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..:: Enlightenment
VI / The Adversary ::..
By
- Alan Schneider -
Destruction is in our nature - to destroy ourselves, each other,
and the world. Why are we so massively destructive as a
species, ravenously consuming every resource in sight without giving a
thought to any consequences, either immediate or in the future? What
and where is the essence of the invisible Adversary that dwells within
and around us, causing this burgeoning calamity?
Viewed from a purely genetic,
evolutionary perspective, human beings are breeding machines that
exist to propagate as efficiently as possible without regard to other
considerations. The only "requirement" here is the presence of barely
sufficient resources to “build” successive generations, and sustain them
long enough to propagate again, ad infinitum. In this regard,
humanity can be viewed as a relatively slowly progressing bio-chemical
reaction that is consuming all available resources on the planet by
converting them into itself, and releasing carbon dioxide,
perspiration, urine, feces, and culture as byproducts of that
reaction. This is certainly not pretty, but is incontestably
efficient, and efficient destroyers are absolutely what we are and
remain, above and beyond all other considerations.
This mechanical demonstration
of destructive potential is the epitome of the lower mind – rote
consciousness as symbolically determined by the first three Chakras –
Survival, Reproduction, and Power, in that order. The reader may
notice that I am specifically avoiding the Hindu terminology for these
modes of being, and am instead referring to them as their functions in
the lower mind. On the one hand, we would not have come this far
without the interaction of these three processes, on the other, we may
not get much further without augmenting them with the four Chakras
operating in the higher mind – Love, Communication, Insight, and
Awareness, again in that order. If we can transcend our animal nature
and attain higher consciousness, there may be some long term hope for
our species, but this matter is far from certain at this time.
Freud termed the destructive
trend in human psychology Thanatos – the Death Wish – and
specified that it is an inherent consequence of our biological makeup.
There is something present in our very cellular construction that is
designed by evolution to perform external destruction as a
symbolic expression of our internal frustration with who and what
we inescapably are, and this process is obviously extremely
effective as a coping mechanism when coupled with the sentient
perception of self and environment. Moreover, when this is
additionally coupled with Eros – the Life Wish – which (for
Freud) was epitomized by sexuality, we have the truly devastatingly
potent level of activity that has brought us completely unconsciously
to our position at the top of the food chain. Thought or awareness was
not required, just frustration connected to appetite by a big, sentient
primate brain.
Jung had a somewhat more
insightful perception of the Death Wish, associating it with the
archetype of the Shadow – in a more functional/interactive model than
the organic Freudian one – as an expression of all that has been
thrust out of conscious awareness by an unaccepting and fearful
ego. For Jung, the Shadow was, and is, something that can be
constructively reassimilated into conscious perception, depriving the
Death Wish of its organic power in the process, and this is a key
feature of Jungian transpersonal psychology. This is not to say that
the reassimilation process is easy or painless, because it is neither,
simply to observe that Jung saw substantial hope in the human condition,
a condition about which Freud was clearly dubious, as evidenced in his
final work, Society and Its Discontents. Freud may well have
been correct in his contentions regarding the ultimate futility of our
existence, but without hope life becomes Hell. In focusing his
psychology in the higher four Chakras – as presented in his lecture
series The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga (and many other
works) – Jung made the case for a hopeful outcome to human events and
behavior, postulating that higher comprehension (i.e. Enlightenment) can
actually change the total human organism and condition forever
and for the better through realization and individuation.
Most spiritual cosmologies
postulate a dichotomy of light vs. darkness as an integral portion of
their theories of existence, with a variety of different titles given to
the supreme representatives of both polar extremes. In all likelihood
this is a direct result of the inherent Freudian/Jungian psychological
dynamic of Eros vs. Thanatos, and the Self vs. the Shadow. I tend to
contend that Eros is the chaotic strange attractor driving the Self into
archetypal manifestation, while Thanatos similarly drives the Shadow
into manifest expression as its opposite number, in both instances from
behind the veil of our instinctive biology. In whatever terms, this
core dynamic accounts for most if not all internal and external
human conflict, and deserves special attention for that reason, if no
other. Thus, let us proceed...
The Buddha was once asked
about the meaning and purpose of his teachings and philosophy by an
interested party, who made the inquiry with particular regard to the
agonies of the human condition and their intractable nature. The
Buddha replied that he was exclusively concerned with doing what
could be done to heal our condition as much as possible in what we
would call today “real time” – i.e. the here and now – given its
fundamental negativity and fallibility. Freud would have said that
the elements of Jungian transpersonal psychology were the results of
psychotic reactions – something suggested by the statement of Jung
himself upon leaving active psychiatric practice “I feel that I am
threatened by a psychosis, and must withdraw”. And withdraw he did,
for many years, during which time he produced one of the most important
journals of psychiatry, his famous Red Book, subsequently guarded
for decades by his descendents as too sensitive to be made available to
even the psychiatric establishment. Until its recent release for
publication, only a select handful of the most dedicated Jungian
scholars had even been permitted to view the manuscript in its
locked vault in a Vienna bank, but the recent decision of a key Jung
heir to relent in the matter and permit a limited printing of
photographed reproductions of the manuscript pages has now placed this
remarkable volume in the public’s hands at last. The result of all
that Jung experienced and realized during his turmoil is chronologically
recorded in The Red Book, along with his stunning color drawings
and paintings of the visions he experienced during this period, the
eventual outcome of all of this being Jungian transpersonal depth
psychology.
Was Jung really psychotic,
particularly a religious psychotic, with messianic delusions and
suffering parareligious hallucinations? I have my own copy of The
Red Book, and, frankly, much of the (translated) content
seems to support this contention, as do the pictorial additions, however
beautiful they are. Jung was evidently plunged into deep mental
distress upon the occasion of the death of his Protestant minister
father – such events have been known in the case of a particularly
severe upbringing (such a Jung’s was) to throw open the doors of
hitherto repressed emotions concerning the departed parent – and this
was apparently the case here. The unique point to be made in this
instance was that Jung was a scientist above all, and
scientifically recorded his progress through the Dark Night of his Soul
in meticulous and absolutely candid detail in The Red Book. It
is, after all, a very intimate look at the innermost workings of an
ingenious, if wounded, mind, and I am not surprised that the Jung family
was so reluctant to see it made public. Yet I am glad beyond measure
they did, because Jung’s journey in The Red Book is a supreme
statement of hope for humanity.
Was Jung psychotic at the
time of the writing of The Red Book? Well, he appears to have
successfully passed through a lengthy more or less psychotic reaction,
and emerged healed at the distil end with a mind integrated in
higher consciousness, and the realization that human mental symbols are
more real than sensory experience.
There is a relationship
between the Self and the Shadow in Jung’s system – one that extends
beyond Freud’s theories of Eros and Thanatos, and that refers back to
the Buddha’s observation that he was concerned with healing the
inherently dark and flawed human condition of his time (and remaining
the case in our time today, as well). What is the connection between
these two? I have come to the conclusion that it is the Kundalini
Energy – i.e. the fundamental life force identified by Freud as the
libido.
In fact, this force – which I
will continue to term libido, as did Freud and Jung, out of deference to
my preferred scientific model of consciousness – is not particularly
well understood to this day, either by therapists, or Kundalini Yoga (or
any other Yoga) practitioners, or by many working in the Mysteries.
It is so deeply buried behind the biological veil of chaos mentioned in
a preceding paragraph, lying at the very root of human (and perhaps all
other) consciousness, that, like other chaotic strange attractors, it
can only be inferred as a phenomenon from its observable results, and
many of these (e.g. the Chakras) are not directly observable
either. If we rely on observable human behavior, then the effect of the
Kundalini/libido becomes manifest in sexual interest and activity with
the onset of adolescence, Freudian theories of “infantile sexuality”
notwithstanding – these latter being the subjects of too much debate,
controversy, and interpretation to be regarded as reliable. But, no
one doubts the emergence of sexual interest in adolescence – the
direct evidence of it in human conduct in both sexes is overwhelming.
And with the emergence of sexuality, comes a great upsurge in both
internal and external stress and conflict, as the drive to seek a
partner in the face of both personal inhibition and social competition
moves closer to the forefront of personal awareness.
It is perhaps Tantric Theory
that has the most functional explanation of the action of the Kundalini,
and, with it, the libido. The Tantric system holds that this force
lies dormant initially in the first Chakra, the survival center, until
it is awakened by something – if nothing else, adolescence – at
which time it moves into, and activates, the next stage of
consciousness, Chakra Two – the sexual and reproductive center. Most
of the impulses experienced initially in this center are focused in what
Tantric Yoga refers to as Left Hand practice – direct expression
of sexual interest in, or with, a partner, customarily to orgasm. For
the Yogi, this is also where the Path of the Kundalini diverges in the
other possible direction – the Right Hand practice of inner,
symbolic spiritual experience. Freud’s possible knowledge of this
phenomenon may have been what caused him to postulate that all
religion was sublimated sexuality, but this is the clear choice in
Eastern Tantra – direct, external expression vs. subtle, internal
expression. The origin of this force conceived of as residing in the
First Chakra, very near the Sacrum (or Sacred Place in
approximate translation) at the base of the spine is quite significant,
because this is the foundation of the skeletal structure of the
organism, and the skeleton is the most important part of the body –
without it, there would be no body, and no senses, and no ego to
perceive and organize them into what we subsequently experience as
life.
The symbolic image associated
with the Kundalini is that of a “coiled serpent”, implying a potential
force having a fundamentally biological identity, awaiting release or
activation. This image carries with it another, even more deeply
rooted implication – the serpent is one of the oldest life forms on
Earth, perhaps the oldest organized biological structure if the
oceanic tubular life forms are considered. The essential form of the
serpent is: a mouth at one end, a digestive canal in the middle, and an
anus and tail at the other, with the whole structure supported by a
spinal column (once again: no skeleton, no organism, no life). The
associated consciousness is of the most rudimentary sort – that of the
reptilian mind, having primarily only the tendencies to, first,
eat and, (a distant) second, to breed. With the possible
exception of the arthropodic (insect) mind – and no one is convinced
that this level of separate consciousness exists – the reptilian mind is
the first, most ancient vibration of consciousness evident on Earth.
This is the biological origin of the libido, and, just as the
serpent on land or at sea undulates to accomplish movement, so
this vibration undulates at a very low frequency at the baseline of
almost all zoological life, well beyond conscious perception and
observation in most cases. I have contacted this pulsation on a few
rare occasions in connection with certain forms of deep meditation and
felt its power as the carrier of life and consciousness there – but, as
is the case with many meditative experiences, it defies verbal or
written description – it is as though one has traveled beyond the
beginning of time and space to experience the infinite, and that
infinite has the Kundalini/libido vibration. This vibration even
underlies the Self in the region of primordial chaos beyond residing
beyond everything.
Why is it in our nature to
destroy ourselves? Because, beyond even the biological foundation of
life, destruction is the universal mechanism of change and
renewal in this universe, created as it was from the original, and
unimaginably violent, explosion of the “Big Bang”. The carrier of
this destructive potential on living Earth is the Kundalini
Energy/libido. Every act of creation on Earth necessitates an act of
destruction to accompany it to maintain the Cosmic Balance of forces
present in the universe, and the Spiritual Balance of consciousness
referred to in this series of essays. Thus it is that we cannot
destroy destruction, only transmute it through the Jungian
realization process into a balanced form integrated into the total
mind. This particularly applies to the Shadow as the primary
archetype and Gatekeeper of the collective unconscious – this symbolic
destructive energy must be realized and reintegrated into the
total mind to make much additional progress along the path of
individuation (i.e. spiritual development) of the total mind, leading
ultimately to the Self through total Self Realization.
Much discussion has been made
in these pages regarding the fundamentally negative character of the
Freudian ego as a neurological structure in the total mind, and it is
vexatious, having a persistent tendency to control and manipulate.
But, it is the personal and collective, archetypal power of the Shadow
that provides the driving force to sustain the ego in its negativity –
without this power active in the total mind, the ego becomes what it was
meant to be – merely the custodian of conscious awareness, not its
dictator. Is there a Devil – a malevolent, manipulative Lucifer – at
work in human affairs and the human condition? I say to you that if
we do not 1) release our personal subconscious trauma through some
kind of therapy, spiritual or otherwise, and 2) additionally confront
and realize the residual collective Jungian Shadow that may have
survived beyond the therapeutic process, we will carry the Devil inside
us forever, and it will wreak havoc in the world around and within
us! Even if life and the cosmos is eternally violent, turbulent, and
unstable we can attain this much inner peace in this way – this
is what the Buddha meant by Enlightenment, and healing what could be
healed in the human condition. The Adversary is the ignorant,
unenlightened aspect of humanity – we are all the Adversary
without the grace of Enlightenment – and until that grace has been
attained so will we be. There simply is no other method of resolving
human darkness than to turn and face our pain personally as individuals
and collectively as a sentient race.
Moreover, to the extent that
we remain grounded in physicality at the expense of spirituality – and
this condition of consciousness is more or less inevitable as the price
of the flesh – we remain the slaves of the lower mind and its animal
passions. As was noted in the latest essay of this series, The
Balance, a concerted, ongoing effort must be made on the three
fronts specified – study of the Mysteries of perception,
meditation directed toward Self Realization, and selfless service
to the other struggling, sentient beings (human and otherwise) on Earth
undertaken in the here and now. The sad fact of the matter is
that the Karmic card deck is stacked against us while alive, and if we
are not consistently moving foreword in our spiritual growth, we are
moving backward – there is no middle ground, and very little rest.
Oh, harsh is the Path of Enlightenment leading to liberation of
consciousness from the sensory illusion! There’s no
easy way to be free!, and this is nowhere more true than
in the quest for spiritual freedom. Yes, my friends, we are all
the Adversary of that freedom by virtue of our residence in the body,
and when this is finally understood with clarity, the only choices are
to grovel before the alter of desire or stand up and walk away from the
fallen trinity of the body, senses, and ego toward the humble light of
compassion.
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2010, by Alan Schneider)
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