Reshad Feild

Reversing Space – an Inner Practice

In October 1993, at Johanneshof, his spiritual centre at the shores of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, Reshad Feild gave a talk about an important but not quite easy inner practice. Below you find an edited version of the talk published here for the first time

f this practice is taught to children, they understand it immediately. But we adults somehow keep forgetting. Try to do this once a day without resentment. If we feel miserable, we won’t do it.

When God offered His trust to the mineral kingdom, to the mountains, it couldn’t receive it. Then He offered it to the vegetable kingdom, to all the plants and everything, and it couldn’t be received. Then He offered it to the animal kingdom and it still couldn’t be received. And then He offered it to man, to man and woman – and it was received. This is the first attitude. Once you get that clear, you start to see that the essence of all those kingdoms is within you, within me. Then He gave all the angels and the archangels to Adam, the first man.

In time we have our limitations because of our souls and our fears and so on. Also, the substance of time is compressed, so that we remember how little we have. If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t work, would we? Just feel this in your chest area. Look at a mountain. In the Bible it says: “I will lift my eyes unto the hill, from whence cometh my help.” Think how much time there is, compressed time, in every rock in those mountains. Once they were in the ocean, you remember? Just feel that; don’t take it for granted. Feel it now in the chest area. Feel the essence of this mineral kingdom, of each of these rocks and mountains, in you. You have a ruby in you; you have a carnelian in you; you have a diamond in you; you have a sapphire in you; you have an emerald in you. And what are they all? They are all comcpressed time. Like the diamond, which was once coal and before that a tree. Yet we take our life for granted.

Once I was told, when I was first taught about these things, that if you can remember these things, you will never die a violent death. I didn’t understand what it meant until many years later when I read in the Koran that those who live violently will die violently. You can’t die violently if you remember that the respect for everything, the essence of everything, is inside.

Now reverse space. Let those kingdoms speak to you. Don’t go into phantasy or walk around in dreams. Sometime today, go out individually, remember your feet and the earth connectedness, and let the actual earth and the mineral kingdom come to you. Because without recognition there is no flow. There are only ‘the two of you’, but there is only One. When you recognise this, there is a flow. And that flow is within the unity. There is no more “me” and “it” – the essence is inside, here in my heart – and something starts to move, as somebody said, “between the shores of time”. Try to remember this just once a day.

Then go and find one tree. We have done this in many summer schools; I do it sometimes when I go out on the balcony in the mornings. It is scientifically proven that if you give energy to the vegetable kingdom, it will grow bigger. I didn’t say “if you give it love”, I said “if you give it energy.” And this is actual fact. Why does it grow? It is because of recognition. There was also, twenty years ago, a famous American poet [Rob Anthony Hawthorne] who had what he called his “forgiving tree”. Because we all make mistakes every day; we get angry or we “miss the mark” and we forget. So he wanted to get forgiveness and used to go to his forgiving tree and gave his forgetfulness to the tree. That’s why he called it “the forgiving tree”. And the tree flourished, grew. Because energy is energy. The name you give to it is only a name. At Findhorn [/] they used to love cabbages, and they got bigger. But if they had given them their anger, they would still have gotten bigger. It doesn’t make any difference, that’s proven now as well. It doesn’t make any difference whatsoever, it’s only sentimental. Actually, these creatures respond, they are part of it all. The essence of every tree, every blade of grass, every flower is in us. And remember, the key is that God offered them His trust and they couldn’t receive it. Therefor the essence is in us, because He then offered it to man. The whole trust is given to us, man and woman.

Now let us reverse space. Open up your chest area and allow yourself to be seen by a tree or several trees. We are always looking at, we are looking at each other, aren’t we? We hardly ever allow ourselves to be seen. If you can, just let it come to you. Because that which is already in you responds to that which you see. But let it see you. When we are looking at life and death, we are looking towards death or towards the end of the day. But the end of the day is already here, today. Isn’t it? So we fill up the space with love or try to. So let it come.

Do you see the difference? If you walk from here to down there, try walking with the right foot saying “please” and the left foot saying “thank you”. And when you get there, do it the other way round. You will find that “please” and “thank you” are the same word. They just sound different. In old English they were the same word, funny enough. So do it, and something starts. I have done this with people, and birds were coming out of the trees at times. Amazing things can happen. Once, in Colorado, I was way up in the mountains and the birds came out of the trees and landed on my head because we were in such a state of love. You have never seen a thing like it. Squirrels from the ground came to us. They all were just an expression, like fairy creatures or feathers and so on, of all that is given to the human being. Just feel that.

Now listen to a bird. If you can’t hear one, there are a lot of other creatures around that you can’t see. Amazing things can happen if you can start to see or sense that invisible kingdom, but you got to allow yourselves to be seen. Because they want to see you. They don’t know that you can see them. Has this ever occurred to you? A tree does not know that you can see it, until you allow yourself to be seen by that tree. An animal does not know, it is only frightened, until you allow it to see you. And then, suddenly, we are all playing together. This is in the Bible, too: the lion and the lamb and so forth. Allow yourself to be seen because that kingdom, the essence, is in you. Something, this tightness which we all have in our chest, will start to move.

If you, just once a day, can remember

When we started the geomancy work here [at Johanneshof] lately, guess how many eagles came out in the sky? Almost forty-five! The day I arrived through the front door there were eighteen over the top. They look like birds, they are birds, but they are the expression of something. And the essence is within us. But we are so arrogant and forgetful, including myself, that we forget this needs to be seen. All those people called “ecologists”, who blame everybody for doing everything, when do they actually let everything come to them? If they did this as well, they would do more good. And if you, just once a day, can remember and then greet each other – what happens then? What could happen when all those kingdoms, which are within us, start responding? And the human being you are looking at, and the angels, and all the hierarchy of the angels and the archangels’ kingdom?

All that happens because of the fact that we were given the trust. When you get that, then something changes in your life and you won’t recover. If you go on with practising, you will never quite know when it happens. If you go to a tree, don’t stare at it, but let it look at you, and something can change. An outer sign, as it were, is given to us and then we know there is only One. Some people get it through this kingdom, some people get it through that kingdom. Some people go to the mountain, I go to the ocean – whatever it is, let it happen, let it come to you, and you can make an experience that there is no distance. The only distance is the number of paces from here to that tree. But it is no distance, because its essence is in me.

That is why some people – in the Middle East or in Tibet, the native Indians and others – use gems. Some say as a protection against hobgoblin or something, but it’s not just that at all. It is echoing what is already within oneself. You will find something will change, all the land will respond. The moment we did that geomancy work, it changed. But it needs recognizing every day.

Let yourself be seen, and little by little you can give back what you have been given. But if you forget this, what would happen when you die? Would you be complete? How could you be complete if you can’t remember, remember that God gave us His trust with everything He gave us? And we want to be complete because that is what was asked of us. John [Cooke], in my second book [To Know We’re Loved], or [my teacher] Bulent [Rauf] were incredible with this sort of thing. With every teacher I have ever known it has been the same thing. It needs an incredible respect, re­spectare meaning “to see again”. Never forget, when your feet touch the ground, that the essence is in you. And then something will happen. This is the meaning of what it says in the Bible : “Where so’er ye tread” – consciously! – “that is holy ground.” It becomes holy because “holy” means “(w)hol(l)y”, no separation. Whichever way you spell it, everything becomes holy.

The certain quality it requires to let yourself be seen is to have no fear and not to be embarrassed. What is a tree to us? It just grows fruits, its leaves fall off in winter and grow up again in spring – we are so embarrassing, we are so arrogant. We need this quality within us, which is humility and glorification and no fear. Do you remember the first time when I was teaching this in Valbella summer school? People looked so embarrassed, they walked around looking at me like being looked at by a tree! Years ago there was this catholic canon, a priest, I often mention. He was so frustrated because we were so stupid, so absolutely idiotic. He used to take us to churches and wanted us to listen to rocks. You should have seen us! We all looked really British; all these people of all ages with their Wellington boots on walking around churches and just listening. But we got used to it and you could indeed hear something responding. I think the word “responding” is important.

But when do you allow yourself to be seen? In the last ten days, many of you came to see me upstairs, and amazing things have happened because you allowed yourselves to be seen without embarrassment. We all make mistakes every day; making a mistake is missing the moment. But the right attitude, ultimately, is glorification. All this is inside, and it comes to life through recognition. “Life” is a Name of God. Everything comes to life and therefore, too, on the path of return, to the Creator. We just forget.

Do try this practice. If I see you all walking around underneath the trees, nobody is going to worry. But sometimes people are so embarrassed; they have to be by themselves. You might literally go around for weeks feeling something, and then one day something happens. To most people to whom I have given this practice, something happened. Bulent, who was very fond of roses, said to us when I went to see him with [my wife] Penny two years before he died: “I am going to be planted there.” Planted like a bush, on the hill near Chisholme. “There I am going to be planted, and they will plant a rose there.” I looked at him and thought he was making a joke. First of all it was not the ground where the Church allows you to “be planted” in. So I thought: “How can he do that?” Well, he died in Oxford and I still don’t know how he got planted in Scotland in ground which was not consecrated.[1] Perhaps somebody gave it ‘a quick one’. But he was talking about return, not in sentimentality. It was like that man who, when he died, wanted to be cremated. He had already put it in his will and had invested ten thousand dollars that his ashes should go up by an enormous rocket. He had his ashes put in the top of the rocket and had the rocket lit from the top of a special mountain. So “puff” it went, and he was everywhere. Everything is to be returned. You will be amazed what can happen.

When you get more sensitive, you can reverse space. Look at the pine trees over there. Between those two and that place here you will find one of the rods which I have put into the earth. In all this space here, in all this ground there is everything you ever need, actually. Why do we say that when you define the space for which you are custodian, everything you need is given to you? Why is that? It is so simple. Because God gave us trust. Therefor you got so many angels here you couldn’t count them. They want to help. He gave the secret of the Names, didn’t He? He tried it with the angels, but they didn’t understand. So He gave it to Adam, which is the secret of creation and which is in the relationship of the Names. So everything you ever need is there, because it wants to help. We can’t feel that. We all want to help anybody else, but what is about being helped? We forget. But when it starts, you will say: “My God, I am seeing things.”

One time in England I was walking to my cottage with Shamsuddin, the cook, and a couple of others. After the meditation, we were walking back from the big house to the cottage. It was dusk, and suddenly the feet of my dog, a big black dog, went crazy and she started to growl and shake – and then I reversed space. And I saw these three moving light figures about ten foot tall. It doesn’t matter what they were, but that’s the way I saw them, walking by the river and coming towards me. The dog saw them first, and then I reversed space and I could see. If you look at it, you won’t see anything. Think of the space in-between. And I never forget Shamsuddin. Normally he never sees anything, but this time he was howling.

Things come to you in whatever form you see them in (look at the prophets: for Moses, God appeared in the burning bush), in the form of what you need in order to give you a conviction. There is only One Absolute Being. We are not separate, although we are individually unique. We are not separate. When you have this, you have incredible joy.