Jsf, one day, perhaps, you will begin to SEE yourself. My grandmother always said that a smart man learns from his mistakes, but a genius learns from the mistakes of others.
Everyone here has been hoping that you might be that genius - one who can actually learn from others, thus making the passage through inevitable disintegrations smoother and less traumatic.
Because, believe me, those disintegrations will come...
In the meantime, allow me to quote a bit that I posted elsewhere:
This brings me to Robbie Burns wonderful little poem: "To A Louse On seeing one on a Lady's bonnet at Church."
When we read this little masterpiece, we can almost see the louse crawling in the unconscious lady's bonnet, a lady we are brought to understand gives herself some airs and her illusions of grandeur are crawling with lice.
Burns inserts a bit of social satire in the piece with the exaggerated indignation he uses to describe the contrast between the vulgarity of the louse and the social pretensions of the lady. Burns outrage is actually mockery of the lady herself which we learn when he suddenly drops his pose of disturbed onlooker and names the lady, a simple country girl: Jenny. At this point, his remarks become somewhat pitying because he is telling us something very deep about that part of her that could be real and not pretentious and self-righteous, but how difficult it is to awaken it:
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us
An' ev'n Devotion.
For those of you who might have trouble translating this dialect, it is simply saying that the gift of being able to see ourselves as others see us would save us from many errors and foolish thoughts and ridiculous or hurtful behavior and we would most certainly cease being devoted to those things that shore up and support our illusions about ourselves.
In recent times, I have pondered this issue of how people react to what they perceive as "criticism" and how some people can "get it" and some people simply cannot. This latter type, as soon as they face the pooled observations of the group which point out to them their "blunders" and "foolish notions" and "airs in dress an' gait and Devotion," withdraw immediately into the "right man syndrome."
They are "right," everyone else is wrong, their case is special and unique, and that is that.
They will argue and nitpick and so on. And we know what this comes from: the energy of the emotional center has been aroused and usurped by the intellect to fuel its frenzied and frantic need to "self-calm" They MUST stop this "bad feeling" at all costs, and if the only way they can stop it is to make everything and everyone out there "wrong" about them. As Mouravieff wrote:
"When it comes to the other centres, the misuse of the negative parts takes much more insidious forms, which entail more serious consequences for our minds as well as our bodies. That is how the negative part of the intellectual centre nourishes jealousy, afterthoughts, hypocrisy, suspicion, treachery, etc. The negative part of the emotional centre receives all the disagreeable impressions and serves as a vehicle for negative emotions, for which the keyboard is very large, ranging from melancholy to hate. We shall have occasion to go deeper into the problem of negative emotions. [Such emotion] represents one of the major obstacles to esoteric evolution."
What seems to be so is that it is generally individuals who have been "disenfranchised" or who feel helpless and at the mercy of the forces of life - whether they manifest through other people or random events - are those who are most likely to erect such barriers against negative emotions. They feel acutely their own inability to have an effect in the world, and they turn their creativity inward to create and maintain their illusions, their "blunders" and "foolish notions" and "airs in dress an' gait and Devotion."
Self-calming illusions thrive on certain mechanical characteristics of human beings. The first characteristic is "absolute certainty." In this sense, it is a sort of terminal consciousness in which development is stopped because real growth and development includes, of necessity, uncertainty and risk.
The gift of being able to see ourselves as others see us would save us from many errors and foolish thoughts and ridiculous behavior , and we would most certainly cease being devoted to those things that shore up and support our illusions about ourselves.
I have had to work very hard, to study, to develop, to expand my knowledge base of the "language" I am attempting to translate. I'm not perfect - no one is - but I give it my best, and I submit myself to the network to catch errors. When some new data comes in and suggests that changes are necessary, I am willing to make those changes. I don't feel that I have to be "right" all the time, and I certainly do not insist that "just because the Cs said it, it must be so." In fact, as I have often said, if the C's say it, it needs to be checked.
Translators must be trained; they must not only know the other language, they must know how to regulate the degree of fidelity with the source text, how to tell what degree and type of fidelity is appropriate in specific use contexts, how to receive and deliver translations, how to find help with terminology, and so on. All of this suggests a long period of training and preparation. A Translator channel is someone who has studied these things, who knows these things, and who, most importantly, governs their channeling-translating behavior in terms of this knowledge. This knowledge is ideological. It is controlled by Cosmic ideological norms.
To know, via reason, what those Cosmic norms prescribe and act upon them is to submit to the original intent. To become a translator-channel of truly Higher Cosmic Consciousness is to be hailed as a translator by the "invisible hand" of the Universe.
If you want to become a translator-channel, you must submit to the translator's role of learning the language in an expert way; you must submit to being directed by what the Cosmic ideological norms inform you is the true spirit of the source author, and to convey that spirit unchanged to the target language.
I have certainly had to deal with the fact that, in the early days of the Cs experiment, I, too, had assumptions that had to be laid aside, and most definitely, in my particular case, this very well may have influenced the "translation." I have endeavored to correct these errors, to restore the true spirit of the source author. That is my job as the translator of the material, as the presenter of the information to the "target audience." And I will continue to do it as I see fit, as I am directed to do by the "invisible hand" of the Universe.
So, if this sort of real work doesn't interest you, that's okay. Nobody's proselytizing, we simply share freely what we have learned, what we observe, think, speculate, etc.
But if doing "real work" DOES appeal to you, then you are going to have to deal first of all with buffers, programs, what Castaneda calls "The Predator's Mind."
By "predator's mind" what we really mean is the whole gamut of "automatic programs" and "learned behaviors" and "knee jerk responses" that we are all heir to as a consequence of our upbringing, social pressures, trying to please others in order to survive, and so on.
This, in no way, refers to some kind of "possession", pathological dissociation, or whatever.
The ways and means that we ensure survival of the ego are established pretty early in life by our parental and societal programming. This conditioning determines what IS or is NOT possible; what we are "allowed" to believe in order to be accepted. We learn this first by learning what pleases our parents and then later we modify our belief based on what pleases our society - our peers and even our government - to believe.
One of the first things we might observe is that everyone has a different set of beliefs about the world and themselves based upon their social and familial conditioning, and that these beliefs determine how much of the OBJECTIVE reality anyone is able to access.
Human beings - faced with unpleasant truths about themselves or their reality - react like alcoholics who refuse to admit their condition, or the cuckolded husband who is the "last to know," or the wife who does not notice that her husband is abusing her daughter. (And we notice quite often that it is much easier to see another person's "blind spot in the mind" than our own. This is a key point that we should always bear in mind. If WE can see someone else's blind spot so easily, and they cannot, it may also be true about ourselves!)
In States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering, (Cambridge: Polity Press; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), Stanley Cohen discusses the subject of denial which may shed some light here:
Denial is a complex unconscious defence mechanism for coping with guilt, anxiety and other disturbing emotions aroused by reality. Denial can be both deliberate and intentional, as well as completely subconscious.
An individual who is deliberately and intentionally denying something is acting from an individual level of lying, concealment and deception.
I don't think that we are dealing with something like that here.
What we are dealing with is denial that is subconscious and therefore is generally a result of familial and social programming combined with what the individual learned to do to survive, i.e. get love, food, assurances that they will not be abandoned.
This learning can occur by trial and error, or by observing what other people do and whether it works or not. This learning starts in infancy, before we are even aware of it, and even before we are verbal. A baby learns that smiling and cooing gets lots of attention. Or, a baby learns that crying gets no response at all, that expressing discomfort is ignored. Ignoring a baby's cries is a cruel and heartless trick and it teaches that baby that the Universe is cold and unresponsive and the infant is likely to dissociate and/or turn inward and create fantasies about himself, the world, etc... all before he is even able to articulate in words. This becomes a heavy "first circuit" program that determines the most fundamental of emotional reactions to the world, other people, events, etc.
All of these programs become entrenched circuits in our brain, body, being. Like Pavlov's dogs that salivated at the sound of the bell, we become machines. Somebody says or does something, something happens in our reality, and it's like the ringing bell and we just "salivate," (do whatever it is that is programmed in us to do.)
For some people, these layers and layers of reaction programs, survival programs, how to get what you want/need programs, are so thick and so dominant, that there is little possibility of any real consciousness to manifest.
Since most of these programs are directly tied to such emotional states, the instant something happens "out there," the emotions of fear of being hungry, fear of being abandoned, fear of being hurt, get triggered and everything and everybody are seen through the filter of this almost uncontrollable fear.
Most programs that cause us to end up "in the soup" so to say, are programs created by our exposure to the endemic narcissism of our culture. We know, from reading what many members share about their lives, that they were raised by a narcissists or had significant exposure to same at some crucial point in their lives; almost as bad is being raised or influenced by a narccissist enabler.
And so we know that many of the "walking wounded" have not only been "food" for a narcissist, but have also learned to be one in order to get succor when the emotions are triggered which is about all the time.
When you are raised by a narcissist, your emotions are definitely ON, only it is the negative half of the emotional center and it has a "hair trigger." You become "prickly" like a cactus, and people feel like they have to walk on eggshells around you in order to prevent setting you off on one of your emotional rants/states.
And of course, after those rants begin to wind down, there is always the "poor, pitiful me" thing that runs that re-engages the food source... "I'm so awful, I don't know why I do that... it must be all the awful things I've suffered... please help me... oh, woe is me."
And certainly, since a person like this has functioned this way for literally their whole life, beginning in infancy, they don't really know much else. They are sure that all these things that just run automatically in them are "the real me... that's just how I am... " That's all they know.
But IF such a person has some kind of "seed of the self" buried in there, they are generally not very happy living this way. They can't let go and become complete narcissists or psychos or use other people without paying some kind of price inside where they suffer but don't exactly know why. Such people then begin to search for - they know not what - but basically an end to this suffering that they feel for "being themselves."
They don't realize that, above all things, they are NOT being themselves and THAT is the reason for the sensation of discomfort, the pain inside...
This may not always be the case, but it is often enough. My way is to be open to all possibilities. Yes, that exposes me to the danger of being open to the wrong people, to being deceived and hurt, but it also makes it possible to be open to the RIGHT people.
What people need to understand is that the so-called Personality is a construct of your reactions to your experiences, most of which were manipulative, unpleasant and/or negative. And that means the whole thing - your entire concept of yourself and all your ways and means of perceiving, evaluating, and reacting to the world out there and inside are nothing but a set of programmed circuits that run automatically.
Once you can accept that, fully and deeply, and begin to examine your life from as far back as you can remember, look at every detail, how everything you are, everything that you learned to be in that "school of the world" that puts you inside a manipulating shell, having to play games with yourself and others in order to get your needs met, or to assuage that fear of not being love, of being abandoned, of dying; if you can look at it, then perhaps, somewhere in there you will find the original self, a self that had dreams of BEing yourself, supported fully by the universe, and what that self might be.
So, coming back to the original point: you need to realize that what you are battling is not "yourself" except in the sense that you are battling the shell that has been created by your life experiences, and that was all built on the foundation of how you were treated as an infant and child. It is all a construct built up to protect that child that was terrified of being hungry, abandoned, unloved; and generally, it has nothing to do at all with the real YOU.
What seems to be so is that it is generally individuals who have been "disenfranchised" or who feel helpless and at the mercy of the forces of life - whether they manifest through other people or random events - are those who are most likely to erect such barriers against negative emotions. They feel acutely their own inability to have an effect in the world, and they turn their creativity inward to create and maintain their illusions, their "blunders" and "foolish notions" and "airs in dress an' gait and Devotion."
Self-calming illusions thrive on certain mechanical characteristics of human beings. The first characteristic is "absolute certainty." In this sense, it is a sort of terminal consciousness in which development is stopped because real growth and development includes, of necessity, uncertainty and risk. This point was actually made by Jesus in the parable of the talents.
In this story, Jesus describes "Knowledge" as "money" given to three servants. Two of the servants utilize their talents/gold to obtain even more. In fact, the exact description is that they "invest," or take a risk by giving up what they have been given - what they know (knowledge of the kingdom) - in order to multiply it. And the servant who clings desperately to his little bit of knowledge/money, burying it in the ground from fear that his Master is hard and demanding, loses even the little that he has. He closed his mind to more knowledge. He assumed that what he had was sufficient and stopped seeking. He denied himself by denying knowledge and the risks entailed in gaining it.
This "absolute certainty" - the burying of the talent - is very similar to what is sometimes called the "Right Man Syndrome." The Right Man lives in a world of fantasy and indulges in grandiose dreams of success (rewards in heaven) without any realistic attempts to make them come true. They rely on their illusions and their "sacrifices" - "blunders" and "foolish notions" and "airs in dress an' gait and Devotion" to bring them rewards.
The Right Man is generally a person who has a "high need for dominance," but who repeatedly (perhaps as a child) finds himself in life situations of subordinance. Placed in such situations, they attempt to express their dominance need in the only ways available to them: generally manipulation for power, hinting to anyone who will listen that THEY, and they alone, have achieved some kind of "initiation" and if others will only listen to them, they will also achieve this position of initiatory righteousness that is really just a consequence of ultimate self-calming.
What is crucial to understand is that this "self-calming" - taken to such an extreme is basically "giving their will" away in exchange for illusory benefits that they have created in their mind. The choice to use one's creativity this way, in the maintenance of illusion, takes a tremendous toll on the soul because the energy that might be used for growth and development is consumed by a lie to the self.
The "absolute certainty" of the person who chooses the self-calming route locks them into Entropy and their creative energy goes to feed a vast system of illusion. These systems are the creation and maintenance of the "yes, but" syndrome taken to an extreme. Again, Mouravieff speaks about this:
"[The yes, but excuses] when applied to ourselves and for our own benefit, with the aim of softening a shock, or rediscovering our inner peace after we have sinned, or excusing our actions or faults, this idiom crystallizes within us over a period of time to create a true auto-tranquillizing mechanism. [...] it is a true mechanism of mental anaesthesia, founded on a refined and disguised lie. It sows hypocrisy in man towards himself. "
A person with such a highly developed auto-tranquillizer is very much like the paranoid schizophrenic, they devise baroque and ingenious systems of perception and define them as either "given by god" or given to them specifically and exclusively by higher density beings, or achieved through some form of initiation that only they know or, in the simplest sense, it is just what they are THINKING and so, it MUST be right!
Here, we must keep in mind that I am talking about individuals whose abilities to interact with others, whose competence in what the C's refer to the basic lessons of this density, i.e. simple understandings of relationships, karma, etc, are obviously lacking to an extreme degree. Otherwise, they would not have found themselves receiving a "mirror" while in our presence.
It can be observed that such individuals, no matter what you say to them about their failure to interact with others in true activities of striving for STO, will spend an enormous amount of energy editing out all impressions that are contrary to their system of illusion.
This then leads to another aspect of the Right Man: "self-righteousness." They MUST look down on others who do not share their illusion! It is extremely important to get others to believe in their illusion in order to confirm its "rightness" even if they claim, on the surface, that "everyone has the right to their own opinion." The fact is, they cannot tolerate anyone else's opinion if it is different from their own because it threatens their "rightness."
This rightness MUST be maintained at all costs because, deep inside, the Right Man (or woman) is usually struggling with horror at their own helplessness. Their rightness is a dam that holds back their worst fears: that they are lost and alone and that there really is no god because how could there be a god who loves them if they have to suffer so much? Their inability to feel truly loved and accepted deep within is, in effect, like being stranded in a nightmare from which they cannot wake up.
All of this can be traced back to a poorly developed emotional center, or a sleeping emotional center, or even a grossly deformed emotional center. As Mouravieff writes:
Among the lower centres, the emotional centre is worst off. In our civilization- as we have already observed- it generally receives neither rational education nor systematic training. Its formation and development are now left to chance, since religious education today has been largely intellectualized and rationalized.
All sorts of considerations dictated by worldly wisdom and mundane vanity; the habitual practice of lying - especially to ourselves -and hypocrisy, from which no one is totally exempt, imprint dangerous distortions on the emotional centre.
Frequently struck by a feeling of inferiority and by the need for compensation, its usual motivation; accustomed as it is to judge and to criticize everybody and everything; surrendering itself to a strangely voluptuous enjoyment of negative emotions; this centre becomes unrecognizable. It degenerates to the point where it becomes the instrument of destruction of our being, which it accelerates on its way towards ageing and death. [...]
Here Mouravieff gives the reason why the awakening and calibration of the EMOTIONAL Center is the first step:
As no direct link exists between the lower intellectual centre and the higher intellectual centre, the intellectual culture which is the almost exclusive basis of our education cannot lead us to higher levels of consciousness.
In spite of the refinement of his intelligence, no matter how extensive or deep the knowledge he acquires, exterior man remains enclosed within the circle of reason.
Escape is possible only via the heart; that is why the cultivation of our emotional life dominates the attention, the preoccupations and the obligatory efforts demanded by esoteric teachings.
However, if a purely intellectual culture, rational and positive, cannot lead us directly towards the higher planes of Life, one must not think that it is useless. From the esoteric point of view, it retains its full value, and will be of great help when Individuality is formed within us.
Notice in this last remark that intellect is NOT being cast aside, it is noted that it is VERY important, but that its importance can only be fully utilized AFTER the individuality is formed. Intellect, knowledge, is the vessel into which the spirit is poured when the "gate of the heart is opened."
A second note is this: none of this deals with "love" in the sense that it is normally taught by the "gurus," but rather an awake and calibrated emotional center, the "eyes of the soul", and so, Mouravieff points out the following:
But we have to begin at the beginning, that is to say, with the training of our hearts and the refinement of our emotional lives. ... Access to the higher emotional centre is access to the level of consciousness of the real, individual 'I'. Access to the higher intellectual centre raises us to the level of Consciousness - that is, to participation in the universal 'I', through the interior communion it permits. This is the end of all possible evolution for man under terrestrial conditions.
The differences between "A" and "B" influences are not just the difference between the "worldly" life vs the "spiritual" life. It is clearly more than that.
Let us now examine from the practical point of view how man can reach esotericism; by what means he can work towards the aim of establishing permanent connections which will make it possible for him to evolve. The problem is treated in the Tradition by the help of the diagram below. In esoteric teaching this figure could be said to be the most important. It incorporates a multitude of ideas; far more than the comments we are about to give. That is why we must return to it often and meditate upon it.
The black arrows represent influences created within life by life itself. This is the first variety of influence by which man is surrounded. These are called 'A' influences. We will notice that they are distributed almost equally over all the surface of the circle of life. As in the case of all radiant energy in nature, their effect is inversely proportional to the square of the distance; thus man is subject most of all to arrows influencing him from those immediately around him. He is pulled every instant by the way they act at that moment.
The influence of the 'A' arrows on exterior man is imperative; driven, he wanders in the circle of his life from birth to death, following a broken line which is sometimes subject to dangerous changes of direction.
The ensemble of 'A' influences forms the Law of Chance or Law of Accident. Man is subject to its rule, yet if we examine the figure more closely we will perceive that each black arrow is counterbalanced, neutralized in some other part by another arrow equal in force and diametrically op- posed, so that if we had left them to effectively neutralize each other the resultant force would have been equal to zero. This means that in their ensemble the 'A' influences are illusory in their nature, although the effect of each one of them is real, so that exterior man takes them for reality.
The white circle represents the esoteric Centre, located outside the general laws of life.
The white arrows represent influences called 'B'. These influences are thrown into the turmoil of life and originate from the esoteric Centre. Created outside life, these arrows are all oriented in the same direction. In their ensemble they form a sort of magnetic field.
Since 'A' influences neutralize each other, 'B' influences actually constitute the only reality.
The small circle with the shaded lines represents man, who in this figure is taken in isolation. The oblique shaded lines signify that the nature of exterior man is not homogeneous: it is mixed.
If man spends his life without distinguishing between ''A' and 'B' influences, he will end it as he started, one could say mechanically, driven by the Law of Accident. However, according to the nature and the intensity of the resultant forces to which he is subjected, it can happen to him to make a brilliant career, in the meaning the world gives to this expression.
Yet he will come to the end of his days without having either learned or understood anything of Realty. And earth returns to earth.
In life every being is subjected to a sort of competitive test. If he discerns the existence of the 'B' influences; if he acquires a taste for gathering and absorbing them; if he continually aspires to assimilate them better; his mixed inner nature will slowly undergo a certain kind of evolution. And if the efforts which he makes to absorb the 'B' influences are constant and sufficient in force, a magnetic centre can be formed within him. This magnetic centre is represented in the diagram by the small white space.
If this centre once born in him is carefully developed, it takes form, and in its turn will exercise an influence over the results of the 'A' arrows which are always active, deflecting them.
Such a deflection may be violent. In general it transgresses the laws of exterior life and provokes many conflicts in and around man.
If he loses the battle, he emerges with the conviction that the 'B' influences are nothing but illusion: that the only reality is represented by the 'A' influences. Slowly the magnetic centre which had been formed within him is reabsorbed and vanishes. Then, from the esoteric point of view, his situation is worse than the one he had started with, when he was just beginning to discern the 'B' influences.
But if he emerges a winner in this first struggle, his magnetic centre, consolidated and reinforced, will draw him to a man having a 'C' influence stronger than his own, and possessing a stronger magnetic centre. And so on in succession, the last man being in connection with another having an influence 'D', who will be his link with the Esoteric Centre 'E'.
Henceforth in life, that man will no longer be isolated.
He will certainly continue to live as before under the action of the 'A' influences, which for a long time will continue to exercise their power over him; yet little by little, thanks to the effect of the influence of the chain 'B'-'C'-'D'-'E', his magnetic centre will develop. To the measure of its growth, the man will escape the dominion of the Law of Chance and enter the domain of Consciousness.
I think it is interesting that Mouravieff has diagrammed the influences as "arrows." This reminds us of the C's remark about "consciousness energy directors." That is to say, that A and B influences can also be viewed as "creative" or "entropic," and certainly there can be "A" influences that may appear to be very "spiritual" or "esoteric". Mouravieff has actually given us something to think about in his second diagram of such influences:
This second figure, with black magnetic centres, represents the situation where man deludes himself and, believing he is absorbing 'B' influences and making the necessary selection all the while, he in fact absorbs 'A' influences, those of the black arrows that are in some way parallel to the white arrows of the 'B' influences. This will put him into contact with people who possess magnetic centres of the same nature: who are themselves duped or who dupe others, and who have no direct or indirect link with the esoteric Centre.
Mouravieff then poses the question:
What guarantee can man have that he will not dupe himself and that he will not fall into the latter situation? The answer is simple. The purity of the magnetic centre must be scrupulously maintained from the start and all through his evolution.
How can one maintain the "purity" of the magnetic center?
Only with the work of a group in the constant vigilance against lying to the self. A group that sincerely mirrors a person and lovingly points out to them when they have become the Lady wearing the bonnet infested with lice.
"If man wants to reach the Way, it is imperative that he stops lying to himself from his first steps on the track. If not, he will not be able to build his cage or, if he is able to start building it, the walls will tumble as soon as he intentionally seeks to cheat himself. He must no longer try to justify him self when a fall occurs, while he knows in his inmost heart that the reasons he is giving himself are not valid. "
But here we come up against two special types of lying discussed by Mouravieff that we encounter often enough that it deserves some attention. He writes:
To these classic cases of lying, one must add two particular cases:
Hypocrisy: the pretence of virtue, of praiseworthy sentiments, with the intent to deceive persons of good faith.
We have seen this in types like Vincent Bridges and Jay Weidner, Bush, and so on. Such individuals KNOW that they are liars and cheats and thieves and murderers. I'm not too sure that Jsf is of this sort - I leave it open that he is just a really messed up Pavlovian reactor.
But there is this other kind of lying that we have also seen, and it is particularly heartbreaking, I think.
The integral lie: this characterizes that person who, from a habit of lying and cheating on every occasion, ends by believing his own lies and thus loses all sense of truth.
Here we are again describing the "right man" who has been disenfranchised from childhood, who has HAD to create an illusory world of competence to defend themselves against the realization of helplessness.
Mouravieff tells us:
These two last cases are the hardest to cure: hypocrisy, in fact, must be deeply rooted in the Personality of the human being to become an element of his behaviour. To overcome this tendency within oneself requires considerable and painful efforts. No fruitful esoteric work can be undertaken by anyone who has not first rid himself of this vice. It is dangerous for a hypocrite even to start searching for the Way, as he is condemned to fall in advance.
It is the same for him who has become a prey to integral lying. Nevertheless, if these lies are not soiled with hypocrisy, meaning that if the intentional mythomaniac element is entirely lacking, this case is easier to cure than the preceding one.
Here, Mouravieff suggests that the individual who has lied to himself so long that he believes his own lies CAN be "cured," so to say - IF their lies are not complicated by consciousness of lying.
I'm not so sure about this, though, because it is pretty rough to have to strip the self of all one's cosy beliefs - contradictory though they may be - and face the fact that about everything you ever thought or believed or promoted or said or did or even thought, was either outright lies, based on lies, or so twisted that you actually look like a complete fool in your own eyes. That's a tough pill to swallow.
But, returning to the problem at hand, Mouravieff tells us that there are four conditions required to search for "The Way."
* a passionate desire to reach it;
* discernment;
* a discipline of steel;
* initiative.
So, you start with this BURNING desire...
And then you must learn discernment. This is the very FIRST task and takes us back to the problem of the necessity for purity so as to be sure that one is not creating a "black magnetic center" as described above. Mouravieff says about the problem of discernment:
...one must then apply himself to develop the faculty of discernment by every means.
Let us repeat that we live inside the Mixtus Orbis, where we find real and imaginary facts and phenomena inextricably intermixed. The difficulty in separating them is due to the fact that the Imaginary resembles the Real in the same way that the space beyond a mirror reflects what is actually present on the facing side. When surrounded by mirrors, we can easily lose all notion of what is real.
Using mathematical language, we would write the equation: I=R X sq.rt. -1 where I, the Imaginary, is equal to R, the real, multiplied by the imaginary number, the square root of minus one.
To recognize the square root of -1, wherever it exists, means acquiring discernment.
Even though the Imaginary closely resembles the Real, as in the case of the mirror there is always a difference between them, because the image is inverted with regard to the object: this applies to all sorts of products of the unreal, and puts us on the way to detecting them.
The 'A' influences among which we live are by their nature imaginary; but they can result in or produce real effects. This is what constantly happens in life. Thus the fear of some imaginary danger pushes us to take concrete precautionary measures.
At this point, Mouravieff talks about two ways to develop discernment.
-The negative method, or method of exclusion, is recommended to man 3, that is, the intellectual type;
-The positive method, or method of integration, is recommended to man 2, the emotional type.
[One question that might be asked is: how can you tell the difference between someone who has the center of gravity in the intellect, or one who has the center of gravity in the emotional? I think that the key is above, that for the person with the intellect as center of gravity, a "critical analysis" is the general method of dealing with life, and there is very little "imaginative" ideation about things, even very anomalous things. It is very hard for such a person to "believe" anything at all. Even if they create theories about things, they always seem to be still somewhat "open" to the next bit of data.
The individual with the emotional center dominant may
seem to do a lot of "critical analysis," but they do it with a "terminus a quo" - or a starting point of belief. They are not quite able to divest themselves of a starting belief to which they cling no matter what. This can create special problems.]
Looking at the first way, the way reccommended to a person who is more "intellectual," and has pretty much a sleeping emotional center, Mouravieff mentions that the individual with the anaesthetized emotional center will NOT see the light except at the peak of his efforts. He describes the problem in this way:
In principle, man 3 is endowed with a tendency not to believe. He is of a rather sceptical nature: he often and easily progresses to a critical analysis of the facts and problems that face him. The centre of gravity of his mental life is in intellectual activity.
The negative method takes these characteristics into account.
In observing the movements of the inner life, it undertakes a critical analysis of the most scrupulous and impartial type possible. It observes the comings and goings of the little 'I's or groups of little 'I's and, recognizing them as being Non-I's, makes an effort not to be identified with them.
Little by little, he thus discards that which does not indicate a real and permanent tendency in the currents of his mental life. When such constatations are repeated in a controlled way, over and over again, the observer will perceive that certain elements are permanent, and consequently cannot be subjected to the principle of exclusion with true objectivity: he will then find himself not far from the threshold of the real 'I'.
We can see that such a method asks neither for an ideal nor for faith. It nevertheless has its danger: it requires total impartiality in the observations and conclusions to be drawn from it.
This is where the input of a sincere group is INVALUABLE and even CRUCIAL. Because of the problem of "sleeping emotional centers" having their energy usurped by the intellect, it is almost impossible to be impartial without the mirror of the group.
If such impartiality is not observed from the start, the man risks falling deeper into Illusion.
His situation will then be worse than it was before.
As a result of these exercises, a certain modification is produced in the structure of his Personality, so that the ties between the centres, of which we have spoken in chapter VII, atrophy and eventually fall. If, at that moment, the magnetic centre is not strong enough to establish its authority directly over the centres, the man will become amoral, and dangerous to himself, as well as to others.
Now, let's look at the second way, the way of the individual whose center of gravity emotional. Mouravieff notes at the beginning that the person who follows this method will be encouraged by sparks from the consciousness of the real' I' which will accompany him all along the path.
The second method is positive. It can only apply to man 2, the centre of gravity of whose mental life is found in the heart. This man may have an ideal and try to reach it. For this he will attempt to reassemble those elements of his Personality where the seeds of his ideal are scattered. This method is the reverse of the preceding since it tends not to the exclusion of unstable elements but to a synthesis, an affirmation. If such a man is called hot, it is because he has given free rein to his positive emotions: exactly the opposite of the cold method of critical analysis and exclusion.
Those of you familiar with alchemical terminology might note that this could very well be the "wet way vs the dry way." The "wet way" would be the cold method of critical analysis, the "digestion" and "putrefaction" and the "dry way" would be the method of reassembling via heat and calcination. The dry way is said to be "faster," but less certain and Mouravieff notes this also:
This is not without danger, but the danger is of a different nature. It comes from an initial error in the choice of an ideal, or rather from the attitude when the choice is made. The fact that this ideal has been approved by the master changes nothing. It is a question of lack of sincerity towards oneself. The profound divergence between admitted and unadmitted aims can cause an interior rupture which, when strongly emphasized, can go so far that it provokes division in the Personality.
In other words, the terminus a quo amounts to lying to the self and what we have already discussed above: the Integral lie. This is the problem of someone trying to work alone, through pride or lack of self-esteem, or having so much self-importance that they cannot open up and share the mental processes they are going through for feedback. Again the work of a group is CRUCIAL. That's one of the reasons that the work of QFG requires the giving up of all "sacred cows." And we have set the example by giving up any "belief" that the C's are anything other than an interesting phenomenon that must be researched and analyzed before anything is considered even possible, much less probable.
A rapid analysis of these two methods of work reveals the role of impartiality - that form of objectivity of which man is capable - and later of sincerity.
Not to make conscious use of these two qualities, especially towards ourselves, is the source of many errors in our lives which we will not know how to mend later on.
There is within us a dominant aptitude either for impartial judgement or for sincerity.
Here Mouravieff has suggested that impartiality might belong to the intellectual type, and sincerity toward the goal - even if unaware of lying to the self - belongs to the emotional type. You can be sincere as all get out and still go down in flames. Old saying comes in here: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
This aptitude corresponds to our type, and determines in principle what method we should choose to follow.
We must not forget, however, that our natures are mixtures as much from the fact of our birth as from our education and upbringing. This means that, while applying the method which best suits our dominant aptitude, we must not lose sight of the other method; both have their roles to play in our efforts towards evolution, but in different proportions for different people.
Exactly so. It is not so simple, and in some cases, cold critical analysis is important, and in other cases, keeping the devotion to the goal in mind is most important.
But in either case, objectivity is the key.
The activity of QFS, the working group, is pretty much as described above, with a kick. This process is familiar to its members and quite a number of them have been "in the crucible." As many more have felt the heat and run screaming in terror...
But now, let's go back to something from the beginning of this post.
The problem of achieving objectivity - which is CRUCIAL - is that
the energy of the negative emotions are utilized to protect the self against TRUTH. Note Mouravieff's comment about "negative emotions, for which the keyboard is very large, ranging from melancholy to hate."
Those whose center of gravity is the emotional center, and that emotional center is very poorly developed, are generally seeking only love and acceptance. Unfortunately, they identify emotionally with their mechanical programs so deeply that it is almost impossible to tease them apart. They can even be quite intellectual. The key to this kind of intellectualism is that it is always obscure and convoluted and very poorly communicated. The word "density" is very low. Lots of words, little meaning. All of the words that such a person speaks are designed to hide the real self and can even serve to hide the self from the self since this is the kind of dialogue that goes on in their head. It exemplifies the varied "keyboard" of emotional "buttons."
A person whose emotional center is so buried and twisted is living in terror as I noted above in the discussion of the "right man." Remember that such a person MUST be right at all costs because, deep inside, they are struggling with horror at their own helplessness. Their rightness is a dam that holds back their worst fears: that they are lost and alone and that there really is no god because how could there be a god who loves them if they have to suffer so much? Their inability to feel truly loved and accepted deep within is, in effect, like being stranded in a nightmare from which they cannot wake up.
This helplessness, this fear of being alone, is very possibly based on fear of failure. Such a person is terrified of not being "good enough" to love.
As a consequence, such an individual may work very hard to succeed at something - or several things - as compensation. They work very hard to know a lot about a number of things, generally material things so that they can give evidence of their competence in a material way to the outside world.
When you listen to such a person talk, they nearly always come across as knowing lots of things and will incessantly talk AT another person, divulging all of the things they know about any given subject, their experiences, and so on and so forth. There's that "word density" problem again. Lots of talk, little substance.
Such an individual finds it almost impossible to admit that they are ever mistaken about anything, and even if of a very gentle disposition, can give the impression of a repellant self-righteousness. They are hypersensitive to any kind of criticism at all, and quite often, interpret simple interest in their activities as "critical."
What then happens is that such a person - feeling that they must compensate for some criticism with "rightness," will utilize the emotional energy to create conditions where they can prove that they are not only good enough, but better than others. The "dreaming" energy of the emotional center combined with a clever intellect, can produce all kinds of strange experiences that border on literal schizophrenia.
This is one of the reasons that QFG does not have much tolerance for imaginative weirdness and "seeing things" that are not objective. There is no doubt that such things happen, but when they do, they are almost invariably tricks and traps into STS illusions. The evidence that this is so is that they are not "objectively" available to all viewers. And so, when something operates on your subjective perception, it is very possibly real AND a trap. "Seeing the unseen" has nothing to do with seeing lizards or ghosts or any such subjective psychic phenomena.
A saying I heard years ago: "Neurotics build castles in the air; psychotics live in them." Added later: "4 D STS collects the rent."
Remember this: A and B influences can also be viewed as "creative" or "entropic," and certainly there can be "A" influences that may appear to be very "spiritual" or "esoteric". Remember what Mouravieff tells us about those who make the mistake of believing such delusions, quoted above, but worth repeating:
"This second figure, with black magnetic centres, represents the situation where man deludes himself and, believing he is absorbing 'B' influences and making the necessary selection all the while, he in fact absorbs 'A' influences, those of the black arrows that are in some way parallel to the white arrows of the 'B' influences. This will put him into contact with people who possess magnetic centres of the same nature: who are themselves duped or who dupe others, and who have no direct or indirect link with the esoteric Centre. "
Our only defense is purity of the magnetic center achieved via objectivity.
And so, we come back now to Robbie Burns who described a simple country girl all decked out in her fancy bonnet, her mechanical programs, seething with lice.
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us
An' ev'n Devotion.
The gift of being able to see ourselves as others see us would save us from many errors and foolish thoughts and ridiculous behavior , and we would most certainly cease being devoted to those things that shore up and support our illusions about ourselves.
