All Love 21 Days
Monday, October 8th @ 7:47 AM
I will start from the beginning, or perhaps it is the other way around, well who knows. Lets leave my fingers, my hand, my mind dance to the compass of the symphony of my heart. 21 incredible days were those that happen next to Patrick in New Zealand in the first All Love retreat. More than one year has gone since that experience and nowadays it follows the indelible track of the trip of discovery made under the unconditional support of Patrick and all its family members. I feel that now has arrived the moment for sharing my experience, before, during and after the 21 days.
Before:
My immersion in meditation and energy work began almost three years ago. Although since I was a child I had a certain interest in meditation and, being young I practised reading books, these were small incursions into the world of meditation. I had small experiences meditating when younger, but they were smooth and fleeting. My interest in the meditation and energy work started when I saw an announcement of a workshop in Reiki. In fact I was looking for information on a school for rock-climbing when a web page with information on Reiki attracted my eyes. Previously I had gone to a healer who imposed the hands to try to palliate the migraines I suffered since child. And when I went to this person, he did not heal the migraines, but it is cert ain that he helped diminish the number and the intensity of them. So I thought, if this person has been able to apply it to me, perhaps I can also learn it. And thus at this point, I registered to a course of Reiki. The course was a calm experience, not specially intense, but I left the course with a slight sensation of gratitude and peace. As a result of the course I began to frequent some guided meditations, to make meditations in house and to look around different methods and schools. After around 2 months from the initiation in the first level of Reiki, when I was receiving a session of Reiki, I experienced what is called a heart opening. It was a wonderful experience that until today I can bring to my heart. When I was receiving the session of Reiki, I began to feel a heat and a very intense energy in the heart, suddenly that energy became sadness, the deepest sadness I had never experienced until then, many images flowed in my mind. The weeping arose from deep within my heart, sadness simply existed, without suffering, pure and clean sadness. As the tears ran, images and situations of my youth and as a child kept com t"> // --> ing into my mind, I was able to understand many of the life experiences as a young person. As I was understanding and releasing that sadness repressed deep within my heart I began to feel love, a connection, a gratitude arising like a volcano from my heart. I entered in a state of universal love, love and gratitude towards everything that is, towards everything that I am without being. Experiencing a oneness state and what many people before me had described turned into a real experience. I remained under the influence of this experience for 24 hours in a very intense way.
When my state of conscience began to smooth, thousands of questions began to arise regarding the experience that I just had and my relationship with life. What is this that I just experienced? Who am I? Is real this experience? Where does this energy come from? Where does all this love come from? Why only some people do experience these states? Questions and more questions. As of this moment my restlessness and curiosity about meditation grew like the curiosity of a boy by the world that surrounds to him. And I began to investigate, to look at, to practice, different techniques, schools, methods, philosophies, religions, that try to give an answer to the questions of the soul.
During this period I had many types of experiences, some really beautiful and some really painful, deepening in meditation states, I went through several stages of negation of the reality, identification like a being saint, the veils of the love, the fear, the necessity took me into a race in which I experienced many different realities.
During this period, one of the methods with which I got in contact was Patrick Zeigler's All-Love. It was with the support of Michael and Patrick I began to deepen in the experience of inner discovery. All Love was the one technique I felt more identified and connected to.
I worked for more than a year doing daily meditations and multiple weekend workshops. During this time I continued to experience power states, states of love, very deep states of oneness. I felt like a small boat on a giant sea, raising and lowering to the rate of the waves, sometimes in the crest of the wave, sometimes in deepest of the wave. Feeling defencelessness and lack of understanding.
With all the energy that flowed through me, all the questions without answer, I began to plan a trip, I needed to travel around the world, to find people who had experimented what I experimented. I needed to know what was out there in the world. And as it could not be in another way, one of the destinies that arose in my mind was the “Mecca” of spirituality “India”, also wanted to go to the “U.S.A.” and finally I wanted to go to visit Patrick to New Zealand.
I knew clearly that one of the things that did not want to make was to follow the steps of Patrick, since was the topic, the student follows the teacher, follows the passages of the teacher. But it happened something really odd that made me take another way. Being in Madrid I meet a person who was Reiki and Tao Yin teacher, it was the first time that we met but there was feeling and we began to speak about our experiences, methods that we used, etc. Talking to him about All Love, I told him the experience that Patrick had in Egypt when he stay for one night inside the great pyramid of Keops (you can find a description detailed in the community or www.all-love.com). And then he says “hey, in 20 days time we are going to Egypt and we will try to spend one night inside the great pyramid”. I could not believe it, my ears did not give credit, my heart struggled between the emotion and the containment. How could it be possible that being on the verge of buying tickets this other trip appeared. Therefore I had no other choice and had to follow the steps of Patrick and travel to Egypt. In Egypt, I learned much, it gave me many lessons about life and I also had fantastic experiences, but this will come in next chapters.
When my trip by Egypt arrived at its end, I kept in contact with Patrick through e-mail. In my mind I still continued the idea to go to India to discover all that mystical, mysterious world, where the spirituality merges with the daily life. But my heart felt that Patrick and All Love was the right choice to deepen in my experience. Finally after several e-mail interchanges with Patrick I decided to do the 21 day silence retreat. So finally I took off to New Zealand where it began or continued the discovery adventure.
During:
21 days in silence, receiving daily sessions of meditation, massage and energy work and more. 21 days receiving the affection, the patience, the understanding and the love of a universal father. 21 days, how to share all the experience? Each sigh, every moment of life, each emotion, each sensation. It was a fascinating, full experience of magical moments and experiences of inner discovery. An unforgettable experience which lead me to even deeper consciousness states I had experienced until then, a state where I had visions of my life and also visions of what I interpreted as past life's. Where to begin, what to tell, it is like trying to share the scent of a rose, as to transmit the sound of a clap with a single hand.
The “During” was a trip through which I deepened in the love and compassion and also I deepened in which “San Juan de la Cruz” called “the dark night of the soul”. A trip towards the depths of my being, facing my physical, emotional and spiritual pain. Opening my heart to discover the reality, the truth of what I am. I like it or not.
During 21 days I did an incredible amount of work of internalization and inner search to discover what and who I am. To discover myself, to discover which were my dreams, my yearnings, my prejudices, my fears. A trip to discover my limitations and to begin to expand my conscience, my perception of the reality.
I began the 21 days full of illusion and fear, illusion to discover the future, illusion to discover who I was and to confront my limitations so to be able to surpass them. And fear, fear to the unknown, fear to myself, my reactions, fear not to being able to get through.
Before the retreat I agreed to quit smoking. Since at that time I smoked, we decided, Patrick and I that as soon as the retreat began to quit smoking. But I have to confess that the first 3 days I smoked a pair of cigarettes secretly until I had the first small experience. The Fourth day at dusk I went out to smoke and was smoking outside when I heard somebody coming down, at that moment I felt like a little boy when caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t. The person coming was Patrick, I threw away the cigarette and came in, and when I saw him, I turned into that small boy. Patrick came in breathing through the nose, smelling and I asked to me “ Have you been smoking? ” to which I answered “No, no, I wasn’t” could not articulate more words, to which Patrick answered “Ok, I trust you”. From that day until nowadays I have never smoked again, and in fact I can not smoke, the tobacco is very disagreeable .
As of this moment I got in a roller coaster of emotions, images, dreams, physical sensations and interpersonal experiences. Every day was a experience, moments of a fascinating beauty came, moments at which I reached states of absolute peace and love, simply fusing with which is, states of absolute peace. And moments of intense pain, moments of sadness, wrath and impotence arose from my mind, arose and they dragged me to a dark night of which I did not saw the exit. How much pain, how much love, how much intensity, how much energy, how much peace ......
At one of the individual sessions with Patrick I had a precious experience, it was a experience in which I dissolved completely with the whole, I was fused and experienced what for me was like returning to the belly of my mother. It was a sensation of dissolution of limits, a sensation in which I did not perceive limits between my being and the being of everything that surrounded to me, I was conscious of my own body, but I did not feel energetic separation. It was like plunging myself into the sea and feeling how the water of the sea unifies us and dissolves us within. Experiencing the oneness state.
As the retreat advanced, the days in silence forced me to listen to all the thoughts that arose in my mind. As days went on the noise of my mind became more and more intense, there were moments at which the absurd thoughts that arose were so present, I was so conscious of them that it was unbearable. I got to the point where I even did want to go crazy. The talking in my head was so intense that it seemed as if I had a voice shouting uncontrolled and continued, creating thoughts, desires, fears, projecting towards the future, towards the past ........
And the fear was one of the emotions that arose like a hurricane when the retreat approached its end. One day I awoke at 3:30 a.m. full of energy and incapable of sleep. I had the impulse to go out and take a walk to a small forest nearby where I used to made the walking meditation. As I approached to the forest I began to feel fear, it was a local small road with light lampposts that took me to the entrance of the forest. The entrance of the forest appeared like a mouth, a dark and bottomless black mouth. It was a known forest, I knew perfectly that nothing could happen to me since there was no dangerous animal nevertheless I was in front of the dark paralysed by fear. Finally I breathed in and plucked up all the courage I could to go into the forest, walking towards the depths of that so well-known and nevertheless so hostile universe. Entering in the dark and beginning to listen to the sound of the jungle, listening to sounds here and there, until I began to feel so much fear, so much energy flowing through me that it took me to the absolute present. It did not exist, nothing else that that precise moment.
Answers, many answers did come during the retreat, answers to questions that I did not even ask. Answers on my attitude and behaviour in the life. Answers on my emotional dependency with those people who surround me. Answers arose from how my necessities, my ignorance, my weaknesses, my emotional dependence on my previous partners, my parents. How my strengths or weaknesses invited others to depend emotionally on me. Always from the ignorance and the unconsciousness. To observe the love bonds that I created with my parents, brother, pairs, friends, relatives…. Bonds of love and understanding, bonds of dependency and ignorance in others.
A trip of 21 days that took me to a Renaissance point, a trip in which I discovered, I observed and I processed many of my limitations and many of the infinite possibilities to be the one whom I can reach to be.
One of the peak experiences I had was almost when finalizing the retreat, it was a experience that I would describe like being reborn. After the forest where I got in contact with a primary fear. I glimpsed the end of the retreat nearing and I began to deepen in a state of anxiety and fear. The fear to return home, the fear to what would be said and I continued deepening until I began to feel a horrible fear. I was at my room when I began to feel a horrifying fear, all my body shook and it twisted with fear. The fear was so intense that some moments I had the sensation of literally dying of fear. Luckily Patrick appeared and accompanied me during the process. And the process was to allow myself to deepen and to experience that energy and fear that arose within me. Fear appeared and I tried to experience and to allow myself to feel it in order to observe and discover what was hidden behind, but it was so intense that I was blocked and I could not allow myself to feel it. During a long time I was fighting with myself, fighting with the instinct of repression of the fear and to allow myself to freely experience the energy of the fear. Finally after an intense effort I was able to open myself to that experience and allowed the fear and its energy crossed through all my body. In fact I did surrender and at that moment, in a second, the fear transformed and I became conscious that it was just fear, I became conscious of the projections that my mind made on the sensation of the fear, that it was just an emotion and suddenly my full body was buzzing on energy the fear transformed into love, an intense state of love. I entered in a state of peace and love, I felt my body full of energy, I felt like a channel through which the river of the universal energy circulated. Making me conscious that the emotions are emotions, come and go, they arise from the anything or absolutely and return to the none or the whole like the waves in the ocean.
After:
The after? There is no after, it is a continuous process of development, learning, evolution and experience. ; -) After? It has been more than a year since I did the 21 days retreat and many and still more varied life experiences had come to me.
A few months after I finished the retreat I experienced a state of consciousness in which I experienced the reality as in a continuous state of expansion and felt like each emotion, each sensation arose towards the centre of my heart, once expanded filling all my being and it was diluted. Simply I allowed to flow all emotions and experience totally happening through the centre of my heart. Without judging, valuing, simply experimenting, the sadness, the wrath, the joy, the compassion. Knowing that at any moment it remained a state of love and peace below all sensation. I experienced this state during several weeks and it allowed me to experience myself from new perspectives.
Another day I awoke a Saturday at 5 in the morning because literally I was dancing in bed, I awoke but it was within a dream, it was a very real dream in which I was taking part in a meditation with Patrick with a technique we call the infinity dance. I awoke in very intense energy state. Once wide-awake I decided to continue with the meditation and to continue experiencing that connection. Later that day I wrote to Patrick asking to him what they had been doing and then I remembered that Patrick had a workshop on that date in New Zealand. Later, Patrick answer to me “I do not know how but at that hour, 5:00 in the morning Spanish time, that is 5 in the afternoon New Zealand time we were doing the infinity dance here in Auckland, and it seems that you were with us”. And thus it was, in dreams I lived the same meditation as them, I was in Auckland with them :-o This experience peculiarly has been one of which that it has taken time to accept since it is really difficult to accept that one can make this type of trips.
But in this trip I also deepened in the shadow of my soul. And allowed me to see the reality of who I am or my actions. I met my ex girlfriend a long time after a quite immature rupture. It was a painful experience since it was like feeling all her pain and the culpability by all the unconscious actions that produced that pain to her. It felt as my heart shrank of the pain, feeling the sadness, the deception by the love and the illusion deposited in a relation and the lack of understanding of the other person, in this case me. And the pain was passing, it began to arise the conscience, I began to realize the responsibility of my acts and began to arise the culpability by all the created pain. It began to arise the culpability by all the unconscious actions that generated so much pain. It was a process that it took a while to assimilate, to cry, to shout and to kick. Until the words of forgiveness came up to me, words asking for forgiveness. And until here I can tell today ;-)
During this time I experienced, very varied states, have had moments of enlightenment or very clear visions on the reality of who I am, of those who we are. But it has been a long process that has taken time to me to process and understand.
Now:
I would like to be able to transmit all my experiences, all and each one of the lived moments, all and each one of the learned lessons so that others do not have to experience and to create the same pain. These words are not but that, words, that try to wake up and motivate those people to discover themselves. I do desire that these words wake up the heart on those that are not scared to live themselves, to experience themselves totally and know who they are. In order to discover the truth no matter what colour it has, no matter what form it is. Whether we like or dislike it, love, wrath, passion, sadness are what they are. And each experience is an opportunity of discovery and understanding. All Love is a technique that has allowed me to deepen knowing what ever I live, whatever I experience, love is always love. A process of continuous healing and transformation.
Who am I? I am Zigor Aretxabala Etxeandia, I am my father, my mother, my brother, my family, my friends, my well-known, my enemies, my strangers. I am the compendium, the sum of everything that surrounds me and of which I comprise. I am a boy, I am a father, I am a son, I am an adult, I am child, I am giant and I am very small boy. I am a conscious and an unconscious part, I am a individual part, I am a collective part, I am a physical body, I am a psychic reality, I am a spiritual reality. I am a face with factions, a face ..... I am an idea, an emotion, a feeling, a heart. I am a great teacher, I am a great student, I am a mistaken master, I am a mistaken student. Sometimes I get upset, sometimes I am glad, sometimes I become sad, sometimes I cry, sometimes I shout ..... sometimes I am compassionate, sometimes I am unconscious. But over or below everything always encounter peace and love in my heart. I always can return to the ocean and arise again with the winds of the heart.
Once I read Jung who said to have lived with a tribe of Indians in South America. Speaking with one of the Indians Jung asked to him what he thought about the white people. And the Indian answer to him “These white people are crazy”. Surprised Jung asked to him “Why do you think that the whites are crazy?” and the Indian answered “Because they say that they think with the head”. Jung even more surprised asked to him “whereupon you think with” and the Indian moved his hand pointing towards his heart and added “Where else”. As the Indians I have learned to think again with the heart, every day trying to be a little bit more conscious of my acts, my actions and the implications of the same ones. Following the plans of my heart.
I know what there is within my heart, what there is within our hearts and I am have my dreams. Dreams that embrace a society, a world in which we are every day a little bit more conscious, every day a little bit more open to share the wonderful gift and the opportunity to live. Opening to our heart, opening our soul to everything what is, to everything that we are to understand each other, growing, to share, to live, to create, to love, to add .....
I do not feel, but that feels in me, I am not but the action itself is.
But this dream will continue in next chapters ...........
All Love 
Z.
