"In order to change the structure of something (including social structure), it is necessary to be able to perceive and live beyond the limits of the structure and ideally beyond all structure to embody the formless."
~Linda White Dove
What is the formless and what does it mean to embody the formless in the world of form? I would like to share here some of my experiences and what I am learning about the role of the formless in creating our reality. It is important to note that these are my experiences only and not any one truth. I am eternally learning and there will always, hopefully, be things that are not possible for me to know with my linear, logical thought process.
The concept of the trinity refers to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. From a non-religious (and universal) perspective the Father/Mother is the masculine and feminine aspects of form. The Son/Daughter is everything in our physical world experienced with our standard 5 senses. The Son/Daughter (our physical world) is made of the masculine and feminine aspects of form. All of our physical world, and the masculine and feminine energies that they are made of, emanate from a state of non-being called the formless. The formless is a state of pure potential, consisting of all options. It is sometimes referred to as the nothingness because since it contains all things and all possibilities unmanifest, it is no thing in particular. It is definition-less. Its potential is limitless; therefore it is associated with great hope for healing and peace. The White Dove is associated with the formless, which is why I have chosen it as my name.
I want to backtrack here for a moment and say that it is not accurate to refer to the formless as an experience, expression, place, or state of being. It is no-thing and technically that makes it not possible to write about or put into words. The moment I put it into words, it becomes some-thing which is not an accurate representation. However, if I wish to write about formlessness in a direct manner, this is the best way I know how.
The formless is also associated with the unknown and unknowable. It is what brings the mystery to life, the random (?) unexpected events that shape our lives and the everyday occurrences that we seek to understand via science, religion, psychology, agriculture, metaphysics, etc. And just when we think we have it all figured out, or we have our life in order, something happens to change all that and we are left to wonder what happened and why. What did we do or not do? We have a strong belief that there is an answer to everything somewhere and if we just figure out how it all works and follow the “logic” everything will work out just fine and we will be okay.
One of the biggest form based beliefs is that there is an answer, a right way of doing and being that brings positive results. If we do it right (if we are good enough), we find success in the form of financial abundance, love, good health, strong relationships and all the other things that are important. One problem with this approach is that it is based on the idea that we are not already complete/whole and need to find fulfillment by doing or being something specific. This keeps us trapped in a search for a logic/answer (right way of being or doing) that does not exist and it limits our ability to see beyond the logical/linear mind and tap into the unlimited potential of the formless.
The unknown/formless cannot easily be understood with the logical/linear mind. The formless is too vast and too complex and in terms of linear time, we just do not have enough of it to be able to understand everything! Also, I believe the unknown does not work according to a logical process in the way we typically understand logic. Opening to the world of the formless requires using our mental processes in an entirely different way.
To explore the formless, the unknowable, it is necessary to use the intuitive mind. The experience of pure potential that includes all possibilities and all things; it is an experience of wholeness. With the intuitive mind, it is possible to experience (and be) the wholeness all at once. With the linear/logical mind that is not possible. Try to wrap your mind around all knowing at once, or being able to understand all the possibilities for even one life situation. It is like trying to play chess on an infinite number of chess boards at once, striving to consider all possible options. And if you were to try to figure out all possible outcomes to all of life (not just one situation), this would be even more unlikely! It may sound comical but most people approach their lives in just this way using their minds to try to predict what is likely to happen so they feel a sense of control over life and the safety and security they believe comes with it.
With the intuitive mind it is possible to feel the wholeness, the potential, without having to understand it intellectually. It is not necessary to understand intellectually the potential in order to be able to use it. This is the biggest benefit in working with the intuitive mind, it enables a person to directly tap into the unknown and unknowable (and all potential) and have direct experience. This requires a tremendous amount of trust and surrender, but it is worth it! As an intuitive energy healer, working with all potential, including the unknown, allows me to access all healing and all information and work with it directly, bypassing the mental processing that often keeps me (and others) stuck in familiar patterns, unable to break free of what is known and comfortable.
When a person chooses, either consciously or on another level of awareness, to embrace the experience of formlessness, they find that the things that once worked to bring the results they wanted no longer work, or they find that they are suddenly and unexpectedly in the midst of a big change such as the end of a relationship, loss of job or something else of significance. Following the shock of the big change, there is a period of trying to asses what will work to bring about the desired healing result. This happened to me in the form of ending my marriage, moving repeatedly, and struggling financially to stay self employed doing the work that I love. Everything changed at once, leaving me feeling totally vulnerable, exhausted and afraid.
Not only did my physical environment and circumstances change but my inner processes did too. The ways I related to people no longer felt good or brought satisfying results. Up came all kinds of repressed fears, beliefs and defenses. My communication was awkward and I felt out of sync with the world. Each time I worked through what came up and felt like I was on solid ground again, new layers surfaced to be worked through, bringing on more challenges.
Along with the life changes and changes in my beliefs, I started to perceive things differently. Using the non linear mind, I could feel/sense the wholeness, the overall flow of subtle energy that is the basis for all life and how it all works together. Things made sense to me in a way they did not before. I could sense in the wholeness, a higher “logic,” that although I am not always able to understand intellectually, is very reassuring to me and has shed light on many of my childhood experiences. Sensing the higher logic has allowed me to trust in the process and let go of the need to constantly know and control things. Sometimes people say that I have a lot of faith. Faith to me is trusting without proof. The understanding that I feel in the wholeness is proof. I may not have the answers to life’s mysteries but in the process of not needing the answers, I have found a tremendous inner calm, peace and strength regardless of what happens in the world and in my life.
My beliefs about who I am have changed a lot and continue to change. The experience of the formless is the experience of all possibilities, all potential. I had a lot of beliefs about who I was, what I wanted and how I wanted to live my life that I needed to be able to see beyond. Our beliefs and self definitions are forms. Our potential is way beyond the forms and sometimes the only way to see beyond is to have the definitions challenged. The definitions were my sense of self; it was how I understood my relationship to the world around me. To have these definitions suddenly gone or up for review was a loss of security, a death of self. What is it you want most in this world? What if you had to give up ever having it, what would life be like then? How would you feel? Imagine going through this process over and over in every aspect of your life with everything you thought was important. Are there things you would never do? What if you did them, then what? How would you feel about yourself? What do you believe about yourself so strongly that it would never change? What if you found that it was no longer true, and that the opposite was true? How would you feel about yourself? What if all your key beliefs changed in this way? This is my experience and continues to be. To experience living in a way that conflicted with what I thought were my values, taught me that values are forms also and not a way to measure my self worth or desire/ability to make a difference in the world.
Not only are my beliefs coming up for change, the way I literally see the world is changing too. Imagine what it would be like if you were walking down the street and suddenly there was no street under your feet. If it changed into a bunch of vibrating “bits” of energy and then disappeared altogether leaving you standing (?) in the middle of absolutely nothing. I am learning there are no walls, no physical objects that are fixed and unchangeable and that there is no such thing as distance. In learning that our reality is not fixed, and that it can be totally removed, I am learning that we literally do create our own reality. I am having a lot of fun with this, amidst the feelings of being constantly disoriented by reality showing up as impermanent (often while I am in the middle of doing something that requires being focused like having a conversation).
The constant redefinition of reality keeps me challenging my beliefs about who I am and what life is. All the continual changes in my life and the trust that has built from continually letting go enough to see beyond the world of form have brought me a strong foundation for this eternally changing world in which we live. In those times when my life was falling apart and I wondered why this was happening to me, I now know that it was clearing the way for more inner strength and fulfillment than I ever knew was possible. In letting go of the need for form, I am able to live from the formless place of pure potential. I can be all things because I am not attached to being any one thing.
In letting go of self definitions, even ones I thought were very important, I am able to look at my own self and the beliefs of others without judgment or fear. We are not our self beliefs. They are just forms we have perpetuated upon ourselves and each other in an attempt to find the answer, the sense of self love that we already are. There is no good or bad in my understanding, just infinite forms we can try out if we wish. The biggest gift offered by the formless is that it teaches unconditional love through non attachment. When none of the forms are any more valuable than any of the other forms because our understanding of value has changed, the world of form loses its significance to us (its power over us) and we are able to live within it with a tremendous amount of inner freedom and the wisdom to use it in ways that truly transform.
When we change our relationship to the world of form, we bring the loving wisdom from the higher perspective into the form, hence the term “transform.” We lose the fear based motivations that have us relate to each other from lack and need for external self worth and we tap into the unlimited potential of the formless to create our reality.
The path of embodying the formless in the world of form has had many challenges for me. As I embody all potential, all ways of being and all things, I can see all points of view with equal compassion and truth. I can put myself in the perspective of anyone and all ways of being and identify with them all. I no longer have a strong point of view on many of the topics that once interested me. Much of what seems important to other people I know is of little relevance to me. The world of form has its own ways of being and points of view that often seem fundamentally different from how I experience things, leaving me not sure how to relate (and with some funny stories, misunderstandings, and awkward experiences too). Additionally, my experience with the non-linear, intuitive mind has changed the way I work with information, communicate and live my life, resulting in an intense longing for a way of being (with others) that I cannot even find the words to explain. I find it ironic that with all our emphasis on written and spoken language as a way to communicate, there is no way to fully explain wholeness. The best things in life, what I enjoy most, I do not know how to put into a form that fully is what I want to communicate and share. That is the most challenging part for me of embodying the formless in the world of form. I am a bridge between the form and formless and the challenges of living in what sometimes seem like incompatible ways of being are part of the process for me. As I find ways to communicate who I am and what I sense and feel inside, I birth it into form for others who I hope will also benefit. That is my life’s work and why I am a writer.
I once thought that spiritual evolution meant that we have a bunch of issues to work through and that we would reach a point when we had worked through the issues and could go on to something better. I now think the spiritual path is the awareness that we have choices about the forms we live. None are better than any other, it is how we approach form that makes them fulfilling or not. We have infinite forms to try on. From the perspective of the formless, we can be any of the forms from a place of wisdom and understanding of the pure potential that we are. Living the spiritual path is not about escaping the world of form because it is unspiritual. It is about seeing the potential, the divine unlimited experience, that is part of all form and using that to be fully present in the world as your unlimited self. In recognizing the spiritual in the material, each and every person can make a difference in the world and live in complete fulfillment at the same time. Our capacity to enjoy life is unlimited and the deeper we take our wholeness into the realms of our everyday experience, the more we can experience all life has to offer, thus more fully bringing the infinite divine potential of the formless into the world of form for the benefit of all.
What if the world was your playground and because your needs were always met, you were not needing to relate to others from a place of lack or fear? There would be no motivation to destroy our environment, be at war, hoard resources or hate/harm each other. What if everyone lived this way? I believe that it is our natural state of being and all it takes is the willingness and commitment to see the world and yourself in a different way. It is simple conceptually, but it requires a tremendous amount of courage to stay the path until change becomes not only a constant but an adventure and an ally. Few people choose to walk the path of the formless in the world of form but for those who are willing to walk the path, it is totally worth it and it makes a huge difference. Thank you for taking the journey with me for a few minutes by reading this article.
In love,
Linda White Dove
Copyright 2004 Linda White Dove
The purpose of my articles and poetry is to inspire you to see yourself and the world around you from an expanded, healing perspective. If you would like personal assistance applying the information in this article/poem to your life circumstances, the Living Oneness Attunement and the Sexual Empowerment Attunement are designed for this purpose.
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