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..:: Observation ::..
By
Alan Schneider
The primacy of the observer’s
role in the experience observed was suggested at the conclusion of
the last essay, entitled “Curiosity”. This essay expands
upon that theme with a more detailed investigation of the phenomenon of
observation. We are all well aware of the fact that we conduct
many daily observations in the course of life. We may not be so
aware of what phase of our consciousness is making those
observations, where those phases are located, or even that they
exist as discreet conditions.
The observer role most easily
identified on the Physical Plane of manifestation, the first level of
human perception, is our old nemesis, the ego – our waking
personal sense of identity. The ego is generally only too happy to
“announce” itself and its activities to us as we make our way through
external sensory reality by commanding and focusing our attention. The location of this mental mechanism has long since
been determined by psychological and neurological science to be the
prefrontal lobe of the cerebral cortex – the ego is a phenomenon of
brain morphology. Moreover, it is the result of lifelong social and
cultural conditioning. In the absence of this conditioning (i.e.
as demonstrated in the cases of feral children and aboriginal
populations), it tends to assume a much less prominent role in waking
consciousness – in fact, it may not be functionally present at all,
at least as defined by the concepts of private property and
personal space, both largely absent in many aboriginal cultures. The
ego relies for its existence on historic and concurrent dialog among
individuals, who literally use language to “talk” it into a form of
pseudo-collective social manifestation. Nonetheless, our brains have
evolved to the level of complexity required to easily form and reinforce
this social manifestation, as most of us then do – as I myself am doing
in writing this essay, for example.
Because it is the result of
physical cranial and neurological evolution on the Physical
Plane, the ego is essentially incapable of recognizing the validity of
other than physical sensory stimuli, and the logical conclusions to be
drawn from the rote observation of those stimuli. As far as the ego is
concerned, all other mental expressions are of a lesser order
than physical stimuli and the process operations concerning those
stimuli. Thoughts are important primarily as they concern functions
occurring in external reality, in fact, the “external” adjective may not
even be recognized in consciousness if the ego in question is primitive
enough. Other mental manifestations such as dreams, fantasies, psychic
visions, and all but literal, object-related emotions may well be
relegated to the “imaginary” realm of significance, or even flatly
rejected, by this type of completely unenlightened, closed ego
consciousness.
The action of the senses
continuously reinforces the presence of the ego and its conclusions
about “reality”. The mechanisms and foci of our senses seem to follow
us around as we travel through the world, and even seem to be
predominantly located “behind” our eyes, ears, and nostrils, “above” our
mouths and tongues, “inside” the region of the cranium, and extending
irregularly to the balance of the physical region we come to know as the
body. The environment of the Physical Plane tends to be a hostile and
assaultive place – we rapidly learn not to disregard the many dangerous
situations that occur there, further reinforcing the sensory condition
known to Yoga and Tantra as Maya – the impression of a world
continuum constructed by the interaction of the ego and senses.
And certainly something is out there at the ends of our nerves
and perception – of this there can be no doubt – the question is what.
This question may very well not arise in most human consciousness, as we
struggle along for survival and social advantage. In many, perhaps
most, cases it remains a philosophical distinction for the amusement of
intellectuals, scientists, and metaphysicians.
As a member of all of the
aforementioned groups, the question of what certainly has
occurred to me, and I have pursued the enormous range of answers with a
life-long passion. This question ultimately cannot be answered by
sensory investigation, even with the support of the most sophisticated
instruments of science – it must be found by turning paradoxically away
from sensory inquiry and searching inward within the realm of
consciousness itself. With the advent of this more extensive
investigation, the nature of observation and the observer assumes a
greatly expanded context. Where the ego can be more or less reliably
placed in the cranium, all of the additional observational conditions
cannot – yet they still seem to exist, in many cases with more
finality than the ego.
How can this be? How can a
fantasy be more cohesive than a sensory experience? Well, for one
thing, it is more persistent in perception – sensory experience comes
and goes, while our fantasies are the lasting signposts of mental and
spiritual growth. It is a matter of what we choose to focus on – the
internal vs. the external. I personally spend a minimum of my waking
time transacting with the external world, doing only what is financially
and morally necessary to maintain homeostasis on a very basic level. The
balance of my time is spent in internal investigation and perception in
one or several alternative states of observation. These alternative
states can be correlated to the Yogic and Tantric Chakras of
Conscious Perception, referred to so often in these essays.
Essentially, each Chakra has
its corresponding “observer” of experience. As we have already noted,
the observer of the Physical Plane is the ego, and this is also the
observer of the First Chakra, Muladhara, concerned as it is with
physical survival and rote sensory experience. As has been noted earlier
in this essay, most people are not aware of the distinction of Muladhara
or the Physical Plane – they simply are functioning in a preconscious
trance state that they are largely unaware of – as C. G. Jung once
observed in The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, they are “not yet
born” psychologically. The birth of consciousness does not really occur
until one begins perceiving in Svadhisthana, the Second Chakra,
analogous to the Freudian subconscious, the Id. This is a
perilous birth process, because it is here that the Kundalini Energy,
the driver of all consciousness, is first differentiated, and
this can consume the unprepared observer of this realm with
psychoses, severe psychosomatic reactions, and even death – Hindu
author Gopi Krishna provides a chilling account of the potentially
devastating effects of the Kundalini in his insightful book, Living
With Kundalini. The observer function in this case is the
pre-formed, or barely formed, infantile ego, to whom the emergent
Kundalini is a ferocious, overpowering libidinal force. The world of the
infant is a frequently terrifying place, both internally and externally,
in large part because it does not yet know the difference between inside
and outside, and this is the frame of mind that the initial observations
of Svadhisthana take place in. Whether in therapy or maturation, this
delicate consciousness must be nurtured and guided until it develops
enough strength to assimilate and begin to work constructively with the
Kundalini as the reality at this level of perception. Anyone who doubts
that this is a mental region prone to lasting trauma need only observe
the media fixation with ignorant sex and garish violence to see the
enormous amount of cultural evidence to the contrary. We are born
in Svadhisthana, and it is a violent, dangerous, and difficult birth
that leaves its mark on us more often than not.
Following the passage
through Svadhisthana, the Third Chakra, Manipura, is
encountered. The observer at this stage is the Emotional Mind, driven
by the increasingly ascendant Kundalini, and typified by adolescent
observations, whether developmentally or psychologically. As anyone
who has taken the least time and trouble to study adolescence can tell
us, the hormonally exacerbated emotions of this stage represent yet
another level of violent, turbulent personal upheaval for the individual
psyche. The element associated with Manipura is fire, symbolic
of both passion and rage, and the mind functioning in this condition
will experience plenty of both. This turbulence will persist until the
emerging self is socially tempered enough – i.e. socialized in
some system of acculturation – to have acquired the initial
behavioral skill set of adulthood. This may well be only a very basic
skill set that is never elaborated upon – witness the legions of
alcohol-infatuated sports fanatics and soap-opera-obsessed housewives of
today’s world – but at least the storms of Manipura have been passed
through in some fashion. Again, it is a perilous and dangerous passage,
one with its own unique set of casualties and traumas.
If one succeeds in carrying
an intact consciousness through Manipura, the possibility is presented
of entering Anahata, the Fourth, or Heart, Chakra. The observer
at this level of consciousness is the Soul or Hindu Atman,
and the nature of observation shifts radically from sensory/motor
assessment to spiritual/intuitive assessment. Anahata is the
center of moral consciousness, and requires the sacrifice of selfish
personal motivation for the selfless and universal service, support, and
understanding of others as its price of entry. Needless to say, this is
a price that most are not willing to pay in any sense other than lip
service. This is indicative of the great gulf between Manipura and
Anahata, one that requires a mental Leap of Faith into the
materially intangible to cross. The ego is literally not there
in Anahata, but the Higher Self, the Soul, is, as distinguished
by the presence of compassion. Most of the world’s great
religions, and even the “lesser” spiritual systems, agree that the Soul
is the purpose of physical and perceptual manifestation, and originates
itself at even higher levels of “observation”.
The Soul is subject to
spiritual evolution through the influence of Karma and Dharma. Karma is
the spiritual “roadmap” (or perhaps obstacle course would be a
better characterization) assigned to the Soul by the Logos upon
incarnation on the Physical Plane. As the Soul negotiates this series
of spiritual lessons to be assimilated, and does so successfully,
Dharma is achieved in the accurate perception of the higher meaning and
purpose of living as represented by the next Chakras in the sequence –
Vishuddha, Chakra Five, the Throat Chakra, Ajna, the Brow
Chakra (or Third Eye) Chakra Six, and Sahasrara, the Crown
Chakra, Chakra Seven. At each of these successive levels of observation,
the nature of both the observer and the observed radically shifts
again, as more and more sublime perception of consciousness
through consciousness becomes possible.
In the case of Vishuddha, the
vibrational nature of Higher Conscious perception is
demonstrated, as exemplified by the chanting and singing of spiritual
expressions known as Mantras. The Mantra is designed by one who
has intimate knowledge of the Higher Conscious states to mirror, or
invoke, those states in the consciousness of the practitioner. The
well known chant of OM, the Primary Mantra, is a good case in
point, and there are hundreds of other Mantras as well, each
custom-tailored to produce a specific spiritual result, thus elevating
conscious perception and observation to yet higher levels. At
the level of Vishuddha, the observer form is passing from the Soul to
into the Buddha Mind – the more intuitively defined and
responsive mode of perception than Soul-consciousness alone
demonstrates. This process will continue in Ajna, as the Buddha Mind
transforms into the Monad, the highest differentiated
observational mode, characterized by the “observation” of the Divine
Light radiating from Sahasrara by the Kundalini itself as the direct
observer, and occurring in the Third Eye. This is the “All-Seeing
Eye” that achieves total intuitive perception both internally and
externally, often simultaneously. But even this level of
perception is still subject-object differentiated into an observer – the
Monad – and observed – the Logos, existing in Sahasrara, Chakra Seven,
the highest level of manifestation and observation attainable.
At the level of the of the
Monad, the vibration of the Kundalini Energy has become an intense flood
of light and sound that expresses OM on every conceivable level
except one – Sahasrara. At this final level the observer and the
observed fuse into The One, as the Kundalini Shakti
– the Divine Female energy – merges with Shiva, the Divine Male
energy, to form the Supreme Absolute Truth of Consciousness. The Hindu
term for this Supreme state of Being is Samadhi, the ultimate
bliss of non-dual perception in and of God as The
One Without a Second. At this level, the female Kundalini has
completed her spiritual journey, and we are back in the womb of the
Great Presence, residing in utter peace and harmony with all of Creation
as the nature of our observation.
So
it is that there are at least seven principal modes of
observation, and there may be many others as well. I have heard that
there are as many as three hundred and sixty Chakras present in
the individual human perceptual system, with each one presumed to have
its own unique observational traits! Kundalini theory further
stipulates that the Lotus of Sahasrara – all of the Chakras are
traditionally portrayed as Lotuses in Yoga practice – has one
thousand “petals”, each one representing an aspect of the Divine
Manifestation, and observable from the Monad in that sense. I
once perceived the infinite expanse of the Akasha, God’s “memory
beyond time”, while in Astral trance, and realized that the Totality of
the Supreme Absolute Truth was completely beyond any form of
ego-based perception or interpretation, that my ego could even not
exist there as an observational expression, and simply let my
perception of the Physical Plane go, then and there. This
is the essence of spiritual growth – we are required to release the
elements of one perceptual level in exchange for the next, higher, more
complete, expression of the Truth. I realized in perceiving the Akasha
that the spiritual adventure never can be exhausted. That’s the
great thing about the Mysteries – there’s always another one waiting to
delight the observer, right around the corner!
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2009, by Alan Schneider)
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