Alignment

[Bruce Achterberg]

I often write about "alignment," and I think many people wonder exactly what I mean by that.

Jedi, a fellow Twitter'er, said to me via Twitter:

just read a few of your posts on pavlina. i really like the concept of embracing where you are. trying to figure that out.

I wrote a response to Jedi, but I wasn't satisfied with it--it didn't feel right--so I just relaxed and didn't worry too much about it, opting not to post it.

A few days passed, and yesterday as I was writing a Twitter post, I saw a review for the Abraham-Hicks DVD, The Secret Behind the Secret. One particular portion of a review caught my eye:

They don't use the word "channeling" to refer to what Esther does, since she is an integral part of the process...and not just setting aside her consciousness as she speaks for Abraham...but rather, she becomes more of who she really is and therefore is able to tap into infinite intelligence.

After reading that I immediately thought, "this is what I do," and it is indeed what I mean when I talk about alignment. I'm not really saying that I "tap into infinite intelligence," but it does feel like I become more of myself, and "myself" seems not to be limited to my body; reality seems to have a greater depth to it that I've talked about in other posts when I wrote about how intuitive abilities seem to tap into an "inner" part of reality that doesn't have space and time (but that concept still kind of throws me, heh, so let's not worry about it for the moment).

I used to really think about what I write about a year ago, but these days, I very much write using my intuition. I feel my way through what I write, choosing to worry about how what I write feels instead of how it sounds. To the degree I do this, I seem to get pretty good feedback about what I express. At least, it seems to resonate with people. Whenever I write using thinking alone, my writing tends to have little substance.

With alignment, the idea isn't to become more; that implies that you have to add more to yourself to be yourself. The idea is that you just have to be yourself, but not in a way where you act like what you might behave like in a natural state--that's acting, not being.

The best way I can current describe the experience of alignment is that when you feel your internal state, there are certain feelings that stem from your fears, expectations, and anxieties, and then there's another feeling. For me, it's sort of like a natural, always present feeling--almost like the background hum of consciousness, as Steve once described it. When you align with it, you feel a sort of alignment, as if you aren't so much separate from everything that exists, but an extension of something greater, able to embrace that something greater at the same time. Think of it like the ultimate inclusiveness and lack of compartmentalisation; "holistic being," where when you are doing something, you no longer have to be anything, you simply "are."

I like to say that you don't have to do anything to be yourself; you *are* yourself, so you can't stop being yourself. The only thing you can do is acquire certain thinking patterns and energies, represented in the physical realm in various ways, that essentially "cover your window pane", not allowing your light--a light that shines naturally--to shine through.

Now there is much more I could write about this topic--this is only the "what is alignment" answer; I could go into detail about how it manifests, and how I actually embody this state. For now, hopefully this makes the concept I refer to as "alignment" a little clearer and easier to feel experientially rather than being an abstract concept you can't feel--can't currently experience.

[fellowtraveler]

Hello Bruce,

I haven't gotten to read much of your stuff yet - there's so much of eveything now that we have the internet!

I think I understand you here - "I" have always been standing in the background and tut-tutting some of the things "i" do. Sometimes (increasingly) "I" am able to prevail, sometimes not.

Tell me...is your term of "alignment" related to Anna Conlan's concept of "soul realignment"? It just struck me as the two terms are similar. I know that Anna purports to do it for one, as opposed to doing it onesself. Comments?