This post is a commentary on the audio text “Stillness 1” by Dr. James Jealous.
The title of this lecture is Stillness. There isn’t an audio lecture on the Stillpoint despite its long history. The stillpoint took on epic proportions… I think when it became part of the upledger cranio-sacral dogma. There was a time, I believe, when osteopaths thought it was the end of a treatment. When I was in training, stillpoints occurred often but didn’t capture our attention for long. It was like a pause, but perhaps less restful… It fortold something coming next but it wasn’t a goal in an of itself. And over time the word became used less and there was a shift to stillness, and then levels of stillness. In this first audio lecture on Stillness Jim says “At higher levels of stillness, there are no such things as “still points’ because the stillness becomes in itself more or less omnipresent or always present. What is shifting is our consciousness, and we wake up and then we fall asleep” From Stillness 1, James Jealous DO.
It makes sense that we have made this shift, from stillpoint to stillness. Nothing is fixed in time, everything is motion in motion and the word stillpoint seems to imply there is a cessation in this motion – that just doesn’t happen. Stillness, on the other hand can become the motion present… when it does instead of form being fixed in time, we step entirely outside the flow of time and into an experience of eternity.
The changes in language, over the years of Dr. Jealous’, career had to do with increasing precision, but also seeing where students had misunderstandings, and finding words that could undo the confusion. If we take on the task of both living and teaching this work, and if we keep at the learning, the language is likely to change for us as well.
Still, through the process of practicing, teaching and evolution of language, principles remain constant. As long as we adopt the fundamental beginner’s mind there is more to learn. Dr. Jealous left us a large body of work. He wrote essays and books and recorded audio lectures. If you attended his classes you received manuals for each class. He adopted a style of writing which is both precise and vague. One can read or listen to what he has described and depending on prior training grasp new understandings.
Listen to Dr. Jealous, read what he wrote, and take what you learn into your hands and your heart. Let the words wash over you and stay awake for the shift. Listen to the space between the words, the sun brushing against your skin and remember to breathe and perhaps you will be so lucky as to wake up into this always-present stillness. And then we will get to work becoming osteopaths.
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