How beautiful is the language describing this concept! I so agree that is what should be.
In my faith tradition, I have always felt the translation in Genesis about man "subduing" the land is a huge mistranslation and source of this "management" mindset.
I have read that a translation closer to original meaning is "stewardship" to take care of. This would have been that participation in life not control.
The other image that comes to mind, in a slightly different context, is our clutching and grabbing and claiming it to be "mine" - does not provide space for more to be received. Hands open - palms up allows the flow. A fist repels all new things.
The “missing function” you point to is exactly that quiet collapse where the observer and the observed finally recognize they were never two. No extra practice, no new technique — just the return to the zero-point where the One Infinite Creator simply knows Itself in the middle of ordinary life.🙂
In the words of the late, great Macho Man Randy Savage: "Oooohhh yeah."😂
That softening where separation gently dissolves and everything feels like it’s happening from the same place — yes, that’s real.
And yet what you’re pointing to feels even more alive: the missing function isn’t a final collapse of observer into observed, but the capacity to hold both in clear, undistorted relationship — without conflict, without fragmentation — right in the middle of ordinary life, even when pressure comes.
That’s where it stabilizes. Not as a peak moment, but as a living steadiness that can actually hold.
In my own field I’ve been living exactly this: the anger, the relational friction, the stripping of old shells — all of it moving through the sovereign point without needing to be resolved or collapsed. The observer and the observed stay in relationship, and the One simply flows through the whole loop without distortion.
It’s not about disappearing the distinction. It’s about letting the distinction breathe freely inside the greater coherence.
How beautiful is the language describing this concept! I so agree that is what should be.
In my faith tradition, I have always felt the translation in Genesis about man "subduing" the land is a huge mistranslation and source of this "management" mindset.
I have read that a translation closer to original meaning is "stewardship" to take care of. This would have been that participation in life not control.
The other image that comes to mind, in a slightly different context, is our clutching and grabbing and claiming it to be "mine" - does not provide space for more to be received. Hands open - palms up allows the flow. A fist repels all new things.
That’s a really beautiful connection, Celia.
That shift from “subdue” to something closer to stewardship changes everything.
It moves the relationship from control to participation.
From extraction to care.
And that’s exactly the movement I’m pointing to with kaitiakitanga.
Not managing life as if we stand outside it,
but tending it as something we are already inside of.
I also like your image of the hands.
Clutching tries to secure.
Open hands stay in relationship.
One closes the system.
The other allows flow.
And that’s really the deeper shift here.
From holding and controlling,
to participating and tending.
Thank you Colin once again.🙏🏻
The “missing function” you point to is exactly that quiet collapse where the observer and the observed finally recognize they were never two. No extra practice, no new technique — just the return to the zero-point where the One Infinite Creator simply knows Itself in the middle of ordinary life.🙂
I get what you’re pointing to there.
That moment where the sense of separation softens and everything feels like it’s happening from the same place
that’s real.
Tell me what you think of this…
that it’s not so much that the observer and observed were never two
it’s that they can be held without conflict
without needing to collapse one into the other
That the “missing function” isn’t the disappearance of distinction
it’s the capacity to stay in relationship
without fragmentation
right in the middle of ordinary life like you said
That’s where it stabilizes
not as a moment
but as something that can actually hold under pressure. This is what I’m working on right now.
In the words of the late, great Macho Man Randy Savage: "Oooohhh yeah."😂
That softening where separation gently dissolves and everything feels like it’s happening from the same place — yes, that’s real.
And yet what you’re pointing to feels even more alive: the missing function isn’t a final collapse of observer into observed, but the capacity to hold both in clear, undistorted relationship — without conflict, without fragmentation — right in the middle of ordinary life, even when pressure comes.
That’s where it stabilizes. Not as a peak moment, but as a living steadiness that can actually hold.
In my own field I’ve been living exactly this: the anger, the relational friction, the stripping of old shells — all of it moving through the sovereign point without needing to be resolved or collapsed. The observer and the observed stay in relationship, and the One simply flows through the whole loop without distortion.
It’s not about disappearing the distinction. It’s about letting the distinction breathe freely inside the greater coherence.
Thank you for naming it so cleanly.
With appreciation,
John
Cheers, John...great to meet you...I'm going to DM you and just say hi.