Paul Holman ‘Freedom Through Spatial Awareness’ Interview by Iain McNay.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
- Paul is author of ‘Living Space - Openness and Freedom through Spatial Awareness.’ He is a Doctor with 40 years’ experience in psychiatry and has a lifelong interest in mind-body relationships.
He began to realize that an expanded experience of space was reported by individuals who had woken up. The work ofDouglas Harding had an immediate and extraordinary effect on him and he started to look for other accounts of radical changes in perception.
He feels that as Westerners we are preoccupied with foreground experiences and our attentional style is narrow which has pervaded most aspects of our lives and leads to narrow focus. Becoming aware of space has made an enormous difference in his practice and his work with clients.
In this interview he talks about his experiences and his work and how an awareness of Spatial Awareness can lead to freedom.
Fantastic interview. Learnt so much from both your insights. Thank you.
"Space being the visual equivalent of silence." YES!!
Paul Holman it has been a pleasure and also very insightful to sit and be in this conversation. Thank you to both!
Hello I hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity, love and peace all over the world. I would love us to be good friends in honesty and in trust so as time goes on it will bring something great for us in the future, hope you don't mind? I'm Engineer Graham Bolt from Nashville Tennessee, where are you from?
These are such important videos. Watching them keeps me close to the path and validates what I’ve always felt. Thank you 🙏🏼
Thats awesome ! You got this you are it
Thank you Paul and Iain for a wonderful interview! This concept of spatial awareness I found to be very helpful. I will bear this in mind going forward.
This is excellent, so important in an era where billions are fixated on screens, in a box so to speak. Sensing the immensity of life is freedom, Room to Move!
An episode of 'Important Books in my Life' with Paul Holman would be great!
I have also enjoyed the practice. Lately I have met different authors talking in different ways about the impirtance of moving conciousness into space to activate our right hemisphere operating system. May I share that I have written one myself " Vibrational Mindfulness. One minute in the now". Thank you!
I am sure that when you go walking in nature, you get the same experience as he describes. You are in the open air and you are in a natural spacious environment and your focus is on the natural environment around you, the sky etc. You relax and can let go of your habitual trains of thought. You feel revived and relaxed when you come back. Like an escape from being your usual self. A very interesting and thought provoking interview.
This was awesome ! Try this out you can consciously let your attention die you will have no mind no problems, btw we are that space and that space is always open and never narrow
"The Seeking Beast"!!! I love that phrase. "Narrow focus versus wide focus" I am going to use the two fingers exercise with my clients now. This is a brilliant interview!
Hello I hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity, love and peace all over the world. I would love us to be good friends in honesty and in trust so as time goes on it will bring something great for us in the future, hope you don't mind? I'm Engineer Graham Bolt from Nashville Tennessee, where are you from?
Dear Paul, Stumbling onto you on the internet reminds me how you were one of the most interesting and intriguing characters with whom I ever crossed paths and so briefly, long ago. We cycled in Cornwall and survived high-speed rides on narrow roads in AB's sportscars. I remember your aunt in London too who gave the impression of being in possession of curious secrets. And your delightful mother who baked cornish clotted cream, unforgettable. Your fascination and involvement with strange and esoteric individuals and all their books and teachings roused my curiosity but I don't think I ever understood any of it! Australia is so far away....be that as it may, I send my very good wishes. John.
Hello I hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity, love and peace all over the world. I would love us to be good friends in honesty and in trust so as time goes on it will bring something great for us in the future, hope you don't mind? I'm Engineer Graham Bolt from Nashville Tennessee, where are you from?
hi renata/ian : what i'd love to see is a roundtable discussion with (say) six well known nonduality speakers, and crucially, NO seekers present, so we could see them interract as ordinary people. usually, such a situation might involve a clash of ego's, but as they are no longer slave to an ego, perhaps there would be no need for an argument ? i would like to see a whole series of such a format (six nonduality speakers + interviewer) featuring as many currently active nonduality speaker as its possible to book. i think it would help to break down the mystique of the 'teacher', and allow us to see these ordinary people foibles and all, having a good chin-wag with like minded people. perhaps there might be personality clashes (eg tim freke / tony parsons) but those disagreements might be revealing and insightful for viewers.
it might be instructive.
it might be fun.
it might be revolutionary!
(ok, i got carried away !)
i got the idea watching a youtube video of film directors involved in a roundtable discussion. i think an actual round table would help, and give everyone's opinion equal weight. however! at least among the directors, there were some who were more assertive than others! i am intrigued to see how it would pan out with groups of six nonduality 'teachers' and how their residual personalities would interact, in spite of their (much vaunted) absence of self.
i would be in favor of the interviewer being more challenging and less obsequious than is the norm for a ConciousTV interview (which is a gentle approach i often enjoy and gets the best out of guests) but these nonduality teachers usually come across as so smug and self satisfied in their certainties, that i think it is entirely appropriate to be a bit more forceful than usual with them, and have a free-flowing rough and tumble kind of approach to the group discussion.
for what its worth (if neither of you were up for it) my choice of chairman would be Benjamin Smythe. he's a feisty cocky bundle of energy in spite of his awakening, and might generate some interesting debates.
Great suggestion, I would definitely enjoy that kind of discussion :)
Interesting to watch this and hear references to several people whose work I know well, and even have been impacted by to a degree, particularly Gurdjieff, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, and Bernadette Roberts; but also Douglas Harding and Russell Williams. I’ve even read the relatively obscure _A Life of One’s Own_ many years ago.
Some additional commentary on this interview:
22:57 (Paul) _“…and she [Milner] said, ‘Narrow attention is what we’re doing most of the time; it’s […] always being used in the service of our fears and our desires…”_
A minor nitpick: “Narrow” or focused attention isn’t _“always”_ being used in the service of fear and desire. Anytime mundane tasks need doing (e.g., for work, household chores, paying bills, planning a meeting or errand, etc.), attention is employed and fear and desire have nothing to do with it. Attention used in this focused way is just a tool, and as with any tool, it can be used in ways that are helpful and harmful. It isn’t the tool that’s the problem, but how it’s used.
39:03 (Paul) _“Attention […] is fundamentally a contractive process.”_
Yes. Having delved deeply into the question of what attention _is,_ both phenomenologically and ontologically, I would say that, like the aperture function of a camera, *_attention is a function of the focusing or relaxing of thought._* Normally, undisciplined attention alternates all day long between moments of purpose- or task-driven focus and much longer periods of diffuse or scattered buffeting about by the winds / whims of associative daydreaming and those fears and desires mentioned previously. But the effort to relax or expand the attention - which is the same as relaxing or expanding thought** - while remaining alert and present has the effect of loosening that contraction.
** As for how to “relax or expand thought,” Paul gives some good exercises in the video, which entail efforts to expand one’s spatial boundaries. Rupert Spira has another exercise that can be quite powerful (for those so inclined) involving the deconstruction of locality altogether. For instance, close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you. How far _from awareness_ is the sound actually occurring? If you do this diligently and innocently, at some point the epiphany will dawn that there is zero distance between awareness and sound; in fact, they are _not two things_ (the meaning of Advaita). And you can do this with each of the senses. (Since sight tends to be the most all-consuming sense, it’s often easiest to save that for last by closing the eyes and focusing on the other senses first.) The result of this exercise is to radically undermine the conditioned sense of being a located experiencer - i.e., a subject experiencing objects that are all “other” than oneself.
41:05 (Paul) _“And the most essential ingredient in that is the therapist and the client are on absolutely the same human level. There’s no hierarchy here. Because I have a psychiatric degree, I have to disabuse clients in subtle ways that I’ve got any sort of solution for them...”_
So does that mean he doesn’t charge his “clients”? C’mon doc, _of course_ there’s a hierarchy - a perfectly natural and acceptable hierarchy - insofar as you’ve got the medical degree and the clinical expertise which the client lacks, and for which the client has sought you out in the first place.
48:53 Reference to Franklin Merrell-Wolff. He was a brilliant and original thinker and mystic (a rare Harvard educated mathematician and philosopher who was also spiritually awakened) who, like several folk that Paul referenced, forged his own unique path to enlightenment. A lot of otherwise bright, educated people seem to struggle with his work, though, so his insights tend to be reserved for those who (for whatever reason) find some attunement to his manner of expression. His book _Pathways Through To Space_ is a sort of diary of his spiritual realizations in 1936. His later book _The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object_ was a more formal philosophical elaboration of the significance of his realizations.
For those who are curious but impatient, there’s a free PDF summary of FMW’s major insights by Thomas McFarlane here:
www.searchwithin.org/download/nondual_philosophy_franklin_merrell_wolff.pdf
49:09 Reference to Bernadette Roberts. Former Carmelite nun and author of books on the phenomenology of “self,” she tends to be somewhat controversial for some folk because she was a maverick who was also very outspoken and opinionated. Be that as it may, her insights remain among the most profound and well expressed, at least for those who resonate with her language and manner of expression.
Check back at the Search Within site linked to above, as they are planning to post a similar summary of Roberts’s “no self” insights as a free PDF in February.
50:24 (Iain) _“…on the other hand, I know someone that spent time with her [Bernadette], and she chain smoked […] It’s not to say in a judgmental way…”_
Nisargadatta Maharaj was also a chain smoker. So what? There always seems to be this expectation in so-called spiritual circles that awakening or enlightenment must coincide with saintly behavior. Awaking can and often does have at least _some_ impact on personality traits and habits, but what that looks like can vary quite a bit from person to person. The point is that awakening or enlightenment is, at root, about a transformation of identity - that is, about how and with what one identifies. Whether or not one smokes cigarettes is entirely irrelevant.
51:18 (Paul) _“…I understood that I’d been trying to do mindfulness with a narrow focus, and it was just exhausting, just_ *being aware of one thing after another.* "
That’s because, at least where it comes to Vipassana-style mindfulness, you aren’t supposed to focus on “one thing after another,” but rather to choicelessly allow all impressions as they present themselves. And when the attention gets snagged on one particular thought, feeling or sensation, as it inevitably will, as soon as it’s noticed, it’s let go of and attention is again relaxed and returned to choicelessly allowing all impressions as they present themselves. In other words, pretty much what he's been referring to throughout the interview as "wide attention."
Dear PL , I found myself wondering why you wrote your commentary?
Pardon my comments if they are irrelevant to you :)
Paul is obviously suggesting "self-authority" (personal experience ) as a starting point . His point about hierarchies is aligned with that ; the idea of equal status in communication. If I go to a mechanic to fix my car I want him to speak to me as an equal and explain things in a language I can understand rather than hold himself in a position of power with me at his mercy (not just financially)!
Too many teachers hold themselves above the students in some way . The teacher-disciple relationship is age-old .
Alan Watts points out beautifully how the ancient model of kings sitting with absolute authority set the model for religious hierarchies (we didn't know how else to view God - the "supreme ruler of the universe", but as a king sitting on his throne lording it over the land , regarded as "divine" . Many empires have ascribed to this principle of "divine rule" , Theocracy .eg. The House of David ( Queen Elizabeth), many Asian empires etc - the emperor being in direct contact with God/Heaven.
We see apparent abuse of students /disciples in many modern and historical examples:
In some examples the guru puts the disciple through incredible trials and hardships to knock the ego out of them . Possibly the culture in which they live determines the effectiveness of this technique.
I don't feel qualified to judge it ; it confuses me somewhat .
Sure , if Paul is a practising doctor he will charge a fee , but his manner of communication is the key point in any therapy he offers? Taking a position of equality with the client is essential in my view. This is in itself a major contributing factor to assisting someone to return to true perception/self value rather than floundering in their own helplessness.
This quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj : " The true Guru will never humiliate you nor estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within . He knows you need nothing , not even him , and is never tired of reminding you."
Also , Nisargadatta M while suggesting the focus on " the sense I AM " , points out that by " I AM " he means not a separate, narrow individual but the "sense of everything ". ( at least that is my understanding )
Nonetheless for many of us there is that point of realising that there is a "disturbed self" and the following search for a path out of that disturbance .
I "envy" those whose path begins with simple curiosity as the spur to awakening .
Francis Lucille speaks of meeting his teacher Jean Klein , having lunch , and while driving back home he felt that rather than having met his guru , he had met a friend .
Having said all this I am now wondering why I felt the need to respond/react to your comments - which are all perfectly valid .....hehehe :)
Best wishes to All.
What a wonderful set of observations, and you're absolutely correct about narrow attention being multifaceted. Les Fehmi talks about "immersed" narrow attention - which is an effortless state of flow, similar to what Csikszentmihalyi talks about.
Amazing, the voice he speaks of at 05:35, I had the same voice speak to me as a young teen, and used Sanskrit words that I did not know the meaning of until later in life
This is so interesting...i have intuitively just started doing this where I will look out at space or nature when I am feeling bad and I find instant relaxation and my moments of most happiness are also when I have relaxed and widened my attention. Very confirming
Hello I hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity, love and peace all over the world. I would love us to be good friends in honesty and in trust so as time goes on it will bring something great for us in the future, hope you don't mind? I'm Engineer Graham Bolt from Nashville Tennessee, where are you from?
Thank you, Dr. Holman! I bought your book , and I am looking forward to reading it.
44:48 Paul’s meditation, do nothing, just being….everyone eventually comes to it.
47:43 Paul makes an excellent point, there is nothing wrong with you. One realises this when the mind learns to be quiet.
52:10 I agree with Iain, there is value in one-pointed type practices. It may be quite difficult to enter into “spaciousness” without one-pointedness training first.
Love this interview! Thank you 🙏🏻
Another very good interview from 'conscious tv'. Always greatly appreciated Thanks.
Fantastic! A much needed piece of the puzzle for me.
thank u so much bringing us excellent people to help us in our spiritual growth.
Iain, Thanks soo much for the very informative video. I haven't seen you in a while nice to be with you today..........Best to yo William......
This is amazing. Douglas Harding, Flora Courtois, Franklin Merrill-Wolff are in the book
Ajahn Sumedho, Meido Moore and other teachers talk about space. So I bought the book from Amazon.
Caffeine (in my experience, coffee) narrows attention. I've been saying "like a torch vs a lightbulb". It's time to taper off! It interferes with restful focus for sure. I'm sure the brand I switched to in 2020 had been interfering with my meditations, had enough tiny clues piece together over the year. This is the final nail (if I can commit to ending the habit!)
What's your view on decaff?
Thank you very much
That meditation was great, it was like a yoga meditation
Hello I hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness prosperity, love and peace all over the world. I would love us to be good friends in honesty and in trust so as time goes on it will bring something great for us in the future, hope you don't mind? I'm Engineer Graham Bolt from Nashville Tennessee, where are you from?
Amazing !!! Thank you.
This is weird I have autism and feel like maybe the diagnosis is wrong. On spacial reasoning tests get perfect marks (so 150 in that segment on like an iq test)... my normal sense of identifying is with space... when I had to do "meditation techniques" that is when I felt narrow but then I found out I had a body. Which is weird, as my way of experiencing before it sort of never occurred to me. Its interesting what is being talked about here is that is some special state to me it is something I always kind of assumed others had.... which might account for the empathetic mismatch that can happen or get classifed in my case as one of the aspects of autism. Only 2 months ago I was in a room and the person talking to about 30 of us said "I heard some people don't think as a voicw but as space or visual pictures... i can't imagine that" then asked if anyone does and only 2 people put their hand up. Me and 1 other. I had previously guessed it would have been 50/50 more over I can't imagine how they can't imagine. When I speak its like automatic and its like translating a visual thought language which maybe accounts for the "odd speech" or mannerisms.
Ever since a child itnseems my way of understanding the world has been in terms of this wide attention and a refusal to sort of engage in the narrow attention as it is stressful. These days this underlies my interest in buddhism and is one of the reasons I am so obsessed with the suttas. They describe states such as "infinite space" and beyond. I don't know if this is the same i think its rather different in ddescribig meditative states of the jhanas but it might be one of the insights one of tthos things have is bringing online this sort of perception in daily life. I dunno.
I have been through some hhar times but I always come back to that identification with space as things unwind. No matter how hard it gets. I don't think this is stream entry or any enlightenment yet but might be iimportant or an aspect of that.
Thank you for sharing.
Anyway there's some thoughts I thought I would share. Very interesting video. Thank you Ian excellent interests and taste in guests hehe
In Dzogchen the mystical non dual teaching the emphasis is on space
My appreciation💕
Very good!.. Thank you!!
The creative tension between wide and narrow attention.
Nice interview, thank you. 47:40 I completely agree.
1.25 speed worked well for me. Sounds completely normal.
I really enjoyed this interview. Does Paul Holman have an official website one can visit?
inspiring video, i wonder how old are these ppl
Brilliant.
🙏
59:40 space meditation
Im bit confused that tried to do Joe Dispenza's meditations that he has the same principle space... and I felt very anxious that I had to concentrate to the space around me and never understood that. Instead be relaxed, I was more agitated. Another things regarding the reading something this is not narrow attention? Can someone help? Thank yoy🙏
@@amaryllisequistra Thank you very much.Very helpful🙏
Joe??? Really ???😂
@@maicolx7776 very helpful your reply...👎
Time wel spend over here !
I Can't believe youtube deleted my comment from a couple of days ago. very strange.
This is my favorite Conscious TV interview. Holman also has a 6 part zoom class on youTune about the relationship between the way you breathe and chronic disease: th-cam.com/video/TxHIUeHvE9s/w-d-xo.htmlsi=pf3Qh-NvOp9oBAN4
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