… the trailing edge of the leading foot….
By Steve Beckow, February 15, 2021
(Golden Age of Gaia)
Forest trainer Dennis Percy used to say that the path starts at the trailing edge of the leading foot.
If that’s the case, then there is no path ahead to guide me and what I bring to the party assumes inordinate importance.
If we’re talking about actual lightworker leadership. If we’re talking about rote management, well, then, no.
To fill the responsibilities I’ll have after the Reval, there’s a very strong impulse in me to “emerge.” It isn’t like this impulse comes with a guidebook. It doesn’t. It just sends me in a certain direction.
And the direction I seem sent in overall is emergence from the obstacles to growth, expansion, Ascension. Since the path starts at the trailing edge of my leading foot, I begin by observing myself and the barriers I can see in me.
My reactivity was a barrier. Constant Comment. My ignorance of what true love really was. And the vehicle for all of these I’ve called, after Sri Ramana Maharshi, (1) my “vasanas.”
Linda Dillon calls vasanas “core issues.” Others call them our reaction patterns, old baggage, gunnysack of resentments, childhood emotional trauma, Marley’s Chain, etc. They’re what we carry around that keep us low and dense.
Hindus might say that vasanas are the seeds of future action. One thing that’s consistent about them is that they usually involve extreme behavior – anger, fear, jealousy, etc.
When triggered, and under their influence, we do things that damage our relationships, impede our life working out, and create residue, which becomes the grounds for the next outburst. (2)
The impulse to emerge is aided by some spiritual experiences that give a glimmer of what awaits us – and hence of the direction to go in. Everyone knows the direction: Into the heart. That’s where the Self “resides,” as far as it can be so limited.
But that’s only intellectual knowledge, with not enough juice in it to spur a person on.
After seeing the Self at Xenia in 2018, I now had experience of it and realization and so I had a direction. That was enough juice to spur me on.
What an irony that emergence from my shell of inhibiting thoughts and feelings required going deeper into the heart. How does that work?
Surely I should be busting my chains and coming out. Superman! But, no, I’m descending deeper and deeper to the seat of the soul at the farthest reaches of the heart.
The treasure lies buried in the field of the heart. It’s just there. The only seal and the only door is the hridayam, the heart aperture, right at the outset of our journey. Beyond that, there’s only depth; there’s only commitment; no more doors.
***
If what we’re looking at here is the emergent lightworker leader, then, in my opinion, that person will need to have emerged or at least be winning at it. And, if they have or are, then what they bring to the party is all they’ll have to rely on.
Why? Because when a person assumes a lightworker leadership position, their time of being able to research and contemplate shrinks. They’ll be caught up in the midst of things. Their performance will be judged on email and text messages, rather than on continued, well-thought-out leadership.
Our leaders today are expected to be leaders on social media in addition to everything else. We haven’t really reconciled our needs as a society with our rapidly-expanding technologies.
If I were to get on social media, I would drop from the effort to keep up. It would be the end of me.
And why? What purpose would all the likes and friends serve for one whose task is to offer leadership?
Instead, part of my own leadership has been to shut the door, enter into stillness and silence, and contemplate/meditate. I’ve experienced a lot of arguments and second-guessing with myself over it, but it’s fast becoming necessary.
I’m coming around to the view that part of the art of leadership today is to learn to conserve one’s time without offending.
Right now I can search and research and what I bring to the party is all these facts and ideas. But a time will come when I am the only thing I will have, to bring to the party.
Footnotes
(1) A vasana is usually considered to be a persistent, resistant, and reactive behavior pattern, formed in early-childhood, based on an earlier traumatic incident, complete with conclusions, decisions, and reactions, persisting through time like a sleeping volcano and triggered by a current upset which in some way resembles the earlier and original traumatic incident, and presenting itself as an upset, which is usually projected onto other people (“eg., “you made me mad”).
On vasanas, see Vasanas: Preparing for Ascension by Clearing Old Issues at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Vasanas-Preparing-for-Ascension-R8.pages.pdf
(2) I used to think that my family followed a cycle of abuse. An outburst was followed by avoidance and finally icebreaking and then brief enjoyment and then an outburst.