The experiential self: Meditation, vividness & charisma

“Genuine charisma is a natural extension of being grounded in experience. It’s a side effect of you really being here, it doesn’t take a huge effort. A quality closely related to it is what I call your natural dignity. It’s what happens when you relax into your fundamental nature and don’t overthink yourself”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article explores what I often call the ‘experiential self’ connecting to which is one of the main goals of meditation. If you enjoy the article then  do consider joining us live or online for the this weeks  The Wisdom of Awakening Series: Meditations for bringing integration, depth & vividness to your life, on Tuesday or Wednesday. The theme of the session will be on the experiential-self and mindful charisma.

And reminder of this Saturday mornings Zen deep-dive mini-retreat where, amongst other things we shall be meditating on Signlessness – Meeting your reality as it is.

In the spirit of vividness of experience,

Toby

The experiential self: Meditation, vividness & charisma

Meditation

How do you get into a state of meditation? From one point of view, very simple. Basic meditative presence is the space that lies between being lost in thought and asleep, or unconscious. If you can ground your attention in the present moment, for example by focusing on the breathing and body, then there you are. In the present, not lost in thought, not asleep; meditation!

The experiential self & conceptual self

One of the main focuses for me with meditation is to bring us back to the experiential self. When we are lost in thought, our primary experience of self is conceptual, the self is living in the world of concepts. In meditation we come back to our experience of reality in the moment; we experience ourself viscerally and vividly, directly, non-conceptually – We are really alive to our self and life now.

For many of us we are often and mainly lost in our conceptual self, and as a result we experience life indirectly, secondarily through thought. Meditation is designed to fix this imbalance so that we are primarily experiencing and secondarily thinking.

If you think about your experiential self as being like the hero/ine of your life, and the conceptual self as being like the heroes’ side-kick, for example Luke Skywalker and his little robot R2D2. We are trying to make sure that in our own life we don’t confuse our side-kick for our inner hero/ine!

Journeying into doing & being vividly

From our basic experience of the experiential-self we can go in two directions:

• Deeper into states of being and presence
• Actively into states of doing

From this we can see that meditation when understood correctly involves being-states and doing-states. We can sit still and be, or we can go into active or working meditation.

Whether you are doing or being, doing so with your experiential self-ensures that you do both vividly, viscerally in a way that is committed to really being alive

Charisma – Owning your space

Here’s the proposition: If you really get good at living in your experiential self, then you will discover your own personal charisma. We all have different personalities, so there are many ways of being charismatic. When you are really connected to the reality of yourself in the moment (not lost in a conceptual image of it) then you arrive in the moment in full colour, with confidence, with presence, with personality. Charisma is a natural extension of being grounded in experience. It’s a side effect of you really being here, it doesn’t take a huge effort. A quality closely related to it is what I call your natural dignity. It’s what happens when you relax into your fundamental nature and don’t overthink yourself

The Work (two types)

So then, from the experiential-self come two types of work:

• The work of being and embodying in the moment – This is not the work of achieving something in the future, it is qualitative work, the work of making this moment as high-quality as possible
• The work of doing – From the embodying self in the moment we can then launch ourself into meaningful projects where, with the assistance of the conceptual self, we are setting goals and working toward a future result. The main thing with this is that your ‘doing work’ is that you have identified the ‘deepest inclinations of your heart’ and follow that.

With the experiential self, you’re daily doing and being start to complement and harmonize with each other; busyness and peace, presence and doing, charisma and invisibility all weave themselves together into a vivid and fulfilling tapestry describing the journey of your life.

There is a lot more to this of course, but finishing with a short story from Anthony De Mello:

CHARISM(A)

The disciple was a Jew. “What good work shall I do to be acceptable to God?”

“How should I know?” said the Master. “Your Bible says that Abraham practised

hospitality and God was with him. Elias loved to pray and God was with him. David

ruled a kingdom and God was with him too.”

“Is there some way I can find my own allotted work?”

“Yes. Search for the deepest inclination of your heart and follow it.”

Related article: Your body of presence (Sitting sumo-style)

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com