The Most Vital Question

Discovering spacious awareness

The space that Eckhart is referring to is spacious awareness. It's the stillness you can sense when you're alone or out in nature and very still.

It's the stillness that's underneath our personality. Have you experienced it? Not everyone can. Most people in the world today are still one-dimensional and can't.

Tolle tells us that when we can rest in this stillness, even partially, it changes our relationships.

"Spacious awareness is timeless consciousness. As you rest in that power, fear disappears, trust comes in, and that changes how you relate to other human beings."

I would agree. I believe it's the dimension I bring to the interviews and work that I do. And if you are a subscriber to this newsletter, you have this dimension too, but you may not be fully recognizing and appreciating its power yet.

One of my most memorable and palpable encounters with spacious awareness occurred on the morning of September 11th, 2001 while driving to work in Washington, DC. As the events of 911 unfolded, I would make a decision that would forever change the trajectory of my life and my work.

I decided that I would pursue a life-long passion to learn how to fly. The first time I viewed the world from above in the cockpit of a plane, I experienced profound spacious awareness.

Then I began sharing it with family, friends, and colleagues. Just a few at first, but when I saw that the pictures were helping people experience what I was experiencing, I took more and shared them more widely.

I took tens of thousands of pictures, and I had the opportunity to travel on dozens of flying adventures across the US.

How human beings relate to each other is important because collectively, we create what we call our world.

Think about it. Without us and our consciousness, our world would look completely different. Some even believe the world wouldn't even exist.

How well are we relating to each other? If you watch the news lately, it's not going so well.

"The collective egos are the perpetrators of most of the suffering on the planet, not the individuals."

But when we begin to change individually in our interactions, we start to tip the balance collectively.

The vital question in any relationship is, "Is there space in this relationship?"

While you talk, can you still sense in the background, even a little bit, that spacious awareness even while having a conversation?

When we bring spacious awareness to our conversations, "that changes relationships and makes the flow between humans much more harmonious."

What creates an insane amount of conflict is self-identification with mental positions. We see this play out and amplified in our broadcast and social media channels every day, creating enormous strife.

Can you explain your point of view and genuinely feel that someone is listening to you?

Can you sense the beingness underneath in the other person, and as a result, not judge or condemn them to show that they are wrong and you are right, only to make yourself feel better?

When I bring spacious awareness to the interviews and workshops I do, magic happens:

I encourage you to deepen your own spacious awareness and ask this question in all of your relationships, "Is there space in this relationship?"

— Bill

P. S. We'll be taking up this topic more thoroughly and practicing spacious awareness in our next monthly workshop on June 1st, 2022. Learn more and sign up here.