Wisdom Notes

Orientations

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The practice of the spiritual life generates confusion. One traditional way of handling this conflict is to seek the protection of an authoritarian organisation, for example the mendicant preacher is supported by a religious church.

However, the seeker who travels alone into his own mind develops a different understanding of such conflict. The seeker in his aloneness is forced to develop a higher level of idealism in order to surmount the conflict. The seeker who separates himself from tradition has to find his own sign-posts and landmarks as he attempts to understand spiritual reality. I represent my understanding in the concept of the ‘three goals’.

Three Goals

Within a perspective of a spiritual ethics there are three main levels of confusion, which give rise to three radically different conceptions of spiritual reality. In order of progression these conceptions lead to three desirable goals.

The Attainment of Faith
For the believer, God is personalised and needs to be perfect. Only a personalised and perfect God will reward the seeker.

The Attainment of pure Love, divine Love
Now God needs to be good. Only a good God will love the seeker.

The Attainment of Equanimity
A more realistic idea of God is accepted. God is beyond perfection, goodness and personality. The seeker attempts to balance his will under the control of his intellectual understanding, instead of using emotion to direct his will.

The seeker focuses on God, or a deified teacher, as the object of his ideals, and attributes his results to one or the other. But this is not always accurate. There is an intermediary between person and God, and this is the higher self. It is the person's higher self which is responsible for many of the inspiring (and even distressing) effects of the spiritual life. Therefore it is necessary to re-classify these three attainments in order to clarify what is actually happening with them. Once confusion is removed, then they appear in a different light.

The Higher Self versus the Soul

In the evolution of each person, over many lifetimes, there are three levels of relationships, each of which produces a distinctive orientation towards reality (or the person's concept of reality).

The first is that of his relationship to other people and to his own idealised ego.
Then there is the relationship to his own higher self.
And finally there is the relationship to God.

I use the term higher self  to denote the spiritual spark within each person. In old literature it is referred to as the soul, but this terminology is confused, since in old writings there is no concept of ‘ego’. In modern times the issue about soul is that the concept of ‘ego’ changes depending on whether the thinker likes it or dislikes it. When the ego is repudiated, it seems to me that the bad aspects of it are assigned to the body, and the good aspects to the soul. Whence ‘body’ equals body plus bad ego, and ‘soul ’ equals soul plus good ego.

The ego uses the body as a vehicle for the expression of emotion, desire and intellect within the physical world. This enables it to learn through experience. At a higher octave of experience, the higher self uses the ego as a vehicle for the pursuit of suitable spiritual idealisms.

People have different ideas about the higher self. In my understanding, the higher self exerts a subtle influence on the immature ego, and this influence gets stronger as the ego matures and becomes more sensitive. At times the higher self can be a martinet towards the ego (this means that it can be very unpleasant to the ego). Another way of looking at this influence is that the higher self acts like a moralistic parent, using both love and hate to produce the effects on the ego that the higher self desires.

As we incarnate many times on planet Earth, we gradually accumulate some degree of wisdom. What is the purpose of wisdom?  One way of looking at wisdom is that it is primarily the ability to conceptualise a framework for applying goodness in life. We can easily theorise what we should do in any situation, but life is rarely that uncomplicated. In reality, goodness has to be learned. Our speculative beliefs about goodness have to be differentiated and concretised as particular responses to particular situations. By using the ego, the higher self learns to translate undifferentiated and nebulous feelings and attitudes about goodness into determinate concepts having clear boundaries. In this manner knowledge transposes into wisdom. Goodness becomes spiritual power.

The Silent Watcher

How is the reality of the higher self verified ?
High states of consciousness cannot be seen in their nature from the outside. Everything is understood only from within. God cannot be seen, except as a symbol (for example, as a shining white light). The higher self cannot be seen either but the individual may so attune to the higher self that he can look out at the world through its eyes. This is an experience familiar to many people in times of extreme personal crisis, when it is usually accompanied by psychological distortions such as de-realisation.

My experience of my higher self 's perception was independent of any crisis situation and therefore I had exceptional clarity of vision. I relate this event, which happened in June 1984. An alternative description often given is that the ego is observed by a Silent Watcher.

At the time I was reading about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. What did Ouspensky mean by the phrase ‘self-remembering’ ?  Did he mean that the ego could detect the presence of the higher self ?  This idea of self-remembering puzzled me. There was nothing in my experience to which I could relate the concept. So my higher self gave me that experience.

One day, on my way to work, I gradually became aware of another part of myself. There was part of me, the ego, walking to work, and another part silently watching that ego from what seemed to be a visually higher viewpoint. I could alternate between either viewpoint whenever I chose. The phenomenon lasted about three hours. At work I talked to people, did my work and all my usual routine ; yet I could be in either of these viewpoints at any time. If  I switched to the ego, then as I carried on my work I was aware of the Silent Watcher observing me. If  I switched to the Silent Watcher then I could share its perception of the ego (that is, myself ) and how that ego related to its social situations. At no time did this dual viewpoint cause any inconvenience to the ego. The Silent Watcher was neutral and did not judge whatever I did or thought, nor did it advise me in any way. A most curious phenomenon.

The higher self is absorbed in a perpetual contemplation of the ego. At the time my experience reminded me of the ancient Indian parable of the two birds on a tree. One bird was continuously active, hopping from branch to branch and tasting all the various fruits, seeking pleasures and avoiding pains. The second bird, perched on the topmost branch, remained passive, absorbed in the silent observation of the other bird.

However, the higher self can deliberately interact with the ego. The higher self can put pressure on the ego by stimulating and intensifying the moods of the ego ; this is done by directing the internal drive (the passion to pursue ideals with great intensity) into the conscious mood or into any subconscious ones. Such stimulation can maintain moods for days or weeks at a time. If the higher self intensifies moods of guilt and self-pity this action can have the effect of causing much distress to the ego. In addition, the intensity of abreaction can be controlled by the higher self, so that negative states of mind can be minimised or magnified, as the higher self desires.

The stimulation of negative states of mind causes internal conflict for the ego, and can lead to it questioning traditional ideas about spirituality. This stimulation usually indicates trials of sorrow that destiny puts the ego through ; the major trials of the spiritual life have been given names such as the dark night of the soul and the trial by fire. I have experienced both trials. In 1993 my higher self rejected me; I was plunged into the dark night. I was so distraught that I decided to pursue wisdom to find out why the dark night happened. I have been on the path of wisdom ever since. And in 2012 God made me fall off a ladder, and I broke my left heel and damaged my lower spine. The level of pain was horrific. I interpreted this trial as the trial by fire. Both trials took me many years to recover from.

Journeys

In traditional views of spirituality, the seeker begins his spiritual journey in a state of confusion and uncertainty. He is not sure of the truth of whatever knowledge he has already acquired, and does not know what is the goal of his journey. He travels from one teacher to another, hears different versions of the meaning of life, and realises that reality is interpreted differently by different traditions. He may find that different teachers have achieved different measures of spiritual ‘success’, but who is there to tell him how to evaluate and compare these achievements ?

In the majority of cases the seeker eventually adheres to a teacher and a tradition that offers help for his own particular psychological problems. That is, the seeker may form an emotional attachment to the teacher (or, if the teacher is no longer living, to a traditional portrayal of him). The emotional attachment generates psychological support for the seeker, which is what he needs.

As I understand it, this spiritual journey has three separate stages, or levels, to it.
These stages are represented by the dominance of faith, love, and equanimity respectively.

The first stage represents the journey to faith
This journey is the usual realm of religion, and it is as far as religions can go, since faith is the achievement of the ego (aided by the higher self ), and is often a product of communal and social striving.

The second stage represents the journey to mystical love
This is often called the ‘soul-search’, because the seeker has to make contact with his own higher self. This contact is solely the work of the higher self, since nothing that the ego can do can speed up the process. The seeker, although he does not know it, is searching for love, and the love that is sought is given from his higher self. The attainment of this level is sometimes called an ‘awakening’.

The third stage is the journey to equanimity, which is the journey to God
The attainment of this level is the state of enlightenment. This journey begins when the higher self switches off the love to the seeker. If the higher self maintained its love to the seeker, then that person's evolution would cease, since he /she would be under no pressure to continue it. Hence the magic state of divine love evaporates sooner or later, in order to force the seeker onward towards God.

Each of these three stages is likely to follow the same pattern of effect. The initial awe of attainment generates excitement and enthusiasm. The excitement leads to intense abreaction, so that eventually a more mature and steady state of mind is developed. Enthusiasm and seriousness are always the beginnings of any process, and sobriety and calmness are the end results of it. [¹]

The spiritual journey, whether focused on ego, higher self, or God, is sometimes accompanied by another journey: the inquiry into some aspect of reality. These are quite separate journeys or quests.

The spiritual journey  focuses on the experience of emotion and desire. During this journey, the seeker may have to plough his way through sorrows, rejections, punishments, degradations and disappointments of all kinds. If he is successful, he finds happiness and contentment.

The spiritual inquiry  focuses on aspects of truth, and so is independent of emotion and desire ; the seeker tries to remove confusion and self-deception from his mind, and to surmount the glamour of power.

This is an ideal separation of the two journeys. In actuality, the inquiry is hindered and limited by subconscious prejudices and emotional needs. Ideally, to follow an inquiry, the seeker has to step aside from pain, sorrow, and happiness, and this is rarely possible.

In these journeys, there are two golden rules :

• You only find that which you search for
  For example, if you only search for faith, then you only find faith, and not love or equanimity.

• You only understand that which you study
  Or, you only get answers to questions that you ask. Very few seekers ever study spirituality in depth, and so they are rarely able to understand, let alone explain, their personal experiences. They have to resort to traditional explanations, which are not always accurate and may in fact be very misleading.

[ The usual explanation for not being able to understand aspects of the spiritual world is to say that spirituality is ‘ineffable’. Traditional explanations can be misleading since past theorists had little or no understanding of the subconscious mind, and so could not make sense of its influence].

Purpose

In the spiritual journey there are three levels to traverse, those of ego, higher self, and God.
What is the primary purpose of each level ?  It causes a re-orientation of the seeker.

The person with little interest in spiritual affairs is orientated towards a materialistic life. The production of faith re-orientates the person towards the spiritual life, but he is still ego-centred. The process of ‘awakening’ re-orientates the person to the higher self ; and the process of enlightenment re-orientates the person to God. What the person believes has happened to him is not very important – it is the effect that is important. In my view, the first two levels are the responsibility of the higher self, so God is rarely directly involved. The person attributes to God what the higher self facilitates.

The first level focuses on faith. The person re-orientates his beliefs about reality. In effect, he creates a new model of reality. This level is the ego level. This re-orientation of belief is all that faith achieves. Everything else that the person feels, such as joy, happiness, enthusiasm, etc, is not derived from faith, but from his new beliefs about reality. The new model allows him to express all his emotions and attitudes that he thinks are part of the good life.

The second level focuses on love. The person re-orientates his attitudes about reality. Once more, a new model of reality is created, superseding that generated by belief. This is the higher-self level, and the higher self bathes the person in love. This level is that of the ‘awakening’ and represents the goal of the soul-search. As with faith, the happiness and enthusiasm that are felt are not derived from love but from the new model of reality.

The third level focuses on detachment and equanimity and peace. The person re-orientates his motivation. The difficulty here is that it is the subconscious motivation that has to change. This level is that of God and enlightenment.

At each level there are grades of achievement, depending on how permanent and stable each achievement is. I use a simple classification of devotees into beginners, mature seekers and advanced seekers. The basis of classification is how easy or hard life is felt to be. Beginners often find the new life of faith to be joyous and enthusiastic, especially if they are part of a religious congregation. Mature seekers find that it can be quite difficult to practise their spiritual ethics in the outside world. For advanced seekers, life can be extremely hard and difficult (hence the almost universal desire to stay in solitude, or only relate to other spiritual seekers).

In religious and New Age literature there is often a great deal of confusion between the levels of higher-self attainment and God-attainment. I have read biographical accounts where the seeker has thought that he /she had attained an enlightenment experience, but which, in my view, was only a higher-self experience. It can be very difficult to know whether a high spiritual experience is the result of higher-self activity or God activity on the seeker.

The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it. 

[¹].My analysis of the process of abreaction is given in the five articles on Abreaction. See home page for the list, or see the first article. [1]

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