Reconnect With Simple Essential Pleasure

HOW are you doing today? What is the sensation that you are feeling in your body as you read this? Your breathing – is it long or shallow? Is your mind now living in your body with consciousness?

Bodleian Library, Oxford
Bodleian Library, Oxford

Please take a long deep breath, exhale and inhale. Exhale and inhale. Let the negativity, if any, be released as you exhale and allow positivity to travel through every fiber of your being as you inhale. Let’s continue our sharing a little more, shall we?

Hakim Conrad Archuletta
Hakim Conrad Archuletta

Hakim Conrad Archuletta1, a renowned healer, participated in The Neurology of Nafs study retreat where he walked the participants through the following module:

  • Hikma, Wisdom Healing for Our Time
  • Knowing the Self, Body, Mind and Spirit
  • Regaining Life, Emotions and Sensations
  • Introduction to Exercises of Awareness

“Things that you neither can assimilate nor eliminate can be toxic to your body. Each sensation is telling you something. Nothing is insignificant, everything has its meaning. Each meaning has its purpose,” he repeated these profound statements in every session throughout the 2 days,1 night retreat.

In this article I would like to focus on the last part mentioned above: introduction to exercises of awareness. This has become a natural practice, daily in my life. During the most recent program that I managed with 76 young scholars, the same exercise was introduced and was renamed Reconnect with Simple Essential Pleasure; RESEP.

This exercise reminds us of the priceless, state-of-the-art, holistic mechanism that is “installed” in us. RESEP serves as a window to our spirit that connects our inner and outer cosmology.

Cherwell River, Oxfordshire
Cherwell River, Oxfordshire

Shall we do this RESEP together?

First, stand up. Feel your head, shoulder and chest. Are they heavy?

Now, transfer your sensations to your legs and knees. Feel them. Are your knees locked? If they are, let them loose and sway gracefully from side to side, then bend your knees as much as possible. Go up and down, bending your knees down and then standing up, knees unlocked in a faster pace. Do you feel the heaviness in your upper body being transmitted to your legs as you repeat the simple steps?

Next, breathe naturally and effortlessly. Then walk around. I love doing this exercise on bare feet, letting pebbles or soft grass caress the soles of my feet. At that moment, I relearn how to live in my body – my heart and mind is aligned. There’s no place else I want to be but here. What I have is enough, Alhamdulillah. This is a beautiful, invigorating sentiment that helps me carry on despite any challenges I face, anxiety I’ve witnessed, or chaos experienced in any part of the world. It gives me a dosage of encouragement to move on and contribute to my family and society at large at my level best.

Roses
Roses

Rumi said, “Yesterday I was clever, I wanted to change the world. Today I am wiser, I change myself first.”Does that ring true to you?

Each one of us has our purpose to be fulfilled individually and collectively. Our focus should be on the individual self that comes together with others for building a family, society and a nation.

Wishing that each one of us receives true and solid guidance as we thread our path in this world. Aameen.

Regal sunset by the beach near Penang Malaysia
Regal sunset by the beach near Penang Malaysia

 

1Hakim Archuletta has worked within the healing arts profession for over 30 years. His interest in medicine and natural health and the study of God’s Creation began as a child. His first formal studies were in the Fine Arts which he studied in the 60’s in Berkeley where his expertise ranged from graphic arts to theater, cinema and ethnomusicology. He studied homeopathy and apprenticed with Dr. John Damonte in London in the early 70’s. He continued these studies in Berkeley, apprenticing with homeopathic doctors and working with the first Homeopathic Study group there.

He continued his studies in the Middle East, England and North Africa in the mid 70’s. In 1978, Hakim went to Pakistan at the invitation of Hakim Mohammad Said of the Hamdard Foundation and studied there with various Hakims (traditional Islamic doctors) supported by grants from the Bawani Trust. His main teacher was Hakim Taqiuddin Ahmad at the Nizami Dawakhana, where he also learned Pharmacy in the Unani tradition. There he earned the title of “Hakim.”

Returning to the Americas in 1980, he began teaching students privately and established a Family Practice clinic in Santa Barbara California. He has conducted and taught study groups for homeopathy in Santa Barbara, California, Taos, Abiquiu, and Los Alamos, New Mexico for professional and lay persons. He began extensive work as counselor/consultant and Hakim/Homeopath in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and by traveling nationally for over ten years. This also included workshops on communication and community consensus building including special focus on youth.

 He has worked with young people for many years and taught science on a high school level for six years in a very “hands on” method and worked on curriculum that is age appropriate and spiritually based in science for young people. More recently he began to focus on trauma and was trained in the methods of Dr. Peter Levine and others. Today he lectures and teaches classes and workshops nationally. He has conducted workshops and lectured at the University of California Berkeley, Harvard, Wellesley, Stanford, UCLA, University of Houston and many others. He addressed and led the New Mexico State Congress in opening prayers after 9/11, writes, reads and organizes poetry readings. He has students and patients across the world. (Source: Hakim Archuletta.com)

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