The Embrace of The Unknown

A GUIDED MEDITATION

Here, below, is a (free) Guided Meditation Tape I call “The Embrace of The Unknown”

I designed it to help us (a) arrive in the moment, (b) feel the moment, and (c) open-to and receive the gift/blessing/loving-embrace of the moment.

For me, “the Embrace of the Moment” and “the Embrace of the Unknown” are the same thing. I find that the more I open to the moment, the deeper I enter the unknown – The Great Mystery.

This is an experience I can only describe as “sacred” or “divine” - not “divine” in the sense that “the divine” is beyond this world, beyond our everyday lives – no. The more I enter the Great Mystery of the present, the more everything feels sacred, everything feels divinely blessed - beyond words, beyond all definition.

That´s why I sometimes call this meditation “The Divine Embrace”.

AN EMBRACE?

Why “embrace”? Because my experience of being present, and feeling the present (not just thinking “I´m present”!), and letting go, and letting life hold me – is that I feel held in a loving embrace. I feel as if I am being gently held in the arms of a lover, or like a child in the arms of a loving mother

or father.

My sense of this planet/plane-of-existence/universe/dimension (or whatever we might like to call it), my sense of this “here” (wherever we might be!) - is that everything is alive. I don´t feel I am alive against a background of deadness – an existential anomaly, an evolutionary freak, a feeling creature wandering across an unfeeling landscape.

And I don´t just mean that animals and birds, insects and fish, plants and trees, and minerals and rocks are alive. Nor even that the elements are alive. I mean “everything is alive” in a sense similar to the way that in our night-dreams we walk through an interactive, unpredictable, living dream-universe. As I enter the present more and more deeply, I feel the world is not only beyond definition, a sacred mystery – but that it is alive as a whole. And I feel that just as I love the mountains and oceans and stars - this world loves me.

As I let myself be vulnerable, and seen – by this world, by this existence, by God, by the Goddess, by the Universal Intelligence, by the Tao, by The Great Mystery – I let life love me. I let myself be loved.

A POSSIBILITY

So that´s what this meditation is about. It´s about entering and feeling the present, and opening to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, even though we might not yet believe it, even though we might feel undeserving – we are held and loved by something beyond words, beyond all definition, something infinite (not finite). It is about opening to the possibility that we are infinitely loved.

“Is any of this true?” you might ask. My answer is that the only way to find out is to open to the possibility that it might be. And in the meditation I invite you to open to how each stage is for you.

There are four stages. In the first stage we listen to the silence (that holds all sound), and to the space (that holds all things). In the second stage we feel the silence and the space around us. (The “energy field” within which we find ourselves). In the third stage we open to the silence and the space. (This is the stage in which we begin to let ourselves be held.) And then finally, in the fourth stage, we receive the experience of being held. We let ourselves experience the Divine Embrace.

CONSCIOUSNESS & THE CONSCIOUS TRIBE

What has all of this got to do with Conscious Tribes, and co-creating alternative local communities?

Conscious Tribes are groups of friends who have made a commitment to each other – a commitment to individual consciousness, conscious relating, and conscious action. They have formally agreed to (a) all cultivate their own presentness, (b) learn together to relate in “intimate presence”, and (c) gradually disentangle their everyday lives from dependency upon, and therefore from supporting, the mainstream global culture – and shape local cultures that honour the sacredness of life.

At the heart of the Conscious Tribe is each individual´s commitment to the cultivation of their own consciousness – because if we´re not conscious as individuals, how can we relate consciously? And how can we act consciously?

And this meditation is one way (among thousands) of cultivating our individual consciousness.*

I find it a particularly beautiful way because I feel it incorporates both our devotional and monistic tendencies: as I fall into the arms of the Divine Cosmic and Transcosmic Embrace I feel held in the arms of God or the Goddess (the devotional tendency) – yet as I let go into that Embrace I also experience my oneness with the Totality, with Existence Itself (the monistic tendency).

As I learn to rest in the Divine Embrace – not only while doing this meditation, but afterwards, while going about my everyday life – I feel soft, open, vulnerable. Yet at the same time – precisely because I am letting myself be held and loved, precisely because I am not defended – I feel invulnerable, unbreakable, powerful.

I invite you to receive this Guided Meditation as a gift, to repeat it often, to extend it into your everyday life ** – and to share it with those close to you. And then, if it feels right, to make a formal agreement together to share the path of consciousness - and become a Conscious Tribe.

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LISTEN/DOWNLOAD "THE EMBRACE OF THE UNKNOWN"

Divine Embrace.zip

Download ZIP • 23.07MB

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* Those of you who are familiar with the Conscious Tribes Project will know that in “Love & Revolution” I recommend The Practice of Conscious Relating as a way of uniting a tribe in presence and intimacy. I discuss it frequently (beginning in Chapter 3), and describe it in detail (in chapters 7 and 8).

This “Embrace of the Unknown” meditation corresponds to the first part of The Practice of Conscious Relating – in which we open both to our belonging/oneness and our individuality/uniqueness – emerging into the second part of the practice (when we meet someone else) feeling ourselves to be Unique Expressions of The Great Mystery.

In other words, “The Embrace of The Unknown" also guides us towards the possibility of experiencing ourselves as Unique Expressions of The Great Mystery.

(See the homepage to download the first four chapters of “Love & Revolution” straight away, or request a free digital copy, or purchase it as a paperback.)

** Here's a way to integrate this meditation, and a sense of resting in The Divine Embrace, into your everyday life (so that you can feel the peace and pleasure of that Embrace as you go about your everyday activities):

In the Guided Meditation, as I said, there are four sections. Each lasts about 10 minutes. But in your everyday life you can just do four breaths. In other words, instead of devoting 10 minutes to listening to the silence, 10 minutes to feeling the silence, and so on - you can exhale once, and as you do so, listen. Then inhale deeply and with your next exhalation feel the silence, with your next exhalation open to the silence and space, and with a fourth and final exhalation receive the warmth and blessing of The Divine Embrace.

You can do these four breaths spontaneously, whenever you like, during the day. And/or you can set alarms to remind you to do them.

And I expect you'll find that the more you do the Guided Meditation, the easier it will be  to connect deeply with The Divine Embrace just by doing these four breaths.

And then, gradually, you might find that (without doing any conscious breathing) you're living inside The Divine Embrace naturally, effortlessly!

Mark Josephs,

"Mark the Mystic Activist",

Aragon, Spain,

Spring 2025

Mark guides The Conscious Tribes Project.

His stories and poems attempt to capture

something of the mood of "intimacy with existence"

at the heart of a Conscious Tribe.

www.tribusconscientes.com

CONSCIOUS TRIBES

 Seeds of New Local Communities