. This sense of expansion has no limit to it. At times our invisible world seems to compress and become compacted. At times it expands outwards beyond the boundaries of our skin. We can also expand outwardly and move throughout the universe. Or so it feels.
There is invisible movement that we direct ourselves. There is also invisible movement that we have no control over.
Spontaneous invisible movement we cannot control
There are times when we experience spontaneous movement within our private realm. This is movement that we cannot control. Our role here is to learn how to recognize such movement and to learn how to read what the movement might be telling us. Sometimes the movement is jarring and unmistakable.
- Our boss is unhappy with our work and our gut tightens up.
- We listen to a beautiful passage of music and our heart opens and our eyes tear up.
- Something moves on the periphery of our vision and we feel a sudden pang of fear in our solar plexus.
These flashes of movement in the invisible world are often signals to us to pay attention to what is happening in the visible world. They are messages designed to help us focus our attention on the things that matters.
At first, these interruptions from the invisible world can feel impulsive and jarring. Our rational mind judges them as illogical and dysfunctional. But closer attention to what we are experiencing often reveals that the invisible world is asking us to pay more attention to certain things that are occurring in our outer life.
The inner world often gives us guidance on where to focus our attention in the outer world. Our inner world is showing us the edges of experience that our logical mind cannot grasp.
Life in the invisible world often dances with our life in the visible world. We can dialogue with our invisible world. There is wisdom within us that works very differently than the logical mind.
In our culture we have been taught to put our logical mind at the helm of our life. But, the logical mind cannot do everything that we need. We do not realize that we are excluding other resources we have at our disposal. Logic and rationality cannot solve all our problems. We have more resources that we can tap into if we want the full human experience.
Feeling the Movement of the Moment.
When energy moves through our invisible world, we can feel it. There can be an onrush of energy, there can be a loss of energy, there can be a subtle shift of energy from one part of the body to another.
There can be a feeling of emotional movement in the body, as emotions rise up or slowly subside. There can be a movement in the tissues of the body, as when muscles tighten or relax. There can be a kind of invisible knowing, and intuition which arises, when we least expect it. There can be a gut instinct or an impulsive movement. This is all movement through the invisible world.
It takes feeling to experience movement. We feel movement that comes and goes in the invisible world.
Living Closely to The Movement of The Moment
We have been taught to analyze life with our mind, set goals for what we want to achieve and then go forth and make that happen. When taken to its fullest extent, this becomes the horizontal journey towards self-fulfillment.
When we become aware of our invisible world, we realize the horizontal approach has to widen. We now realize that we are not in control as we had imagined. The invisible world has its own movement. This movement, subtle or dramatic, represents some change in the invisible conditions which now exist. It is necessary at times to be still, to open up and to learn what the invisible world wants to show us.
If we follow the subtle movement in the invisible world, we come to “see” things and experience things which we have not been aware of. We need to learn how to open up and how to experience this invisible movement. We need to learn how to interpret what the movement is showing us.
As we learn to feel the movement of the moment, we become more sensitive to that movement. We learn to trust this invisible movement and let it direct our awareness. And then it can guide our actions. We need to stay open to the possibility that at any point in time we might have to slow down in the visible world in order to feel what is going on in the invisible world.
This movement is a natural part of life. It is how change can occur. When we feel the movement—and then follow the direction of the movement—things can happen that can lead to changes both large and small.
When we do this, we lose the belief that we have to impose our will on the visible world. We do not have to understand everything. Life understands itself. When we trust life, we are in tune with reality.
Focused Attention: Self-directed invisible movement
Attention is focused awareness. It is consciousness that is alert to what it is experiencing in that moment. Meditation can help us hone our attention.
This can be challenging when we first start to meditate. We are used to seeing things through our 5 senses. When these are turned off and we turn inward, we are not sure what we pay attention to. Our focus on the invisible develops as we gain more experience with meditation.
Energy follows attention. We can work with this process. If we focus on different areas of our invisible world, we can bring energy to these inner areas. This movement of energy might release some blocked emotions that have been holding us back.
For example, if we shut our eyes and turn out attention inward, we can move our attention around inside our body. We can focus on different organs and how they feel. We can feel our skin. We can feel our chakras. We can feel physical pain or discomfort.
