Because the teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais are so central to the content of my book, I’ve written this post to explain three key foundations of Feldenkrais’s philosophy and teaching that are often misunderstood: Kabbalah, Zen, and Raja Yoga. Feldenkrais identifies these practices in the first paragraph of Chapter 3 of his most popular book, Awareness Through Movement. The chapter is aptly titled "Where to Begin and How."
Moshe Pinchas Feldenkrais
Moshe Pinchas Feldenkrais was a visionary pioneer in the field of mind-body studies. His revolutionary somatic method uses gentle, guided movement and hands-on touch to help people become more aware of how they move—and how they move through life.
Feldenkrais’s passion for exploring human evolution through the development of movement on all levels of being --- including movement into higher brain function and integrative awareness --- has inspired much of my new book, The Calculus of Life: A Practical Guide to Transcendence.
The Elusive Obvious
Feldenkrais's most expansive, esoteric teachings, introduced in the final pages of his last book, The Elusive Obvious, are fundamental to his goal of bringing heightened awareness to the masses in order to address the evolutionary and existential challenges facing humanity.
On the last page of The Elusive Obvious, Feldenkrais writes: “We can now see that unless we learn to think about the things we know in alternative ways, unless we widen and deepen our freedom of choice and use it humanely, the (progress we seek) will begin as a disaster. The learning this book extols is a real necessity and must be popularized now.”
The learning that Feldenkrais advocates is pursuing increased brain function in all areas of human performance, which he believes is the key to resolving past conflicts and sustaining humanity’s ongoing evolution. To this end, Feldenkrais discusses and even graphs the heightened brain function musicians occasionally achieve during peak performances. He suggests that the example they provide of the effects of higher cognition and brain function --- the real-world effects of which can be immediately heard in their music performance --- sets a template in elevation for others to follow as it can be applied to any human activity.
In my four decades of work with leading musicians around the world, it is obvious why Feldenkrais would suggest that elite musicians hold a template in higher brain function and awareness for others to emulate. In peak musical performances, a musician’s awareness can expand so far beyond the physical realm of linear, deductive thought that they experience the Source Field of unlimited possibility --- the realm of unlimited creative impetus. In yoga philosophy, the Source Field is sometimes referred to as the 5th Element of Akasha. This is the ultimate source of not only higher creative impetus, but of all manifestation—including our physical, mental, emotional, intuitive, astral, etheric, causal, light body, and higher aspects-of-self. In the dated language of 1980, Feldenkrais refers to this ascension in awareness as “quantum thinking.”
In the final few pages of the Elusive Obvious, Feldenkrais writes, “A quantum of thinking... is a useful way to understanding most phenomena of energy and its materialization.” The importance of this statement cannot be over--stated, given that “the phenomena of energy and its materialization” defines every aspect of existence in our known universe.
Quantum thinking is the ability to engage in multi-
dimensional awareness. This includes being able to hold several different dimensional perspectives at the same time, with the ability to simultaneously engage some or even all of them as fits the demands of the moment. This is more important --- and complex --- than it may seem, as it involves first dissolving and then consciously moving beyond the perceptual boundaries of more limited, linear awareness. (See the Picasso painting to the right that captures the essence of multi-dimensional awareness in oil on canvas.)
To this end, one definition of “quantum” holds that increasing a quantity of energy can be accomplished by raising the frequency of what that energy represents. An example of this would be resolving a conflict by accessing a higher state of awareness than the state that produced the conflict in the first place. This can include elevating into higher frequencies of being than most people are accustomed to experiencing, such as the extra-dimensional, transcendental experience of a merged vibration of Unity with all of creation. This is known in various cultures as Samadhi, Satori, and Nirvana. (Samadhi is ultimate goal of yoga—with Raja yoga being a primary mechanism for this ascension. My new book, The Calculus of Life, is a practical manual on Raja Yoga. The last 9 chapters are entirely devoted to step-by-step instruction in this practice.)
Those who are familiar with Samadhi understand that it is not an end in itself, but rather an initiation: an invitation to bring a more enlightened perspective into our day-to-day lives. This profound jump in integrative awareness is another level of what Feldenkrais mentions in The Elusive Obvious as being necessary for our ongoing evolution as a species.
The means for bringing these extreme expansions in awareness into our grounded, day-to-day life is so central to my method that it is described in various contexts and session descriptions throughout my book. This is explored in more detail as it pertains to Feldenkrais’s teachings in Appendix B, An Esoteric Overview on the Teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais. This appendix has references to The Elusive Obvious throughout.
This Feldenkrais appendix is immediately followed by a brilliant appendix written by the renouned paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge, titled "Witnessing Gaia." Niles is known for having written dozens of books on evolutionary biology, including his definitive biography on Charles Darwin, Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life. Niles is also known for co-discovering the theory of "punctuated equalibria" with his colleague Stephen Jay Gould in 1972.
Kabbalah
Kabbalah is a collection of Jewish spiritual teachings that explain the connection between the seemingly infinite realm of transcendence and the finite world of our physical existence. While many of Feldenkrais's followers focus on his revolutionary contributions to the field of somatics, a more expansive definition of somatics --- beyond just the state of our physical, mental, and emotional aspects-of-self --- can bring us a higher awareness of the direct connection between somatics and transcendence. A quote from Feldenkrais's namesake from the 18th century offers insight into this.
Feldenkrais’s ancestor Rabbi Pinchas Shapiro of Koretz was a legendary Lithuanian Hasidic rabbi and theologian. Feldenkrais biographer Mark Reese chose the top of page one of his epic 570 page biography, A Life in Movement, to quote Rabbi Pinchas referencing extraordinary Kabbalist and Raja yoga phenomena that bridge somatics and extra-dimensional awareness. These are described in the Golden Grid and Raja Yoga sections that follow.
“Every word and every action contains all the ten Sefirot, the ten powers emanating from God, for they fill the entire world...”
Among the most well known symbols representing the essence of Kabbalah are the sefirot and the Tree of Life. These elements are part of an etheric Golden Grid that provides an embodied
connection between the realm of infinite creative potential and manifestation on the physical plane. A higher connection and activation of the Golden Grid can activate a more integrative conduit from the Light of Heaven above to the Unlimited receptivity of the Earth below. This is exactly what improvisational jazz musicians, biodynamic cranial practitioners, and those who pursue immersion in advanced meditation practices live to experience. (A previous blog post on improvisational comedian Zach Woods's visit to my studio last year explains this in more detail.)
One of the session accounts in Chapter 9 of my book is a full-conduit, remote Golden Grid activation session with a Grammy Award winning musician. This session took place about 8 years ago, and was conducted by myself and two friends—both highly accomplished practitioners.
The musician described the work we all shared in this session as remarkably integrative --- seemingly magical. This is especially noteworthy, given that the session was a silent group meditation with no physical touch or palpation of any kind. Our role as practitioners was to simply drop all therapeutic agendas and hold a neutral, meditative field of receptivity that would allow us to witness whatever might occur. This brings up what Feldenkrais identifies as another practice that is foundational to his heritage and teaching: Zen and Wu Wei.
Zen and Wu Wei
The word Zen translates as "meditation." Zen philosophy and practice teaches that enlightenment is achieved "when we experience that we are already enlightened." As such, our "next level" spiritual service to humanity begins after we experience Satori --- as we learn to walk the planet in higher service to others.
Some would say that the Chinese term “wu wei” means doing through non-doing, however this may be an oversimplification. To me, wu wei does not necessarily mean to do nothing. Rather, it suggests holding a neutral, unattached intention of honoring whatever dynamics and timing will attract and support what is naturally meant to be. This includes having the intuitive trust to know that a higher source may provide the perfect moment of flow to allow a resolution of whatever dynamic is ready to be resolved --- in the most effortless way possible.
When applied to mind-body practices, this effortless approach to being exists in structural and more subtle layers of Feldenkrais's teaching, as it does in Craniosacral work, by using the direction of ease to clear the direction of effort. This approach works beautifully in clearing chronic misalignments through neuromuscular re-education. It also works perfectly in more subtle realms, such as improvisational communication and most any other activity that is based in higher expansions into the present moment. As Alan Watts said (partially quoting Shakespeare) in the video linked to the wu wei graphic above:
"There is a tide among men which, when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Wu wei is based on knowledge of the tide."
This is perfectly described in the Chinese Book of Changes (the I Ching) in hexagram 49: Revolution. The hexagram's interpretation advises not to begin the physical act of revolution until circumstances are such that "the revolution is already won." To this end, sensing the perfect time to act on vectors of connection can make important transitions as effortless as possible.
An additional reference to "the tide" mentioned above can be extended to include the cranial tides of Biodynamic Cranial practices that sustain us in subtle ways from beyond the physical plane. More on the cranial tides and how various subtle fields of being support the unlimited creative potential that Feldenkrais advocates are discussed in chapters 4, 11, and 20 of my book.
Raja Yoga and Kabbalah
The second part of Rabbi Pinchas’s quote mentioned above refers to a little known but remarkably effective Raja yoga practice:
“The completed motion of lowering and lifting the hand houses the secret of mercy and rigor.”
Lowering and lifting the hand in this context brings a whole new meaning to the words “awareness through movement.” This is exactly what Feldenkrais demonstrated in the final group class he taught at his Amherst training on August 5, 1981. This somatic meditation was titled “Irradiating the knee, and other areas, (while) on back.”
At the start of the final 1981 practitioner training segment Feldenkrais taught, he announced to the group that his own practice and knowledge had evolved since the previous training segment in 1980, and that the students would likely notice that he was now a better teacher. On the last day of training --- for the final group lesson that Feldenkrais taught ---- he laid on his back on the session table and used a movement of "lowering and raising the hands" around his knee to palpate and re-integrate layers of subtle activation in and around his body.
In 2023 I finally saw the video of Moshe in Amherst demonstrating this ATM in the last group training session of his life. I was thrilled to have this video from 1981 validate a methodical and comprehensive version of this same practice I had received as instruction during a meditation in 2019. This meditative download immediately became a core practice I have used in teaching and in client sessions, as described in session accounts in Chapters 6, 9, 10, and 19 of my book.
Chapter 19, titled The Unified Heart of Compassion Meditation, is dedicated to explaining this same practice in step-by-step detail. It focuses on subtle, second-order layers of connection located in and round the body as sensed by palpating the layers of space around the heart, rather than the knee.
In my practice with clients, this somatic meditation technique provides the means to quickly achieve expansive awareness of more than a dozen subtle second-order layers of function and awareness. These layers can correspond to any primary physical center or area in the body. This is achieved by literally lowering and lifting the hand to directly sense these aspects as they radiate in palpable layers out from the physical body, known in biodynamic cranial work as the Fluid Field. This work holds the essence of Raja Yoga and Feldenkras’s final, most advanced teaching: differentiation, refinement, and re-integration (reconnection) to more of our higher potential by producing somatic and higher states of integrative function and awareness. To me, this is the Calculus of Life.
Second-order centers of function and awareness can be sensed with palpation at any area of the body by the activations they produce from below the feet to above the head. This approach to developing subtle awareness of layers of function in the Fluid Field can be extended to any part of the body, which provides almost endless opportunities for the holistic integrative renewal of health. The integrative effects of this practice are immediate—often described by my clients as life-changing. Once a client has become familiar with the activation of primary and secondary order centers of function and awareness in this way, the hand palpation may no longer be needed to sense and activate re-integration of these centers.
The framed picture shown here of Feldenkrais working with Stephen Rosenholtz in early August, 1981 at the Amherst training was presented to Rosenholtz on the last day of the practioner training he taught in Eugene, Oregon in 2016. When he was presented with this picture as a gift from the class, Steve described this unusual session at the end of his training with his mentor and teacher as an extraordinarily powerful experience --- something that must be experienced to be appreciated. Just seconds after first seeing this picture in Eugene, he immediately pulled up other photos he had stored on his iPad that were taken during the same session moments apart. The fact that he had immediate access to these photos taken decades before spoke volumes about the importance to him of this experience from his youth.
In Conclusion...
In the closing pages of his book The Elusive Obvious, Feldenkrais states that the time has come for humanity to expand into new ways of accepting and adjusting for its inevitable evolution. He states that enhanced awareness and function on all levels of being needs to be popularized as a means for meeting the challenges facing humanity.
Since Feldenkrais passed away 40 years ago, the level of these challenges has become even more apparent. Global climate change and what my friend, evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge refers to as “Negligent Gaiacide” have become existential planetary threats.
To this end, a goal of Feldenkrais’s teachings described above, and my new book, is to help anyone learn new ways to access more of who they already are at their highest potential. The resulting shifts into a more comprehensive awareness, if extended into mass consciousness by the efforts of so many who are waking up to this need, may light the path for humanity’s future.
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More detail on all this can be found in Appendix B of my book: An Esoteric Overview on the Teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais. My complete book is available to domestic readers at the link below. It is also available in printed and ebook editions for readers everywhere through Amazon.
For a brief but complete overview of the book in short, one-paragraph chapter and appendix summaries, please visit the link below:
Comments on this post are welcome.... 💛🙏
Dave Monette, CST
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