Introduction
Lisa Harvey generously transcribed John Wilks' interview on Dynamic Stillness with Charles Ridley. The transcript has been edited and expanded for clarity. References with live links were added for deeper study.
MC: A very warm welcome everybody. It is a real delight to have with us Charles Ridley who is talking to us from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I have known about Charles for a long time. Particularly his teaching and his two books that he has written, which we will talk about, and I think another one that sounds like it is in progress. Charles has been teaching cranial for well over 30 years, haven’t you Charles, so a long time, all over the world. It is a real delight and a passion of mine to be talking about the spiritual origins of this really wonderful therapy, which is often not talked about that we are discussing right now. Particularly, we are going to be focusing on the phrase Dynamic Stillness, where that came from and how it is viewed in craniosacral, and how the belief system of the main teachers Sutherland, Still, Becker have affected the direction, the language, and the understanding of our work, which I think is really fascinating. I hope you enjoy it, please put some questions in the Chat as we go along.
So, Charles, tell us about your books. I know you have done two; I had one and it unfortunately got destroyed in a flood. I’d hold it up if I had Stillness Touch.
Charles: Stillness Touch is the newest book and my Master Classes are based on it. The first book, Stillness reveals how a biodynamic cranial practice evolves consciousness. My inspiration for that book came in 1973 after I received my first cranial session. I was doing gardening for a living, when an optometrist friend and fellow meditator on our spiritual path told me about cranial. Hearing the word cranial excited me, so I got a Sutherland-based bio-mechanical sutural session. That thirty minute session opened my consciousness to infinity for a month. To say it blew me away is an understatement, because here I am over fifty years later and I continue doing cranial and I'm still on fire. After the session, I asked the treating doctor to please tell me where he learned this work, what books to read, who was his teacher, what school did he go to. I did everything he did. In 1974, I began studying with the practitioner's teacher Doctor DeJarnette, an osteopath who studied with Dr. Sutherland.
MC: Right. Did he develop the SOT work?
Charles: Yes exactly, SOT (Sacro Occipital Technique). I took all his school's courses over an eighteen year period (1974-1992) and I focused on cranial work. I had four years of cranial training before I started university. I had to take three years of pre-med and it took me a year to get into college, so by the time I got out of college, I had seven or eight years of osteopathic cranial training under my belt.
MC: Amazing.
Charles: The book Stillness was inspired by that first sutural cranial session because it showed me that the touch developed by Sutherland comes from a deep place. Cranial is not just moving bones to make symptoms to go away; if it is done from a particular disposition and offered from what we call a biodynamic neutral as you know, then touch goes way deeper than the biomechanical.
MC: You had a meditation practice at that time as well?
Charles: Yes I did. I started meditating in 1972 when I was 19 years old. In 1973 I got initiated into Surat Shabda Yoga by Kirpal Singh, a Sant Mat teacher of the inner light and inner sound meditative practice.
MC: I am very heavily involved in that as well. We had a speaking engagement in London about it.
Charles: Awesome! I was doing my inner work, and my meditation practice was based on innerness. Because of my spiritual practice, cranial naturally became a meditation with touch. Here is how it began: I went thru the biomechanical training and practiced that for 15 years. Then I took the cranial wave functional work, that whole journey. Finally, biodynamics began to spontaneously emerge, despite that I hadn’t even heard of biodynamics, in 1995.
MC: When I trained in 1995 with Franklin Stills, that was when I heard the term (biodynamic). When Franklin first started, we had a legacy course based on Upledger's training, really, to be honest, and then he began to introduce biodynamic concepts from that time on.
Charles: Yes, exactly, that's my understanding too. I began studying cranial in 1973 immediately after that sutural session. After almost two decades of training with osteopath Dr. DeJarnette (Sutherland's student), I learned functional cranial wave work at a university where I took all the Upledger courses, and osteopath Viola Frymann's tutorials, and then, Hugh Milne asked me to teach the Milne courses so I took that training too. I've had a lot of training and I went thru Sutherland's entire cranial journey.
MC: Yeh.
Charles: These days I offer a totally non-doing, non-symptom approach to touch, more like, forgive me for saying this, but let’s go ahead and name it Laying on of Hands. Very simple touch, because in neutral you connect with something deep inside of you. In the neutral state—characterized by whole-body stillness according to biodynamic osteopaths—a subtle exchange occurs between practitioner and client. This exchange creates a figure-eight (lemniscate) flow of energy that builds potency in both individuals. When I place my hands on you while in neutral awareness, an inner communication begins: my touch initiates a response in both our systems; your body's response then provides information that changes my state; I respond to these changes; and you, in turn, respond to my new state. This continuous cycle of information exchange happens entirely through the subtle realms of potency and tidal rhythms, beyond ordinary physical sensation.
MC: Absolutely, that is what attracted me, having been involved in meditation for many years, cranial sacral work was the nearest thing to coming home. Like oh my god, finally I'm home to that deep, deep stillness that I experienced. Then practicing, it felt like a way to encourage someone else to join me on that journey of stillness together. So beautiful, like a meeting of souls, absolutely, exquisite.
Charles: I got chill bumps by your comment - it passed the chill bump test. That is exactly how it was for me. And the amazing thing is we are being paid to meditate in a room with somebody while we are touching them, if you strip it down to what this really is on some level.
MC: Yeh, I have said to my clients, I should be paying you for this, really, I have enjoyed it so much.
Charles: Exactly right. Did you know the founder of osteopathy, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, was renowned for laying on of hands before he got the osteopathic transmission from three Egyptian masters?
MC: Yeh, I heard about it from reading John Lewis’s book. I highly recommend it to anybody who is listening. I know that John Lewis is writing another book, whether it is finished or not, I do not know and you might know Charles, but he is doing another book and I don’t know what that is on, but he has studied extensively all the papers from the Osteopath schools over many, many years. The first book is called “From Dry Bones to Living Man.”
Charles: A great book, which is available to borrow on the Internet Archive.
MC: Lewis describes in great detail A. T. Still, who describes himself as a medium and a psychic, which did not go down well with his colleagues of the time. Apparently, any time he would talk about it, people would walk out of the room. In fact, his tradition was Christian because his family was from a very Christian religion, as is his pupil Sutherland. I don’t know much about his spiritual background, but I do know, and it was a real revelation to me that, he was familiar with Swedenborg, from the 18th century, who had written several Treaties on the brain. Sutherland had them, because Ida Rolf was his Secretary and she saw them on his shelf. He also referred to Swedenborg in a lecture and he said “well actually, this was all made 200 years ago.” So that was a big revelation for me when I heard that. Swedenborg was himself a mystic, he was considered a mystic at that time.
Charles: Exactly (See Stillness Touch Appendix 3 for more details).
MC: Really beautiful, his writing. Then, Swedenborg apparently traveled to Italy in 1760 with the idea that he wanted to find where does the soul reside in the body? So, he went to an anatomy school in order to find out where is the soul in the body. Which is a great thing, whether he found it or not I don’t know, but at any rate.
Charles: That's what happened?
MC: Yeh, that is an amazing thing isn’t it, that goes way back in this ancient tradition.
Charles: It goes all the way back to those times; it is really strange that cranial started out as a mechanical process even though behind it was a deep spiritual impulse. Besides Dr. Still being into mesmerism, magnetism, and laying on of hands, he was very spiritual and so was Sutherland in a traditional Christian way, you know?
MC: Yeh.
Charles: Sutherland was aware of the power of the unerring potency that possessed a capitol "I" Intelligence as an expression of the Breath of Life. That was about as far as he would allow himself to go with it, given the times when Sutherland started in the late 1890’s early 1900’s. Later on, he was restricted by the osteopathic political system. However, if we stay immersed in what Sutherland calls the unerring potency, through the practice of innerness, then the potency evolves and strengthens through a back and forth dance between two people. Potency is stillness that breathes in tide-like motions.
MS: Yes.
Charles: The unerring potency is stillness and stillness is the unerring potency. Stillness is consciousness from our perspective.
MC: And the term he had on his gravestone was solemn “Be Still And Know.” Right?
Charles: Yeh, and then his wife, 20 years later, put right next to his gravestone "I AM."
I have been there because I used to live close to the grave. Next to Sutherland's grave is Adah's grave. He and his wife's graves are written “Be Still And Know” “I AM”
MC: Yeh, beautiful isn’t it.
Charles: "Be Still And Know I AM." It was capital "I" capital "A" capital "M." I AM is the transpersonal self, The Self, or pure consciousness.
MC: If we move on to Rollin Becker who studied with Sutherland right? And his writings which are beautiful, were published through the Rudra press originally. I had contact with the editor of Teachings in the Science of Osteopathy, which was also published through the Rudra Press. She (Rachael Brooks, MD) told me about Rollin Becker’s relationship with Kashmir Shaivism, which we will talk about, and how the phrase Dynamic Stillness arose. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, because I know that Rollin Becker had a very interesting life. I think his brother and father were both osteopaths. He learned classic osteopathy originally, and then decided at some point that he just wanted to do nothing and just put his hands on people, lay with his hands and do nothing. He did that for a number of years and people loved it. Then, Becker heard about Sutherland and decided to go study with him. But he came to Sutherland from that place of stillness.
Charles: And I don’t know, maybe you do, John, but during those days before he studied with Sutherland was Becker on the Kashmir Shaivite path? Or did it come later?
I know Becker taught cranial to Swami Chetanananda over an eighteen year period, according to the Swami. Swami wrote Dynamic Stillness, a two volume book about Trika Yoga, which is Kashmir Shaivism (1990). The Swami was initiated by Rudranada, and Rudranada was initiated by Muktananda who was initiated by Nityanada. It is a beautiful lineage. Becker and his wife's ashes lie under the Mobius sculpture in the ashram garden, which is sketched on Becker's Life In Motion book cover.
MC: Yes. I got involved with Muktananda many years ago, so I spent quite a lot of time with him and that is what drew me to this. People don’t talk much about it, but other people in the cranial field were also involved with Muktananda at that time. People like William Emerson for example, my friend Mike Boxall was as well, who passed away.
Charles: I didn’t know that, wow.
MC: Yeh, but they don’t really talk about it. William Emerson doesn’t really talk that much about it. But basically, he was in London when I was there. I didn’t know him at that time, but he was with Muktananda and Mike Boxall was as well. So again, it is interesting, so much of what is taught now, the backgrounds of beloved cranial teachers are in Buddhism isn’t it. And I know there is a lot of overlap between Kashmir Shaivism and Buddhism. I am not familiar with what the overlap is, but there is a lot.
Charles: Well, there is, and I can share with you a little bit of that.
MC: Yes, please do.
Charles: If you want me to share it now, I can.
MC: Yeh.
Charles: Let me read something to you from Dr. Sutherland's Final Lecture published in the American Osteopathic Association Millennium Yearbook April 25th, 1948. For context, Sutherland invited a woman to his house to perform a dance 'Be Still And Know I AM God.' Sutherland could tell that her dance wasn’t from the physical world; she moved from something much deeper while she expressed 'Be Still And Know I AM God' without words. Then, he writes and I quote:
“Be still, these physical senses and get as close to your maker as you can, closer than breathing. Where you realize what is meant by the Breath of Life, not the breath of air, the breath of air being merely one of the material substances which man utilized upon his walk about on earth. It has been my endeavor to get away, as far as possible, from the physical senses as I could. That is, to a point where one begins to experience, to realize be still and know. How many of you have that same degree of vision, that same degree of touch?”
Charles: And who Sutherland is saying that to? Osteopaths.
MC: Yes, amazing, isn’t it.
Charles: Radical in 1948!
MC: Yeh.
Charles: According to Sutherland, we do not use our physical senses when we touch; that means we do not use our hands to feel. That was in 1948, and not long after that, Sutherland moved to California. After he moved from the Midwest to the Pacific ocean, Biodynamics started coming to him in earnest. Sutherland began feeling, what he called the fluid tide. He could feel the fluid tide welling and receding inside his body and in the atmosphere around him. So, he felt the fluid tide in the room and in the environment as a tide-like welling and receding. Then he began speaking about it. Beautiful.
MC: Did he use this word Biodynamic himself? I know that Jim Jealous used that word, but did Sutherland use that word?
Charles: Not that I am aware of. The first person I am aware of to have used that word in osteopathy is Becker. I believe Becker got that word from Blechschmidt, not from Steiner. Eric Blechschmidt the embryologist, and believe it or not, Blechschmidt had a loose connection with Rudolph Steiner.
MC: Really?
Charles: Blechschmidt's book Being and Becoming was published in German by an anthroposophical press. There's no evidence that Blechschmidt coined biodynamic from Steiner’s biodynamic gardening; it's possible. Maybe they both came up with it independently, but either way, Blechschmidt was welcomed into the anthroposophical community. I have asked people who know, and they say Blechschmidt was not on Steiner's path, but he was definitely connected to it.
MC: Yeh
Charles: Then, if we add another piece to our cranial practice, we incorporate Steiner’s impulse that the heart is an organ of perception; it's not only an organ for pumping blood. Now, we can segue deeper into the esoteric role of the heart by exploring the Tibetan spiritual traditions who talk about the Sinoatrial node (SA node) as a thumb size place in the back of the heart. The Vedas recognize the SA node as the place where the Self resides in the human body. The SA node emanates the Self, the primordial consciousness of the life force, which moves down the midline (sushumna), and emanates through the body into all the cells. Every SA node pulse emanates I AM. Meanwhile, I AM simultaneously travels down the midline out toward the periphery to suffuse all the cells (suffuse means to co-breathe). Then, all the cells respond by sending back its cellular information to the Sinoatrial node. So, there is this pulsing dance from center to periphery and periphery to center that not only evolves the human being, it actually helps to grow the human body embryologically. The discovery that the Sinoatrial node is the site of the primordial Self was written in the Vedas 8,000 years ago: the Sinoatrial node is a thumb size place in the back of the heart in the upper right chamber; that is the site in the body where the Purusha lives, which is the God in the human. I am sensitive to languaging: in those days, Purusha is the 'God Man.' Now days, I call it God Man-Woman, or God Woman-Man or God-Goddess, etc. Language is getting difficult today, because now it has to be more neutral and inclusive, which is correct for our times. We have to get out of the hypermasculine hierarchical perspective, right? It is essential.
The Tibetans were aware, as was Swedenborg, that the cerebral spinal fluid is the medium that conducts the unerring potency throughout the body. We could say unerring potency, I AM, Purusha, Essence, Source, Pure Spirit, Primordial Consciousness, and Shiva are interchangeable terms. Sutherland called it an unerring potency that possesses a capital "I" Intelligence. This Intelligence emanates from the Sinoatrial node into the column of stillness in the body that is called the sushumna - our primordial invisible midline. This is our spiritual midline, which is in front of the spine; whereas the cerebral spinal fluid dural tube is posterior. These two midlines work together, as if they are two in one. However, there are three physical midlines from front to back, right? In front is the gut tube, then the spinal notochord, and posterior is the cerebral spinal fluid-filled dural tube. The spiritual sushumna is an invisible midline in front of them all, and all the midlines co-relate (Stillness Touch p 26).
Cerebral spinal fluid is like the water in a car battery; it concentrates the strength of the potency that emanates into all the cells, and the cells emanate its status back to the midline amid increasing stages of depth. The sinoatrial node, being a midline structure, emanates unerring potency directly into the sushumna that then radiates unerring potency into the cerebral spinal fluid midline, which then suffuses potency into the ground substance that in turn conveys original template information to every cell. And in response, the cells convey its status through the ground substance, providing the needed cellular information back to the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF). Then, the CSF conveys that information back to the Source or essence - the Self - at the back of the heart in the Sinoatrial node. So, between the SA node and the cells, there is this figure-eight breathing dance, a lemniscate that co-informs, co-influences, co-evolves, through a co-mutual entrainment process. Mutuality is where we are today with touch instead of it being a hierarchical process between therapist and client - ego to ego. Rather, we engage in a mutual a co-evolutionary process. When you said the patient should be getting paid, that is the confession of mutuality because you as the therapist are benefitting as much as they are, and you don't know who should get paid. It is a bit of a joke that you end up getting the payment even though you benefitted as much as they did. The unerring potency benefits both of us, right?
MC: Absolutely. When we go back and look at Rollin Becker’s relationship with Chetanananda, it is interesting, I want to bring it back to what you are saying. So, apparently, from what I have heard from people who were around, that they were friends. Becker didn’t really see him as a teacher, but they would spend long hours talking about Kashmir Shaivism, and then he would give him treatments, as far as I understand.
Charles: I think it was a co-equal, mutual relationship.
MC: Yeh, which is very beautiful and very interesting and from what I know, the Swami is still around. I did approach him, but he did not reply, but anyway he and Becker talked about Kashmir Shaivism, which was something that Muktananda brought over. And for those of you who do not know, Muktananda was an extraordinarily powerful teacher and if you want to know more about him, there is a BBC documentary that was in the 1970s, when he visited, I don’t know if you have seen it Charles, but the BBC followed him, filmed him, and interviewed him. It is a fascinating YouTube called “The Guru’s Touch”
He was a Shaktiput Guru; he used to transmit the awakening of kundalini, which is what happened to me and it was very powerful. When you were talking about sushumna and what happens to the Kundalini, and how Kashmir Shaivism talks about the relationship between Shiva and Shakti and they are essentially one, that's it in a nutshell. I know you write a lot about that. Could you talk about how does the Shiva-Shakti relationship relate; how does that play out in what you have been talking about?
Charles: First of all, Dynamic Stillness is a translated Kashmir Shaivite term that Becker got from the Swami. Dynamic Stillness in Kashmir Shaivism is called is the Spanda. The Spanda is the sacred pulse of love that is in charge of creating everything. Swedenborg calls it Tremulation. So, Spanda, Sacred Pulse, Tremulation, Spanda, Pure Breath of Love are interchangeable terms that imply that the Dynamic Stillness has cellularly imploded and enfleshed into our cells. The dynamic aspect is known as the Shakti, and the stillness aspect is the Shiva. Shiva is primordial consciousness while Shakti is the creative movement of life force so, Dynamic Stillness is the creative force of living consciousness. When Shiva and Shakti unite, it is Dynamic Stillness has enfleshed, which delivers to us a state of Wholeness - as a union with all that is. The Tantric tradition places Shiva and Shakti on equal terms; whereas the traditional Advaita non-dual path considers the Shiva, which is masculine consciousness, as superior. That doesn’t make sense in modern times; it might have made sense 8,000 years ago, but today, the feminine consciousness takes an equal place on the stage in creativity. Without the Shakti, nothing is created! Creation would be an empty space without her, right? People forget that part.
MC: Yeh.
Charles: According to the Kashmir Shaivite tradition, both principles are like two sides of one coin. Shakti acting without consciousness is dangerous, and Shiva without Shakti's creativity is emptiness. They are co-equal partners. I am going to mix up Kashmir Shaivite and Tibetan Buddhism a little bit, because they both correlate on this level or stage of consciousness quite well.
MC: Yeh.
Charles: In Stillness Touch we practice what is called in the Veda’s, pratyahara, which is to inwardly attend to your invisible midline, the sushumna. The Vedas use the word sushumna, but we do not visualize this midline, it is invisible. We repose inwardly toward our core while we dwell inside the unerring potency of the I AM. By the practice of inward Sacred Repose, we connect with the Shakti who ignites an ensuing creative activity of enfleshment. In other words, she ignites an alchemical process of transmutation and enlivening of the elements. First, put on your cranial wave functional hat and then, put on your biodynamic hat to recall the terminology like cranial wave, neutral, fluid tide, long tide, and Dynamic Stillness. I will throw out terms and connect them with the elements: cranial wave is tissue motion, or the earth, and fluid tide is fluid motion, water; long tide is vast luminosity - vastness is air and luminosity is fire. Dynamic Stillness is ether, or pure consciousness. Dynamic Stillness goes through stages to become enfleshed. During these subsequent three stages, the all-cell sacred pulse emerges and we can sense it.
So, here's the inner sensual journey of enfleshment: While engaging pratayahara, we maintain our innerness toward the sushumna and the neutral emerges (which is whole body stillness) that quickens the Shakti that then enlivens earth (cranial wave). As our neutral deepens the stillness, the enlivened earth expands and transmutes to fluid and earth becomes water, the fluid tide. If you continue pratyahara and water enlivens, it will expand, transmutes, and is absorbed by fire. You keep pratayahara going, and fire expands and is transmuted and absorbed by air. The result is long tide, which is a vast luminous space. When long tide expands amid our continued pratayahara, it becomes ether, which is infinite pure consciousness or I AM. Here, in Dynamic Stillness, all the elements unite and become one element: ether. This infinite consciousness is ether, or I AM. Here, at I AM, all the elements, as creative expressions of consciousness, have united as one, and return back home to Source. Meanwhile, if your pratayahara continues amid your realization of I AM, you enter Sacred Repose. Then, the element ether, which formed due to the union of and enlivening of all the elements, goes through three stages to cellularly enflesh Dynamic Stillness.
Here is where we have to enter Tibetan terminology. After all the elements have merged into and become one element, ether, we enter the first stage of enfleshment. Tibetans call this the consciousness of the black near containment. What is that like sensually? You encounter a vast infinite field of blackness but is not yet totally black; it is close to black, which is why it is called the black near attainment. When we arrive in the next stage of depth in the stillness, it is called the clear light in Tibet Buddhism, which is totally black. When we realize the clear light, it is an infinite black space that is awareness itself. The clear light is infinite pure consciousness, and it contains no matter in it so it is totally black infinite space as pure spirit, no matter. Space is black, right? Despite that billions of suns are out there in space, it is black. Dynamic Stillness in its purest, most refined spiritual form, is pure blackness: infinite black pure consciousness. Then, if our pratyahara continues in the clear light, there is a third stage, which marks the moment that we can sense the Spanda. This aspect is fascinating to me even though I have known about this stage for eighteen years I can only now sensually articulate it.
When we continue pratyahara amid our Sacred Repose it creates a vacuum at the SA node that draws the clear lightdown the midline and it implodes into the cells. The cellular implosion of this stage of Dynamic Stillness, which is the clear light, is the moment that the Shiva touches Shakti in the cells that are creations of the Shakti. Here, we encounter a union between infinite stillness as pure consciousness or Shiva and the creative forces of wisdom and love, or the Shakti. Shiva and Shakti become one right here in our cells and the Spanda is born in our flesh. Now we can sense a whole body pulse in all our cells. When we sense the Spanda or Pure Breath of Love in all our cells it is enfleshment, our second birth.
MC: That is beautiful.
Charles: Here, in enfleshment, we enter what I call a post-biodynamic domain because the tides that led us on an ascending journey to 'know I AM' are gone, they got absorbed and disappeared in Dynamic Stillness. When the tides disappear in I AM, we have integrated them; they are no longer perceivable so that is the end of the biodynamic map that Sutherland characterized as Be Still And Know I AM.
Here, amid enfleshment we realize the sacred pulse of the Spanda, and we fall off the biodynamic map and land in a post-biodynamic journey. This is because the tides, which are elements, have been transmuted and absorbed by Dynamic Stillness in the sushumna. When I AM descends and implodes into the cells, it awakens our consciousness to the Sacred Pulse of the Spanda in every cell, which pulses in tandem with every Sinoatrial node emanation. So, during our ascending journey to I AM, we touch people from a certain depth of neutral, be it from the disposition of a particular tide, or Dynamic Stillness.
But when the tides disappear after Dynamic Stillness cellularly implodes, that's where Becker touched from, I believe. You said earlier that Becker was doing nothing, I think that is what he is doing.
MC: I am sure. I used to read a lot of the old Kashmir Shaivism in books, and you referred to some of those. The poet, Jnaneshvar Maharaj lived in the 12th century and writes about Shiva and Shakti. I thought that I could just read a little bit because it is what you have been talking about in terms the relationship between Shiva and Shakti. This is Chapter 1 from a book called The Nectar of Self-awareness by Jnaneshvar Maharaj who says:
“The lover out of boundless love has become the beloved. Both of them made of the same substance and share the same food. Out of the love for each other they merge, and they again separate for the pleasure of being two. They sit together on the same ground wearing the same garment of light. From time past remembrance, they have lived thus, united in bliss. Because of God, the goddess exists, and without her, he is not. They exist only because of each other. How sweet is their union? The whole world is too small to contain them, yet they live happily in the smallest particle.”
It is gorgeous, and then he says:
“Two lutes, one note. Two flowers, one fragrance. Two lamps, one light. Two lips, one word. Two eyes, one sight. These two, one universe.”
Isn’t that beautiful? It’s gorgeous isn’t it?
Charles: Totally gorgeous! Even though people assert that the Christian religion is hypermasculine because of the focus on the father God and the son God, there is also the understanding that Sophia and the Father God were together as equals before creation. The Old Testament and the Gnostic Christians call Sophia the Divine Feminine Wisdom, and Christ is Sacred Masculine Consciousness and together they made creation. Sophia’s job is to create all that is so she is on the same level with God; Sophia is in charge of the entire creative process.
You can laugh at me a little bit for bringing this up, but I think in modern times we no longer need to hide the importance of the Sophia, the Divine Feminine Wisdom principle. If you asked Sophia what her job description is, she would say
"I create all that is, and I reunite all that has been separated. I make two into one, three into one, or four into one. I bring everything separate back together."
The 'Big Bang' sent a universal emanation that created everything, but it all went flying out into pieces. Yet now, all the fragments have got to reunite and come back home. I believe we are here now. We see that the matrix, the hypermasculine consciousness of the masses, is falling apart; we are running out of gas that has propelled us in the hypermasculine direction. A lot is going on in the world that hints in a big way that the time for honoring Sacred Feminine Wisdom is NOW, and her importance in the world has come to the forefront; it is really here. That is why I don’t want to hide that the original cranial work was steeped in a wisdom that balances the masculine and the feminine. Union is the function of the work that we call cranial.
MC: Yeh.
Charles: I'm no longer embarrassed about it or keeping it a secret. I am too old to care about it being a problem speaking out, and people being angry and hating me. Of course, people will be angry and hate "How dare you make cranial into a spiritual thing, it is not spiritual, it is medical, this is scientific, evidence based." Well, it is scientific and it is also spiritual, which science has no access to. In the descending current, we are dealing with the Tibetan winds, the prana, tides, and the pure breath of love, right? We are dealing with these spiritual principles.
MC: Oh Yeh, we had Nick Totton, he is a body psychotherapist, he has written quite a few books on it, we had him on a couple of years ago and I was talking to him about body, mind, and spirit, like where do they reside? He said, well ideally they reside all in the same place. That is what we are doing isn’t it? Bringing everything together in the same place.
Charles: Yes! Bringing everything back together as one, and giving the credit where it is due. I mean, forget the popular modern non-dual atavistic nonsense that declares "I am not my body and this created life isn’t real." You know what I mean? I love Ramana Maharshi and I love the Vedic path, which had its place 8,000 years ago. But now it is time to say "wait a minute! My body is an expression of the Shakti, the Divine Feminine Wisdom and love, the Dynamic Stillness, and so my body is a quintessential expression of Love. Body is love." And so, to rephrase the reality of the body for modern times: "I am my body and I am infinite consciousness, and they coexist as one." It is no longer an 'either/or' now it is 'both/and.'
MC: Yeh.
Charles: So, re-languaging is important.
MC: I have always felt that my goal is to bring that all together. How does it all come together in an embodied sense? That is what we want, right. You mention Ramana, it troubles me the way he talked about his body, because the way he viewed his body as a disease right? It was a thing not to be worshipped, not to be honored.
Charles: Me too, it broke my heart when I read that exact disposition you mention, of objectification and hatred of the body in his Spiritual Letters. I have a quote from one of his letters in my book Stillness Touch (p. 126). In the letter, Ramana considers the body as this thing that we barely tolerate. We have to feed it, clean its nose, treat the sores on it, and so on. When I first read his derogatory disposition towards the body I was shocked, and it it was right out of his own published book. He said that in Spiritual Letter 80, which he wrote to a disciple. Ramana regarded the body as a burden that he could not wait to get rid of after he realizes the Self. I am not going to criticize him for that because Ramana was a man of his times, and those times were hierarchical and hypermasculine. The masculine was on top and the feminine was dismissed, but that time is up, it's over. Ramana also gave us the practice of inquiry 'who am I?' as a heart meditation so we could realize I AM, or Self. It is a very effective practice that I enjoyed the fruits of. However, like Jung said 'now is the time for God to come down and become human, instead of man striving upward to become God.' In other words, we move from the ascending current to realize I AM into a descending current of the enfleshment of I AM. Today, our practice is to invite God-Goddess to come down into our body along a descending current, which is akin to Kashmir Shaivism. We say in enfleshment "Be Still And Know I AM Love." This realization emerges after the I AM unites with Love - the masculine and feminine unite in the body - and then we can regard the Body As Love.
MC: You were talking about these midlines, like and anterior and posterior midline. I have often struggled with this a little bit myself in terms of like, kundalini, which is sometimes called kundalini-shakti right? This optimizing force, which I felt very strongly through my midline for many years; how does that relate to the embryological midline that we often talk about in craniosacral work, right?
Charles: I think that embryologically, when the primitive streak showed up, that is the first, or primordial expression of the sushumna, the spiritual midline, and I think Becker would vouch for that.
MC: I think you are right.
Charles: And then the notochord, the physical midline, grew on top of that invisible primitive streak, right? The notochord grew atop the primitive streak due to an ascending gesture, like a tree trunk. Then, the completed notochord segments from the top down. So now, we encounter a descending current. Then, the segmented notochord expands and branches out to become the embryological units - the vascular, lymphatic, neurological units - that spread throughout the body, which correlates with the segments of the spine, right?
To make the body, there is an ascending current and a descending current. And that is the thing I keep harping on: the ascending current a masculine consciousness - it is a presence that powers transmutation. Then there's the creative forces that make the body; the embodiment of consciousness occurs because of a descending current. I don’t know if you read the book Stillness very closely, but I found some great research in embryology about this process.
After the notochord developed and the embryological unit segmentation was finished, we have a notochord sitting atop the primitive streak. Now let's take a look at the pacemaker cells. They originally dwelled in the gut mesoderm region of the notochord, the splanchnic mesoderm. The original Sinoatrial node cells migrated to the periphery of the embryo - which is still young like 25 days, not much form has manifest yet - no anatomy has developed. The sinoatrial cells now dwell in the periphery and they surround the embryo in the corona radiata. When the first Sinoatrial cell started pulsing, all the rest of the Sa node cells entrained to it. All the SA Node cells pulse in unison that creates a current in the whole embryo. This pulse emanated from the periphery of the embryo to the central primordial midline. All the information received from SA Node as an emanation went to the center, which then emanated back out to the periphery. Now there is this dance, this lemniscate, you could even say it is a call and response, or Kirtan. This characterizes what Blechschmidt discovered as a process that made the body. Blechschmidt says that function occurred first, and then, the already existing function created the anatomy, the form. Whereas in the structure-function theory, you move the form, a cranial bone, to change the function.
"When you move structure to change function - even with intention - that is functional work. Well, biodynamic osteopaths work with the function that then changes the form, changes the anatomy, which is Blechschmidt's biodynamic approach."
That is why osteopaths call their cranial work biodynamic. It is biodynamic because we work with the biodynamic forces that Blechschmidt discovered, the developmental forces that create the body. First, there's the function that then creates the anatomy. When the unerring potency expresses, it creates function.
There is an invisible midline in every atom, every organelle, every cell. In every structure, there is a midline by which all intra-communications occur - from the emanation of the sinoatrial node cells that migrated from the gut mesoderm and ended up in the heart. And this is important in osteopathic biodynamics: pratayahara, or the disposition of innerness, creates the neutral. In other words, when touching, I am not outer oriented with my awareness, I am not feeling for anything with my hands, and I am not fixing the client as though they are a separate other. I am not treating them, I am not manipulating structure, I am not moving bones or anatomy, I am not intending techniques. I am not doing anything to anybody 'over there' who is separate from me on amid an ego to ego relational field. Rather, I am in a state of Sacred Repose, dwelling in my innerness, and everything gets taken care of for the recipient and myself by the unerring potency.
Here is where the practitioner's practice becomes challenging because, I am going back into Buddhism, we have two principles - fear and desire - that distract us from being inwardly oriented in neutral. Recall, that it is the practice of pratayahara that creates neutral right? In other words, resting in the indwelling potency is another name for being neutral. Go into your Buddhism to recall how the Buddha become enlightened after he sat under the tree for forty nine days, right? He had terrorizing demons and beautiful dakinis who created desire. It is fear and desire that pull us out of our midline neutral.
On the desire side practitioner-wise, we want to be a great healer, we want to help the person, we want to be supportive, we want our client to have a great experience, we want our client to evolve, and on and on. Then there's the fear side, I am afraid of the potency, I am afraid of the unknown, I am afraid of diving into my infinite self, I am afraid of meditating, I am afraid of discomfort and intensity. Then we have neutral, which is a state between fear and desire, and, as you know, what did Buddha did to solve that? He chose to sit with the beautiful dakinis and the horrific demons by vowing "I will not move." Bam!
The vow to not recoil away from fear or move toward desire, in other words, to stay in the midline, that choice granted him the implosion into Buddhahood. With the implosion of the descending current, which through pratyahara ignites the reverse kundalini that creates a shift in directions of pour consciousness from dissociation to utter embodiment. The ascending kundalini wells from the sacrum up through the chakras to the crown, right? The serpent is known as the sacred power of love that is coiled up in the sacrum, and when it rises up through the different nodes (chakras) to the crown there is what we call enlightenment.
But when we choose the descending current, the reverse kundalini gets activated. Besides Kashmir Shaivism, Steiner talks about the descending current, Auribindo does, and Adi Da, Adyashanti, Samuel Bonder, Neil Cohen, and many others do also. Rudolf Steiner calls the descending current the reversed will, which is also called the reversed kundalini. The descending current implodes infinite consciousness as I AM into our cells. There has always been an ascending and descending current, a microcosmic circuit, that goes on all the time in the body. But for thousands of years, we focussed only on the ascending and we dismissed the descending current. So, as practitioners, our navigation is how to stay neutral, which today means to not get repelled by fear and not be lured by desire.
The word in the Tibetan and Tantric field for the path to dwell in the midline, sushumna, is Sacred Repose. Sacred Repose is a Kashmir Shaivite term for this neutral, which is THE neutral. Here, it is a field of mutuality. There is no doer and no receiver, we do not operate out of an egoic relational field where we ensure that the receiver's ego feels safe. There is only mutuality through touch, which is the medium or interface by which the unerring potency does her work of enfleshment.
In the book Stillness Touch, there is an amazing chart by Kylea Taylor with the chakra levels, the sushumna, and a list of the things that we fear, and things we desire as practitioners in each chakra. It is humbling, because when we look at that chart we may think 'oh my God, I do about half of those recoils on the fear side and sixty percent of the time I am allured by desire.' Using that chart, I can see where I have to work with myself to realize an ever-deepening neutral, which means truly being centered in the midline. The midline is a place and because it is invisible it is not a place, right? It is also a disposition, isn’t it? The neutral disposition vows "I am not a somebody doing something to a separate somebody else." Right? Neutral invokes the mutual meeting or communion between two souls; one is lying down and one is sitting up. The one sitting up gets paid and the one lying down does not, and touch is the interface through which the unerring potency gets to do what she wants with either one of us. We inwardly repose for as long as the session lasts; that is our work.
MC: That is interesting, and I have experienced this so many times. You set up that situation, client is lying on the table, you go into neutral and then something happens and that is the opportunity for something to come in. For me that’s the mystery, something comes in, and when you give that some space, as you describe, it is very mysterious and something very powerful.
Charles: That's it, you named it. It is mysterious and our work is to stay humble in 'Don’t Know.' Even our desire to know the mystery of the neutral is an impediment to the neutral. So, we repose in the 'Don’t Know' that is how you know: Be Still And Know.
MC: Yeh, Mike Boxall talked a lot about that; his background was similar to mine.
Charles: Yes, I always felt like he was a brother. He wrote me once, it was like a 'Hi brother' email exchange, and that is all we ever did 'Hi brother, Hi brother nice to know you are on the planet' it was a poignant exchange.
MC: He was a lovely man. We are going to wrap up in a second, but Charles, I don’t know if there are any questions. Natalie, who is here with us, do you want to ask any questions?
Natalie: No, that was absolutely fascinating and it has got me thinking about Grace actually, with just allowing ourselves to open up to that being a real thing.
Charles: Yes, a reality that lives deep in your flesh. I use a Christian term for this process, it is called enfleshment, which is a state where the Christ lives in me, the Christ moves me, the Christ speaks as me, but it is not just the Christ, but also Sophia lives in me. Both Sophia and Christ are in a sacred union in our heart. Our head, heart, pelvis, and the earth are interconnected in this sacred marriage: the four become one when Christ and Sophia unite in our heart chakra that connects with the pelvis and the earth. Then we are whole, and we walk in and as wholeness amid the sacred union of the Christ-Sophia. We could go on forever about that because the sacred mystery is how do I let 'not I, but Christ-Sophia live me.' Now when I touch another from that - as that. I am not shy about saying it is laying on of hands. I don’t have to be fancy and call it post-biodynamic, or biodynamic, functional, or biomechanical, it is just touch, right?
Natalie: Thank you.
MC: For those of you who don’t know much about Kashmir Shaivism, I would like to say there is an easy book on it, but there isn’t. None that I know of anyway. You can read about it on the internet, there is a number of, the main text was something called the Shiva Sutras, I think it was received or written on stones over 1,000 years ago. There are a few texts that are very beautiful. Some of them were sort of used, that book Zen Bones, do you remember that one Charles?
Charles: Oh yes. (I also recommend Tantra Illuminated by Christopher Wallace)
MC: I took some of the stuff from Kashmir Shaivism, and there are other books. Then this one, which I can’t pronounce because it is in Sanskrit pratyabhijna, which means the recognition of the heart that already knows. I think that is a really beautiful way of looking at it. For me, that is at the heart of what we are doing: bringing people back to a space that they know, really, on a deep level, their body knows it, their heart knows it, what you described there, Charles.
Charles: The Sutherland's said 'Be Still And Know I AM.' Sutherland didn't say I AM because he would get whipped by the osteopathic association for using spiritual terms, so he said 'Be Still And Know.'
MC: Right, his wife is more courageous. Thank you so much, it was really wonderful, and it would be lovely to have you back to continue at some point, yeh?
Charles: Great. Love it and thank you for your interview.
