Sekhem: Formlessness, Stillness and Unconditional Love

Sekhem, Formlessness and Unconditional Love

The work has been moving more deeply into a meditative, non-dual experience. Experiences can change, and something new may arise rather than what has become familiar.

The basic philosophy of non-duality is that you are an eternal being. There is no time, no beginning and no end. Yet this is not the separate “you,” because eventually there is no separate you either. There is timeless consciousness.

It is possible to tap into this consciousness and experience its timelessness. In this teaching, that is what God means. Everyone has their own concept of God, but this is not something separate from you. You have the ability to experience it.

This is already being experienced all the time. Even simply looking out across fields can open into a total, timeless, formless state.

Moving Beyond Spiritual Form

Formlessness can challenge belief systems because so much can be invested in spiritual form and duality. A unicorn is a form. A favourite deity that is worshipped is a form. Here, the movement is always toward no form.

Judaism offers an example of this through its emphasis on a formless God: do not give God a form. In this account of the Western religious sequence, Judaism comes first, Christianity second and Islam third. Christianity moves away from formlessness somewhat.

The biblical story of Moses coming down to find people already praying to a statue shows the struggle with this. There is a human tendency to give the formless a shape. A recognisable form, perhaps a pretty face, seems easier to connect with.

Images of Jesus take a different form in each culture. Patrick Zeigler encountered images of a Black Jesus with curly hair in Africa; in Sweden, Jesus is depicted as blond with blue eyes. These are forms through which people connect.

Angels are commonly given wings because they fly. But why would an angel need wings? The wings are part of the form people love.

Love Without a Form

When love is connected with a person, imagining their face can bring that love back. The love has a form associated with it. It can seem difficult to understand how there could be love for something formless.

There is a familiar movement of seeing something beautiful and loving it because it is beautiful, or loving it because it has some other quality. In pure, unconditional love, there is no form involved.

A person may look gorgeous when they marry and look different at eighty. Love can remain regardless of that change in form. This is the point of unconditional love.

Love can also become attached to doingness: loving a person for the things they do for you. The process is to keep learning to be in a state of unconditional love, rather than making love depend on appearance or on what is done for you. This is what non-duality is about within this teaching.