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..:: The Self ::..
By
Alan Schneider
The often fascinating,
occasionally frightening, and rarely boring images and symbols we
experience during dreaming and other altered states of consciousness
have been the object of much discourse and interpretation. From
spiritualists to therapists, almost all have had something to say about
the supposed meaning of these mental forms. Some, such as Perls, have
even referred the matter back to the individual subjects, encouraging
them to investigate and interpret their own psychic symbols. Others,
per Freud, have carefully cloistered their interpretations, occasionally
not even informing the subject of anything to do with their content
as they scribbled notations on their pads. Yet others have written
book after book on dreamwork and dream symbols, not all of them reliable
or authoritative, for that matter. Clearly, the meaning of alternative
symbolic expression is a matter of extreme significance in popular
culture, professional culture, and academic culture, as well. This
essay concerns this subject in general, and one symbol of
particular importance in particular – The Self.
In the psychiatric context,
where Freud identified and defined the type of alternative symbol
formation we are evaluating here through the sexual lens of
interpretation, his contemporary, Carl Jung, used the existential
lens – preferring to classify what emerged in his patients dream states
through their extended social and spiritual ramifications for their
expanded personal existences. He classified the bulk of dream symbols
as being archetypal in nature, stemming from the collective
unconscious region of the Psyche, and relegating the material of sexual
expression to the personal unconscious. Jung felt that he had
identified a vast region of psychic expression that, like Freud’s, was
driven by instinct, but had the additional feature of providing
social, not solely sexual, significance for the individual, and
called these contents archetypes. Like the Freudian instincts, the
archetypes are not subject to direct expression in consciousness, but
emerge into secondary expression as symbols. Along the course of his
life, Jung defined many of such symbols in a multitude of cultural
systems, supporting his contention that, like the Freudian material,
they were additional inborn contents of the Psyche present in all human
beings.
At the core of the Jungian
model of the mind is the Self, the supposed driver of all
mental manifestation including the archetypal symbols of the collective
unconscious, the repressed sexual contents of the Freudian personal
unconsciousness, and the conscious waking awareness of the
(predominantly Freudian) ego – the “me” that I commonly recognize as
“myself” observing and interacting with “the world” displayed in the
physical senses. I have had much to say in these essays about the
basal nature of that world, its ultimate reality, and meaning for human
observers, and will say more now, because it is the Self that creates
our perception of everything internal and external to the organism. Do
the world and the whole universe exist? Yes, indeed they do – there is
something “out there” in the observational field. What, then, is
there? It is the same Self that lies within us!
Since the external
environment (i.e. the physical continuum) can only be observed through
the haze of sensory impression and interpretation that is subject to the
continuous interference of the ego, we must resort to the variety of
alternative observational techniques mentioned so often in these essays
to gain relatively unimpeded impressions of existence, and these also
have been touched upon in some detail. The reader may take as a given
that my testimony here is derived from the evidence of personal
meditation as my preferred method of observation and investigation,
although I have also used several others along the way. In particular,
once such a structure as the Self is clearly identified in the Psyche,
and brought into conscious awareness (in the therapeutic process that
Jung referred to as realization) for further observation, much
information of paramount importance for the observer and humanity at
large can be discovered. Please allow me to share some of this with
you now.
To begin with, the Self
appears to have an external aspect, and an internal aspect under
observation in deep meditation. In terms of what I have realized
about this entity, it appears most often in my waking conscious
awareness as it does in the depictions of the Jungian Psyche that I have
used so often – a dense black sphere – in this case floating in my
perception above and centrally located immediately beyond my physical
head, and surrounded by the luminous (Jung used the term numinous
to describe internally bright structures in the Psyche) forms of many
other archetypal symbols that I have realized in my years of
psycho-spiritual work. The sphere of the Self appears quite large in my
perception – perhaps occupying half of my collective awareness.
Although it seems to be dark from the perspective of outer observation,
one has the impression that it contains an abundance of internal life of
its own – this “life” emerges more or less continuously from the surface
of the Self at numerous shifting locations in a stream of numinous,
fiery undulating forms that bear an uncanny resemblance to the
post-Babylonian Hebrew script characters. These subsequently take a
wide variety of eventual secondary symbolic expressions in the
collective region surrounding the Self – all of archetypal significance,
and there are literally so many of them present that I could not by my
personal efforts realize them all in many, many lifetimes of effort.
This is why Jung felt that consciousness became collective beyond the
Freudian regions, and I agree with him – the Self is continually
outputting far too much content for any one observer to deal with. In
my case, the collective region of the Psyche surrounding the Self is
literally aglow with the numiousity of the all that it has released, and
continues to release, into Psychic manifestation.
It is possible, although I do
not have this practice as a routine, to place the observational locus
right at the surface of the sphere of the Self where one of the founts
of “letters” is emerging, and interpose this locus directly in
the stream of “communication” (possibly manifestation would be a
better word) flowing out there. It is as if one is immediately blasted
with light and form on an almost unbearably brilliant level – the only
adequate analogy is that of experiencing the Word of God becoming
manifest in real time. Under the correct circumstances (as I
experienced in Samadhi) one can enter the interior of the Self by
following one of the streams of numinous letters (actually archetypal
symbol chains), and the environment there is as I have previously
described it – omnipresent white Light, omnipresent unconditional Love,
and a merging with an ultimate Presence that is the Source of all
subsequent observation and experience everywhere in the Psyche. At this
point, one becomes “Self Realized” (although there are no equivalent
human terms for this condition) and attains the “knowledge” that the
Self is always One with both the observer and any observation
occurring anywhere.
I realize that this seems to
be an impossibility from the logical perspective of the ego awareness
that is typical for human beings, and it is, but it remains the
Truth of Consciousness at the level of the Self. We must remember that
the ego is very close to – in fact, resides within – the physical
organism, which itself exists in three dimensional space and linear time
subject to the constraints of that extensive external expression
of the Self known as Karma. Yes, my friends, the outer world is
ultimately simply a different version of the inner world – one that
typically vibrates (or, in more scientific terms, oscillates) at
a much lower frequency accounting for the observed density of things on
the Physical Plane, but is made of the same “stuff” – consciousness.
I conjecture that the Self
appears dark from the exterior perspective as a convenience for
observation, considering what it is evidently like on the interior.
One could not indefinitely withstand such an environment and continue to
exist in the flesh (at least in the hyper-materialistic Western world),
but it can be realized as a psychic structure within the mind,
and worked with therefrom, although there remain prices to be paid for
this level of access. Such contact with the innermost core of human
possibility tends to redefine all other experience – what might have
once been important tends to pale by comparison, including such mundane
experiences as external physical existence has to offer. Even human
sexual involvement, that glittering foundation of Freudian
psychodynamics, tends to lose its luster after the Self is contacted and
realized in this definitive manner. In fact, the only thing that
retains much importance at all is communication regarding
this experience delivered to the other struggling sentient beings on,
and contiguous to, the Physical Plane of Expression (as the reader has
probably gathered, I have embraced this challenging process with great
enthusiasm).
Thus, it appears from this
most intimate perspective on observation that the entire universe, which
once seemed to be a great (and chaotic) machine, is in fact a
great and mysterious mind, continuously outpouring Creation
as an expression of Love, which now is seen as the ultimate
driver of all existence.
The Buddha, among many
others, had apparently also attained Self Realization, and put our
quandary here on Earth very succinctly – this life of Karma is one
predominantly of suffering and difficulty, due to many consequences of
the limitations of our physical form, but also in great part to our
psychology – predominantly desire for external objects of
gratification. We are mentally constructed (in the absence of
enlightened awareness) around desire action, and (amazingly) will tend
to choose ongoing, lifelong frustration rather than release from this
bondage to our animal nature. This release from desire action and the
animal nature was postulated as being attainable by following the Eight
Fold Path of Enlightenment so well known in Buddhism, and often
recounted in these essays (and thus not to be recounted again here).
Suffice it to say that what is called for is a minimalist life spent in
moderation and reflection, one tending to yield a high degree of
relative peace as its outcome. This is the sensible life for humanity,
and Self Realization is its culmination.
As the desire nature is brought under conscious control (instead of
controlling us), the journey of consciousness can become our
priority, and move forward as time and circumstances permit. Although
this customarily only becomes evident after many years spent in the
practice of ego negation, consciousness eventually emerges as
the reigning process present in all things. It is our privileged place
in Creation to be capable through sentience and sentient observation to
appreciate this quality of existence in all of its infinite aspects
radiating forth from the Self. We have been given this gift in Love –
let us return it in kind!
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2009, by Alan Schneider)
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