Where do I belong? Bart ten Berge

In the struggle between acceptance and rejection, hard-wired to fear the control others have on us, we can blind-side the universal and refutable Nondual Quality of Belonging. Bart ten Berge takes us deeper.

Transcript

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To be long somewhere is coming with our nature it's really part of us and to not belong, the feeling of not belonging not being part of, the feeling of separation is not something which comes with our nature And this is important to understand, because the moment we feel separated, we feel not part of, then our physical body, our nervous system is moving into a stress. This is a stressful position to be in. This is not comfortable, this is not relaxed. And I don't think we are made to live in stress. We are made to kind of live as relaxed as possible. How come that we as humans kind of invented this illusion that we are not part of because it's an illusion it's not a reality, it's an illusion we're playing with the whole illusion of rejection, acceptance and in the end when you look to this illusion of acceptance and rejection it is an illusion to give any other being being the responsibility and the power over us. If you really look to the depth, can you be responsible for another person? Can you be responsible for another person's thoughts, another person's feelings, another person's lessons of life, another person's physical body even. Can you be responsible over the life of another person? Can you carry this responsibility? This is an illusion that we kind of give other people responsibility if we are okay or not. If we are acceptable or not. It's a game. And it's a game which is working when we are really caught in a tunnel vision. Because the moment your vision is broader, even if this game is there, and we are in a classroom as children, and one of the children is the one who is getting all the shit of the class, in a way. He's getting teased. He's the outsider. So still, when you look to the whole, there seems to be a need for the whole class to create this outsider. So if we take the outsider out of the class, the class would miss probably the outsider more than anybody else. The outsider is part of the classroom, belongs there. And it's horrible that right now it seems that we need this kind of games to play. But even the one who is rejected is part of the game, is part of the whole social game. We, some years back, had neighbors and this neighbors relationship only could hold if they had a mutual enemy in the neighborhood. You know, that would keep them together. So the moment there was not a mutual enemy anymore, the whole relationship starts to kind of you know to get so stressed and so tensed it was not a mutual thing to talk about to kind of you know to put borders to whatever so what was the movement they made is that they would live in a house for some time and then in the beginning you know everything they wanted to have it hunky-dory so they were nice to the neighbors borderless and then after a while, you know, tension in the relationship would come forward. And then came the mutual enemy, one of the neighbors came forward to rescue. And the tension between them and the neighbor they hated was quite high, and that would kind of circulate a little bit, you know, because at a certain moment people didn't relate to them, they took a distance, so the mutual enemy was not working, so somebody else became the mutual enemy. It was a whole pattern. And then at a certain moment, you know, it was difficult to find another mutual enemy where they could still relate with, be angry about. So they had to move house again. And then they tried really to kind of make it good again with everybody. So this can go on for years. It's a game. If you look to the belonging, there is no way we can deny that we are part of this universe. universe on all levels. Physically, we are part of this universe, we are part of the matter the universe is built of. So part of the universe we are in, or maybe even the galaxy we are in, which is only a little part of this universe. There's many many galaxies. You know, it's the whole area of ourselves, you know, connected with our sentience, with our feelings, which we call our soul. So if you look to the source of what our soul is, the source of our soul is IS-IS-ONE and this is what we call God. God the Creator. So it's not your soul. The soul is moving through us. The soul is part of the building stones of our makeup. But the soul is also part of the universe, part of what is created. It's a form. That means if you move to the physical and you take one particle of the physical, one particle of the physical is part of the whole. If you take one molecule, one molecule is connected with all the molecules in the universe. It's part of it. And it's much more deeply connected as we thought in the past. Right now, in modern physics, they find out that all molecules are reacting with each other. They are all connected. Doesn't matter if it's inside the body, outside the body, at this side of the earth, the other side of the planet, they are reacting on each other, they are all connected. when you look at it, that this physical body, which carries the illusion that it's separate from all physical bodies, separate from this planet, that it's not part, that it's really separate. Even in touch, when we touch each other, on a nano-scale, there is an interchange of molecules, of atoms. That means, if I touch Georgie, I carry part of Georgie's inferior memory. That means that I carry part of Georgie's atoms. There is an interchange and she carries part of my atoms. There is a constant interchange taking place. And I am not talking about how you feed yourself, the air we breathe and everything which is in the air which is interchanged, but there place. So when we look on the whole level of sentience, of feeling, in the end, you know there is one source, and we all carry a little drop of this one source. It's the same as the physical, there is no difference. On the physical we can understand it, but there is an interchange of the energy of the soul taking all the time. That means when love which is reflected partly through our sentience, when this is brought forward another person takes it up and there is a reflection from the love from the other person, there is one source which is moving through it. You cannot even call it yours. It's interchanging all the time. And this is what we enjoy the most, you know, when we feel love and there is this kind of atmosphere of love, of togetherness. This is an interchange. This is interchange It's not our soul. It's just a part which is represented in ourselves, which in the end is one. And we are looking for this interchange all the time. This togetherness, this interchange in a way. And at the same time we hold on that we are separate. We are separate from nature, we are separate from each other. When we look to the spirit level of ourselves, the spirit level again, we have a tendency to say, okay, this is my spirit. We can often guess, you know, what our body is, this is my body, this is something we can touch. So my soul becomes already more difficult, but still it's your soul, your feelings. When we come to my spirit, it becomes This is difficult. So when you look to people who are more close to nature, they don't talk about my spirit. They talk about the spirit. Or the spirit world, the spirit dimension, the dimension of spirit. There is not a separate owned spirit there. Spirit has many ways to express itself and spirit is the cause of everything. So one way from spirit to express itself is through the physical. So it's not in their eyes your spirit who is expressing itself through the physical, but spirit is expressing itself through the physical in a very unique and special form. Also there, there is not really a separation. And there is a separation, because in the end, you know, we are built from all the same material, expression of all the same, an expression of the universe. But this expression is like one word in a sentence. It's separate from other words. It has a unique sound, a unique vibration. It brings forth a unique experience. And it's experiencing, when we talk about an individual, in a unique way. In no way it's separate. So when you look at it like this, it is unique, but it is not separate. So how could this, how could a word not belong to a sentence? How could any expression of the universe, what we are, not belong, not being part of the universe? How could it be separate? I bring this story forward to think about because so deeply engraved in our thinking is this separation. a grave, we believe so deeply that we are separate. And we take so much, we put so much effort in being separate. Being special, being somebody, or trying to adjust, but when we adjust, and we adjust totally, that doesn't feel right. We still have to be special, we have to be separate. Something has to be different. You recognize what I'm talking about. We put so much effort in being separate. And at the same time we put so much effort to belong. The whole difficulty around belonging is based on this feeling that we If you are not separate, there is no problem with belonging. Belonging is automatic. You belong. And this being separate is really born from the mind. The development of the mind is how we teach our children, teach each other how to develop the mind. This can be totally different. There is this deep, deep belief in the separate self, in separation. And we wrestle with it because it's not realistic. On none of the levels it's realistic. If you get angry, when you shout at somebody else, so the other person is reacting. He's reacting not only on the atmosphere which is shared at that moment, is pushed out. And then what you see is that your emotions start to vibrate automatically on the emotions of the other person. And this is happening all the time. We are collectively angry, we are collectively fearful. We all react on each other. And we manipulate this. We manipulate this through the news, through the reporting we give, through stories we tell each other. We tell each other even when to be angry and when not to be angry. Now you should be angry, now you should forgive. And then it's really the question, you know, if you should be anger, whose anger are you expressing? Is this your own anger, or is this the anger of the social environment who decided it's good for you to express anger now? Or is it a shared field we express? When you have a quarrel with somebody who is close to you, you know, where does the anger start and where does it finish? Is it a shared anger? When we look to contractions, to trauma, is this really your own precious trauma? Or is it an expression of a contraction you give your own unique form to? Especially when you look through generations through generations, trauma, you know going from generation to generation and each generation has his own struggle with it, has his own form to express it has his own entanglements based on the same trauma and based on this when we kind of grow up, we see how our parents are struggling and how painful this maybe has been for us, so we take the decision never, never I will be like my father, never, never I will be like my mother we rupture part of the belonging which is there, to do a difference, to be separate. But the same trauma is expressed in a different way by you. Even if you were never like your father, you know, most of the times we find ourselves acting like our father, anyhow. But we never want to be like our father, so maybe we will express it in a total opposite way. But the drive, the pain, the contraction is exactly the same. whole area of inner growth, when we look at that and we move inward the more we move inward, the more we move to what is essential you know, the form we give to it is not that essential we can change form all the time you know, based on anger we can freeze, we can behave very aggressive, we can put borders, we can find a million forms, change forms, to find the right way to express anger. But if we are not at peace with the anger which is inside ourselves, whatever form will come forward will not bring peace. Basically we are wrestling to get rid of the anger. So the more we become at peace with the anger inside ourselves, the more we become aware that this is not only the anger inside ourselves, we are reconnected with a field of anger. It's an energy, it's a vibration, which is there, which moves through you. It's difficult sometimes to really decide, is this really your anger or is this the anger of somebody else? The moment we grab it, it's our anger. And also this you see in family systems, that there is a kind of, you know, this field of anger and this anger is suppressed. And then the weakest link will explode at a certain moment. They will get angry. And then this is the reason for the whole family to kind of respond. a lot of disgust sometimes and anger on the person who snapped. How could you snap? How could you be angry? This is quite normal in family situations. And of course you know when it's the weakest link, this is the one who also gets teased a little bit. And get triggered. Because you know, if you kind of tease and trigger there, then the anger will come forward and then we can all say, okay, you know, you are the problem. You are the problem. Yes, but he said and he said it and she did it. Yes, you should listen to yourself. So again, beyond that, when you look to this whole movement, which is kind of much more collective as we think it is, with this illusion of separation. whole field, you know, there is an automatic belonging there. On all levels. So, why this separation? Why this strong belief, this separation in not belonging, into not being part of? Why do we need to draw back into not being part of? Why is it so incredible painful when you're the one who snaps when you're the one who expresses what is not allowed to be expressed when you're the outsider why is this created? why is this there? why not kind of live all together like horses, you know, in a field, connected with each other on all the levels and reacting on each other? bring us and what's needed in that. It seems that we have the ability to take responsibility for our own actions, for how we give form. Not for what we experience, not for what we feel, not for what is in the field, but how we give form to the field, we have an ability there to decide, to take responsibility. But we can be responsible for how we give a form and a reflection of what's coming towards us. But to be able to take this responsibility, we don't have this consciousness. It's just automatic. So when we look around in the world we see that not many of us yet have developed this awakening, this consciousness this spiritual discernment to see what's the difference between yours and another's. We just are reactive, automatically reactive. If everybody is angry, we are angry. If everybody is crying injustice, we cry injustice. If you reject me, I reject you, automatically. We are in the field of rejection, the energy of rejection. So if you reject me, I reject you. And automatic. It's like horses. A little bit more complex but the same. So when we look to this, what I try to make clear that in a deeper level there is always belonging, we are always part of. What we have to learn and where there is part of our free will is how to give form to ourselves. But this is again, kind of when we come back, how to give form to ourselves, we learn this. This is what we learn. And our teachers are other human beings. How to learn it, and the system of learning we're using right now, is a system which is very much based on authority, on pretense. A teacher who is not able to contain his own emotions, not able to express in a way which is totally right for the teacher, is teaching us how to express. So, what comes forward is structures of guilt, structures of shaming. All structures which kind of give us the message that we don't really belong. We don't belong, you're different, you don't really belong, you're not reacting in the right way. And the structures of guilt and shaming, what you see is behind it, is a matter of superiority and inferiority. It's all duality. Acceptance and rejection. And we give away the authority. And with the authority we give away the responsibility. We take the guilt, we let go of the responsibility, we cannot be responsible. If you are guilty you cannot be responsible. thought behavior. When you look to it, it's how we talk to our children. It's how our parents talk to us. It's learned behavior. So, the turnaround is basically what is needed, is that we take the responsibility for our own behavior on ourselves, that we don't say this is because of. And when we do this, then we come into this drama of feeling, if we really pull back the responsibility of your own behavior towards yourself. It's like you moving out of the social field. The social field is so much based on blaming each other, carrying each other's emotion. It's like you're not social anymore. If you don't kind of, you know, interact in the way which is expected with the anger of your neighbor, it's like there is no social relationship possible anymore. You kind of have to do it like this. When you're blamed, you have to blame somebody else. Otherwise you're not part of the social field. You recognize what I'm talking about? It's letting go, and this is a kind of horror, letting go of what we think, how we belong to the world around ourselves. We belong to the social field. If you're not social anymore, and you don't move with it in this way, you don't belong. This is where belonging comes forward. But this level of belonging, this belonging to the world, to adjust, to be a good citizen, to basically pretend how you should be, instead of being what really is in a form you take full responsibility for. so this often gives our sense of belonging you're in a group and the group has certain values and certain beliefs and if you follow the same values and the same beliefs You're Catholic, Jewish, you're Muslim, you belong to this group, these beliefs, these values. You're a hooligan and either your god is Feyenoord or your god is Manchester United or whatever. you belong to this group you're a spiritual seeker so we have certain beliefs, a certain attitude certain ways, you belong to this group we adjust you're a spiritual teacher a spiritual teacher, you have a certain attitude, certain beliefs, a certain form, and if you keep this form, you belong to this group, and otherwise not. It goes everywhere, you know, which is not free from the entanglement, inacceptance and rejection. So it's a very superficial way of belonging. And it's a way of belonging which all the time is under tension. It's not safe. It's never good enough. You know, I can act as a doctor, but am I really a doctor? Am I acceptable as a doctor? Is my acting good enough? I can act as a teacher, but am I really a teacher? Is this acceptable? Is this good enough? Where we look for belonging, it's on the surface, and there we will not find belonging. There is this confusion between the responsibility you take to give the form to yourself, which is from the depth of view certainly right, and when it's not right to look at it and to understand it, why? This has nothing to do with belonging. Belonging in itself is in a much more deep level inside ourselves. A level where there is no discussion possible about belonging. We are part of, we belong so in this field belonging becomes the superficial field belonging becomes very very very stressful bastardized it's bastardized bastardized we talked about yesterday that means that you take something which is in itself a core quality, which in itself is a non-dual position, and you try to recreate it on another level, in a way that it's corrupted. So we can bastardize love by putting conditions on it. This is the bastardizing of love. We can bastardize belonging by putting conditions on it. You belong if, it all has to do with giving conditions on it. But the conditions are illusions, because in this basis it's unconditional. There's no conditions around belonging, there are no conditions. There are no conditions around the form of your physical body. It's not that if I behave like this and this and this and this and I will never lie, I become a redhead. Or when you lie your nose is growing. It's not like that, you understand? if you take very good care of yourself you will live forever you know, there is no conditions to us unconditionally. That means that we have the freedom how to relate with our physical body. Our life is given to us unconditionally. as we do the moment we start to place conditions on life we bastardize life We give it a form which is not true, it is based on illusion. We all breathe air, and air is there around ourselves. big company coming forward, Ten Berge & Co. who basically buys all the air in Holland. And then according to how much we breathe we have to pay air tax. So we are going to put conditions on our breathing. So if you have a little money you shouldn't breathe so much. It's only when you're rich you can afford to breathe more. You see the craziness of what's happening, what we create. This is basically how society is built. unconditionally there and we place conditions on it and we start to manipulate it to have power. And that's a bastardizing of the whole process of understanding what I come back to which is the process to understand that we are responsible for our own behavior, how we give form. This is freedom. And in this there is a kind of you know a misunderstanding between how we give form and belonging and authority. This is where it gets kind of you know smoke-screened, where there is no clarity, where we lose our clarity So belonging on all levels is something which is automatic there. There is no question about it. The difficulty we have is with acceptance and rejection. So when we are rejected, there is this kind of deep pain, separation which comes forward. So this pain of separation is a shared trauma. This is why rejection is working. Because we share the trauma with the universe. The trauma of separation, the trauma of its own birth. As we share the trauma of separation which is a reality and a non-reality the separation in the end is not real there is not a real separation possible because everything is part of everything but the trauma of the separation in different forms of the same matter. This trauma of separation this is the pain basically what we have to learn to endure, cure. This is part of being part of this this this this this universe expresses itself through us. So this pain if we are able to contain this, then we are able to move through this whole circle freely of acceptance, rejection and belonging. As long as we are hooked in rejection, as something which is unbearable, we cannot move into belonging. as long as we are seeking for acceptance or we want to come to a position in which we decide who is acceptable and who is not acceptable we're not free we don't really belong in this circle the crunch, the most difficult part, is this deep pain which has to do, this trauma which has to do with rejection. Rejection if you look in the depth, is an illusion, but it touches a much deeper trauma, the trauma of separation. The trauma of separation with the mothers, the trauma of separation with the fathers, the trauma of the separation through generations, the trauma of loss, of grief, the birth of the universe, the trauma of separation between male and female. All of this is an expression of the same pain, and this pain is part of the drive of the universe part of evolution inner growth and creation it is the inner core of creation this way it's the cause of creation So, nobody is guilty for this pain. We all have a little piece we can work out by ourselves by feeling it. Nobody is stupid because he is carrying this pain through generations. It's part of us. It's part of our whole build up on all levels. And on all levels we can move beyond the illusion, the soul level, the spirit level and on the physical level. And the soul level is the level where you you you you