Almaas demonstrates (1) how and why these ego-constructions tend to cut us off from our more essential states of presence, and (2) how essence can come to
“shine through” these limiting structures, absorbing and integrating them into itself.
This book was written in English, but is in a sense a translation from a body of experience which submits to verbal description less readily than do most categories of human experience, and which “loses more in the translation.” Not only the nonlinearity of the subject matter, which is true of any human experience, but the nature of the states of Being described here, make unusual demands on the reader to hold in abeyance the desire for intellectual resolution. One must proceed through a large number of steps in this book to see the whole picture at once, and these steps are closely interrelated. There are at least two books here: a relatively simple book dealing with the spiritual concerns of human life from the perspective of the question of individuation, and a more technical discussion, mainly in terms of object relations theory, of the psychological phenomena involved in the pursuit of a deep understanding of the nature of one’s true being.
A second source, then, of Almaas’ contribution is that quality of mind constituted by objectivity, openness to the unknown, and curiosity. This quality which he refers to as the Diamond Mind operates sufficiently powerfully to penetrate and finally “transcend” the conceptual systems within which books on both spiritual realization and psychology are generally written. This is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that a new understanding is reached which extends the limits of each of these subjects; and a curse in that from the point of view of either domain of discourse, this book can be difficult to place in context.
(This metaphor is actually not accidental; qualities similar to what Almaas calls the “essential aspects” are studied in esoteric Judaism under the category of angelology.) For the psychologist reading this material the concept of essential aspects might seem esoteric; I would point out here that to a political scientist, for instance, concerned with the actions of government leaders, explanations involving such concepts as the Oedipus complex might seem equally esoteric.
The NATURE of the PEARL BEYOND PRICE
The Personal Essence
Chapter One The Man of Spirit and the Man of the World
We want to explore the potential of being human. What is the extent of this potential? What is a truly mature and complete human being like? How will he and she experience themselves and the world, and what kind of lives will they lead?
The personal life is the core of most human activities; what is called a public life is still a personal life, related to the person, and lived for persons. In our exploration we will examine in a new light the conviction that living a personal life centered around the person is its own value and end. Contrasted to the perspective of the man of the world is the view of what we will call “the man of spirit,” which considers a higher spiritual reality to be the true and proper center of real human life.
One teacher after another, one great religion after another, one moral philosophy after another, extol the life of spirit—in which personal life is subordinated to a higher spiritual reality—as the highest and most refined, most fulfilled and only true life for man. Humanity is exhorted to move towards making the personal life be governed by spiritual values, and towards embracing the universal and impersonal truths, which are beyond self and personality. Thus, the main difference between the perspective of the man of the world and that of the man of spirit is that the first considers the separate personal self to be the center of life, and personal life to be its own value and end, while the latter makes a higher reality to be the center of life, and believes that the personal life must be subordinated in relationship to such a higher reality. In Luke 9:23 Christ states: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.” In Islam, the Koran asserts a similar stance. For example, in the following passage, the statement is that dying for God is the right course, implying that the personal life in this world is not as important: And do not speak of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead; nay (they are) alive, but you do not perceive. Who, when a misfortune befalls them, say: Surely we are Allah’s, and to him we shall surely return. Those are they on whom are blessings and mercy from their Lord, and those are the followers of the right course. The Far Eastern spiritual traditions go even farther than the prophetic tradition in denying the importance of the personal life. In the Dhammapada, a major Buddhist canon, the Buddha states: No one is higher than him, who will not be deceived, who knows the essence, who has abandoned desire, renounced the world, and lives untouched by the flow of time. [Translated by P. Lal, The Dhammapada, p. 72] Nevertheless, the life of the man of the world consists largely of the fulfillment of personal desires. The personal self is the sense of being a separate entity.
only valued; its real existence as an entity is taken for granted by virtually everyone. This personal self has been the focus of study
Western psychology shares the common cultural perspective that the self is and must be the central axis of life. Its view regarding the personal self can be seen as the expression and crystallization of the view of the man of the world cast in scientific language. It considers mental health the expression of a strong, cohesive personal self with a separate sense of identity.
The man of spirit not only subordinates the self to a higher reality, but sometimes goes further to deny its fundamental existence. The highest realization in Buddhism, for instance, is that ultimately there are no separate, independent and intrinsically existing persons. The Buddha repeatedly stated this as in the following passage from the Diamond Sutra: “It is because no Bodhisattva who is a real Bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being or a separated individuality.” [Translated by A. F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam, The Diamond Sutra and The Sutra of Hui Neng, p. 26]
The contradiction between the two perspectives is not only an appearance; it is quite real and has far-reaching consequences for human life and for the course of human evolution. They are divergent paths, each with its own values, aims and consequences. One might be tempted to believe that the spiritual teachings are simply the opinions or beliefs of certain individuals or religious systems, which are not meant to apply to all people. But this is far from the truth. All major spiritual teachings stress impersonality, universality, selflessness, egolessness and the denigration of the personal. It is true that the various traditions differ in their emphasis and outlook; but they all extol selflessness, egolessness and the surrender of personal life to higher
reality. The Far Eastern traditions generally see the ultimate human nature as impersonal and universal. Enlightenment, and hence, liberation and fulfillment are seen to be the consequence of realizing that the individual is a mistaken idea and that his true nature is the ultimate truth, whether that is seen as God (Hinduism), Tao (Taoism) or the Void (Buddhism). The prophetic religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) consider the human being an individual soul who needs to live a life of surrender to God’s will, egolessness, selflessness and virtue. Reward is understood to come in the afterlife. Jesus Christ, in his Sermon on the Mount, makes this clear: Happy are you when men insult you and mistreat you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers. Rejoice and be glad, because a great reward is kept for you in heaven. [The American Bible Society, The New Testament, p. 9] However, the mystical side of the prophetic tradition tends to be closer to the Far Eastern view of the ultimate nonexistence of the person. Mystical Christianity conceives of God as the ultimate ground and being of the individual, as the following text clearly indicates: He is your being and in him, you are what you are, not only because he is the cause and being of all that exists, but because he is your cause and the deep center of your being… And thus, also, he is one in all things and all things are one in him. For I repeat: all things exist in him; he is the being of all. [Edited by William Johnston, The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 150]
As we see, these teachings are unanimous in their evaluation of personal life as less important than some “higher” realm. What does this mean? Does it mean that the majority of humankind are completely astray, are so wrong and ignorant and completely out of touch with their nature that they go in the exact opposite direction from where they should be heading? Many people, of course, believe just that: that the life of the world is antithetical to the life of spirit and truth. In fact, most of the great teachers have stressed that the life of the world is not the religious or the true life. But let us not hasten to conclusions. It is possible, of course, that the majority of humankind are astray, are on the wrong path to human fulfillment. However, this does not explain why they are all on the same path! Why is it that all humans are pursuing personal happiness, wanting to lead a personal life where self and individuality are valued and cherished? In other words, if the ultimate goal of the human being is the universal impersonal truths of Spirit, why is it that all humans end up with an ego, with a self and a personality? Can it be just a mistake, a colossal mistake? And if it is, then why is it made so universally? In this book, our interest is to understand the nature of the human being in a comprehensive way, a way that makes sense of the normal experience of most individuals while retaining the deepest insights into human nature, as seen in the most profound spiritual discoveries of mankind.
More specifically, we will contrast the experience of most people that they are separate individuals, entities in their own right, with the contention of many spiritual traditions that the ultimate reality is a state of oneness of being and unity of existence, and explore the relationship between the two.
These teachings make it very clear that to live a true and spiritual life is to abandon self completely. In tact, many teachings assert that there is no self in any real way. The Buddhist teachings, especially, emphasize this “no self” perspective. The Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism, writes: As I may as well emphasize again, the teachings of no-self-soul is upheld by all schools of Buddhist thought since all alike recognize the atman-view that is adhering to belief in some permanent soul-entity, as the root of all trouble. [The XIVth Dalai Lama, The Opening of the Wisdom Eye, p. 94] Others might jump to the conclusion that maybe it is possible to live a selfless personal life; that is, to be a human person, living a true personal life of work, love and knowledge, but without having a self. But even this hope is dashed when we inquire deeply into some of the profoundest teachings. Selflessness means egolessness, which means absence of the person. The late Nisargadatta Maharaj, one of the most profound Hindu Vedanta teachers in India, puts it this way: There is no such thing as a person. There are only restrictions and limitations. The sum total of these defines the person… The person merely
appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. [Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That, p. 204] These teachings unequivocally state that the universal truth or the impersonal spirit is just that; there is no self and no person. They are not saying necessarily that personal life is bad; what they are stating is something much more fundamental. The assertion is that there is no person or self, which negates the existence of a person who can have a personal life. According to this perspective a personal life, i.e., the life of a person, is false; it is unreal, only an illusion. Enlightenment then is seen as simply seeing through this illusion.
There are, of course, those who believe in the “true self” or the eternal soul. But the true self is not taken usually to be personal. It is seen as infinite and boundless and impersonal. It is certainly not the personal self of the man of the world. In the case of the various teachings of Hinduism, self is equated with the Impersonal Spirit. The self is usually referred to as the “atman,” and the impersonal spirit as the “Brahman.”
A common resolution of the contradiction between the perspective of the man of the world and the man of spirit that many people complacently live with is that human beings are persons who can sometimes experience eternity, universality and impersonal spirit. These people usually take the view that they are the ego which sometimes surrenders to a larger or more universal reality. But according to the teachers who say that the true reality is impersonal and devoid of any hint of ego or personality, we are the impersonal and universal spirit or Being, always and forever. Sometimes we take ourselves to be a person or an ego, but this is a transitory mistake. Some people accept these profound teachings as true, but, unable to resolve this contradiction, continue to live a personal life, which they believe is somehow false,
the hope of one day transcending it into the universal impersonal realm. And some actually do transcend the person and the personal life, or so they say. This, however, does not resolve or eliminate the contradiction. Living the impersonal life of universal truth is clearly possible, as has been demonstrated by some of the above quoted teachers. But this does not explain away the question of ego, the pursuit of personal happiness and the belief in personal life. Transcending a situation is not necessarily the same as resolving it. We see that it is possible to live a transcendent, impersonal and universal life. But what does this mean about being a human being? What is a human life then, from this perspective? Is it just a way station, a meaningless gap full of suffering between our origin as the absolute reality and the final realization of the same reality? This is exactly the import of many of the teachings. But what an absurdity to think that we come from an absolute reality of impersonal truth, live a personal human life of suffering, and then go back to the selfsame absolute reality. Of course, in the state of absolute impersonal transcendence there is no concern and no question about the contradiction. The mind is silent. There is stupendous peace and wordless contentment. This is taken to be the answer by some teachers; there is no question, so no answer is needed. Still, this is not a true…
We put our inquiry so far in the form of a question: is it possible to understand ego and personality in a way that gives a meaning to the orientation of most of humankind,…
is not necessarily visible from the transcendent and impersonal state. We will show that ego is a reflection of a truth, an attempt to imitate an absolute and eternal reality. In fact, we will explore how ego is…
We will see that by understanding ego, rather than transcending it, we can understand and actualize the reality of what it is to be a human being. Only through this understanding…
The true human being, what we will call the Personal Essence, is the resolution of the contradiction. It is the integration of both points of view. From our point of view, the man of spirit has half the truth, and the man of the world has the other…
The Personal Essence, which is the subject of this book, is neither “spiritual” nor “worldly.” It is the true human being, the personal presence that is…
This means that in fact most of humankind are not astray in the usual sense of the word, but are after something real and precious. The difficulty lies in the…
The qualities of the Personal Essence are those of fullness, autonomy, competence, respect, dignity, integrity, excellence, maturity, harmony and completeness, among others. There is very little knowledge and guidance in the modern world about how to develop into such a true human being. The result is that most of us…
One need not go the usual spiritual route of abandoning one’s personal life and the values of that life, but rather one must look deeply into those values and explore…
The reason that realizing the life of the Personal Essence is a more accessible path for human beings than the realization of the absolute universal reality is that the ego is a reflection of the Personal Essence, and hence ego can be used as a stepping stone towards it. The reason the realization of the Personal Essence makes entrance into the universal and impersonal realms much easier is that these realms are part of the natural and spontaneous development of the Personal Essence.
Writing about Sri Aurobindo and his work, one of his students says: It is not enough for us to find our individual centre without the totality of the world, or the totality of the world without the individual, and yet less to find the supreme Peace if it dissolves the world and the individual—“I do not want to be sugar,” exclaimed the great Ramakrishna, “I want to eat sugar!” And without the individual what meaning would all the marvelous realizations have for us, for we are no longer then. [Satprem, Sri Aurobindo, or The Adventure of Consciousness, p. 177]
The presence of ego points to the reality of the Personal Essence, just as the existence of false gold indicates the existence of true gold.
Chapter Two Being and Ego
Some teachings see ego in terms of its activity, which is primarily desire for future pleasure. This desire for pleasure, which entails avoidance of pain, involves rejecting the present situation and hoping for a better one. The cycle of ego activity is thus rejection, hope and desire; it is based on memories of past experience, and is directed towards the future. Thus ego, which here is an activity which resists the present moment, is clearly antithetical to the perception of the nature of reality, which involves being in the moment. Ego then is seen as antithetical to Being, and therefore for Being, which is the Supreme Reality, to be perceived and lived, ego activity must cease.
Other perspectives see ego as the belief in a self or entity. The activity of ego is taken to be the activity of a person—an entity—who has desires and hopes. So here ego is seen as taking oneself to be a person, separate from the rest of the universe, who was born to a set of parents, who was a child, who grew up, in time, to his present status of an adult who has his hopes, desires and goals. The belief that this separate individuality is one’s identity, one’s self, is seen by some teachings as the main barrier to the ultimate reality, which is an impersonal and universal Being, or alternately the Void. Enlightenment then is the insight that one is not really this separate individual, a realization which is equivalent to the state of unqualified Being, or nonconceptual Reality.
Idries Shah states that: The Commanding Self is the origin of the individual controlled by a composite consciousness, which is a mixture of hopes and fears, of training and imagination, of emotional and other factors, which make up the person in his or her “normal” state, as one would ordinarily call it. [Idries Shah, A Perfumed Scorpion, p. 83]
Three points stand out in this statement: 1. There is no sense of a separate individual at the beginning of the life of the human being. 2. The psychological birth of the individual is a psychological achievement resulting from the separation-individuation process, in the first three years of life. 3. This development happens in the relationship to the mothering person, the primary love object; i.e., it is within the context of an object relation. The outcome of the separation-individuation process is not consolidated until the fourth subphase of this process: From the point of view of the separation-individuation process, the main task of the fourth subphase is twofold: (1) the achievement of a definite, in certain aspects lifelong, individuality, and (2) the attainment of a certain degree of object constancy. [Ibid., p. 109] Object constancy means, among other things, the capacity to see the other, in this case the mothering person, as a separate person in her own right. Thus the child is experiencing himself as an autonomous person interacting with another autonomous person. Object relations theory has established that this achievement is the result of certain intrapsychic processes; i.e., it is the result of the building of certain psychic structures through a mental process. Mahler writes about the main processes and structures: The establishment of affective (emotional) object constancy (Hartmann, 1952) depends upon the gradual internalization of a constant, positively cathected, inner image of the mother. This, to begin with, permits the child to function separately (in familiar surroundings, for example in our toddler room) despite moderate degrees of tension (longing) and discomfort. Emotional object constancy will, of course, be based in the first place on the cognitive achievement of the permanent object, but all other aspects of the child’s personality development participate in the evolution as well (see McDevitt, 1972). The last subphase (roughly the third year of life) is an extremely important intra-psychic developmental period, in the course of which a stable sense of entity (self boundaries) is attained. [Ibid., pp. 109–110]
The sense of an individual self depends primarily on the establishment of a well-integrated self-image. The two primary inner structures established in the process of ego development are the self-image and the mother-image: In the fourth open-ended subphase, both inner structures—libidinal object constancy as well as a unified self-image based on true ego identifications—should have their inception. [Ibid., p. 118]
The achievement of a separate individuality depends on two conditions: 1. The establishment of a cohesive self-image. In fact, the sense of being an individual is nothing but taking oneself to be this self-image. In other words, the individual is a mental structure, a construct in the mind. Before this construct is developed, according to object relations theory, there is no sense of being a person. 2. The internalization of a positively regarded image of the mother (the “good mother”). The individual, that is the self-image, is supported psychically by the presence of the mother’s image; thus the child does not feel alone when physically separate from the mother. He feels…
These formulations of object relations theory are significant for our study in that they contradict the common belief that being a separate individual is an incontrovertible fact of life. Most of us believe that we are already persons when we are born, small and dependent…
that the sense of being an individual is not only a developmental achievement, but is a feeling that results from identifying with a certain structure in the mind, the self-image. That is, to take oneself to be a person, separate from others, with one’s own volition, is simply to identify with this construct in the mind. This self-image, this psychic structure, is nothing simple or superficial. It is complex and profound, and the identification with it is just as profound. For our purposes, however, it is crucial to remember that regardless of how completely the self-image has become part and parcel of one’s sense of self, it is nevertheless simply a construct in the mind. Isn’t this perception, that the experience of being an individual person is the feeling of identifying with a self-image, exactly what the various spiritual teachings have stressed throughout the ages? We discussed above the teachings which state that the separate individual does not exist, that it is only an illusion. They have observed that the separate individual is a construction in the mind, that is, it is only thoughts. And although object relations theory makes exactly the same observation, it is interpreted very differently. From this point of view the self-image is (or at least determines) who we are, and that is that. The individual is an intrapsychic development which determines and structures our minds, our perception and our world, and that is how we experience ourselves, period.
He states that the world the ego perceives is a “representational world,” which is not exactly the real world, and that it is constructed, just like the ego, by the integration of mental representations (images) of objects: It has to be stressed, however, that this internal world of object representations as seen in conscious, preconscious, and unconscious fantasies never reproduces the actual world of real people with whom the individual has established relationships in the past and in the present; it is at most an approximation, always strongly influenced by the very early object-images of
introjections and identifications. [Otto F. Kernberg, Object Relations Theory and…
The spiritual teachings, however, claim that it is not necessary to let the ego’s identification define ourselves, but that we can know ourselves more directly, in a much more real way. They claim in fact that identification with the construct of the self-image in the mind cuts…
ideas, images or concepts in the mind. For them, a mental construct such as the self-image is fundamentally nonexistent, is illusory. For them, the fact that the mind contains a concept of a person does not mean that there is truly a person, any more than the concept of an apple is an apple. If we take the mental construct away, there is no separate individual; these teachings say that when the mind is still, then we see that there is no such thing as a separate individual. Enlightenment does not involve simply the perception that the person is only a concept. It means that all conceptualization is ended, all images and representations in the mind, whether conscious, preconscious or unconscious, are eliminated, or at least not identified with. When this profound stillness of the mind is achieved, it is asserted, true reality is perceived, not by an entity which is a separate individual. The experience is one of unqualified Being, wordless existence, infinite and eternal. The claim of these teachings is that while the…
Usually, “being” means mere existence, and that “existence” is, like everything else, experienced conceptually. The spiritual traditions, on the other hand, use this term to refer to the actual presence of true nature which can be directly experienced. We are using the term in this latter sense. As human beings we are presence, we are being, we are actuality; we are not simply mental constructs.
The sense of oneself as a separate individual, which as we have seen depends upon the development of a cohesive self-image, can be seen as composed of memories, and in fact cannot exist without its connection to memories, to personal history. But the memory of a person is not the same as a person. The memory is of something that supposedly existed at some point in the past. This is another reason traditional teachings say that the individual or ego does not exist. A memory exists as an idea, but not as a presence independent of the mind. In other words, the separate individual has no beingness, no substance and no true existence. Our true nature is an existence which is not based on memory or on time at all. Being is eternal and timeless. We are not referring here to what people call “being in the present,” but are pointing out that we are timeless presence, that our nature is not time bound, as ego is. “Timeless” means that the sense of time is irrelevant to our true nature. “Eternal” means that there is no sense of memory or future in it. There is no concept of time, so there is no sense of present time. When the mind is still, there is just presence, just Being, unqualified by ideas or concepts of time or individuality. Thus when we cease to construct entities in the mind, we see that the ego does not exist. We then simply are. So, to believe that we are the separate individuality is to take ourselves to be something that does not truly exist, and to fail to see who we are, to fail to realize our true essence. No wonder, then, that we are dissatisfied and suffering, just as the Buddha observed. We can note here that this suffering is not a problem that can be solved therapeutically; it is not a matter of emotional conflict. Psychologists and psychotherapists deal usefully with human suffering by working on the conflicts of the personality, but from the perspective of spiritual teachings this approach clearly cannot deal with the basic problem, the root of all emotional conflicts. When the Buddha said that life is suffering, he did not mean only neurotic suffering. He was referring to the more fundamental understanding that there is bound to be suffering in the life of the ego, because one is not seeing reality correctly; one is taking oneself to be something that actually does not exist. It is a problem of mistaken identity.
For ego, each experience is personal, related to oneself. The man of the world will understandably ask: “How can there be…
Most teachers who have this perspective of absolute Being talk as if one can experience either the separate individuality of ego or the universal impersonality of the ultimate nonconceptual reality. But this view neglects the richness of the human essence and the ever-abundant realm of Being, and thus fails to communicate to the man of the world, who…
As we will see at the end of this book, this perception is needed, ultimately, for a true human life. The absolute reality of which we have been speaking is the source of the human being, and the spring of all life. But human life is lived in the manifest world, with all its differentiations, colors and richness. To truly understand human life is to know the nonconceptual reality and still live a personal life of love, work and knowledge. It is to know directly that we are the unfathomable reality, that all differentiations are conceptual, and still live in this differentiated world, appreciating its richness, variety and beauty. For human life to be complete and balanced, it must consist of the harmony of all dimensions of reality, from the ultimate non-conceptual source to the various dimensions of manifest existence. It must integrate in a harmonious whole the universe of the man of spirit and the universe of the man of the world. Otherwise there is either no life or a fake life.
In several different traditional systems and philosophies, human beings, along with the rest of creation, are seen to “come out of” or to be manifestations of “higher” realms of Being. In the actual experience of these realms there is not any sense of “higher,” but there are definite perceptions of the phenomenal realm arising from
something that can be called “nonphenomenal.” And this coming out is not a random appearance of the various physical, organic and mental phenomena, discontinuous with the other realms, but rather more a structured “unfolding.” There is a pattern to this unfolding, and it reflects the structuring of Being on the level that is called in some traditions the Divine Names, and in others qualities of Essence; in Tantric Buddhism as well as in Taoism there is an appreciation of this structuring of the qualities of creation, and in certain Indian traditions this also may be found. In his book on Sufism and Taoism, T. Izutsu states: The Perfect Man is the one whom the Absolute penetrates and whose faculties and bodily members are all permeated by the Absolute in such a way that he thereby manifests all the Perfections of the Divine Attributes and Names. [T. Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, p. 232]
The Perfect Man is the one whom the Absolute penetrates and whose faculties and bodily members are all permeated by the Absolute in such a way that he thereby manifests all the Perfections of the Divine Attributes and Names. [T. Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, p. 232]
In the West it was Plato who spoke of this level of being, referring to “Platonic forms,” as what we might think of as abstract “blueprints” for what is created in the phenomenal realm. Some traditions call this “permanent archetypes.” In this book we will sometimes use the language most common in the Sufi tradition, speaking of the different qualities of Essence (although much of the language is also unique to our work).
Our experience with many students over the years has shown that this model, used in conjunction with more Western ways of modelling human reality, is extremely useful for guiding students toward realms of experience beyond ego, since at the level the Sufis call the “latifa,” the essential aspects manifest to some extent in all human beings.
Although as we will show in some detail in this book, an identification with ego is incompatible with the complete experience of Being, and thus the apparent dichotomy between the reality of the man of spirit and the experience of the man of the world has a very real basis, it is also true that it is possible for human beings, even in the process of moving towards identification with ego as children, to be open to the realm of Essence.
Human beings are born into the realm of Being, and from the beginning manifest the true differentiated aspects of Being. This Being is never totally lost, and actually manifests in the child in predictable and supportable ways. It is true that awareness of this Being is lost in the process of the structuring of and identification with ego, but by understanding in detail this structuring, and the patterns of identification, we can actually remember in detail the process of our “forgetting.” We can remember, understand and undo this forgetting, retrieving what has been suppressed and opening the way for growing into true maturity and realization.
Thus it is possible to experience egoless beingness, to be, as a substantial presence that is not a mental construct, and still live a human, personal life, in which love, work, knowledge, creativity and accomplishment make sense, a human sense. This true existence, this presence, this being beyond time that makes sense of human and personal life, is the Personal Essence. It is the reality of which ego is only a reflection. It is the truly integrated and developed human being. This is the beautiful presence that the traditional literature of work schools calls the “pearl beyond price.” The experience of universal impersonality of ultimate reality occurs when the separate individuality is transcended, when the separate individuality is seen not to be our true self. But this is the result of transcending the personality in its totality. Something different happens when we investigate the personality’s manifestations in more detail, exploring the hidden essential truth within it. The ego is a reflection of this true element of Being, the Personal Essence, and exploring the characteristics of the reflection can lead us to the reality being reflected. By isolating and understanding the elements of the false, we can begin to approach the elements of the real.
Part Ii The Discovery Of The Personal Essence
When this attitude of allowing is learned, the student can then confront amazingly deep and terrifying material. And the process of learning this “allowing” attitude is in itself a loosening of the ego’s constraints, since as we have discussed, it is in the nature of ego to reject present reality and focus on its fears or desires.
Another factor in the ongoing process of realization is the resistance to the process, caused by many kinds of fears and illusions. Students must learn to experience their fears and attachments without acting them out in their lives; for instance, if a student is working on a level which involves a greater sense of autonomy and is feeling a desire for essential autonomy, he might suddenly decide that he should divorce his wife or quit his job; these inclinations must be explored and objectively understood if the student is to find the real autonomy he desires rather than acting out his desire on an inappropriate level.
The Personal Essence has four primary characteristics: autonomy, beingness, personalness and contact. Investigating these characteristics will allow us to contrast the Personal Essence with the personality of the ego and also with the impersonal essence or Being.
As our case histories will show (and as is discussed at length in our book The Void), these characteristics usually announce themselves to one’s consciousness through an acute feeling of their absence or lack in one’s sense of self or in one’s personal life. By following the thread of the quality that one feels is missing, given the right circumstances and the right guidance, one comes to experience the missing element, and then to recognize it as a characteristic of one’s sense of Being. Encountering this experience of personal Being, we have a precious, peaceful sense of self-recognition, sometimes of “coming home.”
Chapter Three Autonomy
The more she senses this fullness, the more it expands. The effect is that she feels a fullness of presence that is calm, peaceful, and collected. This makes her happy and contented.
Autonomy, it became clear, is simply the freedom to be. When there is personal presence of Being, then there is autonomy.
Independence, autonomy, making it on one’s own, are strong ideals in the United States, but these qualities are also coveted in most human societies. Autonomy is one of the great hallmarks of a strong ego; the stronger the ego, the more independent is its individuality. Autonomy is considered a manifestation of mature human development. Object
Thus, in terms of ego development, acquiring autonomy is the same as the achievement of the intrapsychic task of the separation-individuation process, the attainment of identity, separateness and individuality. We can see then that society’s idealization of autonomy points to the deeper significance of the desire of the man of the world for autonomy: it means to him becoming “his own person.”
The findings of object relations theory, however, show that these phenomena which are taken by society to indicate autonomy may only be skin deep. These findings identified a more basic level of autonomy, that of emotional independence, as the core of actual autonomy. Thus some individuals who may appear autonomous, because they are successful, productive people, may lack the intrapsychic achievement of independence and therefore lack a true inner core of autonomy. In these cases, it
is well known, the individual lives a life of emptiness and emotional desolation. This situation of apparent autonomy without its real emotional support is regarded as characteristic of certain character pathologies, especially those of the narcissistic personality and the borderline conditions, and sometimes even the schizoid character.
According to object relations theory, Sandy will be autonomous when she finally has a separate individuality and a stable sense of self, which allow her to pursue and enjoy her endeavors with minimal frustration. As we have seen, this would involve her establishing a well-rounded, secure self-image and also object constancy. While we agree that these developments may give her a sense of emotional autonomy, we note that the final outcome in the session involves a far deeper level of autonomy than that dealt with by object relations theory. In fact, it raises the question of whether ego autonomy is autonomy at all. Here we return to our dialogue between the man of the world and the man of spirit. In developmental psychology, emotional independence and ego autonomy are seen as the culmination of ego development.
From the perspective of the man of spirit, however, one is actually a Being independent from mind, existing outside the field of memory. From this perspective, the accomplishment of ego autonomy is ultimately a prison. In identifying with the self-image constructed through the process of ego development, we cage ourselves. How can this be autonomy, this bondage which is the primary source of human suffering?
When one does have the experience of ceasing to identify with the self-image and simply being, it is clear that the autonomy of ego is a sham, since the ego personality is perceived not only as ephemeral, a kind of surface phenomenon which is in the nature of an idea, but also as reactive, responding automatically to the world. From Being, which is felt as the true and solid reality, ego’s individuality is seen as simply a dark network composed of beliefs in the mind and patterns of tension in the body.
One must go through a very deep process of inner transformation to see the profound implications of this apparently simple understanding of ego identity. Another reason most people cognizant of object relations theory do not see its deeper, shocking implications is the fact that they are usually focused on mental disorders, and that normality and health are generally viewed in relation to pathology. Since the pathologies are in general ultimately due to the absence of complete ego autonomy, ego autonomy has come to represent health or normality.
In our work on self-realization, we do much the same thing, but rather than looking only at the cognitive and emotional aspects of the situation, we focus on the actual existential presence or absence of the state of autonomy. We consistently find that when the student experiences a state of autonomy, it is related to a sense of Being that arises just at that moment. The student then experiences a palpable presence, a state of fullness, strength, and wholeness, which makes him feel autonomous and authentically himself. The presence of fullness is usually identified as who one is, as opposed to identification with an image or emotional state. From this we see that true autonomy is simply the capacity to be the Personal Essence, one’s fullness of Being. The sense of freedom, independence, autonomy and individuation is experienced at such times as a very clear, precise and certain fact. There is no vagueness or uncertainty about autonomy when one recognizes the Personal Essence as one’s true being.
The student will then tend to resort to his habitual ways of dealing with the lack, which in the case of autonomy might be asserting his independence, which will often involve acting out or at least
strongly desiring to act out by leaving the group or leaving some other situation. In the case of Sandy it manifested as conflicts about being in the group. Dealing with this issue requires careful perception on the part of the teacher, who must see the situation for what it is in order to deal properly with the student’s desire for autonomy and thus allow him to experience the Personal Essence.
Even when the teacher understands the situation, the student might still terminate the process before completion, surrendering to the lure of “autonomy.” When this process is broken off prematurely, the individual goes off, doing things in his life which he believes are autonomous, while in reality he is only covering up a big hole, a state of deficiency which is the absence of the Personal Essence.
1. There are other reasons behind the desire to terminate, besides acting out resistance. We see in Anna’s case that independence brings about a conflict of feeling she doesn’t fit in, and also the fear that she will give up independence for the sake of a love object. This conflict between having one’s independence and having the love object or its love is a very common one, connected with issues of the rapprochement crisis which we will discuss in detail in later chapters. 2. The definiteness and certainty of the state of autonomy accompanying the experience of the Personal Essence. 3. The value, the preciousness of the Personal Essence and its attendant feelings of autonomy. People go to great lengths doing what they think will preserve this autonomy of Being. The value of the Personal Essence is experienced both in the ways it feels and in what it implies for one’s life. The fullness, completeness, strength, feel very pleasurable, even smooth and sensuous. There is a burst of joy when we realize this personal sense of Being, and when we see the implications of this freedom and autonomy for our lives.
Ironically, however, when we realize the Personal Essence, that is, when it is a permanent attainment rather than simply an experience, we no longer feel the desire for that coveted autonomy. It simply ceases to be an issue, and falls away, leaving us with no need or desire for autonomy, nor any conflicts around autonomy. We are, and in our Being we are absolutely autonomous. We are ourselves, our own person. Our qualities are completely our own, our capacities are simply part of us. We are able to act freely and autonomously, appropriate to the situation, without feeling or thinking we are autonomous. Our autonomy is now second nature, and is not qualified by our situation. We might be practically restricted from doing what we want, but nothing can stop us from being who we are. We might be literally in prison, but as our Personal Essence we are free and autonomous. We need do nothing to be autonomous; our sense of Being is our autonomy.
Chapter Four Beingness
To appreciate the autonomy of Being, and to see that ego autonomy is no more than a pale shadow of this autonomy, one must know Being. But one can know Being only by being. Short of, or in addition to, this gnosis, we can illuminate the contrast by looking more closely at ego structure and its development.
According to object relations theory, the development of ego structure through the process of separation-individuation happens primarily by means of the internalization of object relations through the formation of inner images of self and other. The “object” is generally the human love object, and an object relation is simply the relation between self and object, usually an emotional relation. “Object relations” then generally refer to the mental representation of this relation, which consists of three parts: a self-image, usually called a “self-representation”; an object-image, usually called an “object-representation”; and the emotional relation or affect between the two, such as love, anger, fear or desire. Thus ego formation occurs in the context of a relationship to a primary love object, the mothering person.
This organization of internalized object relations is the task of the separation-individuation process, which ordinarily culminates in the development of self and object constancy. According to Kernberg, the process of internalization and organization of object relations occurs through different mechanisms, depending on the stage of development. He groups them in three categories: introjection, identification and ego identity: Introjection is the earliest, most primitive, and basic level in the organization of internalization processes. It is the reproduction and fixation of an interaction with the environment by means of an organized cluster of memory traces implying at least three components: (i) the image of an object, (ii) the image of the self in interaction with that object, and (iii) the affective coloring of both the object-image and the self-image under the influence of the drive representative present at the time of the interaction. This process is a mechanism of growth of the psychic apparatus… [Otto F. Kernberg, Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis, p. 29] Then he relates this definition of introjection to the mechanism of identification: Identification is a higher-level form of introjection which can only take place when the perceptive and cognitive abilities of the child have increased to the point that it can recognize the role aspects of interpersonal interaction. [Ibid., p. 30] Thus identification is like introjection, except that the object relations internalized are on a more developed level. The object is seen as a person with a specific role, for example, the role of protecting or mothering, rather than just as a vague object that is needed. These internalized roles are expressed later in development as traits of character and personality. In other words, this internalized repertoire of roles becomes organized into a cohesive self-image through which the child at the end of development is interacting with his environment.
Thus the sense of self, based on the cohesive self-image, is the result of an integration of the very earliest object relations. This ego organization is modified constantly as more object relations are internalized, but later identifications, after the age of approximately three years, add little in terms of the basic structure. This contradicts the popular belief that people change as they grow in years. The fact is that the passage of time only solidifies the already established structure. This is one reason why change in psychotherapy is not easy.
New situations may appear to bring changes, but these changes are rarely fundamental, in general merely bringing out in behavioral manifestation other roles from the unconscious repertoire of the self. These roles or identifications are what the person takes to be the content of who he is.
Different life situations bring to the surface different self-images and their corresponding object relations. This determines the changing of moods, emotions, states of mind and actions throughout a person’s life, and even throughout a day. This activation of past object relations is called “transference” by psychologists. Kernberg relates how in the process of psychoanalysis, as the patient goes deeper in understanding his mind, there first manifests the general overall self-images and their corresponding object relations, but that as the process deepens, the more specific constituent sub-self-images become expressed in the analytic situation. He writes in a paper about psychoanalytic technique: Here, in the course of the psychoanalytic process, the development of a regressive transference neurosis will gradually activate in the transference the constituent units of internalized object relations that form part of ego and superego structures, and of the repressed units of internalized object relations that have become part of the id. [Harold P. Blum, Editor, Psychoanalytic Explorations of Technique, p. 211]
(Of course, all this occurs in the context of the overall sense of self constituted by the sum of the integrated images.) The past is always present in the form of the object relation activated. In fact, the present is always perceived through whatever object relation—whether it is an overall ego identity or a more specific subject object relation—is active at the time.
Both psychologists and laymen who are aware of the fact of transference rarely appreciate the fact that their interactions with the environment are actually being filtered through past object and self-images. They are not, in other words, seeing reality for what it really is.
Seeing reality without the filter of the past is a cataclysmic experience, which uncovers forces and energies which are not even conceived of by ego.
It is in the nature of mind to be in a constant state of reactivity; and here we do not simply mean what is implied in the usual sense of the word. We mean something more fundamental: that the individual is always reacting with certain very limited patterns of emotion and behavior which reflect the self-image he is identifying with, and that this self-image is itself a reaction, in two senses: first, that the specific self-image that is operating is automatically elicited by the situation, and second, that the self-image is itself a construction made up of reactions to past events from early childhood. This self-image is thus never a spontaneous response or a free choice, but is always a compulsive reaction.
Being, on the other hand, is the absence of such reactions. Being means no reaction, no mental activity that defines who or what one is. In fact, Being is not an activity at all; it is an existence, a suchness, a thereness, a presence that is not doing anything to be there. Since Being is itself existence, it does not need the mind to be there. It is like a physical object, which does not need the activity of mind to exist. The ego structure, on the other hand, is maintained, must be maintained, by the constant activity and reactivity of the mind. And as Winnicott seems to have understood in the passage quoted earlier, this reactivity is incompatible with Being; he says it “annihilates being.” To identify with the reaction that is the ego is to be cut off from Being, one’s true nature and identity. This is what the man of spirit means when he says the ego “is not,” it has no true existence.
From the perspective of Being, what we are is not determined by either the past or the present situation. We are not a reaction; we simply are, an essential existence, totally free from the past. Our nature, our identity, cannot be influenced by situations.
It is ironic that object relations theory first describes so competently the way in which ego is structured from past object relations between inner images and, therefore, is compulsively reacting to situations in conditioned patterns, and then goes on to describe this same entity as autonomous! How can this set of reactions from the past be said to be autonomous, when true autonomy can be recognized to be the fullness of the presence of Being in the present?
Perhaps identification is the “road to autonomy” in that it leads to more autonomy from the mother, but from our perspective it is actually the road to bondage, ensnaring the individual in concepts about who he is that become his greatest misfortune. In a later chapter we will discuss the ideal fate of these identifications in a person who is undergoing a development of the Personal Essence. Not only does this process of developing “ego autonomy” put one in bondage to one’s past in the form of self-images, it also leaves one relating to the object images of one’s early primary caretakers, and therefore under their coercive influence, which
functions as what the analytic model calls the “superego.” Thus even though the ego might be relatively independent emotionally from the love object, its sense of identity is definitely not.
When one is the Personal Essence, one does become free of these identifications and of the influence of the early caretakers which has lived on in the ego’s object images. The Personal Essence is an ongoing sense of Beingness, completely independent of mind and memory, and hence completely free. It is the true autonomous individuation.
Usually, one is so identified with the self-representations that it is difficult to achieve an objective awareness of them. One needs some distance, some disidentification from the self-images, for there to be clarity about their nature.
Identifying is the chief obstacle to self-remembering. A man who identifies with anything is unable to remember himself. In order to remember oneself it is necessary first of all not to identify. [P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 151] Here we can contrast the process of psychotherapy with that of inner realization in light of our understanding of identification. Most forms of psychotherapy involve a gradual process of disidentification from pathological self-representations and their corresponding object relations. However since the aim of psychotherapy is not self-realization but a “healthy” ego, not all self-representations are exposed and worked through. The work on inner realization, however, requires that one bring to consciousness all the ego identifications which are used for identity, and that one then gradually (or sometimes abruptly) disidentify from this mental content. At the beginning, the more superficial identifications are seen through. These are the chronologically later identifications which were internalized after the development of a relatively stable sense of identity. They generally involve some content connected with modeling oneself after one or both of the parents. At this level one deals especially with object representations established in the development of the superego. Working through these identifications usually removes the repression against some of the deep feelings about the parent with which one identifies. The letting go of the identification then brings to light the actual personal relationship to the parent, revealing the real emotions of the relationship. An example is the working through of the identifications that function to repress the castration and Oedipus complexes. The girl, for instance, typically manages her oedipal feelings by finally identifying with the mother, so that she becomes like her rather than a rival to her for the father’s affections. When this identification is exposed, the oedipal feelings of rivalry with the mother will emerge and must be dealt with.
This process of becoming aware of and disidentifying from ego identifications begins to shed light on the nature of the personality as a substitute for true Being. For instance, a typical development in students going through this process is a tendency towards increased selfishness and self-centeredness. Self-centeredness is a basic quality of the ego self, which becomes increasingly obvious as the ego identifications, which are the building blocks of the self, begin to dissolve. But this dissolution threatens the stability of the ego self, and hence there results the reaction of holding on more tightly to this self. The desperate clinging to this identity exposes the basic quality of self-centeredness, the attitude of perceiving and relating to everything and
everyone in the world from the perspective of oneself, considering what is for me and what is against me. What will I get from this and what will I lose from that? As the ego identifications dissolve, one can see more clearly how pervasive, invisible, deceptive and convincing is this attitude, pervading almost everything in one’s life. Everything is considered from the…
This insecurity results from the fact that ego is not Being; how could a structure of images, concepts, memories, and feelings be secure? And the insecurity might for a while seem to become even more pronounced as we learn how readily these images evaporate as a result of our simply seeing them for what they are. Actually, the basic insecurity that has always been there in the unconscious is simply being exposed by the process of dissolving ego identifications. How is the individual to gain the courage to engage in this process of disidentification, given the deep and sometimes terrifying insecurity that is thereby exposed? It is made much easier if there is some support to take the place of the usual ego supports which come through the object relations, such as approval, recognition, social acceptance and success, love and admiration from friends and family for one’s individuality, financial security, and the like. Clearly one’s attachment to these things is very strong. In fact, our observation is that we are willing to perceive these phenomena without using them for ego support or self esteem only when we have a sense of a more basic, more real support and value. In the process of inner realization this support can be provided by some of the essential aspects. Letting go of ego identifications on a profound level is possible only after the activation of certain essential aspects, primarily those of the five lataif (subtle energy centers in the body) and the aspect of true value. The lataif aspects—strength, will,
compassion, enjoyment and intuition—provide the true support of essence which makes it possible to see through ego supports and not compulsively pursue them. The emergence of the aspect of value, for instance, which is the true existential value of Being, makes it possible to see through the ego mechanisms of seeking self-esteem and to become less dependent on them.
One way to describe this ego, which we have discovered is extremely self-centered, and which fails to consider the reality of others, is to call it “narcissistic.” If we consider narcissism to be alienation from what one truly is, taking oneself to be something that is not truly oneself, then it is clear that ego is in its very nature narcissistic.
Of course all the myriad manifestations of narcissistic insecurity arise as certain ego identifications are dropped in the process of inner realization. Our unlimited hunger for love, money, admiration, power, insight, even inner development and enlightenment, come to the fore, and we see that they are continually generating fear and anxiety. Seeing these desires for what they are, and disidentifying with the structures they support, generally precipitates the experience of Being in the aspect of the Personal Essence. So we have seen several threads we can follow through the labyrinths of ego identification in order to disidentify with them and come to an experience of our true Beingness.
To experience the Personal Essence through the process of disidentification makes clear its sense of beingness. One feels oneself as a presence. One feels oneself as a fullness, as a Beingness, in contradistinction to reactivity or activity. One feels oneself because one is oneself. Being is recognized by being it. The perception is most direct. The contact with oneself is complete. There is no subject separate from the Being.
But Being’s perception of itself is immediate and direct. The experience is more like “I exist,” felt with immediate, definite certainty. It is the feeling “I am.” “I am because I am.” The experience of Being is like being a certain medium or substance in which each point or atom is exquisitely and clearly aware of itself as pure sensation or consciousness. There is pure sensation, exquisite aliveness. The Personal Essence fullness is the presence of consciousness in a unique sensation of firmness, strength, smoothness, dense fluidity and flexibility. One experiences oneself as a full and rounded presence, like a firm, strong and well-developed muscle, vibrant with robust life and sensuous pleasure. One is truly full for one is the consciousness of fullness itself. There is no deficiency or lack. One is the sensuousness, the smoothness, the firmness, the robustness, the aliveness, which are not characteristics of some object, but are the actual constituents of the beingness and substance of the Personal Essence itself. These characteristics of the consciousness of the Personal Essence are not described here in a metaphorical or allegorical way.
Ego existence is considered the childhood of humanity. When a human being truly grows up and becomes an essential adult, he lives the life of Being. This is one reason the Sufis call the man of Being the “complete” man, and the man of ego the “unregenerate” or “undeveloped” man.
Chapter Five The Personal Element
One of the main reasons the life of the man of spirit does not attract the man of the world is that it appears to lack the personal element. The man of the world misunderstands and rejects the impersonality of the man of spirit. The man of the world values his personal characteristics, as they are expressed in living his life. He is not willing to sacrifice his sense of himself as a person, and does not understand why the man of spirit exhorts him to do so.
When the individuality of ego develops harmoniously and without much distortion, it has a personal sense to it. One is not only a self, but feels oneself as an individual, a person. The man of the world experiences this sense of being a person as a sign of and an expression of his humanity. So he quite naturally considers impersonality to be a nonhuman quality.
He feels insulted, not considered, when he is not treated as a person. He takes it as a sign of lack of respect. He expects, and feels it is his right, to be treated by others as a person in his own right.
When we speak of the personal element, we do not mean only the knowledge that one is a person interacting with another person; we are referring to the actual state and feeling of being personal in an interaction. One can have object constancy, and know one is a person interacting with another person, but still interact impersonally. It is not only object relations theory that (with the slight exceptions described above) does not specifically study this personal element; we are not aware of any psychological school or scientific field that does so. It seems surprising that a phenomenon so central to human life psychologically and emotionally, and so prized by mature human beings, escapes psychological or even spiritual study and investigation.
In fact, to be personal is the unique quality of the Personal Essence, one that distinguishes it from other aspects of Essence and from the unqualified Essence, the impersonal aspect of Being.
It is this pale reflection that evokes for the man of the world his potential, and motivates him to pursue the personal life. It is the shadow that reminds him of who he truly is. It is the false gold that tells him of the preciousness of true gold.
How can one be truly personal in an interaction when the other is not seen for who he is? How can an image be personal? If one’s experience is restricted to the level of object constancy, which according to object relations theory is the culmination of ego development, then it is not possible to be personal in any way that is not purely mental. A self-image relating to an object image is not a true personal experience. The true capacity to be personal does in fact arise around the time object constancy is achieved, and even when there is ego present, it is possible to be personal. But the capacity to be personal cannot be the capacity of an individuality based on ego identifications. To be truly personal one must have achieved a development beyond that of a coherent self-image. In other words, one has to be a real person, and perceive the other as a real person, as who he actually is, for there to be a real personal interaction. Otherwise, the interaction, although it feels personal and even intimate, is but an approximation of real personal interaction.
When we no longer need to identify with the images of past object relations, the collapse of the false consideration of the other, which is now seen as transference, brings about a sense of impersonality. We now painfully feel the absence of the personal element, and our incapacity to be personal. We feel unable to see the other as a person, but see him only as an object, a screen upon which we can project an image. We feel impersonal, and our interactions feel impersonal, as if the other does not count, the other is not even a person. This is a very interesting condition. It does not imply that we are uncaring, unloving, hateful, angry or emotionally detached. In fact, we might be experiencing love and compassion, and still feel impersonal. This in fact occasionally happens in the process of inner realization. A student might realize the aspects of love, compassion, kindness and selflessness, and still be unable to be personal. Among all the aspects of essence and Being, it is only the Personal Essence that has the personal element. One can be realized on a very deep dimension, but without the Personal Essence.
The other cannot be seen in his uniqueness, but is simply an object to be helped, to be acted upon. The other becomes an object of one’s universal and impersonal love, compassion and helpfulness. Some spiritual teachers are in this condition, and are trying to help their students out of an abundance of love and selfless kindness. The love is universal, it is for everybody and everything. The problem is that the student does not figure as a real, unique person. He is seen only as a student, a seeker, an ego that longs for release. The student does not truly feel loved and valued unless the love and value are personal, for him personally, for his uniqueness. He does not respond, at a deep place within him, if the love of the teacher is limited to the universal. He feels: “My teacher does not love me for who I am uniquely. He just loves everybody and everything. I am not truly important for my teacher.”
When the teacher makes his contact with the student personal, a deep place in the student stirs. The core of his ego begins to relax. He is seen; his uniqueness is valued. However, when we are confronted with impersonality in the course of letting go of ego identifications, if we neither posit it as the ultimate reality, nor reject it, but genuinely investigate the truth, we will ultimately come upon the personal element. The absence of the personal element, which is felt as an impersonality, can be seen at such times either as an emptiness in the chest, or the presence of a hard impersonal shield over it. The emptiness is felt as almost physical, as an empty hole or cavity in the chest. The emptiness affects the individual by making him feel that he doesn’t have what it takes for him to relate in a personal way. He is impersonal because he lacks the personal element. He feels the emptiness as a deficiency, a lack in who he is. This deficient emptiness is simply the state of the absence of the Personal Essence. The rigid shield is a defense against this deficiency, which gives the individual a sense of being a person that is not personal. In fact, it is what is usually referred to in depth psychology as a…
The dissolution of this defense can bring into consciousness a deep emotional hurt, which is felt as a wound of being cut off from one’s own Being. If it is seen with compassion, this deep wound will lead to the emptiness in the chest, which feels as if something is lacking, that a precious part of oneself is missing. We give the report of a student, Natalie, whom we discussed earlier in this section, in another experience of the Personal Essence. Here, we find her grappling with the painful feeling of impersonality: On Friday night I talked with you about feelings I have that I am impersonal, cold, dry, monotonous and holding back. I feel this way with my friends and with my clients. My communications with my clients lack a personal touch. The holding back is experienced in my chest, with contractions in my solar plexus. Behind the holding is softness with vulnerability. There is fear of exposure and rejection, as well as of being liked by others. And yet this soft vulnerability is sweet and pleasant. I feel closer to myself—personal—and from this source my energy feels open to make contact and to be real. When I am isolated from myself I feel distant from others. It was interesting to me that as soon as I started talking with you I felt very warm, alive and personal. At the moment I expressed and exposed the feeling of lack, my Personal Essence was felt, disproving my belief that I am not capable of personal contact. Here we see that the experience of the Personal Essence was…
She says: “I feel closer to myself—personal—and from this source my energy feels open to make contact and to be real.” So the sense of feeling personal is a sense of feeling close to…
One is intimately touching one’s own depth, one’s own substance, one’s own soul. One is touching the atoms of one’s being, in intimate contact, in an embrace where one is embracing one’s own being. He who embraces and he who is embraced are the same being, the Personal Essence. The subject is the object. The…
So being personal does not exactly mean that one is aware of oneself as a person, and because of this one feels personal. Not exactly. The feeling of being personal is its own feeling, independent of what one takes oneself to be. This point is difficult to communicate, because on the…
The personal element is a specific and absolute aspect of Essence. Like other aspects of Essence, it is a Platonic form. When one experiences the personal aspect one is certain that one feels a…
As Socrates said, one does not learn from anybody or from experience about the Platonic forms. One remembers them from one’s own deep resources. One merely remembers oneself. The interesting thing about the essential aspects, including the personal aspect, is that they are amenable to the most precise descriptions and discriminations by the one having the experience, but the…
On the ego level, we usually feel most personal when feeling deep emotions or being in emotional situations with others. This is in marked contrast to the personal element of Being. Being is not on the emotional level. Being is a much deeper and more profound level than emotions. Emotions are responses of the nervous system, very much linked with the organization of past object relations. Being personal on the Being level can mean some kind of sharing and communication, but not necessarily. One can be personal and completely alone. It is a way of being, a way of experiencing oneself and a way of living. One is personally involved in, is intimately in contact with whatever one is doing or experiencing.
So on the level of Being, to be personal means to be the Personal Essence. Contact, communication or interaction is personal when one is personally present as the Personal Essence. One can be personal with another without saying or doing anything. It is a way of being with the other. One is actually being there, oneself. From the perspective of Being, the content of the communication is not what determines whether an interaction is personal or not. There might be emotional communication or even physical contact, but if one is not present as the Personal Essence then one is not personal. One can be interacting with a total stranger, discussing abstract ideas and still be personal. So to be personal is to be present in the interaction, to be present as who one really is, the Personal Essence. There is both presence and reality. There is genuineness. There is truth. There is immediate contact. The emotional genuineness most people feel as their most personal state is a far cry from the genuineness of Being. Emotional genuineness, in its very nature, expresses the past. The genuineness of Being expresses reality, for it is in the present. There are no defenses, no roles, no manipulations. One is, and one’s communications are real. The practice of being genuine in one’s communication is a good way to reach the Personal Essence. When one is genuine about oneself, expressing an authentic concern, then one is personal. This is why Natalie, in the report above, experienced the Personal Essence with relative ease. She was genuine in her concern about her state. She felt personally hurt, and made a genuine personal plea to me for help. She was not trying to defend herself or to manipulate me, but was direct, genuine and personal.
Her hurt and concern were not a reenacting of past object relations; she was genuinely responding to an actual state, the absence of her Being. That by itself was disidentification from past object relations. Her emotions were genuine because they were a response arising from disidentification and not from identification.
His response to the situation was to withdraw, which pattern he retained in all his adult relationships, especially those with women. I comment that although he believes he is withdrawing from relationship he is, in fact, relating to me and others within the object relation he had with his mother. Seeing this, he begins to feel alone and vulnerable.
He feels present, full and in immediate contact with me, a contact beyond the content of his mind. He feels personal with me in a simple way, with no feelings about demand. He is surprised at the simplicity and ease of the whole session.
Chapter Six Contact
Only the Personal Essence has the capacity to make such contact; in fact it is the capacity for personal contact.
The ego cannot truly make contact, because of these characteristics which we have noted: 1. It is based on identity with self-image or images. How can a structure in the mind make contact? It is nothing that is truly present; it is only a conceptual structure, a structure of ideas. This structure is devoid of presence and consciousness, and thus cannot make contact. 2. Interactions of the ego are basically the reenactments of past object relations. When the overall individuality of ego interacts with something, that interaction is an approximation of the actual situation that is dependent on the integrations of past interactions. So it is not present-centered. How can an interaction which is a replay of the past be called a genuine human contact? 3. The other person is seen either as an image, one pole of a past object relation, or through a structure of images. The other person is not truly seen or related to. The fact that ego cannot make real contact is lamentable, and indicates a terrible waste of human potential. We cannot see each other when we are identifying with self-images from the past. We are strangers to each other, merely relating to projected images, to parts of our own minds. This is the normal, everyday life of most us, not only the emotionally disturbed.
The other feels like a stranger when stripped of the projected images. This usually can be very frightening, for it leaves the individual in a state of utter aloneness. 4. The individuality of ego has a sense of separateness that is based on the building of self-boundaries. These boundaries contribute to the sense of being an individual. However, these boundaries become walls separating the individual from other human beings, and from the universe in general.
This might not be clear for an individual identifying with ego, but it becomes acutely obvious when one knows oneself as a being, and not as a self-image. One then experiences the structure of ego giving rise to the sense of separateness as thick and rigid shields around oneself, restricting him from truly touching another human being or being touched by another in any deep way. There is also a profound isolation from the rest of reality, which becomes the most important barrier against the experience of oneness with the universe. To state the case succinctly: there is no genuine contact when there is transference. True contact happens when one is free from transference. This is not an either-or case; the most accurate statement is that the less identification there is with past object relations, the more genuine personal contact is possible.
Finally, in one group meeting, she was able to break through this barrier. She did it on her own initiative, going through the emotional difficulties and succeeding in making the contact. This is her report of her work in the session: My experience working with you yesterday began with my saying your name when you were still working with somebody else. While I waited and listened I felt a lot of energy—exhilaration—that continued while I worked with you. Then we talked about contact which I wanted to have with you before the summer vacation. I talked about your work with another group member last week. It brought up some sadness for me when you said that sadness is the gap between what we are or experience and what we want, or something like that. I felt some sadness, and you asked about that. It had to do with wanting more contact with you. I mentioned that I have been observing myself judge myself and that I was having a judgment about wanting you to see the state I have been experiencing lately. The judgment was that wanting recognition from you is an ego reaction. You said something about the state I was experiencing; present, clear, peaceful, solid, powerful, etc. I felt scared because I was afraid you or I would deny my experience or that by experiencing this state I will be alone. You asked me about the aloneness and I saw it is not myself but my superego that would be gone. I noticed that the fear makes it difficult to get my breath into my abdomen and that there is something forced about it. I noticed my eyes start to get unfocused. You appeared smaller or farther away. You had me do something to relax my eyes. While I did that you talked about contact, presence and fullness. At one point it seemed humorous to me. This contact with you was quite nice. It seemed like I had huge, wide-open eyes, no barriers, and a lot of presence, aliveness, and not much separateness. There continued to be some sort of fear, but it seemed more like a lot of energy. We see here that some transference remains in the interaction, but she did manage to make the contact. We also see that the contact went along with two specific phenomena: disidentification from past object relations, and a sense of alive presence.
This report illustrates how the transition from identity with past object relations to the presence of the Personal Essence is a prerequisite for true personal contact. Her issue with being real and making contact is not completely resolved; this is only an initial breakthrough, which will have to be repeated many more times, as more unconscious object relations are brought to the surface, seen through and abandoned. Establishing the Personal Essence as a permanent presence requires much more work, as we will see as we go on.
Understanding the situation, seeing how her self-rejection and hatred have nothing to do with the present situation, and looking at things objectively, does nothing to change her state. She cries and feels more frustrated. This is unusual for her, because it is usually relatively easy for her to be objective and disidentify from her emotional states. Finally I ask her to look me in the eyes and make the contact directly. This instantly changes her state. She quickly begins feeling warm, full and present. She feels herself as a sense of Being that is personal. And from this vantage point she sees the dramatic unreality of her emotional state. This becomes a starting point for her making contacts in her new environment, and engaging in useful and meaningful work. Of course, the change is not attributable only to this single session. She had been involved in the work of realization for some time, and she did need to work on the issue more in subsequent sessions.
When we feel truly contacted we feel that our true beingness is being seen and recognized.
The fact is that the presence of the Personal Essence is the presence of the capacity for contact. So contact with oneself and contact with another are felt as the same. It is the presence of the Personal Essence in the interaction. The
In such situations the individual is not aware of a longing for contact, but is aware of a difficulty with it. Individuals with marked schizoid or narcissistic tendencies tend to exhibit this difficulty. It takes much sincerity for the individual to admit to himself such a deficiency; in general he denies the reality of the situation, explaining it away by blaming the other or by rationalization.
Without the Personal Essence, true contact is blocked by the usual defenses of the schizoid type—psychological isolation, withdrawal, intellectualization and so on. The other characteristic of the Personal Essence we can see from the reports above is the absence of barriers, which indicates the absence of the boundaries of the individuality. The individual lets go of the need to protect his sense of separateness, thus ceasing to identify with or project images from the past. All this indicates that there is an actual vulnerability. This vulnerability is reported especially by individuals in their first encounters with personal contact. The question arises, why is there vulnerability when there are no defenses or separating barriers? There can be openness and absence of barriers without the experience of vulnerability, as happens in the experiences of space or emptiness, for example, in which one feels an expansive openness, a spaciousness, a lightness, without any hint of vulnerability. [See The Void, A. H. Almaas, 1986]
Vulnerability in openness indicates the presence of beingness. When there is no presence then there is no expectation of danger, even with openness,…
She felt light, open, happy and boundless. But she sensed no particular presence or fullness. It was a long time before she realized she was using this state, which she developed through extensive Buddhist meditation, to avoid feeling present in a personal way, because she found it difficult to tolerate the feelings of vulnerability. So contact involves not only openness and vulnerability, but, also, the presence of a sense of Being. One is open, vulnerable and present. However, the reader might object that this is the condition of the presence of any aspect of Essence. Whenever Being is felt as presence there is necessarily some openness, and a measure of disidentification from ego and its defenses. This is true, but this does not yet make for contact. The presence of a state of Being means the presence of pure consciousness, in any of its absolute forms. This means there is awareness, sensitivity and openness. There is a sensitive consciousness of the other, an empathy and an appreciation of the other’s existence. In these states, one might be very accurate in one’s perception of the other, and observant of his state. There might be tender love, warm kindness or even joyful interaction. But this is not necessarily contact. Consciousness is not necessarily contact,…
“Aha, of course, how else can it be! I have to be present, as who I am, for me to make contact.” The contact of the Personal Essence feels so direct, so immediate, so complete, so full, that when it is known it becomes impossible to call any other state of consciousness contact. One is making contact because one is personally present in the interaction. One is actually there, as one’s own substance, filling the interaction with immediacy and significance. The personal contact then is as actual, as concrete, as immediate as physical contact. In such contact one is touching the other’s Being with one’s own Being. The…
ego boundaries, and without the loss of one’s unique individuation of Being. One is present, as oneself, as one’s unique individuation. One is not being anything from the past, so one is totally genuine. One is personal. One is present as an individuated Being, a unique human being. And contact is this presence being with another presence. To make contact on the Being level is to be, with another being. There is no need for words or any other kind of communication for there to be contact. But words and actions of communication do not necessarily negate it. To make contact with someone is to be personal in a real way with that person. It is that simple.
To summarize our explorations in this Part we conclude that the Personal Essence is characterized by the following primary qualities: It is a presence of Being. It is true autonomy. It is personal. It alone can make direct contact.
Part Iii The Essential Person
All aspects of Essence, both differentiated and nondifferentiated states of Being, are generally experienced as one’s true nature; this is because they are all recognized as the intrinsic existence and presence of one’s Being.
thought or idea about oneself. It is not an inference from looking at one’s body or one’s behavior. It is not a reference from past perceptions, taken as a continuity in time. It is not an image in the mind. It is not a conclusion, mental or emotional, that results from an image in one’s mind. It is not a feeling, thought or concept about oneself that results from memory or from interaction with the environment.
It is independent from the mind and its structures, and hence it is independent from the memories of one’s personal history. It is direct perceptual recognition of a state of Being, in the here and now. It is direct and immediate knowing of one’s true personhood, that is inseparable from being the person.
The knowing of Being is by identity. One knows oneself because one is oneself. It is knowing by being what is known. So it is an immediate, direct, and existential knowing, in which there is no duality of subject and object. So the recognition that Personal Essence is oneself as a person is a definite, clear, profound and unassailable knowingness. There is confidence and certainty. One experiences oneself as a human being, as an ongoing-personal-beingness. One is real for one exists absolutely, irrespective of the past and of the environment.
To be is not just to know in one’s mind that one is. To be is to be Being, as existence, and as a substantial presence that is experienced as concretely as physical reality. So to be the Personal Essence is to be a substantial presence, a fullness, a compact consciousness that feels personal.
Chapter Seven Personal Essence and the Man of the World
The man of the world experiences being a person as a mental-emotional-physical phenomenon. He conceives himself as a person via his body image. His sense of himself is inferred from his perception of his body, his mind and his behavior. His sense of being a person cannot be separated from, and cannot exist without, his memories of himself in past interactions. He sees himself as a person who was born as an infant to a certain set of parents, and who has grown and developed and had many experiences throughout the years. His sense of who he is as a person cannot be separated in his experience from his personal history, from all that has happened to him. He cannot separate his sense of who he is from his relationship to his environment, and the people in it. He cannot separate who he is from what he thinks, and what other people think of him. In other words, he cannot just be who he is, independent of his mind. Who he is and who he thinks (consciously or unconsciously) he is are inseparable for him. This is in great contrast to the experience of the Personal Essence, where personal history is irrelevant to being oneself. The person of Being has no sense of age; number of years cannot apply to him. Time to him is conceptual, and only the present is real. The person of Being is independent, in terms of being himself, from his physical parents. He does not need to refer himself to parents or to anybody or anything. It is clear from the findings of object relations theory, why the sense of being a person of the man of the world cannot be independent from mind, memory, past experiences, age, sex, parents, environment, body and so on. As we have seen, the man of the world’s sense of being a person is explained by object relations theory as a psychical developmental achievement: the achievement of a separate individuality with a sense of self, or as Mahler would describe it, the establishment of a unified self-image. This individuation is primarily a development in the mind, and thus is seen from the perspective of Being as ephemeral and undeserving of the label of reality.
We asked in a previous chapter, why do all people, if they are astray as the man of spirit asserts, follow the same path of illusion: that of adopting an individuality and pursuing a personal life? A possible answer comes from the understanding of the nature of the Personal Essence. The man of the world, in pursuing a personal life, is trying to reach his true human individuation. His values and aspirations reflect a truth, the truth of the possibility of being a real person, an essential person with a fulfilled personal life. The truth of the Personal Essence resides at his human core; it is the unconscious archetype of what he can be. He is not completely astray, but rather dimly senses his potential as a human being and goes about trying to realize it. However, he falls short of the reality, because there is inadequate guidance, knowledge or modeling in his formative years. His…
Our understanding that the personality of ego is an imitation of the essential person, the person of Being, can be made more clear by what we call our “theory of holes.” This perspective, which was developed in detail in our books Essence and The Void, states that whenever an essential aspect is missing or cut off from one’s consciousness there results a deficiency, or hole, in its place. This hole is then filled by a part of the psychic structure that resembles the lost essential aspect. One fills or covers up the deficiency with a false aspect in its place.
An example of this theory is the issue of Will. Will is one of the aspects of Essence, an element of the true human potential. In childhood it can be cut off and lost from one’s sense of who one is. The absence of this aspect will be felt as a sense of castration, of a lack of inner support and a lack of personal confidence. This deficiency is then usually defended against by creating a false will. The false will is a willfulness, a hard and rigid kind of determination, a stubbornness. This false will is an imitation of the real Will which has been cut off. It is a psychic structure constructed out of self-images
images and object relations from the past. The essential Will, on the other hand, is an aspect of Being, an existential presence, an actuality in the present. It is flexible and realistic, and does not have the rigidity and hardness of the ego will. It manifests as a natural, spontaneous and implicit sense of inner support and confidence. The same pattern applies to the aspect of the Personal Essence. For some reason in childhood it is not allowed in consciousness, or is cut off from one’s awareness. There results a deficiency that is then covered up by the development of the separate individuality of ego. Although it is false, it is still a reflection of the essential person. The loss of this reflection will be resisted because it is experienced unconsciously as the loss of the Personal Essence. This is because the loss of the reflection will expose the hole, the lack of the Personal Essence.
Jordan is a professional man in his thirties, married, and a member of a work group with the author. For a long time he dealt with the narcissistic issues of continually wanting recognition for and value from achievements, finally becoming aware of the lack of the sense of true self. This led to the experience of the aspect of the Essential Self, which precipitated many painful and joyful deep feelings. Then the dominant issue became his compulsive busyness; he could not stop working or worrying about work. He saw his personality as always busy, always working, always endeavoring to find more work. He could not just relax and be. In time this led to states of feeling small and alone, deficient and unable to take care of himself. He recalled how in early childhood he did not receive the nourishment and supportive contact to just be himself. He dealt with the issues relating to the essential aspects of Strength, Will and Nourishment. At this point in his process, during a group session he becomes aware that part of the motivation for his compulsive attitude towards work is to avoid a very deep depression. Confronting this depression he starts to feel lighter and more relaxed. He starts having times where he feels slow and mellow.
He feels the fullness pervading his body. This starts a whole segment of his work, in which he realizes that he is always busy because if he is relaxed and slow then he will be the fullness of his Being, and this brings all kinds of issues and conflicts. So he has adopted a personality that is busy, active and productive, which is an imitation of the efficiency and maturity of the Personal Essence, so that he will feel that he is a mature and grown-up man who is capable of taking care of himself and his family. He feels he is a capable person, efficient and not deficient. In seeing that this false functioning is incompatible with the presence of the Personal Essence, Jordan is motivated and able to learn to tolerate the fullness of his being. From the above discussion we see that the man of the world has a truth, a spiritual truth, a truth related to Being. This deep truth of Being patterns his life; it is the archetype for his life. However, this truth is hidden, is known only through a reflection, which is the ego. Hence it is distorted and imprecise. It is no wonder that complete and permanent personal fulfillment is rarely attained. The life of the reflection cannot be truly fulfilling, even though it is a reflection of reality. Its fulfillment and satisfaction, which are always dependent upon external circumstances, are bound to be only a reflection and imitation of the real fulfillment and satisfaction of essence. However, the reflection can lead to the reality reflected. The reflection of the Personal Essence in the ego is seen in the personal quality, in the value of autonomy and in the capacity to make personal contact. We have already seen how the pursuit of understanding these characteristics can lead directly to the experience of the Personal Essence.
Chapter Eight Personal Essence in Legends and…
The process of the realization of the essential person is one of the main themes in ancient mythologies, folklore, legends and fairy tales. It is the story of the hero, the puer aeternus, the young man in his lonely quest. This theme appears in many forms, but it involves the hero proving himself to be mature and worthy by finding a precious object of a special…
In the Grail legends, and in some other stories, the hero starts from the visible world, the world of ego and personality and goes to the invisible world, the world of spirit and Essence, to find what he is seeking. As Mary Stewart says, the hero, by finding the object of his seeking, finds his true identity. This brings peace and fertility to the Waste Land, the land of the false, implying its transformation. In other stories, the hero comes from the invisible world, or is a descendent from royalty, who goes to the visible world, the land of lies and false identity. It is there, through trial and effort that he finds the object he is seeking. Proving his maturity in this way, he goes back to his original land, ready to assume responsibility. Heinrich Zimmer, commenting about one such tale, writes about the exiled hero: The fairy prince desires deliverance from this exile, and his kingdom awaits his return; yet he is permitted to make the necessary journey only when bearing the human rider on his back. Only by assisting the mortal hero to immortal life can the superhuman prince effect his own salvation. The human being attains also thereby salvation, completeness, and the power to overcome distress, while the fairy realm, receiving back its prince, reintegrating the lost one into its system, is healed of its affliction, restored to perfection, and flooded with joy. [Heinrich Zimmer, The King and the Corpse, p. 50] The two kinds of legends point to the truth from two perspectives. The first points to the truth that the object sought is of the nature of the invisible world of spirit, and hence is more real and precious than the ego structures (to put it in the language of our previous discussion) found in the Waste Land. The second kind of legend points to the equally important truth that the sought-after object (which in our context is the Personal Essence), although it is of a special nature, must be found in the land of ego, the land of suffering, effort and illusion. One finds his true identity and maturity by wrestling with difficulties of the world. The comment of Zimmer, above, includes both meanings. The human rider indicates that the Personal Essence is the real human being, who is the fullness and completeness of the human potential. A similar story is that of the hero who frees an imprisoned princess, whom he eventually marries. The hero comes to his manhood, indicating his assumption of human maturity, and marries the woman he saves. This indicates the living of a personal life, of marriage, family, pleasure, creativity and so on. Often the personal life is a royal life, indicating it is not the life of the personality of ego, but the life of the essential person, of the Personal Essence. Royalty in legends and fairy tales, like godhood in mythologies, indicates that there is a spiritual quality, an elevated and noble human
element. And this noble human element is his own Being, which is real, true and hence most precious. Zimmer comments about the abundance of the reign of a king and queen, in one of the mythical stories: Such descriptions of natural abundance are not unusual in the legends of beneficent reigns; for when two faultless rulers conform to the divine law of the universe and guide their people by their own model conduct, they bring into operation the quickening power of perfection. The consummate king and queen make manifest together what the Chinese term Tao: the virtue of the universal order. They make Tao manifest as Teh: the virtue of their own proper nature. And this virtue is self-effulgent. Its influence penetrates like magic into the vital centers of everything around them, so that even the spirit of the land appears to be affected. Harmony and beatitude go out from it. The fields produce, the herds multiply, and the cities thrive, as in a Golden Age. [Ibid., p. 26]
The sense of nobility and royalty is not only an association with the richness and abundance of essential experience, the manifestation of what Zimmer referred to as Teh; it is an actual feeling of royalty and nobility, a state where one feels of royal origin. Once in a while, a student reports the experience of the Personal Essence as accompanied by a feeling of royalty or regalness. One feels not only present as a real person, but because of the purity and preciousness of this reality, one attains a sense of being noble and royal. One feels oneself to be relaxed, settled, accepting of one’s nature, and secure. One is not only carefree and absolutely secure, but lives a life of value, preciousness, fulfillment and abundance. One feels like a prince or princess, a king or queen, master of one’s life, which is one’s dominion. The inner experience of Essence, with its richness, abundance, fullness and beauty is not envisioned by the ego, except in the stories of ancient royalty. However, it is an actual reality, a living experience, when the Personal Essence is realized. Idries Shah, in the beginning of the quest story of the King’…
Man is of royal origin, because his origin is Being. And the one who knows the realm of Being knows that there is no preciousness, no abundance, no nobility and no royalty that approximates that of Essence and Being. The values and archetypes of nobility and royalty have their origins in the experience of Essence. The roles of king and queen, prince and princess are universal, in almost all human civilizations. Royalty are always dressed in gold and silver, precious…
They also symbolize to him, and beckon him to, his potential, his possibility of attaining true royalty; the individuation of his Being. In ancient mythologies and fairy tales, royalty were not only rich and powerful; they were also the embodiment of wisdom and sagacity, justice and benevolence, which are characteristics of Essence. We can say each man aspires to be a king, and each woman aspires to be a queen. Their aspirations are really for the true individuation, the human maturity that is the actualization of one’s true potential. The images of a king or a queen, a prince or a princess, appear occasionally in the experiences of some students in the process of inner realization. They usually indicate certain breakthroughs in the integration of the Personal Essence. Youthfulness of actualization is sometimes experienced in the feeling of being a prince or a princess, while maturity of actualization can be experienced in the feeling or state of being a king or a queen. There is then a sense of being more grown up, of truly…
In the stories, the realization of the Personal Essence is not symbolized only by the quest, but specifically by freeing the imprisoned princess and marrying her. In fact, some stories make the princess herself the Personal Essence. She is then called, as in some Sufi stories, the “Princess Precious Pearl.” As we have remarked before, the traditional name for the Personal Essence is the pearl beyond price or the incomparable pearl. So marrying the princess is the process of integrating the Personal Essence. This brings about a fulfilled and true personal life, a royal life of Being. In one such story, the story of the magic horse, related by Shah in his book Caravan of Dreams, the hero, Tambal, is a youth who is introspective and more…
desire and carry him to it. When he inquires about his real heart’s desire the magic horse carries him on a long journey to a land of a magician king, with a daughter, Princess Precious Pearl, who is constrained in a whirling palace. After many adventures and misfortunes, which are beautiful poetic descriptions of parts of the path of inner realization, the prince is united with his beloved princess and eventually rules the kingdom. The quest sometimes takes the form of looking for a precious gem, guarded by a monster, such as a serpent or a dragon, as in the example of the King’s Son story. The hero must subdue the guardian monster, which here symbolizes the fake personality of ego, to acquire the precious gem and return to his origins. The gem is frequently a precious pearl, representing the Personal Essence. The following story is one version, which appears in the Acts of Thomas, titled the “Hymn of the Soul”: When I was an infant child in a palace of my Father and resting in the wealth and luxury of my nurturers, out of the East, our native country, my parents provisioned me and sent me, and of the wealth of those their treasures they put together a load, both great and light, that I might carry it alone… And they armed me with adamant, which breaketh iron, and they took off from me the garment set with gems, spangled with gold, which they had made for me because they loved me, and the robe was yellow in hue, made for my stature. And they made a covenant with me and inscribed it on mine understanding, that I should not forget it, and said: If thou go down into Egypt and bring back thence the one pearl which is there in the midst of the sea girt about by the devouring serpent, thou shalt again put on the garment set with gems and the robe…
And I put on the raiment of the Egyptians, lest I should seem strange, as one that had come from without to recover the pearl; and lest they should awake the serpent against me. But I know not by what occasion they learned that I was not of their country, and with guile they mingled for me a deceit and I tasted of their food, and I knew no more that I was a king’s son and I became a servant unto their king. And I forgat also the pearl, for which my fathers had sent me, and by means of the heaviness of their food I fell into a deep sleep. But when this befell me, my fathers also were aware of it and grieved for me, and a proclamation was published in our kingdom, that all should meet at our doors. And then the kings of Parthia and they that bare office and the great ones of the East made a resolve concerning me, that I should not be left in Egypt, and the princes wrote unto me signifying thus: From thy Father the King of kings, and thy mother that ruleth the East, and thy brother that is second unto us; unto our son that is in Egypt, peace. Rise up and awake out of sleep and hearken unto the words of the letter and remember that thou art a son of kings; lo, thou hast come under the yoke of bondage. Remember the pearl for which thou wast sent into Egypt. Remember thy garment spangled with gold and the glorious mantle which thou shouldest wear and wherewith thou shouldest deck thyself. Thy name is in the book of life, and with thy brother thou shalt be in our kingdom… The letter flew and lighted down by me and became all speech, and I at the voice of it and the feeling of it started up out of sleep and I took it up and kissed and read it. And it was written concerning that which was recorded in my heart, and I remembered forthwith that I was a son…
And on the way I found my letter that had awakened me and it, like as it had taken a voice and raised me when I slept, so also guided me with the light that came from it. For at times the royal garment of silk shone before my eyes and with its voice and guidance it also encouraged me to speed and with love leading me and drawing me onward… And I stretched forth and received it and adorned myself with the beauty of the colours thereof and in my royal robe excelling in beauty I arrayed myself wholly. And when I had put it on, I was lifted up unto the place of peace and homage and I bowed my head and worshipped the brightness of the Father which had sent it unto me, for I had performed his commandments and he likewise that which he had promised. And at the doors of his palace which was from the beginning I…
Many interpreters take the gem or the pearl to symbolize Being in general, or sometimes to refer to individuation. The fact remains that, as in the story above, the pearl represents a particular aspect of Being, the Personal Essence, and not just Being. The fact that the implication of the story is more than just the realization of Being in general is indicated by the presence in the story of other symbols and precious artifacts, symbolizing other aspects of Essence. These are the garment, the robe, the letter, the gems, the King of kings, the queen of the East, the brother and others. Carl G. Jung and his followers seem to include the Personal Essence in the archetype of the Self, as we see in the following words of Ira Progoff, discussing Jung’s contribution to depth psychology: The archetype of the Self is expressed in the form of many historical symbols that represent various phases of the individuation process in the life history of nations. A particularly frequent symbol of the Self is the “Divine Child,” which often appears also as a savior-messiah. In alchemical types of symbolism the Self as the…
Jung used the term individuation to refer to the completion of the quest, which is similar to our usage, but not identical to it. We must also point out that the essential aspects are not the same as the archetypes as defined by Jung. Jung sometimes defined archetypes as images in the collective unconscious, but sometimes made a distinction between archetypes and archetypal images. Sometimes he seemed to use archetypes as universal tendencies, at other times as motifs in the human psyche. At one point he gave the following suggestive description: Archetypes resemble the beds of rivers: dried up because the water has deserted them, though it may return at any time. An archetype is something like an old watercourse along which the water of life flowed for a time,…
He also defined them as Platonic forms, which might cause some readers to confuse them with essential aspects as we have defined them. Whatever the Jungian archetypes are, it is clear that Jung did not specifically see them the way we conceive of essential aspects, as states of Being: the presence of Essence in specific and quite concretely experienceable and recognizable qualities. If archetypes are like riverbeds, then Essence is like the water of life itself; in fact, it is the water of life. The way Jung defined archetypes—as universal processes and patterns in the psyche—makes them a much wider and more general category than the essential aspects. If we define an archetype as any universal form in the soul then obviously essential aspects can be considered archetypes, but in that case, so are fatherhood and motherhood. An aspect of Essence, however, is always an ontological presence, which can be experienced in…
We are focusing on this point because it is our experience that some individuals who are familiar with Jung’s theory of archetypes jump to the conclusion that they know what an essential aspect is because they know the concept of archetype. This can lead to the common illusion that one knows Essence when one is actually thinking of quite a different dimension of experience. Essence is a much less known category of…
Essential realization is the actualization of Being and its various aspects; essential individuation is the realization and development of the aspect of the Personal Essence, These are not guided by images, archetypal or otherwise. More specifically, the myths and fairy tales which are widely used in Jungian psychology, like any conceptual framework, can cloud the consciousness when a state of being is actually manifesting. They can, on the other hand, illuminate various processes in the psyche, even processes involving essential aspects, as we have seen in this chapter. So they can help us to understand the aspects. They
The fact is that the realization of Essence necessitates the experience of Being beyond all images. Jung and some of his followers would most likely agree with this last statement, but it is also true that the Jungian literature does not emphasize the realization of Essence as an ontological presence. Thus the Jungian process, even when it deals with spiritual realities, is more emotional and psychological in nature than the process of the realization of Being we are discussing here. We are not saying that Jung’s way of seeing things never elicits the experience of Being. We simply want to distinguish between the archetypes as Jung defined them, and the aspects of Essence or Being. This difference implies a divergence in methodology and a different emphasis in terms of experience.
Chapter Nine Personal Essence and the Man of Spirit
To be free from ego means to the man of spirit the realization of Being, and Being is almost always taken to be impersonal. For them it is not possible to experience oneself as a person without identifying with ego. Being a person is for them a clear indication that one is not free. It is also an indication that one is not experiencing Being, but only identifying with a self-image. The personal quality is usually relegated to ego. To be personal and to care about the personal life is taken to indicate the self-centeredness of ego. This is not surprising in view of the fact that wherever we look we encounter only the personality of ego. The experience of the true individuation of Essence is so very unusual that the Personal Essence is called by some Sufis the “rare Mohammedan pearl.”
For such teachings, to feel personal, to value the personal life, to experience oneself as a person, are all seen to be a manifestation of ego. They are taken to be false, and seen as the seeds of suffering. This perspective denies, in effect, the existence of the Personal Essence. It denies the possibility of being a person and being real. It does not see that it is possible to have a personal experience that has a spiritual value, in terms of Being. It is this attitude that is most responsible for making such teachings incomprehensible to the man of the world.
It is possible to see the Personal Essence as a concept, as not having a final reality. This is the perception of the nonconceptual aspect of Being, the supreme unknowable ground of reality. It is the experience of absolute oneness in which there are no discriminations, as Lao Tzu says above. All forms are seen to exist only as concepts, and hence are taken not to have a separate existence. All duality is absent in this realization. However, from this perspective, not only the Personal Essence is seen to be a concept, but so are love, compassion, consciousness, awareness and so on. In other words, from the perspective of the supreme reality of the undifferentiated aspect of Being, all aspects of Essence are seen to be conceptual (as well as, for that matter, the entirety of the physical world, including the body). Only the unqualified Being exists, and differentiation and discrimination are only appearance, ultimately unreal. This is the nature of the experience of the nonconceptual reality of Being, of Being-as-such. This experience also feels so real, so profound and so comprehensive that it has a flavor of finality to it. It is experienced as an objective fact. In the theistic traditions it is usually equated with God, the Supreme Being. One of the most well-known Sufi shaikhs, Ibn ‘Arabi, writes about the Supreme Being: And when it is allowed that the existence of the beggar and the existence of the sick are His existence, it is…
This is a very profound dimension, which shows us our ultimate nature. This level of realization is required for complete freedom from ego identifications. It is, nevertheless, only a part of the true potential of the human being. In a sense it is the ultimate dimension, but it is not the only dimension. There are other dimensions of Being, the dimensions of Essence, those of differentiated Being. From the vantage point of each dimension of Being, the more differentiated dimensions appear to be less real. Each dimension both includes the more differentiated dimensions and transcends them. This is experienced from the first dimension of Essence, going through its various levels, to the dimension of the Supreme Reality, and then to that of the Transcendent Absolute. However, all these dimensions make up the true…
We will see that the Personal Essence undergoes a development which is equivalent to the integration of all dimensions of reality. It is still not the highest experience; nevertheless, it is the highest development. One who has integrated the Personal Essence completely is able to experience any dimension of reality, depending on the requirement of the moment. One who is identified with a particular dimension may be realized on…
The Supreme is an unknowable reality because it is nonconceptual. However, it is easily recognized when experienced. It is easily understood, though not by the mind. The Personal Essence, on the other hand, is a much more mysterious experience. It is much more difficult to understand or grasp. It is quite a mystery, a miraculous mystery, that Being can feel personal. None of the aspects of Essence, not even the Supreme and the Absolute aspects, feel personal, except for this one aspect. It is true that it is easier, for most people, to precipitate the experience of the Personal Essence than the experience of the nonconceptual aspect of Being. However, this is different from the full integration of the Personal Essence. One can have some, or even many, experiences of the Personal Essence and still identify…
The holistic science of embracing absolute transcendental Oneness in order to nourish one’s ‘mystical pearl’ and…
Usually, the man of spirit, because of his experience of personality, is unable to conceive the possibility of a person who is real, who is a person of Being. But this is exactly the experience of the Personal Essence. One is a person, who is Being and not a mental structure. One is not self-centered, although one is unique. One is completely selfless, loving, compassionate, real, generous and human. How else can one be? His nature is Being. He is pure consciousness. He is an integration of love, kindness, joy and all aspects of Being. And he is fully aware of all these aspects and dimensions, without much preoccupation with them. He is fulfilled but is concerned with the fulfillment of others. He is satisfied and contented, and he is concerned with the satisfaction and contentment of others. He is personally fulfilled, satisfied, contented and happy, living a personal life that is completely and unselfconsciously devoted to the service of humanity. He does not think of helping. He does not plan to serve. He does not feel a desire to help, serve or enlighten. He just does what is personally fulfilling to him. And this
spontaneously, and completely unintentionally, always happens to be the best he can do to help, serve, and enlighten others. He is himself. He just needs to be himself, does what comes naturally and spontaneously to him, and this is always what is most fulfilling to him and most useful for others.
There is no self-sacrifice, not a hint of personal renunciation, but he is not selfish, not self-centered and not preoccupied with himself. His service is the expression of love, compassion, and truth. But he does not necessarily feel that is why he serves. He does not even think that he is serving. Love, compassion and truth are the constituents of his personal beingness. He is all of Essence, and so does not need to think of it or of acting according to its values. That is what it means to be a person of Being, the essential person. He is a precious pearl, rare and incomparable.
From the perspective of Essence, the person is a Platonic form, a pure aspect of Being. It is as much a definite reality as love, compassion, will, consciousness and awareness. These aspects of Essence are universal, in the sense that all human beings have the capacity to experience and know them. They are like the Jungian archetypes, except that they are states of presence and Being. They are independent of one’s personal mind and its creations. They are experienced the same by all human beings. Love is love, whether one is American or Chinese, man or woman, old or young. This universality is also true of the aspect of the person, the Personal Essence. And the Personal Essence is the personal element in the human form, as a person. How this relates to the person of ego, and how it relates to the body, will be discussed later.
Chapter Ten Personal Essence in Spiritual Traditions
We find that the more complex and complete the spiritual teaching, the more it includes the personal element.
The aim is the realization of Sunyata, the ground and nature of all reality. Mahayana, on the other hand, is more complex. It includes in its aim, in addition to the realization of Sunyata, the realization of Bodhicitta, which is taken to be compassion and altruistic helpfulness. The ideal is the Bodhisattva, who is interested not only in enlightening himself, but is also dedicated to the enlightenment of all other beings. The Diamond Sutra says:
For the Mahayana (from which Zen is a development) there is more concern and human consideration about other people. One’s own enlightenment is not divorced from helping other beings. It is interesting that usually the Hinayanists (Theravadists) are referred to as more interested in personal enlightenment than the Mahayanists. We see here, the usual meaning of the word personal, referring to one’s individual person. According to our understanding of the personal element, we see the Theravadists as more impersonal and the Mahayanists as more personal, for the latter seem to be concerned with other persons. Of course, this is the difference between the ego quality of personal and the Being quality of personal.
The clearest expression of the reality of the essential person in the Buddhist teachings is found in the concept of Nirmanakaya. This is distinguished from the Dharmakaya, which is the experience of Being-as-such, the nonconceptual reality, and from the Sambhogakaya, which is the Body of Spiritual Enjoyment. These three; Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya, are the three bodies of the Buddha, indicating three kinds of realization. Lama Govinda describes them thus: Thus we discern in the figure of the Buddha three “bodies” or principles: 1. that, in which all Enlightened Ones are the same: the experience of completeness, of universality, of the deepest super-individual reality of the Dharma, the primordial law and cause of all things, from which emanates all physical, oral and metaphysical order; 2. that which constitutes the spiritual or ideal character of a Buddha, the creative expression or formulation of this universal principle in the realm of inner vision: the Sambhogakaya, the “Body of Bliss” (rapture or spiritual enjoyment), from which all true inspiration is born; 3. that, in which this inspiration is transformed into visible form and becomes action: the Nirmanakaya: the “Body of Transformation,” the human embodiment
or individuality of an Enlightened One. [Lama Angarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, p. 213]
So enlightenment is equated with Dharmakaya. However, the life in the world after enlightenment is seen in the concept of the Nirmanakaya. So Nirmanakaya is the presence of Being in the world. Although Dharmakaya is seen to be the ultimate reality, Nirmanakaya is still regarded as a further development. It is embodying the realization of Dharmakaya in a human life in the world. This is seen in the famous Zen ten ox-herding pictures that illustrate Zen enlightenment. Although the Dharmakaya is the ultimate reality, which is symbolized by an empty circle, it’s only the eighth picture. The last picture, the…
Nevertheless, Buddhism does not emphasize the personal element. Enlightenment is seen ultimately to lead out of the world. The idea is that when one reaches the ultimate state of enlightenment, that of Buddhahood, the cycle of human birth and death is ended, and one does not come back to earth after death. This notion, which involves the idea of reincarnation, is shared by most Far Eastern religions, and is probably of Indian origin. So in Buddhism, enlightenment is seen not as what is needed for the complete human life, but rather as what will end the cycle of birth and death. There are many schools, sects and teachings within Hinduism. They range from the most impersonal, as in Vedanta, to the most personal, in the sects based on Krishna’s teachings. Many of their Gods are personal, but the one that stands for the Personal Essence more than any of the others, is Krishna, the amorous God. Krishna is considered to be God himself in a personal form; he is an incarnation of God on earth. There are many legends about him and his adventures, his love affairs and pranks. But there is a very definite personal flavor to the whole thing. The well-known Bhagavad Gita is the teaching of Krishna, which is the yoga of action. The whole teaching is given by the Lord Krishna to…
They speak of spiritual realization in the realization of Being as a person. Some go as far as to say that this realization is higher or more…
The late Indian guru Baba Muktananda, who represented the Siddha path in the West, describes in his spiritual autobiography some experiences of a personal God. He speaks of his central realization as that of the blue pearl. He describes in detail the experience and some of the qualities of the essential person: Lo! The gloriously shining Blue Pearl, as it moved closer to me, began to expand with its innumerable lustrous, inner rays. It became an oval and continued to grow into a human shape. I was beholding its expansion with amazement. The oval finally assumed a human form… The Blue Pearl, that had enlarged into a human form through an oval shape, stood before me. Its radiance began to wane. Then I discerned a blue human figure within it. How enchantingly beautiful! His blue form shimmered and sparkled!… He was a mass of pure Awareness, the Life of Muktananda’s inner life. [Swami Muktananda, Guru, pp. 152–153] Clearly, he is describing here his inner nature as a person of consciousness, a real person who is not an identity with ego structure. He is experiencing his…
The thorns have been lost. Now, the flower too must be lost. Then there will simply be perfume, no flower.
However, our understanding is that it is not the person which is the tension, but the attachment to it.
The identity and boundaries of the ego are still present. This, however, does not mean that the Personal Essence itself has the self-centeredness and boundaries of ego.
We must remember that the Personal Essence is a state of Being. The impersonal reality is a state of Being. The transition is much easier from one state of Being to another, than from ego to a state of Being, especially that of unqualified and unbounded Being.
The experience of the Personal Essence is that of “I am,” and allowing this sense to expand is a very efficient way for the transition to the impersonal reality.
This is reminiscent of the hero in The Hymn of the Soul, who returns to the King of kings (impersonal supreme Being) after he acquires the pearl (the Personal Essence).
but he was left with the feeling that “this cannot be it,” that if oneness and universality were truly the summit of human experience, what about the person?
The individual therefore exists though he exceeds the little separative ego; the universal exists and is embraced by him but it does not absorb and abolish all individual differentiation, even though by his universalizing himself the limitation which we call the ego is overcome. Now we may get rid of this differentiation by plunging into the absorption of an exclusive unity, but to what end? For perfect union? But we do not forfeit that by accepting the differentiation any more than the Divine forfeits His oneness by accepting it. We have the perfect union in His being and can absorb ourselves in it at any time, but we have also this other differentiated unity and can emerge into it and act freely in it at any time without losing oneness: for we have merged the ego and are absolved from the exclusive stresses of our mentality. [Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 370]
He did not take one state to be the only real and final one, but built a system that takes into consideration many aspects of Being.
Although the absolute reality (or God) is seen as a universal and impersonal power, He is related to personally. Moses argues with Him, Christ calls Him father, and Mohammed receives personal communications from Him.
The way Jesus saw himself as both the son of Man and the son of God, is a religious way of understanding the Personal Essence.
The experience of being the son of God usually occurs at an advanced stage of the development of the Personal Essence, after the entry into the universal, divine and impersonal realms. When one understands the relationship between the Personal Essence and these realms, the image of son and father is seen to be very apt.
Both tell of how God becomes a person, a human being.
divine. But what was special about Jesus was his individuation, and his understanding of his relationship to higher realms; he was definitely a rare, precious pearl, and extraordinary in the way Buddha was extraordinary. Buddha was the examplar of impersonal enlightenment, and Jesus was the examplar of “personal” enlightenment.
Buddha was the examplar of impersonal enlightenment, and Jesus was the examplar of “personal” enlightenment.
In Islam, the Sufis place great emphasis on the Personal Essence. They define the Sufi as one who is “in the world but not of it.” This is exactly the feeling, experience and understanding of the Personal Essence. One is in the world, lives in the world, is a person, but one is of the nature of Being, which is not of the world.
Their ideal is the perfect man or the complete man, and they consider the prophet Mohammed as the clearest exemplar of the complete man. He was not only integrated in the spiritual realms but also lived a complete human life. He was a prophet, and hence a religious leader and founder, and a statesman, the secular head of state. He lived a personal life, was married several times, enjoyed women, fathered children, and had friends.
He was reputed to have said: “Three things are close to my heart: prayer, women and perfume.”
will be the True Ego, the real, personal individuality
The work is not seen as spiritual or worldly; it is rather taken to be the work of developing completely integrated human beings.
teacher does not resemble the outer, idealized personality of the literalist. The calm, never-changing personality, the aloof master, or the personality which inspires awe alone, the “man who never varies” cannot be a Sufi master. [Idries Shah, The Sufis, p. 349]
From Maharshi one gets the impression of the expansion, richness and beauty of the universal realm of Being. From the Sufi one gets the impression of a highly individuated person, very practical, very much in the world and knowledgeable about its ways, but one cannot separate these characteristics in his person from those of integrity, dignity, reality, truth and other aspects of Being.
Gurdjieff was an excellent example of a teacher with a highly integrated Personal Essence. He had no “holy man” image. He was practical, down to earth and very personal. The personal element is central to his teaching, which is his synthesis of what he learned in both the Sufi and Tibetan traditions. He recognized that the man of ego lacked a true individuality, the personality of Essence. He says of the integrated man in his system: Instead of the discordant and often contradictory activity of different desires, there is one single I, whole, indivisible, and permanent; there is individuality, dominating the physical body and its desires and able to overcome both its reluctance and its resistance. Instead of the mechanical process of thinking there is consciousness. And there is will, that is, a power, not merely composed of various often contradictory desires belonging to different “I”s, but issuing from consciousness and governed by individuality or a single and permanent I. [P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 42–43]
He says of the integrated man in his system: Instead of the discordant and often contradictory activity of different desires, there is one single I, whole, indivisible, and permanent; there is individuality, dominating the physical body and its desires and able to overcome both its reluctance and its resistance. Instead of the mechanical process of thinking there is consciousness. And there is will, that is, a power, not merely composed of various often contradictory desires belonging to different “I”s, but issuing from consciousness and governed by individuality or a single and permanent I. [P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 42–43]
The fact that the student lives his own personal life, integrating the teaching in his own personal way, instead of using the teacher as a model or the school as a family substitute, becomes of greater value. For this personal life allows the development of the “pearl beyond price.”
Part Iv Personal Essence And Ego Development
These questions are: 1. If the Personal Essence is the true person, then what is its relation to ego with its separate individuality? 2. Why is it that in almost every case, as a child matures it is the ego structure and not the Personal Essence that develops? 3. Assuming this way of seeing things makes sense, what are the factors that lead to the development of the ego instead of the Personal Essence? 4. What is the relation of the Personal Essence to what are called the inborn apparatuses of primary autonomy, or the ego functions? In order to answer these questions, we must consider also the following question: 5. Is individuation merely the result of building the ego structures that organize and integrate the innate capacities, as object relations theory claims, or does it include other elements not considered by object relations theory as we have discussed
The ego functions, described by Hartmann as the inborn apparatuses of autonomy in the beginning of life, are those of synthesis, integration, regulation, organization, anticipation, attention, decision making, delay, drive taming, identification, intelligence, intention, judgment, language, memory, motility, neutralization, object comprehension, object relations, perception, productivity, reality testing, self-preservation, speech, symbolization, thinking and volition. The ego functions also include defense. Hartmann’s idea was that these functions of ego are part of the potential of every human being. He writes: Mental development is not simply the outcome of the struggle with instinctual drives, with love-objects, with the super ego, and so on. For instance we have reason to assume that this development is served by apparatuses which function from the beginning of life. [Heinz Hartmann, Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation, p. 24]
One might argue that there is not much difference experientially between the experience of the individuality of ego and that of the Personal Essence, and that the latter is the result of ego development. However, the case presentations and reports in this book strongly establish that the sense of individuation of the Personal Essence is quite different from that of normal ego development. The depth, profundity, definiteness and sense of reality are always experienced as unusual. Our students are relatively well-integrated. Psychologists would be likely to regard them as dealing with neuroses and some structural issues. The students are always astonished by the depth and reality of individuation in the experience of the Personal Essence. The sense of Being is very clearly not within the experience of ego.
Chapter Eleven Maturity, Ego and Personal Essence
An interesting question arises: How is it that two individuals can each have normal ego development and individuation, but greatly differing degrees of maturity?
Individuation includes the gradual replacement of primitive introjections and identifications with partial, sublimatory identifications fitting into the overall concept of the self. Emotional maturity is reflected in the capacity for discriminating subtle aspects of one’s own self and of other people in an increasing selectivity in accepting and internalizing the qualities of other people. [Otto F. Kernberg, Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis, p. 74] This means that maturity is based on the overall concept of the self, established by the end of the third year of life. It also means it is still a process of internalization and identification. Thus it is a matter of modification of the already existing psychic structure. So according to Kernberg, continuing individuation and maturity still do not include the element of Being. If we think of maturity in the way Kernberg defines it (taking his to be typical of the object relations perspective), we would expect to see that maturity involves the solidification, strengthening and expansion of the ego and its structures. But this does not correspond to experience. True, some individuals become more rigid, more stereotyped and less alive with age, but it is also the case that some individuals do show signs of greater flexibility and aliveness. The latter development is considered by object relations theory to be the result of greater ego strength, more well-rounded development and more harmony between the parts of ego. The individuality becomes more pliable and more sensitive to others as it becomes stronger and more harmonious within. Kernberg continues in his description of emotional maturity: “Mature friendships are based on such selectivity and the capacity to combine love with independence and emotional objectivity.” [Ibid., p. 74]
Two questions suggest themselves at this juncture: 1. Why do only a few individuals show such signs of maturity, although the majority of human beings do achieve a well-formed ego? 2. What factors allow the maturity of ego to result in the experience of oneself in ways reminiscent of Being, although there is still identity with past object relations?
This manifests in spurts of initiative, creativity and expansion within oneself and one’s personal life. One feels suddenly confident of oneself and one’s capacities, and there is more courage in actualizing one’s goals. This condition can last from a few minutes to months, even years. Usually it does not last very long, for there is no understanding of or support for this transformation. The second observation is that we find in our work with students that those with more rounded ego development find an easier time with the experience of the Personal Essence. It is, generally speaking, easy for these individuals to experience the Personal Essence, and their process of developing and integrating it runs smoothly. Individuals with neurotic fixations or with more structural deficiencies have a much harder time in experiencing and realizing the Personal Essence. It takes them longer to get to the initial experiences, and they usually deal with a great deal of conflict in the process of integration.
Students with structural difficulties seem to be able to reach the experience of the Personal Essence faster than those with neurotic conflicts, but they usually cannot retain the experience. The more neurotic individuals, although it is more difficult for them to have the initial experiences, are usually more able to integrate the Personal Essence with the passage of time and the increase in understanding, The fourth observation is that some students, after an initial experience of the Personal Essence, begin to recall similar experiences in early childhood, as early as the beginning of the second year. Sometimes, the process of working through the issues around the integration of the Personal Essence involves these early memories.
the Personal Essence seems to be present the child behaves in a confident, strong, expansive and more grown-up way. It is amazing to see how a child who is behaving in a dependent and clinging manner, and who shows no signs of capacity for greater individuation, can suddenly, when the Personal Essence is present in him or her, begin acting more independent and grown up. At such times the functions of autonomy are greater and more integrated. The physical coordination is better, language is suddenly easier, and interactions with others seem to make more sense. There is also a clear expression of joy in the child’s individuation.
The most important step for our discussion here, and in fact the most crucial in the whole process, is that of moving from identification with part of the ego structure to the state of deficiency. It is clear in all the cases we have given, as well as in the rest of our experience with students, that this identification, although it gives a sense of identity, is also used for a defensive purpose. It functions partially, in fact primarily, to ward off or cover up the deficiency and its painful affects. When the student abandons the defensive posture, the deficiency is revealed.
We can give now a partial answer to the two questions at the beginning of this chapter: Most people do not show signs of real maturity with the passage of time partly because the secondary autonomy does not develop well. Increasing rigidity and stereotyped behavior patterns indicate an entrenchment in the defensive position. We can say then that a possible factor that allows the mature ego to more closely approach the qualities of Being is that the ego becomes less defensive as it grows and develops, acquiring more flexibility, pliability and hence openness to essential perceptions. That the process of secondary autonomy is possibly an explanation of the first and second observations mentioned above is self-evident. The explanation of the third observation is less evident. But it is easy to see that the degree of defensiveness is a primary factor. The neurotic individual has strong and well-established defensive structures, stronger than one with structural difficulties. So it takes longer and requires more work for him to have the initial experiences of Being. It is then easier for him to integrate the experiences because his defenses are already loosened and relaxed, and he already has a developed capacity for integration and synthesis. An individual with structural deficiencies has less well developed defensive structures and thus is more open to the initial experiences. However, he is not able to integrate the experiences smoothly because his defensive structures are more chaotic; also his weak ego has a diminished capacity for synthesis and integration. It is, however, not yet clear how we might further explain the last two observations.
Identification and Defense
This means he is still identified with a self-image, although the self-image is now purged of its defensive properties. This is in line with the definition of self or object constancy, as the cathexis of a constant mental representation regardless of the state of need. As we can see in our case presentations, this differs from the process that leads to the realization of Being. The student not only relinquishes his defensive posture; he also stops identifying with a particular self-image or ego structure.
Our understanding is that to continue identifying with the particular ego structure is to continue the defense. In all the cases of an individual going from an ego state to a Being state, the main defensive maneuver is the identification with an ego structure, a self-image or an object relation. While it is true that one must deal with other defense mechanisms, like repression, reaction formation, projection and so on, ultimately one comes to face the identification systems themselves as the ultimate and most subtle defense. It is true that the identifications give the individual a sense of self or individuality, which is taken by object relations theory to be needed for adaptation and development, but they are exactly what constitute the defense against the particular state of deficiency related to the Personal Essence.
In relation to the Personal Essence, the experience is always as follows: One is cut off from the Personal Essence. There results a sense of lack and deficiency. Since the Personal Essence is the feeling of being a real and rounded individual, the deficiency is experienced as an affect of a lack of this sense of oneself. One feels weak, lacking his own sense of beingness. One feels one is really not a person, cannot be personal and cannot make contact. Now, what is the best defense against such a painful state? Clearly, the best defense is the belief and feeling that one is a person who is strong and able to make contact. This is exactly what is provided by identifying with the ego structure or with part of it. We can call this function adaptive, but even if we admit this possibility, we cannot deny that it is also defensive. It is, in fact, a reaction formation to the state of deficiency.
It is possible for an object relations theorist to believe that such identification serves only an adaptive function, which is in this case the building of ego and its structures, because he does not consider the existence of Being, and hence is not aware of the painful deficiency that such identification serves to defend against. He takes the attitude that identification systems can exist in the psyche independently, and hence they do not need to be seen as defenses against anything. From our perspective, however, just as it is known in psychoanalysis that some identification systems are defenses against other systems, or against id impulses, they (all identification systems) are usually defenses against the various aspects of Being. Being is always there; it is what we are in the most fundamental way. That it is not in conscious experience indicates the presence of defenses against it; it becomes part of the content of the unconscious. And any identification system taken to give the individual a sense of self or individuality is bound to function as a defense against Being because Being is who one is, is the true self. The identification systems are, at
the least, in rivalry with Being and its aspects, and will always function defensively to ward off the deficiency resulting from loss of contact with Being. This defensiveness becomes apparent in the early stages of work on inner realization.
“Identifying” is one of our most terrible foes because it penetrates everywhere and deceives a man at the moment when it seems to him that he is struggling with it. It is especially difficult to free oneself from identifying because a man naturally becomes more easily identified with the things that interest him most, to which he gives his time, his work, and his attention. In order to free himself from identifying a man must be constantly on guard and be merciless with himself, that is, he must not be afraid of seeing all the subtle and hidden forms which identifying takes. [P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 150]
Our conclusion here is that identification can never be completely divorced from defense. This implies that the ego structure, including the sense of self, of separateness, and of individuality, all have a defensive function by their very nature.
overwhelming anxiety can be generated from the loss of contact with Being, or that it can lead to the loss of Being.
This in effect leads to the building of identification systems that eventually become barriers against the experience of Being.
This does not mean that this crossover is a matter of the ego membrane becoming thinner and thinner until it directly, concretely allows the reality of Being. A more accurate way of seeing it is that there is an abyss separating Being from the ego membrane. This abyss is the experience of the absence of Being. To cross it means completely and finally abandoning the identifications of ego. We must remember that the personality of ego is of a different nature than that of Being. It cannot move to the realm of Being through successive approximation. Fake gold cannot become real gold, regardless how good the forgery. Returning to the assumption found in most of the literature of psychology that the human being always needs defensive structures, we wonder: Why does an adult human being need to defend himself against his inner experience? It is understandable for an immature and dependent child. For an adult without gross structural distortions, defense merely implies the unwillingness to confront inner anxieties that have already lost any realistic grounds.
Chapter Twelve Being and Functioning
In fact, many individuals who claim sudden enlightenment report that the personality with all of its identifications and roles simply drops away and one ends up in the realm of Being. One such report conveys this experience: I became non-existential and became existence. That night I died and was reborn. But the one that was reborn has nothing to do with that which died, it is a discontinuous thing… The one who died, died totally;… utterly… That day of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many, many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist. [Vasant Joshi, The Awakened One, The Life and Work of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, p. 66] This kind of experience has been reported by many individuals throughout history, and in some of these cases there does appear to be a permanent change of identity. However, the phenomenon raises several considerations: 1. The sudden dropping away of personality structures usually leads, as in the case above, to the universal and impersonal aspects of Being. It does not result in the experiences of the Personal Essence. 2. It does not account for what happens then to what are called the ego functions, such as memory, thinking, motility and so on, which are thought to be inseparable from the development of object relations. This would seem to mean that the dropping of such structures involves abandoning a life-long integration and organization of functions necessary for life, survival and everyday functioning, but clearly this does not generally happen to those who undergo the…
These functions, including that of defense, contribute to the maturation of the organism. These functions, in their turn, are developed and integrated as part of the development of object relations in the context of interacting with the primary caretakers, mostly the mother. The final outcome of the process of adaptation is the organization of the ego functions in an overall integrated ego structure, at the center of which is a unified self-image that functions as a self or identity. The capacities of autonomy become part of the developed individuality, available for the autonomous functioning of the total personality, under the direction of the self.
In the situation we are exploring, we need an understanding that can account for the following two facts: First, the development of the integrated capacity of the organism to function autonomously, which according to object relations theory requires ego identifications; and second, the occurrence of experiences of Being, which implies the abandonment of ego identifications, without the loss of the autonomous functional capacity.
Integration and Absorption of Experience
We ask: How can functioning happen in such moments of absorption, when there is no consciousness of self, if the self is at the center of the functioning ego? Also, does an individual need to establish a psychic structure in his mind in order to learn a new skill? In other words, does he need his memories of learning to swim to be able to swim? To consciously remember will certainly hinder his skill. The more skillful he becomes, the less he needs these memories. When he is so skillful and proficient that he can be absorbed to the degree of forgetting himself there will be no memories at all. Does this mean these memories must have become part of an unconscious structure of his ego?
This understanding is made possible by certain experiences and perceptions encountered in the process of the inner realization of Being, which can be stated in the form of an hypothesis that explains how it is possible to learn new skills and functions without needing ego structures. The hypothesis is that one can absorb a skill so well that all memory, conscious and unconscious, becomes unnecessary. It becomes, so to speak, part of one’s being. The body and mind can become so adapted to the skill, that it resembles instinctual capacity. Our suggestion is that this capacity of integration and learning must be included as one of the apparatuses of primary autonomy, that it is an inborn human capacity.
So our hypothesis is that there is a certain human capacity, one of the apparatuses of primary autonomy, that we will call “absorption,” and define as follows: Absorption is the innate ability of the human organism to completely assimilate learning from experience, to absorb it to the degree of not needing the memory of the learning process, either consciously or unconsciously.
Absorption, then, is a process beyond identification, but does depend on identification. Thus learning happens in three general stages: conscious…
For example, when one is learning a skill he needs to remember his learning experiences at the beginning. His learning is more integrated when he reaches the level of identification. This means that the memory traces are internalized and integrated into the already-existing psychic structure. This is the process of internalization as defined by object relations theory. The learning becomes completely integrated when it reaches the level of absorption. What is absorbed is part of the ego structure, the part related to the acquired function or skill. At this point the skill or learning becomes so much part of oneself that there is no need for mental representations involving it, consciously or unconsciously. This capacity for absorption can function the moment an identification system becomes established. This hypothesis regarding ego development has profound consequences. The first and most obvious is that this hypothesis provides us with the understanding of how it is possible to function autonomously without identifying with ego structures. Also it explains how it is possible to experience Being without losing autonomous functioning. So our hypothesis makes it possible for us to account for the two facts at the beginning of this…
The process of essential realization itself can be seen as a process of “metabolizing” identification systems. Every time a system of identifications, a self-image or an object relation, is understood objectively, it seems to dissolve and an aspect of Essence is born. We will explore this further as we discuss understanding in the next chapter. But now we will focus on certain experiences and perceptions that do not arise until the more advanced stages of the process of inner essential realization. These are experiences in which the student is becoming increasingly aware of a part of his personality, and as a result this part begins to lose its defensive property. At some point this part of the personality will not merely dissolve, allowing an essential aspect to be born, but one observes the…
This happens particularly with the identification systems that give one the sense of being separate from the rest of existence. Usually, an aspect of love acts on the boundary structure and transforms it into the Personal Essence. This generally happens only in the most advanced stages of inner realization, in which personality structures are speedily disappearing. At some juncture of this process one comes upon schizoid-like defenses, that seem to operate at the very core structures of the personality. These schizoid-like defenses, isolation and schizoid withdrawal, usually occur after one has seen through the major narcissistic and borderline-like defenses. Finally, and usually after the entry into the realm of undifferentiated Being, one comes upon an ego state of “purified” personality. This is usually a very subtle perception,…
This is because one is also aware of the presence of undifferentiated Being, which feels like an impersonal presence without any recognizable characteristics. One is in fact going back and forth, identifying with one and then the other. The personality aspect is an identification that is completely devoid of defense; it is just a familiar sense of oneself, completely undefended and unprotected. That is why
the schizoid defense of isolation, which is the most basic defense, must have been dropped before this experience. By staying with this experience one becomes slowly and subtly aware that although this aspect of ego has no defensive structure, it nevertheless has a potential or virtual defense. Whenever there is the possibility of it being touched by any strong sensation it contracts, just as an amoeba will do if touched by a strong stimuli. It will withdraw within itself. It will harden parts of itself whenever there is a possibility of an intense experience. Its attitude is that intense experiences would be overwhelming or even shattering.
This happens in the process of inner realization as the individual works through the various defenses against this withdrawn part of the ego, this sheltered part of the personality. Usually, when this happens, the individual feels lazy, lethargic and uninterested in anything. He feels like just staying in bed, doing nothing and feeling nothing, just being cozy and safe in a warm place. Contact with Being is felt as dangerous because it is very intense and will cause too intense a sensation. However, Being is present in the experience. Observing this, one becomes aware that there must be some way that this part of the personality is keeping itself from contact with Being. When identified with this ego part one feels separate from Being, without a feeling of interest or curiosity about it. One becomes slowly aware of a very subtle resistance in this personality aspect, against the presence of Being, which makes it feel separate from it.
It is in such deep and subtle perception that one can perceive directly that an identification cannot be absolutely devoid of defense or resistance. There are many aspects of this experience, but we will focus on what happens next. As usual, when the resistance is seen and understood it begins to dissolve. This resistance is understood to be an attempt to avoid contact with Being, to stay separate from it, untouched by it. As this subtle resistance starts dissolving, one starts feeling oneself becoming absorbed in the undifferentiated Being. The experience of being absorbed by something bigger and unknown is quite definite and clear. There is no fear by now, because there is understanding, but sometimes there is some sadness, as if one is losing an old acquaintance. One feels one is being absorbed, as if one is a liquid being absorbed by a sponge. As the absorption proceeds one becomes less the personality and more the impersonal Being. One has to forget about the experience and not pay attention to it, or the process will not proceed. Paying attention at this juncture means that one is taking himself to be an individual who can direct his attention, and hence means identification with the personality. One sort of forgets, gets busy with something else, but once in a while feels this sense of being absorbed. At some point, one is suddenly the impersonal Being. One experiences a sense of absolute oneness. One is not the separate individual, but one is the oneness of all that exists. And after this perception, one experiences oneself emerging again as a personal presence. However, one is no more the withdrawn part of the personality. What emerges is the Personal Essence, with its fullness and preciousness. This is an experience of the complete integration of personality into Being. The personality, as an ego structure with its sense of self, becomes actually and experientially absorbed into Being; and the integration results in a new synthesis, the emergence of the Personal Essence.
This is one of the ways that the Personal Essence can be born. The Sufis call this process the “remaining after extinction.” One is absorbed into the Supreme Being (the Sufis call it God), but then one is reborn, as an essential person. In this experience, the process of absorption is clear, definite and undeniable. One feels taken in, assimilated, completely absorbed into Being. We can summarize the process thus: 1. It is the personality of ego, and its identification systems, that is absorbed. 2. It is absorbed into Being. 3. The result of the process of absorption is a new integration, the Personal Essence.
Chapter Thirteen Personal Essence and Object Relations Theory
We are presenting here a perspective that is supported by a wealth of experience—in fact, by all the spiritual experience of mankind—that inner integration can go beyond the mind, and into the realm of Being. Our goal here is not to demonstrate the truth of this spiritual experience, for this is humanity’s common knowledge, but to demonstrate in detail the relationship between this experience and ego development. The connecting factor is the development of the Personal Essence, which is both personal and within the realm of Being.
In other words, ego development and spiritual enlightenment are not two disjoint processes but parts of the same process. The understanding of the Personal Essence shows how they are linked. This point is a radical departure from the understanding of both traditional spiritual teachings and modern psychology. It unifies these two fields into one field, that of human nature and development.
Our question here will be, what are the conditions needed for the absorption of ego into Being? We have identified secondary autonomy as one such condition, showing that the relinquishing of the defensive aspect of any ego identity is always only partial. We have also explored how it is possible to go farther, seeing that just before the process of absorption begins, the remaining general but subtle defensive posture of an identification system can dissolve.
This mirrors the age-old spiritual understanding that surrender leads to enlightenment and realization.
We described in detail the following characteristics of the Personal Essence: It is a sense of real autonomy and independence. It is a sense of being oneself, as a full and strong presence. It is a personal sense of oneself. It is the person of Essence. It can make direct personal contact.
Object constancy is usually defined as the capacity to see and relate to the other as a person in his or her own right. This capacity is part of the quality of the Personal Essence, of being personal and able to make direct personal contact. The sense of individuality is the normal feeling of the experience of the Personal Essence, as we discussed in Part Three. Thus the Personal Essence satisfies the conditions of individuation as defined by object relations theory. Moreover, it satisfies them on a much more real and profound level of experience, that of Being. It is interesting that when someone is regarded as mature he is often referred to as having a “well-rounded” ego or personality. This sense of being a well-rounded person is exactly what students report when they experience the Personal Essence.
Our psychologist might postulate that the ego has the capacity to act in an individuated way before final integration, which capacity can manifest sporadically under favorable conditions but cannot last. This would mean that ego can act in an individuated way before it is individuated. But what is it then that acts this way at such times, if the structure is not there? What is this capacity? We know that the Personal Essence always has such a capacity, regardless of the age at which it manifests. This is a characteristic of the Personal Essence that the ego and its individuality do not have. It does not develop in terms of its capacity for personal contact. This capacity is part of it; it is its mode of consciousness. Of course, the capacity for autonomous functioning does develop, but this has to do with the integration of the functions of primary autonomy into it, as we will see in a subsequent section.
Although emotional states change, essential states are there from the beginning. The child is not aware of them, but as his capacities of perception and cognition develop he becomes capable of awareness of them. It is difficult to communicate how these essential aspects are independent of ego. One has to experience them to see the implication. The Personal Essence not only has the capacity for individuated contact, it is the state of contact itself. It is a state of integration and wholeness. It is already there, integrated, definite and together. The human organism becomes able to contact and embody it as it matures and develops in its physical, mental and emotional capacities. The capacities involved in ego development, the processes of internalization, identification, and ego organization and integration, are required for it, as is clear from our discussion of absorption.
It is the actual goal and completion of this development. It is the real individuation. It is not on the ego level or the spiritual level; for it is neither and both. There is only one human individuation, and that is the realization of the Personal Essence.
It is how Being, impersonal and eternal, becomes a person, a human being on earth. So the process is a matter of Being, which is spirit, learning to live in physical embodiment.
Chapter Fourteen The Metabolism of Experience
The second type of identification system that cannot be absorbed is one composed solely of fabrications of the mind, such as fantasies of what was supposed to happen but did not, or a dream of what one wants to happen, which are used for the purpose of building the ego identity. Such identification systems are common, and become apparent at certain stages of inner realization. One may discover fantasies about what happened in one’s childhood, or dreams for the future, which are experienced as part of one’s sense of self. These systems are clearly defensive, although they are not usually experienced as such. Sometimes they are defenses against specific memories, such as a very painful disappointment, but when they are of global significance to the personality they should not be regarded as purely defensive. These fantasies, beliefs and misinformation actually accompany almost all internalized object relations to some extent. Internalized object relations are rarely true representations of actual events or relationships.
This extra material, whether it is attached to actual memories of object relations or consists of pure fabrications, cannot be absorbed into Being. This is an important difference between the mind and Being. The mind can absorb and identify with any psychic material it believes to be true. It does not have the capacity, on its own, to discern what is objective truth and what is not. In other words, the mind can be deceived, even by itself. Being, on the other hand, is pure reality. It is the actual stuff and consciousness of truth, and cannot be deceived. It does not try not to be deceived; it is simply truth by its nature, a self-conscious medium made of pure sensitivity. Any falsehood, that is, anything which is not the objective truth of what actually happened in past interactions which produced a particular object relation, is felt in comparison to Being to be dull, gross and distasteful. When one is in contact with Being, these falsehoods are felt to be lifeless, thick and heavy veils in comparison to the luminosity of Being.
Being is like an individual who is aware, intelligent, discriminating, truth-loving and undeceivable. If you present a story to this individual, what will he take within himself, and what will he leave untouched? He will take in the truth and leave the false without touching it. So identifications will not be absorbed into Being unless they are absolutely empty of falsehood. Only when an identification contains exactly what objectively occurred in the original interaction will it be readily absorbed.
This is the original sense of spiritual purification, which has nothing to do with morality but involves separating the true from the false. This understanding is one reason the Sufis call the process of inner transformation the “purification” of the ego. We see here, too, the role of truth in this process: since human development is constituted by the metabolism of personal experience, and for this metabolism to be complete the true must be separated from the false—the former to be absorbed and the latter to be discarded—we can see that the specific requirement for growth, maturation and development is truth, the truth garnered from personal experience. In general, the process of eliminating falsehood is spontaneous; the mind generally lets go of an impression when it recognizes it to be false. Since it can no longer be used for purposes of identification, and cannot be absorbed, the false impression simply dissolves. An exception to this pattern is when a clearly false belief is part of a larger system, most likely unconscious, which the mind still takes to be true; then the mind will hold on to the falsehood until the larger belief system is revealed.
The permanent presence of identification systems in the mind can now be seen as a kind of indigestion or constipation. Any such system is a mental contraction, which is accompanied by physical contractions in the body. When the inner sensitivity is refined, the tensions in the body which accompany identification can be seen. These tensions are what Wilhelm Reich called “body armor”; he further recognized that any character structure has a defensive pattern, which he called “character armor,” which was revealed in the tension patterns of the body armor. [Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm] Identifying these tension patterns can be very useful in the process of becoming aware of one’s identifications.
The work of inner transformation, then, becomes partly that of correcting the indigestion, so that metabolism can occur naturally, on its own. The presence of ego structures indicate that there is unmetabolized psychological food in the identification system, both useful “nutrients” which can be usefully absorbed, and “waste products” that must be eliminated.
(Many students who are well on their way in the process of inner transformation
and are working on metabolism, report tensions and various other sensations in the area of the spleen and pancreas. The spleen has the function of eliminating dead white blood corpuscles, which are part of the immune system and have the function of defending the body. The process of metabolism has the analogous function of
eliminating no longer needed defensive ego identifications. We can see a connection between these two levels of functioning; this sort of connection has been reported by many researchers studying psychosomatic phenomena. [Franz Alexander, Psychosomatic Medicine])
The necessity for defense and the internalization of a lot of falsehood have another cause which is rarely noted in psychology: it is the omnipresent ignorance of Being in most human societies. This ignorance is taken in by the developing infant and becomes part of its ego structure. The identity of the personality develops in the absence of the awareness of Being.
The psychological and spiritual knowledge now available to most human societies is insufficient for this task, because Being is almost completely ignored in the normal social perspective. It seems that a few spiritual traditions still possess fragments of this specialized knowledge, largely those traditions which have a long history of transmitting essential experience through the generations. We have in mind some of the Tibetan Buddhist schools and some of the Sufi schools of central Asia.
When one is familiar with nonconceptual Being, it becomes clear that the development of the mind cannot be divorced from the creation of images, since mind deals with images. There is no knowledge without images, for knowledge is composed of concepts, which are various sorts of images; the creation of these images is indispensable for discrimination in the mind. To know that one is Being, which is not within the realm of images, is such a subtle understanding that it seems impossible for a child to have this knowledge. Enlightenment must wait for the maturity of perception, discrimination and understanding, since it depends on self knowledge.
On the other hand, Being cannot accomplish on its own the whole process of metabolism; it cannot dislodge ego when ego is defensive. From the perspective of the mind, Being can be resisted easily with a slight movement of ego; thus ego must first cooperate by relinquishing its defensive posture. It is up to ego to cease resisting. When it ceases its defensive posture completely, then Being acts. This is an important understanding for methods of inner realization. The work on purifying or understanding ego will not lead, by itself, to transformation. Being by itself cannot do it either. The work must be done from both directions—the letting go of ego defenses and the development of Essence.
Spiritual practice is primarily the cultivation of presence, understanding, awareness and surrender. These are the capacities needed for the later stages of psychic metabolism. Awareness and understanding are needed for the purification of ego identification. Presence and surrender are needed for the process of absorption itself. One learns to be open, vulnerable and present to one’s experience, in order to allow effective metabolism. This means that one learns to be in direct contact with one’s experience, which in turn requires the presence of the Personal Essence, which is the aspect which can make such direct contact without defensiveness.
The life of the Personal Essence is a continuing, ever-expanding process of integration and individuation.
Chapter Fifteen Personal Essence and Ego Functions
In general, the presence of the Personal Essence brings about a radical expansion and individuation of autonomous functioning, indicating the greater development and integration of the apparatuses of autonomy. Its realization brings about an increasingly radical movement towards autonomy and individuation, leading to greater actualization of one’s potential. One becomes more creative, more productive, more original and more fulfilled in personal involvements. Accomplishments and developments manifest externally in one’s work and in personal relationships. One begins to become clear about one’s place in the scheme of things, more definite about roles and functions. The meaning and purpose of one’s life become clear, definite and actualized. One’s potentials develop and expand in a meaningful way, in accordance with one’s real aims. A sense of confidence in one’s capacities develops speedily, along with a certainty about who or what one is. One increasingly values one’s real presence, and the capacities and manifestations of this presence. The confidence, certainty, and value are not mental or emotional, but are more in the nature of a recognition of facts.
- Integration: The feeling of the Personal Essence is a sense of being integrated, together, whole and complete. So its presence is itself experienced as an integration. From the understanding we have developed so far, it is clear it is the integration of all that the individual has experienced and learned.
The Personal Essence, then, becomes the integration of all aspects and dimensions of Being, and is clearly experienced as the integration of one’s experience and learning. It is not only an integration, but it is also a capacity for integration. The fact that it is an integration gives it this capacity. This is like the function of crystals. If one drops a small crystalline structure in an appropriate chemical solution it acts as a kind of seed, starting a process of crystallization, replicating itself. The Personal Essence is the presence of an integrating consciousness which brings about more integration like itself, and into itself.
One’s mind becomes spontaneously better able to integrate, and more inclined towards integration. Integrative ideas and insights become a matter of course, whatever field or situation one puts one’s mind to.
So when it is present its integrative function is felt not only on its own dimension, that of Being, but on all other dimensions. It tends to enhance the integrative capacity of the body, the nervous system, the intellect, the intuition, the energy system, the emotional tendencies and so on.
- Synthesis: One can see from the perspective of the nondifferentiated Being, the Supreme reality of the oneness of existence, that all aspects of Essence are differentiations proceeding from this original nondifferentiated source. The Personal Essence is the synthesis of all differentiated aspects of Essence.
The capacity for synthesis on the Being level belongs to another aspect of Essence—objective understanding. This aspect has the capacity for both analysis and synthesis on all levels of perception and knowledge.
Synthesis is not experienced as putting things together in a unified whole: this is the quality of the synthetic capacity of the mind. The Being capacity for synthesis manifests in the ability to see the unity before differentiation.
- Object relating: Ego is considered to have the innate capacity for object relations, which enables it to relate to another as a person.
We can see the ego’s capacity for object relations as only a step towards the true capacity. The pearl beyond price can relate in a personal way without the need to activate past object relations. So its capacity is not only innate, but also natural and spontaneous.
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Regulation: The ego is considered to be able to regulate its inner states and its behavior. The Personal Essence is an integration and synthesis of all aspects of Essence in a unified presence of consciousness; it manifests, in its own presence, whatever aspect or aspects of Essence are needed at any moment for the regulation of both inner states and object relations. When there is emotional hurt, compassion manifests; when there is a feeling of weakness, strength manifests; and so on. Whatever the situation requires in terms of capacity is spontaneously and instantly manifested by Being. When the situation requires understanding, the aspect of objective understanding dominates the consciousness. When the situation requires firmness, will dominates the consciousness.
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Intention: Ego can intend, and can act according to intention. However, because of the presence of unmetabolized experience, ego’s intention is separate from natural forces. The intention of ego is a sign of its separateness from the realm of Being. Realizing the will aspect of Essence makes this rather subtle point clear; one sees that when ego intends and acts real will is usually blocked. For the Personal Essence, on the other hand, intention has a different meaning. It is related to the integration of essential will. When this happens one realizes that one’s actions must be in harmony with all natural forces, even on the level of Being; otherwise there is a splitting from Being, and an incorrect action will result. So instead of intention one experiences a spontaneous flow of intelligent and purposeful action, realizing that Being flows through one, as one, and it is the flow that determines
one’s life, action, interests, creativity and so on. Students who have only partially integrated the Personal Essence become aware of this reality. So there is nothing in Being that is similar to the function of intention of ego. One is so integrated into reality that it is reality that is the source of one’s actions. As the Personal Essence, one becomes the spearhead of reality. Reality acts through one by one being the individual manifestation of it. In religious language this is called surrender to God’s will, or flowing with the Tao.
But this is not the life of the Personal Essence. It might be the manifestation of some universal aspects, but then it is not the full realization of the human potential. The presence of the Personal Essence is equivalent to the presence of efficient, intelligent, integrated and mature functioning that is not split off from Being, but manifests and embodies it.
BOOK TWO The REALIZATION of the PEARL BEYOND PRICE
Part I Inner Evolution
Our discussion of psychic metabolism might lead one to assume that the process of inner realization consists of a development, rather than a discovery, and that the development is determined by the vagaries of one’s experiences, rather than by an immutable reality. This assumption has some truth to it; certainly, experience is a determining factor, for it is the nutrient specifically needed for essential realization, especially for the realization of the Personal Essence. Nevertheless, the Personal Essence is an essential aspect, meaning it is a Platonic form. This means that although it appears as if it…
The realization of the Personal Essence is the aspect of inner realization which can be particularly clearly seen as both development and discovery. For other aspects of Being, like love or will, the experience is more definitely a discovery. And for the nonpersonal aspects, such as Cosmic Consciousness, undifferentiated Being and the Absolute, it is certainly a discovery. However, seeing inner realization as either development or discovery is not a matter of objective truth; it depends on one’s…
but that it is a Platonic form that is always present in its usually experienced form, remaining part of one’s potential until certain conditions are satisfied and it can emerge into consciousness. These conditions are satisfied when the metabolic process reaches the stage of absorption. At this time it becomes possible for the consciousness to become aware of the Personal Essence. From this point of view the process is clearly a matter of discovery. This resembles the process of uncovering unconscious material in psychodynamic psychotherapy. The finally emerging emotional state (for instance anger that has been repressed) is not a development, but can be experienced when certain conditions are satisfied. From this point of view, the Personal Essence, and all other aspects of Being, are already present in final form, but repressed in the unconscious. This point of view is developed in our book Essence.
When the process of integration reaches a certain stage it arrives at the Personal Essence itself, at which point one becomes conscious of its presence.
Ego does not exist in its final form in the potential of human beings. It exists, at birth, only in its functions, which we have already discussed as reflecting more the Personal Essence itself.
Seeing realization from different, but equally valid points of view, is a reflection of the truth of Being: it is the original, eternally existing reality.
how we go back to it can be understood from many perspectives, because perspectives are conceptual constructs, while Being precedes concepts.
Chapter Sixteen Enlightenment
Different traditions use the word differently. Different teachers refer to different realities when they use it. And most people have not the vaguest idea what they are talking about when referring to enlightenment. Sometimes enlightenment means the attainment of a certain state of Being. Sometimes it refers to a certain insight, perception or understanding. Sometimes it refers to a certain stage of inner development, usually the final stage, which becomes problematic since different traditions take different conditions to be the final stage. Sometimes it signifies the transcendence of ego, other times the death of ego, still other times the transformation of ego. Even when enlightenment is defined in terms of ego or its absence, we still need to find out what ego is exactly, which brings us back to where we started. In fact, we can find a supposedly “enlightened” master who defines his “enlightenment” as the death of his ego in some experience, while another master can observe the operation of ego in the state of the first master. This is the subject of many famous Zen stories. Ego states can become so subtle that one can embody the state of Cosmic Consciousness, for example, and still have some unseen identification with ego.
In Buddhism enlightenment is usually seen as the realization of Dharmakaya, Being-as-such, non-conceptual and transcendent. However, spiritual realization is then considered to proceed to further stages, that of Sambhogakaya, and then Nirmanakaya. So enlightenment is not the end of development, even though it can be the highest realization. And if the realization of Dharmakaya is equated with the complete surrender of ego, then why is there need for further inner work to go to the other stages? Spiritual work always involves seeing through ignorance, and it would seem that if there is ignorance about who one is remaining, then there must be some ego identifications left.
experiences and insights. The perspective we follow in this book is that the human being is born with many and various potentials. The more he actualizes these potentials the more he develops and matures. This process of maturation is the realization of his potentials.
The perspective we follow in this book is that the human being is born with many and various potentials. The more he actualizes these potentials the more he develops and matures. This process of maturation is the realization of his potentials. Most important of these potentials is Being, with all its aspects and dimensions.
the discovery of the aspect of Being, the permanent realization of this aspect, and the actualization of the aspect, meaning the complete integration of it in one’s human life.
the human potential cannot be encompassed by the imagination, for it is ultimately beyond conceptualization. Hence it is not possible to imagine something like the realization and actualization of all human potentials.
The Process of Inner Transformation
There are perspectives that are Being oriented, but emphasize or acknowledge only one step of the two in the above two perspectives. The Vedanta of India, for instance, acknowledges only the first step of perspective (a), the realization of the nonpersonal aspects only. The Gurdjieff system, on the other hand, emphasizes the first step of perspective (b), the realization is pursued mainly on the personal dimension.
Chapter Seventeen The Diamond Approach
We use the term “diamond” for many reasons. The approach has some of the characteristics of a clear and cut diamond. It has an exactness and precision that becomes extremely sharp at critical points of understanding. There is a clarity and objectivity to it that can cut through emotional barriers and biases. It is multi-faceted; it is an integration of many perspectives that make up a larger overall perspective without losing the specificity of the various smaller ones. Each perspective is a reflection or an expression of a certain aspect of Essence, and is complete on its own. The realization and understanding of any aspect allows one to see reality from a certain angle. We can look at everything, for instance, from the perspective expressing the aspect of Love. The perspective is always the expression of an experiential reality, and not an intellectual system.
A systematic development of another central aspect is presented in our book The Void—A Psychodynamic Investigation of the Relationship between Mind and Space. In that book we discuss human development from the perspective of the aspect of Space, which is the spacious and empty nature of mind. An overall, general presentation of the Diamond Approach can be found in our book Essence—The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization.
The metabolism of all identification systems leads not only to the realization of the Personal Essence, but also to the realization of all aspects of Essence. Each segment of identifications is connected to a certain essential aspect. The identifications responsible for the sense of individuality are the ones specifically connected to the Personal Essence.
A more fundamental reason for our use of the term “diamond” is related to the aspect of Essence that we have mentioned which functions as inner guidance. This aspect is that of objective understanding, the understanding necessary for the realization and development of the Personal Essence. This aspect affects the consciousness in a very specific and unmistakable manner. One feels clear and objective. One’s consciousness becomes sharp, precise and luminous. There is an immediate sense of a brilliant and precise intelligence. One’s consciousness becomes crystal clear, exquisitely objective but alive. This objective consciousness, which has the function of understanding, we refer to sometimes as the Diamond Consciousness, because its experiential qualities resemble those of a clear and sharply-cut diamond.
This Diamond Consciousness is a certain integration of all essential aspects, which can exist in a dimension that is more refined and more objective than the usual, most recognizable one. This dimension is that of the existence of all aspects of Essence as aspects of understanding. All aspects of Essence function in this dimension in the service of understanding. For instance, the aspect of compassion does not exist in this dimension only as the presence of the state of compassion, but also as the precise understanding of compassion and its relation to objective understanding.
Compassion is experienced as a warmth and an empathic desire to help. At the beginning it is experienced as a desire or movement to relieve an individual of his suffering. When compassion reaches the dimension of objective understanding, it will emerge with the precise understanding that it is the quality that allows the individual to experience the pain without rejection, and hence will make it possible to perceive the truth in the situation. So Compassion becomes an aspect in the service of truth, and not simply a way to eliminate suffering, in the narrow sense of the word. In some sense, the Diamond Consciousness is the integration of the mental faculties—intelligence,
discrimination, synthesis, understanding and so on—Into Being, just as the Personal Essence is the integration of another level of qualities.
Unlike all other aspects of Being, it has the capacity to use knowledge from memory and synthesize it with immediate knowledge in the moment, thus utilizing both mind and Being. This capacity is functioning to some extent in the normal experience of insight, but can operate as Diamond Consciousness only when it is recognized and integrated. The Diamond Consciousness is the prototype, on the level of Being, of the faculty of understanding.
It is the inner guide, on the Being level, for the essential person. The Jungian archetype of the wise old man, the guide for the journey of individuation, is an image that symbolizes some of the functions of the Diamond Consciousness. This aspect of Essence, however, is not an image and not merely an archetype; it is an actual state of Being. The methodology of the Diamond Approach is based largely on the presence and functioning of the Diamond Consciousness. The qualities of the Diamond Consciousness can be seen in the attitudes of individuals who have some integration of it, such as Buddha and Freud as we have noted, or additionally, the Sufi Sheikh Ibn Arabi and the Greek philosopher Socrates. All these individuals, on different levels and to varying degrees, embodied a thirst for understanding reality, especially the reality of man. They all showed a great love for truth and objectivity.
Not only was he realized, but he had a specific, detailed and comprehensive understanding of the process of realization, which became the momentous teachings of Buddhism. Only rarely do realized persons understand their process of realization. This understanding requires the integration of the capacities of the Diamond Consciousness, which does not always occur in the process of realization. In the Far East Buddha is referred to as the Omniscient One, indicating the full realization of the Diamond Consciousness. Omniscience here does not mean that one knows everything; it rather signifies the more useful ability to know and understand what is objectively needed to be known and understood. This is exactly the function of the Diamond Consciousness, which is why its guidance is objective, precise and efficient.
To see this coupling, to understand how the Diamond Consciousness is a guidance, and to understand the methodology of the Diamond Approach, we return to the process of psychic metabolism. We have seen that metabolism is complete and can
lead to the Personal Essence only when it reaches the stage of absorption. We also noted that an identification system can become ready for absorption only when it is completely purged of falsehood. For an identification system which is an aspect or expression of one’s personality to be completely purged or purified, the following is required: To see psychological defenses, to understand them and to recognize that they are false and unnecessary. To separate the true, in this segment of the ego, from the false. This means to exactly see, and understand, what actually happened in the past, and to separate this from those things which one still feels and believes but which did not really occur.
For this one must experience the segment of the personality, and look at the memories of the original object relations, without defenses and with complete objectivity. One cannot look at oneself with any prejudice, opinion, attitude, expectation or assumptions without losing objectivity. One must approach the experience wanting nothing and expecting nothing. The only motivation that can work is the innate and spontaneous love of truth for its own sake. If one wants truth because it feels good or is going to lead to a good result, or if one wants the truth because it will relieve one’s suffering, then one is already prejudiced and cannot be objective. So for there to be absorption, absolute objectivity is required. What we are seeing here is that the love and appreciation of truth for its own sake is an absolute requirement for objectivity, which in turn is required for complete metabolism. If one is not interested in the truth, or is interested in it for other purposes, which amounts to the same thing, then one might get what one wants, but not the truth. Even if one wants complete metabolism, development, or enlightenment, then one is looking for a certain result or end, not for truth.
This objectivity is not easy to attain, or even to understand. Love of truth for its own sake is actually the expression of essential heart. When one perceives the heart on the Being level, one can recognize that love is the expression of truth. Seeing that a necessary requirement for objectivity, which is usually considered a mental quality, is pure love of truth, which is a heart quality, we observe the organic interrelation between the various aspects of Essence.
that the beginning of ego has a defensive character, and defense is nothing but hiding a certain truth of experience. So the requirement for inner realization is the converse of the most basic characteristic of the ego; defense and resistance are the enemies of truth, and love is its ally. The love for truth, which reverses the attitude of defense, leads directly to the truth of experience, the truth that was defended against. And, as we already know, it is this truth that is the nutrient for the development of the Personal Essence. This indicates that when the heart loves truth it is approaching the specific nutrition needed for the essential person. So we can say, although it is only a conceptualization, that the heart loves the Personal Essence and its development. This again shows the organic interrelation between the aspects of Essence. These perceptions can go on forever, the understanding becoming more precise and more specific, reflecting the functioning of the Diamond Consciousness. We have shown how objectivity is needed for psychic metabolism, and we have explored the love of truth, for its own sake, as a necessary requirement for such objectivity.
Another quality, which usually accompanies the love of truth, that of curiosity, is required for purification of the ego. One can have the capacity to be objective, but if one is not curious then one will not have the opportunity to apply it. One must pay attention and be involved in the experience in order to see the truth, and this requires curiosity. Curiosity does not necessarily mean searching for truth. The seeking for truth, realization or enlightenment is a pale reflection of the true quality needed for them. Searching implies desire, it implies an end in mind, it implies preconceptions and assumptions, and hence it is counter to the attitude of love of truth, and counter to objectivity. On the other hand, curiosity involves love for truth, and joy in the…
absorbed in the activity, pulling the object apart or putting it back together, or whatever. He is not seeking a result, or trying to gain something. In fact, after a while, when his curiosity is satisfied, he will probably throw the object away, as if it is of no more interest to him. But during the investigation, which has the character of play, he…
This is just the attitude necessary for inner transformation. Although we call it work, it is more like play. When there is love for truth and curiosity about it, then there is a serious kind of play, profound but light. Curiosity can be seen as the expression of the essential aspect of Joy. And Joy, like love, is a heart quality, which again is an expression of truth. Curiosity, love of truth for its own sake, opens the Joy aspect. This can manifest as curiosity about truth, curiosity motivated by love, and not by gain. When there is love of truth and true curiosity about…
understanding of the way to truth is told beautifully by the following Sufi story, in which the Diamond Guidance is…
“But is happiness not the ideal of man?” asked the man. “The goal of man is Truth. Truth is more than happiness. The man who has Truth can have whatever mood he wishes, or none,” they told him. “We have pretended that Truth is happiness, and happiness Truth, and people have believed us, therefore you, too, have until now imagined that happiness must be the same as Truth. But happiness makes you its prisoner, as does woe.”
“The goal of man is Truth. Truth is more than happiness. The man who has Truth can have whatever mood he wishes, or none,” they told him. “We have pretended that Truth is happiness, and happiness Truth, and people have believed us, therefore you, too, have until now imagined that happiness must be the same as Truth. But happiness makes you its prisoner, as does woe.”
As we have described, the complete purification of ego needed for absorption requires the separation of the false from the true: the false to be eliminated, and the truth to be absorbed. It is not possible to separate the truth from the false if there is the slightest imprecision. And for there to be precision, specific perceptions and insights are required. Thus the exactness, precision and specificity of the Diamond Guidance are required for the process of psychic metabolism, and thus for the realization of the Personal Essence.
with present-centered experience, to be present, open and vulnerable to experience. This capacity, aided by the operation of the objective understanding of the Diamond Guidance, makes it possible to absorb present experience readily. One’s life becomes the metabolism of the interaction of the essential aspects with the environment. This continuing and ever-expanding integration is the process of development of the Personal Essence. This ever-deepening and expanding individuation and maturity leads ultimately to the nonpersonal realms of Being, like those of Cosmic Consciousness,
Nonconceptual Reality and Absolute Truth; this is the natural and spontaneous outcome of the development of the Personal Essence. It is part of the human potential, and if the process of maturation is proceeding in its correct path, then it is bound to occur.
The presence of the Personal Essence is a sense of Being, of experiencing “I am.” There is presence without resistance. So it is bound to go deeper into more expanded realms of Being. This understanding that the experience of “I am” can lead directly to the nonpersonal realms is not an uncommon one among teachers of Being. One such teacher, the late Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, an embodiment of the Supreme and Absolute aspects, considers the experience of “I am” the easiest and most direct way to the experience of the supreme reality.
The understanding of the psychic metabolism of experience seems to imply that human realization goes from the development of ego, to the realization of the essential aspects with the Personal Essence as the central aspect, to the enlightenment on the nonpersonal levels of Being; however, the realization of the nonpersonal aspects does not involve abandonment of the personal and other aspects of Essence. In fact, the Personal Essence goes through another stage of development as its relation to the nonpersonal aspects is understood and metabolized. It becomes the personal actualization of the nonpersonal aspects of Being. We will discuss these nonpersonal realms in detail in Part III of Book Three. For now we will examine further the development of the Personal Essence.
Part Ii Personal Essence And The Process Of Separation-Individuation
However, since the Personal Essence is an aspect of Being, the issues have a different character and meaning than the purely emotional ones. The stages of ego development function in another dimension in addition to that of developmental psychology, or, more accurately, there are parallel stages in this deeper dimension, exposing issues of a different kind. These are issues and difficulties not of a structural or psychodynamic nature, but of an existential, phenomenological and epistemological nature. We will see that all these dimensions—structural, psychodynamic, existential, phenomenological and epistemological—are all involved in the issues, conflicts and perceptions relating to the Personal Essence.
Most psychotherapeutic systems attempt to isolate the emotional dimension from that of Being. We will see, however, that all the dimensions of human experience are interrelated, and cannot be separated without the loss of objectivity. Of course, those who are not aware of the dimension of Being will be satisfied with the approximations they make in understanding the situation, believing they are looking at the whole picture, while they are in fact perceiving only the surface. Even for purposes of therapy, however, looking at the deeper dimension of experience is useful.
The issues, conflicts and perceptions which are related to the Personal Essence that are characteristic of the phases of symbiosis and separation-individuation mainly involve separation and separation anxiety, fear of annihilation and abandonment, the question of alone-ness, rapprochement conflicts, issues of cohesion and integration, conflicts around self and self-esteem,…
Chapter Eighteen…
The Personal Essence often manifests when one is dealing with the question of separation, that is when one arrives at a state in which he feels separate from others, or when he is asserting his separateness or desire for it. Lara is a professional woman in her mid-thirties, married and a mother for some time. She has been dealing with a deep conflict in her mind, which sometimes manifests as a conflict between family and profession, and sometimes between who she is and what she has to be. She has been working with the author for a number of years, both privately and in a group. She has experienced the Personal Essence frequently and dealt with some of her issues about it. She still finds it difficult to just be herself, or express who she is. We find her grappling with this conflict in a private session, in which both analytic and energetic methods are used. She is feeling angry, which she sees is a way for her to assert her separateness. It is a rebellious anger; she is saying “no” to the other. Exploring the anger further, she finds out that it is difficult for her just to feel separate, without having to be angry. The sense of separation by itself leaves her feeling guilty and alone. She is also afraid that if she does not feel angry she will feel loving, and this makes her insecure in her sense of separateness. She believes that her love will make her be like others rather than herself. This brings a desire to protect her chest and heart. She protects herself by controlling herself and her feelings. She feels very frustrated, and starts getting angry. As she explores the frustration, it mounts and her anger increases. Finally she explodes, furiously kicking the mattress she is lying on. She kicks, yells and screams, first in frustration and then in mounting rage, which she expresses loudly and strongly. Her words express self-assertion, wanting to be separate from her mother. Her voice becomes stronger and more booming as she tells her mother that she is tired of being confused, a part of her, or a reaction to her. She wants to be separate and to be herself. The more she asserts her separateness, the more her voice becomes full and strong, and the more the movements of her body become coordinated, integrated and powerful. Her body looks red and vibrant. She reports that she feels heat throughout her body, and that the more she asserts her sense of…
Lara had first to become aware of the nondifferentiation—the sense of not being able to be separate from her family, and especially her sense that feeling a certain kind of love would make her unable to be herself but cause her to be like someone else—before she could separate. It is significant that her process of separation went through several phases in the session. She began with confusion and conflicts, moved to feelings of frustration, and then to furious anger, and then to assertive strength, to separation, and finally to the autonomy and fullness of the Personal Essence. These are the typical phases of this process, which we have observed with many individuals. It will be useful to explore each phase in some detail, so that we understand this process as fully as possible, noting that these phases can take some time and, typically, several sessions to unfold. 1. Confusion and conflicts about separation and individuation. The confusion is due to not being able to see herself as a separate person. This usually leads to vagueness about identity or self. It is difficult for the ego to have a sense of self when there are no clear and stable boundaries that separate it from the object. The boundaries in Lara’s case are not clear because of a remaining identification with a nondifferentiated self-object representation. The conflicts are also due to her unconscious attachment
this identification, whose existence is incompatible with the full development of the Personal Essence. Also, as we saw in the above passages from Mahler and Kernberg, differentiation of representations is needed for both boundaries and self representations. 2. Feelings of frustration and negativity. The feeling of frustration is the specific affect that characterizes the negativity in the nondifferentiated representations resulting from negative experiences during the symbiotic stage. This frustration, according to Mahler, becomes one of the main motivations behind the desire for, and movement towards, separation. This frustration, resulting from negative experiences, plus the pleasure in autonomy, motivates the child to create more distance from its mother, in part to disengage from the frustration. In Lara’s case, this affect coloring the nondifferentiated representations seems to be also the result of the confusion about who she is and what she wants, i.e., it is also a result of the condition of nondifferentiation. We will later discuss this confusion and the related affect of frustration itself in more detail. The frustration, then, is associated with a negative nondifferentiated representation, which Lara tries to move away from with anger and separation. 3. Besides the fact that it is a natural response to, or development from, frustration, anger seems to be one of the main ways that individuals attempt to separate. Anger gives the individual both a sense of strength and the energy needed for the movement of separation. In anger, one rejects the mother, or at least the negative interaction with her, and thus creates a distance from her. However, our careful and repeated observations reveal that anger on its own does not lead to real separation. The anger is part of the affect of frustration that characterizes the painful nondifferentiated state. So the continuation of anger means the continuation of this nondifferentiated state, which defeats the purpose of separation. This points to, and explains, the next phase of the process. 4. Assertive strength is what actually makes it possible to separate. What is needed is strength and energy that allow one to feel that he can exist on his own, without the mothering support of the object. Anger must give way to the assertion of one’s strength and expansive energy, and is often the way to it. Although the process often starts with anger, in the cases where separation actually succeeds, it always ends with the sense of expansive and assertive strength. This strength indicates the dissolution of the affect of frustration, and always ushers in the sense of separation. 5. The state of separation: object relations theory indicates that this happens when there is finally a separate self-representation in the mind, distinct from an object representation. So it is seen as a mental achievement. In Lara’s case, however, and
in our observations of the state of separation with many individuals, we notice that besides the presence of a separate representation, there is also a state of Being, with clear characteristics. Lara felt strong, powerful, expanded, full, but also hot and fiery, in this state of separation. The fullness and strength are definitely not the same as those of the experience of the Personal Essence, but more energetic, more active, more assertive, and less rounded and still. There is no specific or clear feeling of integration, togetherness and structure, but also no issues or conflicts about such feelings. The fact that…
- The Personal Essence. This is definitely felt as a presence, which is not only full, but also peaceful and rounded, and gives the individual a sense of individuality, reality, structure and integration. At this stage the feeling of separateness is in the background, and is felt as a support for the individuation of the Personal Essence.…
The state of separation itself, as well as that of individuation, is a state of Being, and not merely a mental process or representation. What is this state of Being? According to Lara’s experience, and many others like it, it is a state of fullness that is characterized by the following properties:
It is a presence, a beingness. It has a sense of strength and power. The strength is not felt as characterizing one’s body or sense of self, but is the presence itself. This state of Essence is the presence of Strength. One does not exactly feel strong, but feels more like, “I exist, as the very substance of Strength,” or “I am Strength.” The sense of Strength has a feeling of energy in it. It is an energetic sense of power, a sense of compact excitation and aliveness. This gives it a feeling of being active, although it is actually a presence, and not an activity. The Strength, as a result, feels assertive or aggressive in a positive way. It feels like the energetic presence needed for dynamic, assertive and aggressive action. It has a sense of largeness and expansion. One feels energetically big, as if one’s energy and presence is much larger than the dimensions of one’s body. Capacity: when this aspect of Essence is present one feels able. If the characteristic state of the Personal Essence is “I am,” then that of this aspect is “I can.” One feels a sense of expanded capacity. One particularly feels the capacity to be oneself. This sense of capacity is the main factor which associates Strength with separation. This feeling of capacity to be allows the differentiation, and precipitates the “I am”-ness of the Personal Essence. The actual affect of this state usually has a feeling of heat. One feels hot all the way through, with a sense of fire and redness. This again indicates its energetic quality. The heat does not come from physical activity, as one might assume in the case of Lara above. The heat is similar to how one feels hot when angry, except it has a sense of positive and calm presence. This sense of heat, energy and activity is connected with the function of the sympathetic branch of the autonomous nervous system. To illustrate further the factor of heat, as well as other characteristics of the Strength aspect, we present another case report.
I am feeling stronger, more accepting of myself and more aware of liking me. As I write this I feel happy and also as if I have a secret. Partly I want to share this feeling but at the same time I want to keep it for myself. In this case we can see clearly the progression from the dominance of the Strength Essence to that of the Personal Essence. We notice the strengthening he feels in his body and structure. Object relations theory would call it ego strength, which is correct if we think of ego as the Personal Essence. The Strength aspect of Essence typically emerges initially connected with issues other than separation. The issue of weakness often precipitates it; the absence of Strength is felt as an emptiness or deficiency with the affect of weakness. The weakness is felt on all levels: the physical, energetic and ego levels. One might feel so weak that one feels unable to even lift a finger. And at such times it is obvious that the weakness is not caused by physical factors, because the moment the issues are worked through and the Strength Essence emerges, one feels miraculously restored, invigorated and strong. One of the main causes of the sense of weakness is resistance against the state of separation. For one reason or another the individual defends against the state of separation, and for this he must block the presence of the Strength aspect because it will make him feel separate. But blocking it will feel as loss or absence of Strength. This feeling or state of weakness, resulting from repressing the Strength Essence, makes it impossible for the individual to feel the individuated state of the Personal Essence. In fact, many individuals resist the Strength aspect because they feel unable or unwilling to feel autonomous and individuated. That separation can lead to individuation is very clear in these cases. However, if the conflicts around autonomy are worked through the individual will then allow the Strength Essence. The result will be both strength and autonomy. The following case illustrates this sequence.
He tends to be passive and lazy, although he is well-educated and talented. He feels weak frequently, lacking active energy. He comes to one of his private teaching sessions feeling very good and strong. He feels quite optimistic about establishing work in a different city. After a while he starts feeling blocked in his feeling. It turns out he was feeling afraid to go out and really put himself out in the world. This brings the feeling of weakness. He feels weak all over, with an emptiness in his belly. Discussing this feeling of weakness in relation to his work it turns out he feels if he is strong he has to leave the house and that means he will miss his wife and child. At a deeper level it means separation from his parents, which brings about fear of death. He believes that if he is strong then he is separate from his parents, and this means the loss of their support, which he takes unconsciously to mean that he is going to die. Realizing the unconscious reasons for his weakness, he starts to feel warm all over his body and especially in his chest. This brings about the sense of Strength, and then of fullness and autonomy that he associates with having his own career. This one session does not resolve his conflict completely, of course, and he later must deal with the various facets of it, which for him is a central part of his ego structure. This case is a good illustration of how the sense of weakness can be the result of resisting the sense of separation and autonomy. In therapeutic circles employing object relations theory, therapists often use what they call “ego strengthening” techniques, especially with individuals with weak or badly-integrated ego structures. The goal is to strengthen the integration and cohesion of ego identifications. In our understanding, such an approach will eventually bring about more of a sense of weakness, although it might seem to be working for a while. The strengthening of ego structure without regard to the presence of Being, will most likely increase the person’s separation from his Being.
One might appear to be more integrated, but this is only on the surface, while there is even a bigger…
As we discussed in the section on metabolism, as the ego structure is purified it becomes less defensive and more open to the realm of Being. Our method is not to strengthen ego structures, but to confront the state of weakness itself, regardless of how painful or undesirable it feels. This confrontation will reveal the deficient emptiness that will then lead to the aspect of Strength. One then integrates part of one’s true potential, which is already there and cannot be developed through identifications of any sort. The results we have attained through this direct approach sometimes seem almost miraculous when compared with the…
It seems to us that the concepts of neutralized aggression and aggressivity are closely related to the Strength aspect of Essence. It is seen as the energy powering the process of separation-individuation. We are not aware of any energy having this function besides that of the Strength Essence. It is our understanding, also, that the Strength Essence is the force behind what is often called the instinct for self-preservation. This idea is developed in our article “Essence and Sexuality” [Energy and Character, Volume 14]. So we do not really have to look to biology to find the true aggressive energy for the organism; it is one of the aspects of Essence.
The aggressive energy is, from the beginning, and, in fact, innately and always, “neutralized.” It is the Strength of Being, and hence it is the prototype or archetype of all capacities of strength at all levels. When present it infuses the organism with an innate strength that affects all levels of functioning. It gives the organism the sense of capacity, of the ability to exercise any of its functions. Its effect is to expand the capacity of the organism so that all its functions, at all levels, the physical, emotional and Being—are strengthened. Thus it aids the processes of separation and of essential development. It is the fire for it, the fuel that keeps it going. It is energetic, like fire. It is expansive, so it naturally leads to greater expansion of the organism, which is fundamentally what development is. Above all, it is an innate potential of the human being, an aspect of Essence, indestructible and inexhaustible. Before the differentiation subphase this energy operates as strength, vitality, expansion, and so on, in close coordination with the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. At the differentiation subphase it becomes more dominant, for its strength is needed to propel the organism towards greater development and autonomy. And because it is what powers the process of separation, it becomes associated in the mind with separation.
From the beginning it functions as the energetic strength of the organism, as the force behind its life energy, and hence has no negative or destructive sense. It is purely a life giving and life supporting strength and energy. The negative connotations and the destructive tendencies that are normally seen in the aggressive energy are not innate to the Strength Essence. They are, rather, the emotional reactions resulting from the blockage of the Strength Essence. When it is impeded from functioning, for one reason or another, there results a frustration in the organism. This frustration is then experienced, coupled with the energetic quality of the aspect, as aggression, anger, rage, destructiveness and so on, qualities which are usually seen as manifestations of the aggressive drive. It is the organism’s attempt to eliminate the blockage and the resulting frustration. However, the energy is no longer the Strength Essence, it is no longer an aspect of Being. Being cannot be aggressive in a destructive way. The destructive tendencies are on the emotional and drive level, but not on the Being level. One could call this distorted and blocked Strength Essence the real energy of aggression, as does the mainstream of psychoanalysis, and then consider the Strength aspect the neutralized form of it. But then we would be taking a reaction to be the real thing, and the real thing to be a result of changing a reaction. Psychoanalysis considers the neutralized form as an outcome probably because it was conceptualized later in theory building. In our perception and understanding, the force that powers all processes of maturation and development is the Strength aspect of Essence. We see it manifesting when the destructive tendencies are understood, and we see these tendencies manifesting when the Strength Essence is blocked. In psychoanalysis the processes of neutralization presumably occur in the therapeutic process through verbalization, as opposed to acting out. In our work we observe the same thing. However, we see that anger turns into strength not because of verbalization itself, but because one feels the energetic aspect of the emotion instead of its conceptual part. The conceptual part can be eliminated through understanding, as in verbalization. However, the fact that anger can turn into…
We find him here, two months later, dealing with the issue of separation in the presence of anger. In the beginning of his report of a certain group session we find him projecting the image of his mother on people in general. He writes: On Friday I discussed with you my feelings that the world is peopled with stupid people, and my anger at them. As I have been experiencing more of Essence I become more aware of the ignorance of people in general. You talked to me about my wanting to be me without false personality, and how my anger is at feeling pressured to adapt when I am not prepared to, and how that goes back to having to be nice to get what I want. You suggested that I just feel the energy of the anger, without having to do anything with it. As I allowed anger to flow I experienced a fullness in my belly area. The fullness increased when I said out loud that I wanted to be myself. You asked me what I felt at the base of my spine. I felt a burning sensation. When I let this burning move into the rest of my body I felt very strong. The…
without trying to intellectualize it, and it passed after an hour. It was most acute just before it went away. In his work in the group, Andrew was angry because he could not be himself, and he attributed that to people wanting him to be that way. His projection of his mother on people is obvious. I did not try to analyze his relation to his mother then because, partly, I have done that before in other occasions, and partly because I wanted to show him how he can turn his anger to strength by merely feeling its energetic quality. He first experienced the fullness of the Personal Essence, which is what he wanted and felt he could not have. He then felt the manifestation of the Strength Essence. He did not want really to feel the sense of separation although he wanted to be himself, because separation would have brought out much anxiety. This separation anxiety is what surfaced the next day, and it is probably the reason why he preferred to feel angry instead of strong in the first place. Anger still bound him to his mother, while strength separated him from her. Separation anxiety is one of the main reasons the Strength Essence is blocked or repressed. There is a cul-de-sac that frequently occurs in relation to separation. One resists separation, due to anxiety or other causes, and thus blocks the Strength Essence. One then feels weak, and unable to separate. This weakness is then…
We will not go into further detail about this aspect of Essence. We are doing a short discussion here only to show its relation to the process of separation, and hence to the process of realization of the Personal Essence. It is, however, an aspect of Essence, on its own. It has its own issues, questions and conflicts that need to be resolved for its realization. It has its own detailed perspective of the process of development. This development can be seen, in fact, from beginning to end, as a process of gradual separation and expansion, with separation taking subtler meanings as the process progresses. We need only add a few points, relevant for the discussion in this book. First, this essential aspect must be realized in a…
Second, the issues and the conflicts around the Strength aspect include all the usual issues and conflicts related to the ego process of separation. However, there is a level of issues and questions not encountered when dealing only with the emotional ego level. For instance, true separation is not really between self and mother representations; that would merely be the separation of one image from another, and this is not enough for essential development. Ultimately, separation is from ego, from representations of past object relations, from identifications. This separation is what we have called before disidentification, a condition needed to look at identification systems in an objective manner necessary for the process of psychic metabolism. This…
will be put in the form of a question: If the Personal Essence is a state of Being, and not the separate individuality of ego, why is it then that one reacts to it with issues of separation that reflect the ego level? Answering this means understanding what separation means for Being, which is bound to be different and more profound than it is for ego. We have discussed separation so far from the perspective of ego, as defined by object relations theory, and looked at the issues of separation relating to the Personal Essence from this perspective. We have discussed separation in Lara’s case as differentiation of representations. However, this is the beginning of the process of separation. As Mahler has said, the separation track runs along differentiation, distancing, boundary formation and disengagement from mother. Some of the cases we have presented reflected the more advanced stages of separation, those of distancing and disengagement from mother. The child is more separate when he or she is able to be away from the mother for longer periods of time. Separation is understood to be more complete when the child can function autonomously for long periods of time.…
The establishment of affective (emotional) object constancy (Hartmann, 1952) depends upon the gradual internalization of a constant, positively cathected, inner image of the mother. This, to begin with, permits the child to function separately (in familiar surroundings, for example, in our toddler room) despite moderate degrees of tension (longing) and discomfort. [Margaret S. Mahler et al., The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, p. 104] So, according to object relations theory, the process of ego separation leads basically to two related attainments: The capacity to function autonomously, away from mother. The sense of being a separate person, an individual in one’s…
The obvious implication is that physical and emotional separation become possible because—besides the maturation of body and mind—mentally and emotionally one remains close to mother. The sense of self does not feel abandoned by the mother, does not feel completely alone, because mother is still around, as a cathected image. So one can feel independent and can function in a separate and autonomous manner because there is a constant (although mostly unconscious) feeling of the mother’s nearness. This is such a deep insight about the development of ego, to the credit of object relations theory, that it cannot be adequately appreciated until one goes very deep in the process of inner freedom from dependence. The…
So one can leave mother by taking her with him,…
And if the individual still has unresolved conflicts about separation, dating back to the first few years of life, then these will be activated by the pressure of the essential experience. This is normal for any experience of greater separation or individuation. Normally each individual has established a certain degree of separation as part of his ego structure. Experiences of more separation become a pressure and demand on his capacity to be separate. This will bring up old unresolved conflicts about separation, or simply exert a new but greater demand on his already existing capacity. Simply put, it will stretch his capacity for separation. The greater the demand or the…
When one feels more separate as the individuality of ego one is still the self-image, and the self-image always feels the mother’s image nearby. This self-image is formed from past object relations. So each constituent self-representation is really one part of a pair, the other part is that of the object-representation. So regardless how separate this self-representation is from the object-representation, it is always related to it, always in relation to it. This is the core implication of object constancy. Self-image cannot be seen in vacuum. It is always one end of an object relation. So the self-image, and the individuality based on it, are never completely free of the mother’s image. Separation indicates more distance and more boundaries, and more disengagement, but never complete aloneness. However, when one experiences oneself as Being, one is no longer the self-image. One’s sense of being a human individual is now based not…
image and all mental representations are on the mind level. These representations are experienced as mere thoughts, concepts, images and of no fundamental reality. The disengagement from the mother in this experience is complete, utter. One feels no relation to the memories of mother or her image, in the sense that one’s sense of identity is completely independent from both. The experience of the mental representation of the mother is seen as completely alien to one’s experience of Being, as if from two different universes of experience. So the separation involved in the experience of Being is complete, total, and profound. Ego never feels such separation, regardless how separate and autonomous it is on the mental sphere. It is a different order of separation. Ego…
Individuals vary in their reactions to such radical experience of separation. The more integrated and rounded the ego development, and the fewer remaining old separation conflicts, the more tolerable is the realization, and the less distorted is the reaction to it. But it is obvious that repeated or continuous experience of Being is bound to bring to consciousness all the conflicts and difficulties around separation still remaining in one’s unconscious. Even small and insignificant conflicts or misunderstandings, felt by ego usually as minor irritations, become exaggerated and magnified in light of the new but radical pressure of the separation of Being. It is conceivable, of course, that one will not revert back to ego identity. Then, of course, there is no fear reaction. But this would involve complete, instantaneous transformation, which is very rare. The process of essential realization is more likely to involve a gradual process of separation. One becomes more and more able to be radically separate. This also implies less and less identification with ego. The student reacting to increasing separation often tries to resist it by clinging to old object relations, sometimes activating very painful old object relations, just so
that he does not feel this separation and aloneness. We find Paula, a young professional, dealing with this resistance to separation. Here is her report of working in a group meeting: I was feeling my fear of death, of not existing. I talked about my fears of vulnerability, aloneness, and my physical death. I talked about my recent experience of myself as pushing away Essence, and saying “no” to Essence. I also talked about observing myself deliberately bringing up issues and getting stuck in them and in negative merging; to avoid the loss of myself, my personality, and my identity. As I talked, the fear grew and I felt myself becoming dissolved and disintegrated, dying. The feeling of death made me tremble, but as I stayed present I experienced tremendous relief and peace in the expansion. Then I experienced a growing intense warmth in my chest, where I have been feeling very hurt. I felt warmth and fullness. I felt personal, objective, and separate. I had no thoughts, feelings, or memories at the time. I was personal, objective, and separate; separate from my usual negative self or personality, an amazing but simple beautiful existence. I felt sweet, and I was loving towards myself and everyone and everything. This is an example of the advanced stage of separation.
But then there is a rebirth. She ends up experiencing both the Strength Essence (warmth) and the Personal Essence (personal fullness). Love replaces fear in her experience.
In the process of essential realization experiences of disintegration, dissolution and death are frequent. They indicate the dissolution of identification systems. We can see from our reports that essential realization requires much preparation and maturity.
To use Winnicott’s terminology, the mother’s image functions as a transitional object, needed before realization of the Personal Essence. He saw that the child in its continuing separation from the mother employs transitional objects, like a blanket or a doll, to soften such separation. The transitional object reminds the child of his mother. So it is useful until the mother’s image is finally internalized. The mother’s image within the dyadic object relation is then the transitional object which must be given up for Being. Just as true individuation is the realization of the Personal Essence, and not the separate individuality of ego, so is true separation the realization of the Strength Essence, and not the separation of ego boundaries. It is amazing when, time after time, a student will be having all kinds of emotional conflicts about separation, but the moment the Strength Essence is present in the experience the conflicts will evaporate, leaving a sense of strength and separation. There is a sense of separation, and a capacity to separate, without a sense of boundaries, or a need for them. One is the Personal Essence, which is Being, and one can see clearly that boundaries are only mental constructs. The issue of boundaries as it relates to separation and individuation is a very deep and subtle one, which is not resolved till later in the process of essential development.
Chapter Nineteen Merging
On the psychodynamic and structural levels, the main resistance against the radical separation perceived in the experience of Being is due to the unwillingness or inability of ego to be completely separate from the mother. The individual feels he is losing his mother, and his connection to her, because now he is not an individual based on past object relations to her. The remaining identification with ego reveals his unconscious attachment to her image. So the profound autonomy in the experience of the Personal Essence, and the sense of separation of the Strength Essence, both uncover the deep need for, and attachment to, the mother’s good image. The loss of contact with the mother’s image is often felt as a sense of loss and emptiness.
We see in Anna’s experience that the autonomy of the Personal Essence exposed a deep need for her mother, and her love. Object relations theory would interpret this reaction in terms of difficulty in separation due to insufficient gratification in the beginning stages of ego development. The more the mother is attuned, and provides what the child needs, the more the child is able and willing to separate and become more individuated. This good mother is then internalized, which supports the child’s developmental thrusts. But when the mother is not able to provide all the child needs, it becomes more difficult for the child to separate; partly because the child does not feel ready, and partly because separation means the loss of whatever (inadequate) mothering there is.
She became what her mother wanted her to be. She gave up her autonomy in the hope of getting the motherly love.
To summarize Anna’s case, the experience of autonomy brought up these reactions in her for three reasons. Autonomy meant for her loss of her mother, because that was her experience in childhood when she tried to be independent. It also exposed a deficiency in her early mothering, which made her feel unable to be separate and
autonomous. It also meant loss of the mother’s image, because she felt the autonomy on the Being level where there are no images. The development of greater autonomy always exposes deficiency in one’s early relationship to the mother. The most important phase for later differentiation and separation, in terms of positive mothering, is that of the symbiotic stage, in the early months of life.
I ask: “Is it possible to experience all these feelings without rejecting them?” When she just allows the feelings she reports that the wound opens up to a deeper place in her. And in this deeper place she starts feeling something new, soft and luminous. She reports, in a flash of insight, that this is the exact feeling she wants when she feels she wants her mother. And that this is exactly what she wants to feel when she thinks of having a relationship with a man. I ask her to stay with the experience, to feel what it feels like, and to tell me specific details about it. She feels a softness deep in her chest, as if there is a very soft and delicate flow in her heart. She describes it as a kind of delicate presence, that feels sweet, warm and melty. The more she describes it the more it fills her. She now feels her chest full of this exquisitely melted kind of sensation. She feels her chest like a pool of very sweet, soft, delicate and transparent presence that fills her with a golden glow. The more this sweet presence fills her the more she feels her boundaries melting away. She feels the presence as a sweet love that melts her sense of boundaries, and makes her feel not separate from her environment. She feels now the golden sweet love filling the whole room, making her feel merged with everything.
When one feels the loss, or the possibility of it, it can be seen to be only a psychic structure, an image, but one feels and behaves as if it were a real loss of the real mother, or the real relation to her. One might be on good terms at the time with one’s mother, but the emotional states do not take this fact into consideration. This shows us that the whole process is intrapsychic, expressing internalized past object relations. The above case presentation, and many cases like it, point to the following facts: When the identification system that is equivalent to the inner image of mother is experienced as lost or absent, there is revealed underneath it a large, deficient emptiness. This deficient emptiness, when looked at objectively rather than trying to avoid it or fill it with a new structure, will reveal underneath it an aspect of Essence, a presence of consciousness in a specific Platonic form. This essential aspect is experienced both as part of oneself, and as the good mother that one always wanted. This aspect, which we call the Merging Essence, is not a result of experiencing the mother’s image, but rather the result of losing it. Our observations, and the reports of thousands of experiences from hundreds of students, all indicate this fact, which cannot be accounted for by object relations theory, or any branch of developmental psychology at the present time. However, it is not incompatible with developmental psychology, and in fact we can use the findings of object relations theory to gain some understanding of it. The Merging Essence is not revealed exactly by the loss of the mother’s inner image, but more specifically by the loss of the deeper layers of the psychic structures. The unified mother image is a composite of images of mother remembered from all phases of ego development. The earliest, and hence the deepest, layers of it were formed in the symbiotic phase of ego development. This phase, which starts sometime in the second month of life and lasts until about the tenth month, is characterized by the infant behaving as though he and his mother were a unified functioning system, as though they formed a dual unity with a common boundary.
This means that the infant’s first object relation, the first time it becomes aware of relating to another, is in a form that cannot be strictly called a relation. There is still no separation or differentiation, in its mind, between self and other. There is still no concept of self or object, no concept of inside or outside. There is only a sense of a unity that has two vaguely perceived objects in it, what Mahler called a “dual unity.”
This indicates that the deepest layers in both self and object images are composed of undifferentiated self-object representations. So the deepest and most basic layers of the “good” mother image are primarily those of the “good” undifferentiated self-object representations. So when an individual feels the loss, or possibility of loss, of the mother’s image, he might be feeling the loss of these deep layers. The deepest experiences of losing mother must be those of the loss of these undifferentiated representations.
Our view is that the loss of the “good” undifferentiated representation leads to the activation of the Merging Essence. We give a report of one student, a professional woman in business, in her thirties. Ruth has been working with issues of identification, mainly her masculine identifications; she has become increasingly aware of these but is finding it hard to let go of them.
My aim the last three weeks was to ask myself why I sell myself short. This aim has done a lot to bring up my feelings about myself and my ties to my mother. Part of the reason I sell myself short is to try desperately to get her love; she did not want me to be me and do well. Another is the terror of losing her and really seeing that she never loved me; she hated me. I felt a large gaping hole around my heart and lungs as you spoke. I kept trying to fill it in various ways, one of which is trying to be my mom. When she is sick and upset I get sick. I worked on the hole in a private teaching session before. I have a gigantic wound where my mother continued to emotionally stab me as an infant every time my strength and love came out to her. I believe subconsciously that I am her and she I. I believe she has the love and warmth, and I am nothing without her. As we worked Saturday night I felt at some point a juicy, honey-like feeling or presence in my chest, where the wound is. It was sweet and warm and like nectar. I felt it again in my private session.
I feel strong and more myself than before. This new depth of working still feels slightly beyond my grasp, as if some wonderful new body of knowledge just appeared and it is taking my mind a while to grasp it.
We can see her process in several steps: 1. Seeing through her masculine identification with father, and understanding it as partially a way of separating from mother. 2. Experiencing the individuation and autonomy of the Personal Essence. 3. Seeing her identification with the undifferentiated representation with mother. 4. Experiencing the gaping hole and the longing for the “good” mother. 5. Experiencing the heart wound, and understanding it as the absence of love in her relationship with her mother. 6. Experiencing the Merging Essence. Our understanding of this sequence, integrating the various facets of her experience, is as follows: Her pleasurable experiences in the symbiotic phase included the experience of the Merging Essence, and became associated with it. The gratification she felt was the Merging Essence, and the affects accompanying it. These experiences became the basis for the “all good” undifferentiated representation. In time, she lost connection with the Merging Essence, for many reasons, among them the negative experiences in the symbiotic phase. This loss is experienced as a wound related to loss or absence of love. The loss of contact with the Merging Essence resulted in a deficient emptiness, a gaping hole with the sense of the absence of the “good” mother. In time this hole was “filled” and covered up with the part of the ego structure that is connected with the symbiotic phase, the non-differentiated representation. This representation then became the deeper layer of both self and object images. The self-representation based on identification with father was built on top of it. This process of loss of an aspect of Essence, which leads to uncovering a previously unconscious part of ego structure, occurs for all aspects of Essence. Our book Essence—The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization describes the process in detail; we call this understanding, as we noted above, the “theory of holes.”
In the Diamond Approach, the process of inner realization is partly a retracing of the steps listed above, what is called in psychoanalysis a regression process. As this regression occurs one integrates the aspects of Essence, and the individuality of ego becomes absorbed into the Personal Essence.
There are two other sources: one is when students have flashes of memories from the symbiotic phase, they usually include memories of the Merging Essence, indicating that it is actually part of the experience of infants when they are experiencing gratification. The other more important source is the direct observation of infants by the author and other people, at times of the infant’s gratification during the months of symbiosis. The consistent observation is that at such times of gratification…
We will describe the characteristics of the Merging Essence, which should make it clear why this aspect is connected with the symbiotic stage. It is a presence, a state of Being, a certain form of self-existing consciousness. It is not an emotional reaction or an image. It feels soft, tender, gentle and very sweet. It feels like a form of love. This form of love feels like the presence of goodness. This love has the quality of sharing in it, of feeling it with someone else. The sharing feels like the sharing of the goodness one has. It has a sense of nourishment, contentment, satisfaction and happiness. When one feels Merging Essence one basically feels satisfied, contented and happy in a complete and deep way. One feels gratified. Its most characteristic property, which distinguishes it from all other aspects of Essence, is its feeling of melting. It feels melted and melting. It feels melted like melted butter, but clear as some kind of very light and delicate honey. It has the effect of melting one’s sensations, one’s tensions, one’s mind. When it emerges in consciousness, one feels melted by a sweet and delicious kind of love. The heart melts and…
using the golden color in popular expressions describing intimate, romantic or gratifying situations. It has an intrinsic sense of pleasure. It feels like a pleasurable sensation. It has the feeling of gratification. The melting quality of this aspect of Essence makes one feel merged with the environment, not separate and not differentiated. So it basically melts one’s sense of boundaries. The melting is felt…
However, the correct perception, on the Being level prior to any constructs in the mind, is the absence of all boundaries, and not individual boundaries, as she asserts. We will see in later chapters how there can be discrimination without boundaries. This understanding is extremely difficult for ego to grasp, for the very existence of ego is based on the belief that physical boundaries are real, and that the physical world is the most fundamental aspect of reality. Being sees otherwise, for Being is not restricted by boundaries. When one realizes one’s nature to be Being, these boundaries lose their function of defining who one is. One still perceives the boundaries of physical objects, but one is aware that they exist only on the physical level, and not in the consciousness of Being.
The most important barrier against the experience of the Merging Essence is the belief in an individuality with boundaries. This is why it becomes much easier to experience this aspect of Essence when one realizes the Personal Essence; the latter is a sense of being a person that is not dependent on ego boundaries. As the child matures, and as ego development progresses to differentiation and separation, it becomes gradually more difficult to experience the Merging Essence. However, if the metabolism is complete and leads to the Personal Essence, then it becomes possible not to lose contact with the Merging aspect.
Object relations theorists make observations based on the assumption of the reality of separate entities and, of course, construct their theories accordingly. But, because they do not take Being into consideration…
By direct perception we mean what is actually perceived when the inner capacities of Essence are functioning. These capacities are not generally experienced on the ego level, but sometimes a hint of them can be recognized from the perspective of ego. For instance, the capacity of empathy is commonly recognized, and acknowledged by some psychologists as a valid mode of perception. However, from the vantage point of Being, empathy is seen as the first vague glimmer of a capacity of Being. When this capacity is developed, one does not vaguely sense the emotional state of the other person, but one is clearly conscious of the exact inner state of the other. One knows what the other feels,…
when even some of such capacities are operative. We recognize that most readers will experience a difficulty because our discussion and exploration refers to perceptions that are uncommon, and hence rarely communicated. The problem in understanding our approach is not a logical or scientific one, for it is perfectly logical and scientific in view of the available data. We can only again note that although in currently common experience the perceptual capacities of Being are fairly unknown, they are actually not esoteric or mysterious, and a large body of traditional spiritual literature…
The Merging Essence is closely related to the function of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, and hence it is…
the nervous system. [More details of this point can be found in our essay “Essence and Sexuality.”] These discharge processes are intimately connected to, and in fact part of, the…
It appears that one of the first boundaries experienced is that of a common boundary around mother and child, in what Mahler calls the “dual unity.” Perception becomes more discriminative when the Strength Essence dominates consciousness, in the differentiation subphase. It brings to perception the capacity to see partitions as more fixed and stable. Still, even here, partitions are seen as porous, transparent and permeable. The impermeability of boundaries is the effect of ego development, and not that of Essence.
Since the Merging Essence is dominant in the symbiotic phase, and is especially present at times of gratification, it becomes associated in memory with the following:
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Gratification. After a while the child cannot distinguish the Merging Essence from the experience of gratification. So he cannot separate it from the perception of his needs being satisfied. In other words, he does not separate it from the mental representations of the activities or processes leading to gratification. So need for the Merging Essence becomes associated in the mind with the need for other things, such as food, comfort, protection, safety, pleasure, warmth, contact, discharge of tension and so on. This has far reaching consequences, from the compulsive need for love relations, to overeating, smoking habits, drug addiction, greed, idealization of communities and belongingness, and so on. These are illustrations of how the need for an aspect of one’s Being can be directed to external objects and activities.
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The “all good” undifferentiated self-object representation. The child cannot differentiate in his mind between the essential aspect and the image of the good dual unity. The child feels the gratifying pleasure of the Merging Essence, but he is not conceptually aware of it. Conceptually he is aware of the dual unity, of a common boundary around him and mother. This has a profound implication for future relationships. The individual grows up believing that he will experience the pleasure, love and melting of the Merging Essence only when he is with another person in an intimate situation. In other words, he ends up believing that he cannot experience this aspect of his Being, a part of him, except in a very narrowly defined circumstance. This puts a tremendous pressure on intimate love relationships. It probably accounts for the consuming human preoccupation with love relationships and sexual contact. The fact is that this state of pleasure and merging is an aspect of oneself, and can be experienced in any situation, whether by oneself or with a love object. 3. The “good” mother image. The ego cannot think in terms of undifferentiated representations. Since it is the result of differentiation and separation it cannot imagine what it is to be truly merged with another. It can only think of two people coming together in a very intimate way; it cannot imagine the actual experience of not being a separate person. So when one feels a need for the Merging Essence one feels it as a longing or need for the good, gratifying mother. The…
Another important factor in this aspect is its relation to the nervous system. It is a state of melting and flow, expansion and pleasure. When it is present it seems particularly to affect the nervous system, facilitating the functioning of the nerve cells and ends, as if energy and electrical impulses become smoother and more easily transmitted. It is a profound relaxation of the nervous system, and of the whole organism. It is closely allied to the functioning of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. So it facilitates discharge, rest, relaxation, metabolism, gestation, which are all features of states of satisfaction and gratification. Its effect on the organism, at all levels, is that of comforting, soothing, nourishing…
This is true, but the phenomenon cannot be completely explained by object relations theory, for the following reasons: The Merging Essence is an aspect of Essence, part of one’s Being. There is no need to have an image of anything or anyone for it to be present or to function. Believing that a self-image is needed for it to be present is like believing that one needs a certain image for one’s circulatory system to function. Mother’s image is also a mental content. As we have seen, holding on to an image is a barrier against the presence of Being. This was illustrated in Ruth’s report; when she felt her identity with the mother’s image she did not experience the Merging Essence. She had to feel the loss of this inner representation, which revealed a gaping emptiness, before she became aware of the Merging Essence. The reason which is particular to the Merging Essence has to do with its property of melting away boundaries, which makes it antithetical to the existence of ego boundaries. The individuality of ego is based on differentiation, separation and the establishment of stable boundaries. On the other hand, the development and integrity of this individuality depends on achieving object constancy, namely, on the establishment of a unified image of mother. If we were to assume that by
internalizing mother’s image one integrated the Merging Essence, then we would be saying that the individuality, which is defined mainly by its boundaries, is based on the integration of the Merging Essence, which is a state that melts away boundaries. So we would be contradicting ourselves.
Thus we can see that the internalization of the mother’s image is an incomplete attempt to integrate the Merging Essence. When the meta bolism is complete, the nondifferentiated representations are absorbed into Being, resulting in the realization of the Merging Essence. Thus, when both the Personal Essence and the Merging Essence are realized, the Personal Essence takes the place of the separate individuality, and the Merging Essence takes the place of the mother’s image. We think, however, that it is more accurate to see the process not as a replacing of ego, but as a more complete development.
The Merging Essence is lost in the child’s experience not only because of identification with ego structure, but also for traumatic reasons. These traumas constitute psychodynamic reasons for its repression, which arise as issues about Merging Essence in the process of essential realization. It seems that a very gratifying overall symbiotic experience makes the Merging Essence more available to one’s experience. However, it is not enough for complete integration, because of the limitations of the perceptual and cognitive functions at that stage. The infant cannot perceive the Merging Essence, or any aspect of Essence, at the early stage without associating it with the environment, especially with mother. There is still no concept of self, no concept of one’s nature, and hence no possibility of knowing that one is experiencing one’s own beingness. The infant’s mind is basically exteriorized, in the sense that there is no conceptual perception of anything inside. The discrimination in perception begins in seeing everything as outside.
From the perspective of Being, when there are no ego identifications at all, it is possible to experience perception from a certain state, which we call the experience of Absence, in which both the sense of individuality and self arc absent. There is no self-consciousness whatsoever, although there is perception and functioning. The perception includes one’s body as part of the environment. But the perception is not related to a frame of reference, or to a self as a center. There is the perception of all that appears to the senses, without the slightest…
The Merging Essence is a differentiated aspect of Being. It can be felt, sensed and even seen. The infant is bound to cognize it as belonging to the environment, and later as part of mother. In fact it is seen as part of the dual…
Thus the projection of the Merging Essence on mother, or on the undifferentiated representation, is inevitable. Discussing the absence of differentiation between inside and outside, Kernberg writes, “Again, the child cannot yet differentiate between elements such as pleasurable bodily sensations, the perception of light, and the perception of mother’s breast.” [Otto F. Kernberg, Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis, p. 93] On the other hand, the complete metabolism of the nondifferentiated representations makes it possible to realize this aspect of Essence. So the…
We can say then that the Merging Essence is in a sense the “inner mother.” In fact, all students in the process of inner realization relate to it as if it were their good mother. One of the main issues to be worked through is that of associating it with one’s mother. It is an independent aspect of Essence, a Platonic form. It has its own perspective, or rather, one can see all of reality from its vantage point. One can see the whole process of human development as the ever-increasing merging with one’s Being, as more and more boundaries are dissolved.
The reason the realization of the Personal Essence requires the realization of the Merging Essence is that the realization of the Personal Essence is experienced as a profound autonomy implying a radical separation from mother, which seems to threaten the loss of the capacity for inner soothing and regulation. So the ego hardens its defenses and identifications against the experience of the Personal Essence. However, when the Merging Essence is realized, the ego experiences the presence of all the soothing and comforting it feels it needs, and this disposes it to further surrender its defenses. However, this must not be taken to imply that one realizes the Merging Essence first and then the Personal Essence. The process is not so linear. The aspects become realized gradually together. This becomes possible by dealing with the rapprochement conflicts, as we will discuss shortly.
Chapter Twenty Negative Merging
Thus the frustration and suffering can only be experienced as what we call “negative merging,” in contrast to the positive merging of the experiences of gratification.
appear in this merged form, in two opposite organizations, which are split off and kept separate from each other. In a sense, the infant feels he has two relationships: the positive merged one and the negative merged one. He does not see that they are parts of the same relationship with one person. This splitting gradually becomes utilized for defense, “protecting” the good relation from the bad one. The positive merging is dominated by the presence of the Merging Essence; its representation is an attempt to internalize it. On the other hand, the negative merging is dominated by a primitive affect of frustration. The first defensive operations are those of splitting and projection. The negative merging is split off, seen as separate and unrelated to the positive merging, and projected outside; thus it is perceived as part of the environment.
The infant feels everything in the environment, especially in his mother. This is what it means to be in a merged state; it is a merged consciousness, not only a perception of common boundaries. Thus the mother’s state has a direct effect on the infant. Mothers know this phenomenon very well. Psychotherapists know this both from their empathic capacities and from the reports of their severely disturbed patients who cannot tell their feelings from those of others. During the symbiotic phase the infant is in complete contact with the mother’s consciousness. He feels her joy, her fear, her anger, her pain, her frustration, her weakness and so on. But he is not aware that these are the mother’s feelings, for he has no sense of a separate self. So what he feels and what mother experiences make up the content of his merged relationship with her.
This phenomenon has many disturbing implications. One is that the quality of the symbiosis is not dependent only on the child’s interaction with his mother, but also on the general inner state of the mother. Developmental psychology has considered the effect of the mother’s state on the infant only insofar as her state determines to a large extent her interactions, reactions, responses and attitude towards her child. We are seeing here that her influence is much greater than that.
The infant is asleep and peaceful. The mother becomes anxious, for some reason. The infant feels the anxiety, and wakes up fretting. The mother thinks something is happening to the infant, so she comforts him, by nursing him, for example. In this way she discharges her anxiety and calms down. Now the infant calms down and goes back to sleep. Everyone believes that the mother has regulated her infant, while the fact is that in this instance the infant helped her regulate herself. One of the few psychologists who saw the paramount importance of this phenomenon is Harry Stack Sullivan. In fact, he considered it to be central in the development of ego; he thought that ego structure develops primarily as an attempt to deal with the negative affects picked up from the mother.
When the mother is happy the infant will feel happy, even if she is not interacting with him. When the mother is suffering, the infant will suffer, even if the mother is not expressing her inner state in her interaction with him. For instance, the mother might be angry at her husband. She knows this and is not directing her anger towards the baby.
She holds the baby gently. However, the baby feels her anger completely, and the resulting experience is negative merging. This point becomes painfully clear in the deeper stages of essential development, when the student begins to deal with the merged representations. He will realize that many of his traits, conflicts and emotional proclivities are not his own at all. He will see that he is living not only his own life, but also the life of his mother (and his father to some extent), and her mother before her, and so on. One will realize, with horror or perhaps with humor, that he has literally inherited the deeper layers of his personality. One lives, to a greater extent than one cares to face, the emotional lives of people long forgotten.
One is reminded of the character of Alia, in Frank Herbert’s science fiction book, Children of Dune, where the persons in her memory of the immemorial past vie with each other to dominate her consciousness: She had possessed full consciousness long before birth. With that consciousness came a cataclysmic awareness of her circumstances: womb-locked into intense, inescapable contact with the personas of all her ancestors and of those identities’ death—transmitted in spice-tau to the Lady Jessica. Before birth, Alia had contained every bit of the knowledge required in a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother—plus much, much more from all those others. In that knowledge lay recognition of a terrible reality—Abomination. The totality of that knowledge weakened her. The pre-born did not escape. Still she’d fought against the more terrifying of her ancestors, winning for a time a Pyrrhic…
How can we speak of ego autonomy, when its deepest layers are inhabited by other people, most of whom one has never known? There is true autonomy only on the Being level, where one is who one is, at the moment, completely free from the past. We see that the content of the merged representations is greatly affected by the mother’s emotional experience during the symbiotic phase. The mother might love her baby dearly, and this will add to the positive merging; but if she is unhappy, the baby is bound to experience the unhappiness as negative merging. And since most humans, regardless of how much they love their…
Negative merging is one cause of most individuals being cut off from, and unaware of, their Being. The mother’s (parents’) lack of contact with, and ignorance of Being is internalized by the infant, through negative merging. The child grows up completely ignorant of his true nature. The greatest and most devastating ignorance of humanity is perpetuated in the daily lives of families. Most of us do not want such knowledge or perception; it is too painful and frustrating to confront our fears and illusions. But our love for our…