THE NEUROSIS CALLED NORMAL

You are not the result of your world;

your world is a result of what you are

The world does not dictate what we are or what we become. We determine it ourselves using our potential, or not.

In time, we adopt, perfect, refine and adapt expressions that construct our personality. It becomes a play of superimposed images that we take very seriously. We crystalize these impressions and define ourselves accordingly, denying the innermost feelings that insinuate something that we cannot understand. If instead of responding to external demands, we listen to our own innermost voice, we leave the rules behind. The point is that it is not about adjusting to society norms or manifesting ourselves outside of them. It is about something much more fundamental: we consecrate ourselves to the absurd illusion of normalcy. Mediocrity.

Does “normal” exist? We can only define it by what it is not. We can never arrive at what it is, because it’s what everybody thinks they want. Whatever is easy and convenient is considered normal, that which does not entail risks, and especially doesn’t bother anyone. In contrast, life is a continuous adventure that always leads to unknown ground and even to uncertainty. It is spontaneity, perpetual movement. Under the expectation and intention of being normal, we create more and more tension, anguish, falsehood and confusion.

Other than to anaesthetize us, medical prescriptions do not work at a deeper level. They don’t shut out those innermost feelings. Neither do alternative therapies that open us to uncontrollable emotions and sensations, and to devastating receptivity and vulnerability. New Age ideology purports to “open the heart”. What happens to people after this exposure? For the psychologist, the preoccupation surrounds the issue of societal reinsertion, or its continuity. Stability.

In psychology as in the New Age, the most common rule is non-interference. Individual rhythms of the already crystallized and often stagnant personality are “respected”. Instead of creating a massive reeducation system that will lead the individual through healthier modalities and inspire inner as well as outer fullness, it seeks to adjust the person to “normalcy”. In other words to the norms dictated by the dominating interests of society. A state of being conscious and awake, with incentives to think and feel, to discern, evaluate and propose change, taking time and cultivating quality instead of quantity, is not convenient for this multidisciplinary commercial entity. The purpose is not to awaken a person, which would create severe discomfort and require presence and compassionate treatment by a brother or sister. The purpose is to wait until proposals arise by themselves within a predetermined range of possibilities. It is considered dangerous to stir up the emotions if a person does not know how to behave efficiently in society. Instead of assisting an individual in understanding and managing these energies productively, they are avoided altogether. In this way one strengthens the status quo and strangles the creative impulse towards genuine authenticity.

Normalcy disguises a fixation on the status quo that clearly rejects real self-discipline that requires flexibility and presence. Like the mule that treads on its routine path without additional guidance from the driver, the personality we create continues on its way automatically, while we take a nap that lasts until we die.

We sleep profoundly or we dream that we are awake. Disconnection is such that we construct an empire in our imagination convincing ourselves that we are such and such a way and that the world is such and such. We affirm many things, we know many things, and we even believe many things that we simply do not live. Laziness. This is why the repertoire of methods or techniques offered over thousands of years of inner teaching cannot function. We prefer to continue struggling and suffering, to making an effort to radically change the way in which we use our mind and our energies. We are more concerned with simulation than we are with incorporation.

Effort, difficulty, suffering are “bad” words. We spend months pounding our bodies in gymnasiums, on diets, jogging, lifting weights, or running like a crazy person on the bicycle, but when it has to do with observing the breath, thoughts, actions and (don’t even mention it) emotions… other than to complain how difficult life is, we do little. It is easier to feel attacked, betrayed, or let the opportunity slide, than to recognize how we attract these situations. We are far from seeing how these challenges are a gift from heaven to show us the power and faculties that hide in the dead spaces we carry inside. With so much energy wastage, it is obvious that we cannot understand, tolerate, or forgive. We attack obstacles grumblingly instead of with enthusiasm and good will. And we continuously overlook opportunities through which we could learn self-dominion and mastery.

Couples addicted to sex look for meditative tantric techniques as a way of prolonging sensual pleasure, but of course, without the rhythm, abstinence and awareness necessary to evoke an elevated state of Consciousness. Many people wish to benefit from the silence that results from meditation as a way of continuing to sleep. Psychotherapies that deal with behavior usually treat relationship problems: “the other” is never the way we want them to be. So the easiest route is taken: substitution. Instead of eating meat, we become vegetarians and use meat-alike products that taste and look just like the real thing. Instead of dialoguing with our partner, we divorce and spread ugly rumors about them. Instead of creating new options and reformulating proposals, we choose to switch jobs and continue to complain. We feed inertia and complacency. We don’t like people telling us what we have to do but we are authoritarian in our own circle and with our partners.

We preach peace and foment strife, unhealthy competition and the kind of pride that creates separation. We speak of a quantum leap and live immobilized in front of the computer. It is better to lick our wounds in this supposedly gross and violent world. It is best to long to be loved, than to examine the list of conditions we place in order to love someone. Without access to subtle sensory equipment, there is no way of knowing how the isolation that we suffer is illusory and that under it all there exists another Reality.

We campaign in favor of ecology and children abstractly – sharing in FB and donating at a distance – without doing anything concretely minute-by-minute. We wish to change the world, yes, but not ourselves. We say that we don’t have time, and that we are tired, that we have no money, and that politics stinks. We conclude that economy is a game of the rich, and that therapy and meditation is for women (who need to control their “emotions”) or for those who have “real” problems.

A good friend recently said that it was easier to obliterate thoughts than to emit a positive one to reconstruct our world. For a positive thought form to affect material reality, effort, discipline and observation are required. For something to change, a shift from sensation to intelligence is needed. Far from being self-indulgent, passion extends beyond the self, and another person’s delight is as important or even more so than our own, if we value what has true value.

The healthy alternative is to opt for life. Obstacles, difficulty, effort and sustained attention force us to exert the muscle of discernment and develop the strength and necessary resistance for the permanent manifestation of a greater reality. There is no short cut for the human pain that expands the heart.

Instead of adding to the graffiti of a society that calls itself conservative, merely conserving its own comfort, we could dare to implement a new order that begins with ourselves and ends in a more humane world that embraces real, not reactive differences. Instead of adjusting to the world, let us build a world that adjusts to what we really are.

The moment has arrived to live what we know ourselves to be: strength and Consciousness. Strength has unlimited power. We were told that the world IS this way or that way, but the world is the sum of you and me. We create the world consciously and with awareness. We pray that it will reveal us as we know ourselves to be.

Let us work together, looking at one another eye-to-eye and caring about what we perceive and what we see. It is not as difficult as nourishing the neurosis of normalcy.

THE CHOICE

A young healthy person lives the thrills and excitement of the body-personality naturally. As long as there is a promise of pleasure and satisfaction, there is no need to look elsewhere. The expectation and challenge of more complex issues, further ground to conquer, and the possibility of a wide variety of emotional and physical sensations is enough. But when the person is older, it is not so “natural”, but rather sad. Spiritual life is awakened in those who have lived, not necessarily years but depth.

The idea of going beyond a sensory paradise doesn’t make itself known in the absence of pleasure but in its transcendence. The choice for amplitude, depth and contact with unknown states of being is not made in conjunction with physical life; it is made when mastery over it has been reached and energetic capacity has enlarged and refined. In other words, spirituality is not an addendum or an accident. It is an extension and amplification of the life we know.  Other than as spontaneous reprieve, spiritual experience happens when we pierce through the habitual perceptual veils of the personality. Rather than being a random act it entails deliberation.

Spirit life is a conscious choice made in maturity and intelligence that implies having embraced physical life.

It is not fashionable today to tell the truth. Spirituality is sold as a material aggregate or as an escape. We are promised the cake as well as the pleasure of eating it, and often we are seduced into believing that we do not even need to eat the cake to taste it.  We are not informed that body and spirit are two interconnected but wholly different dimensions of being.  

The body and the linear mind have a limit to the frequencies they can sustain.

As long as we are interested in and aimed towards the material world, we proportionately limit the quality of energies we are capable of experiencing. There is a ceiling to the kind of holistic sensation we have whilst in the heights and depths of physical life. Equally, we are limited to the kind of spiritual experience we can have if we avoid physical life.

Physical, emotional and mentally, our senses do not reach the finer range of perception that composes spiritual reality without the sensory capacity itself altering radically. Alternately, spiritual sensibility is devoid of depth if we have missed out on ordinary joys and adventures. Orgasmic surrender requires complete abandonment; spiritual perception involves discrimination. Each reflects a different posture. The first kind “happens” organically while the latter requires awareness, discipline, and intent. The second is an extension of the first; we lose control and yet maintain stability and management of subtle intensities, something that is not trained in ordinary physical life. Usual boundaries of experience are transcended. Deeper perception is indirectly provoked by soul desire and physical and mental readiness.

Ordinarily, a person who has made the leap asks himself, “Is the life that I am leading the kind of life I want to lead?” This is the prelude to making the choice. Different worlds are revealed, and the energies and forces that comprise each. Understanding dawns on us: it is impossible to change one single aspect without shifting the entire balance and purpose of a life. We grow up.

Spirituality is many things but spiritual life is a deliberate choice. It can be experienced for sheer delight at any moment, or it can reveal and trigger an entirely different way of being. In this case it becomes the ground for a special kind of activity and inquiry. When such a decision is reached that changes your life circumstances, the world of the alchemist and the occultist is revealed. You are born anew.

WOMAN AND POWER

However reasonable they might think they are, people do not ‘really’ listen to reason. Undercurrents of emotional and subtle subjectivity cloud perception. This is so for both genders, but more so for women who find it hard to fully feel and be themselves.

Women are not aware of their power and acquire a form of power through forms of powerlessness.

Why is woman not herself? Why is the feminine spirit repressed even partially, and with it the foundation of the sacred?

It is not enough to say that men are afraid of the strong irrational force represented by women. Women themselves are afraid of it. Woman must make a tremendous effort to impress the world reasonably. In this respect, two very important characteristics related to woman’s constitution come into play. Both have to do with her feeling nature and her automatic responses to life.

First. Woman’s sensibility is such that it is often hard to bear. We are almost always seeking relief from it. This is difficult for men to understand, even the most sensitive. Women are susceptible to the subtlest of impressions from the environment and this usually means other people’s emotional world. These impressions become a sensory experience that supersedes all else, bordering on obsession.

Second. Woman’s nature is devotional and sacrificial, particularly because of nature’s call to motherhood. This is inbuilt, regardless of birthing actual life forms as it refers to her containing (enfolding) physical and psychic capacity. Woman will sacrifice herself for another, going to extremes to adapt and bend if it means preserving life. She does this spontaneously in relationship, often to get what she wants but, mostly, to maintain the peace. In general terms men will sacrifice for an ideal, a noble concept of humanity that does not involve the great depths of visceral dynamics of feeling-involvement with human beings.

This means that woman finds it difficult to maintain the impermeability required to effectively pump up the force necessary to get her point across, or even to coat it in a logical context. She often appears unclear, illogical.

This may be why woman finds it difficult to be herself in the world. She doesn’t really know why, because it is not a question of knowing. She just IS. Rationality can dilute her full perception of the undercurrents that shape reality.

Success for a woman is marked by the capacity to hold the feeling nexus while impacting the world with her particular brand of feeling-wisdom. For this, the integrity of the inner world must be as important as the outer. In fact the outer world depends on it.

THE INNER MAN

(Originally published in Spanish as “El Hombre del Futuro” — The Man of the Future, ‘Uno Mismo’ magazine nº 383, pps.32-36)

Gender, Essence and Personality

In past eras, spiritual and evolutionary need called for individualisation. Now development calls for service and collective refinement. The path towards awakening is no longer one of simple human transcendence but of global transmutation on many levels. We are inspired by a group consciousness that values multiple and simultaneous realisation. Up to the present moment, the spiritual and evolutionary development of Consciousness followed parallel paths. Now individual realisation answers to both Consciousness and evolution, and occurs on two planes. The individual must express uniqueness and difference, and at the same time embody the collective spirit of equality and brotherhood.

Gender defines much more than sexual function or inclination. It determines an inner path that has little to do with preference, behavior or appearance. The essence of a human being is genderless, unique and sometimes very different from its personality and appearance. Those who have attained spiritual fullness, personality awareness, and as a result integration of spirit and form, emanate a quality that transcends gender while at the same time expressing its most elevated qualities.

Upon incorporating matter, essence or spirit conforms to a gender mold. It offers a very specific window of perception that leads to realisation along a path that adjusts itself to culture, time, genealogy and individual conscience, repeating patterns and innovating formulas that respond to evolutionary need.

Present humanity must embody the best of itself as Consciousness within the best of itself as a human model. This means that every individual attains to realisation within an “inner” male or female pattern.

General Characteristics of the Male Gender

Male physical bodies produce directional forces, not only through its physical structure but also mentally. It appreciates and knows the forms of the physical world and how to shape it, giving it form and measure. This leads a man to move in a determined direction, often competitive, and strong physically and mentally. In the best of cases, he not only accumulates but also protects territory and is a physical champion in the service of noble causes. He is a constructor and a doer. In the most refined examples, he need not to raise a finger to exert his authority over the physical world. In a man, yin forces are transmitted in a calm and contained manner, through his capacity to sustain power, even if sometimes he may appear passive. In this sense he is patient. We could say that the natural gamma of physical expressions for a man manifests between extremes of tyranny and debility, acquiring a balanced expression in the Inner Man.

Emotionally and in a veiled manner, a man is vulnerable, a lover and a dreamer. The introverted nature of his emotions makes him evasive. His strength at this level lies in the desire he emits and forges in matter. Physical contact and material things that express his tenderness are more important to him than emotional insinuation.

The linear aspect of the male mind tends to be his strongest feature, together with the management of physical laws. His word is a command; he knows and emits orders. As a giver of form in our world, he is logical and utilitarian, managing and directing with clear purpose. His yin side is abstract and unattached, inventive, analytical and diplomatic. At this level ordinary emotional male expression vacillates between manifestations of self-absorption and fanaticism.

Spiritually, and up to the moment of integration with soul, the male gender tends to focus on humility and silence. He is a seeker of truth whose sense of honor and idealism conform a living ethics. He also expresses fraternity and generosity, more akin to the intellectual tenor of his logic than to the emotional sensibility that define women. Very obvious in our time, where the yin mode tends to define spiritual expression, men manifest different attitudes from extreme mental rigidity, and that excessive flexibility that often define him as a “good guy”, a softie, even a doormat with no willpower of his own. 

What is an “Inner Man”?

By “inner” I refer to the dictates of Consciousness and matter. Consciousness depends on a physical structure to express itself and channel its intelligence and emanations.   Invariably, the perceptual gender-filter determines form.

We live in critical times. Genders are redefining themselves. They reflect a growing discomfort and longing for inner freedom and authenticity that shows itself impatient, intense and vulnerable at the same time. Nothing is enough. The change we yearn for is incomprehensible, invisible, and qualitative. It begins with the desire for self-recreation.

The planet responds to the intensifying manifestation of the Feminine Principle. It especially influences the female gender, but significantly also the male. In this article we focus on the birth of the man of the future, the Inner Man.

Typically and traditionally, the male gender transmits a form of brute force, linear thought and authority, absolute power, system and global order. In the current transition that we live in, even if his impulses and tasks are the same, the influence of Consciousness is such that more and more men develop their yin side, breaking expectations, boundaries, and pushing beyond barriers of every sort.

According to our definition of the inner aspect of gender, we should begin by defining the male gender by his inclinations or manner of perceiving, dismantling and recreating, understanding, realising and projecting, more than by his interests, force, physical appearance or social behavior. The subtle quality of his affections acquires more importance than the ways in which he expresses them. The Inner Man distinguishes himself primarily by the process of constructing realities than by his creations, by the means he employs rather than the ends. 

The Inner Man, His Search and His Realisation

The masculine gender perfects himself following objectives and steps that are mentally and physically definable.   Be he a poet, a philosopher, a scientist, musician or artisan, his path is systematic, constructing by means of physical and mental sensibilities. When he attains to the evolutionary frequencies of the heart, he is no longer a conventional man. His inexplicable yearning takes him into the threshold of an existential abyss, similar to the illogical search for the Holy Grail. Nothing will be enough and what he carries with him is inadequate and frustrating. He enters a wholly unknown world with indefatigable idealism and sense of honor. Unto death, and he knows that he will never again be the same.

Great philosophers have traced the journey of the male psyche. As a constant shadow, the Socratic maxim resounds within the seeker, “All I know is that I know nothing.” The terrible anguish that ensues contributes to subsequent stages of maturation and toning. More and more deeply a man penetrates into the Platonic cave to lose himself therein. Suddenly there arises the light of knowledge, echoing the Cartesian principle. He discovers “cogito ergo sum”: “I think therefore I am.” In this instant, what had been typical male reasoning is transformed into something greater that extends towards the edges of intuition, to become the cornerstone that will allow the Inner Man to establish new certainties, connections and insights.

The refinement of mental sensibility gradually turns him into a sage who transmits teaching though words, symbols, colors, textures and tonalities, tangibly connecting and relating parts over the backdrop of the indefinable. Meanwhile, the vast silence of No-Mind overwhelms him and he recognizes, as Pascal valiantly did for his own time, that “the heart has its own reasons that reason cannot know”. This is the moment when he becomes an “inner man”. He knows because he feels through the refined acute faculty of Mind.

Attuned and impeccable masculine reason time and again confirms almost mathematically, that which soul intuits. Doubt becomes his path. The search for clarity, his curiosity and the need a man has to explore and discover is tireless. He doesn’t stop until the intangible becomes tangible, and then the call to the service of humanity bestows upon him the title of master. Through him, modern science is breaching the gap with ancient metaphysics, and we understand the experience of Truth more and more clearly.

Inner Man knows how to discriminate and is daring and righteous in his field. He knows how to concentrate upon his ideals and also how to collaborate with others, innovating and conserving in equal measure. He emanates authority and respect, trust and security because he respects and trusts himself; he exerts leadership without competition, not because of special merit but because he cares for humanity more than for himself.

Contrast between Genders

Gender qualities share the same spiritual and evolutionary purpose but express themselves subtly very differently.

Both genders may develop physical force, but the psychological quality of a man’s impulse projects concretely as appropriation and need to increase physical boundaries in order to feel secure and powerful. The same impulse in a woman hardly ever defines itself concretely and in its place manifests psychologically and spiritually in inverse manner. She attracts instead of projecting in order to feel full.

Emotionally, the male expression is inward, vulnerable and fragile, tender and absorbent. He is afraid of emotional commitment, even if at a mental level he projects confidence and pride in his mastery over detail, order and system, in his arguments, strategies and logic. He demonstrates extraordinary abilities to categorize, define and measure. He is the king of reason, what essentially confuses a woman whose tendency is to mistrust. She is naturally intuitive; her own logic appears “irrational” to him.

Spiritually, a man knows what faith and non-attachment, trust and surrender are, with generosity and equanimity, even if unstable. His strength rests upon the Law and the Word, formulas and meanings that reveal the architecture of the universe, abstractions that refer to evolution and the formulation of theories. His spiritual opening leads him to isolate himself from the world in order to later express, shed light and his unequalled sense of unity and integration. On the other hand, woman is the visionary guide whose leadership permeates energies in order to gestate and expand creation, conditioning the terrain within which man functions.

The manifestation of the Inner Man, as of the Inner Woman, is infinitely variable. Each one is a differentiated expression of the original prototypes in sublime creative unfolding.

Real Potential

We believe ourselves independent and unique yet we respond blindly to models, programs and anachronistic beliefs. We do not recognise that the characteristics we incorporate without awareness are opportunities and orientations that help us in the process of self-realisation and contribute to the uplifting of humanity. Inner men and women manifest an infinite number of characteristics that could appear stereotyped. Nevertheless they embody them with tremendous impact, with unique style, consciousness.

As we browse through the lists in charts II and III we notice that the qualities respond to a state of being and not to a particular expression, which leaves plenty of margin for authenticity and difference, once the management of gender attributes, coherence with the personality, and fine contact with Consciousness have been secured.

No man possesses feminine attributes but rather a “yin” side. No woman has masculine attributes but rather a “yang” side. A man cannot do what a woman does, and vice-versa. The faculties, powers and virtues of gender develop independently. The development of one influences the other, but there cannot be any progress while one believes itself dependent on the other. The attachment and pseudo-needs fomented socially during thousands of years as legal slavery are counterproductive to aspiration and the potential of every individual within a universal prototype. Neither is it a question of competition or domination, physical or mental in the grossest male sense, or emotional and spiritual in the manipulative female manner.

The tone now is self-sufficiency and trust in spirit and inner forces. The search is for a healthy cohabitation of differences and expressions, and inspired stimulating challenge. Inner men and women are free from inherited neurosis. The Inner Man reaches the same place as the “Inner Woman”, only by following a different route and emanating a qualitatively different aroma. Where she emits the Fullness of the Infinite, he emits the Silence of bottomless depths.

There remains much work to do dis-identifying ourselves from old vices and programming so that genuine gender talents may shine through. The authentic men and women of the future act in fine accord with Nature and the planets, but very specially though the voice of Consciousness and the greatness of the Spirit that lies within each one.

LOVE, LOVING AND FALLING IN LOVE

Love is the cohesive force of Creation. It expresses in many different ways. To abandon ourselves the way we live attraction and attachment is also love and cohesion. But, not all forms of love and cohesion are spiritual. Even when we yearn for it, we cannot conjure love; somehow, it finds us all by itself. It responds to our availability. Surrender always opens the way for the grand experience of the abyss and participation in something greater than the self. Our voluntary offering and the saturation effect of sensation on multiple levels are both elements common to the process of loving, but this is where the analogies between love and falling in love end.

For both genders, love enters through our weak point: the physical body for men, emotions for women. As it grows in intensity, loving becomes ecstasy, fullness, and sensory perception expands, binding people in accelerating frequencies. For many this is more than enough. Life doesn’t seem to have a more important purpose than the pleasure of contact with the loved one, where time does not exist and all is possible. The wonder of love reflects insecurity and a continuum of ups and downs. Cupid acquires the semblance of Angels of Light. Through the breakdown of habitual tensions, unfathomable and unexpected shifts promise immortality, touching upon the privilege of the gods.

Loving changes the semblance and purpose of life. The senses suddenly explode into brilliant nuances and astonishingly absorbent depths, while the usual clamor of our lives miraculously dims. It appears as a divine gift sharpening physical and emotional perception. Next to this, everything else is opaque and insignificant.

Unfortunately, we perceive the source of delight as something external to us. And, the same way that primitive man knelt before the phenomenon of the sun or fire, we venerate what appears to have caused it, and look for ways of repeating and prolonging it. The experience of danger becomes something delicious for being uncontrollable. It creates new and indescribable need.

When love happens, the first impression rings a magical note; as of this moment, its mere reminder activates sensitivity circuits that spill within us into a profound caress, or rise as a turbulent volcano. Sometimes the link with the other produces a fusion and one disappears into the other, such as a moth in the flame. From the unhealthiest symbiosis to the most exalted illumination, it acquires many forms. It rarely leads to a spiritual experience where correspondence might become authentic self-recognition, for it would mean also embracing human aloneness. Then we would discover that the source that fills and moves us is within us, having little to do with another.

Unconditional fullness does not occur in normal relationships. In the best of cases, meaning and power continue to be projected outwardly, or arranged, together with delegated tasks and purposes conjured up by the parties, culminating in all types of dependent collaboration.

At the beginning of a relationship, primary sensations soften the usual tyranny of the mind. The relief that this produces is felt as a blessing. In spite of the uncertainty evoked, and the fact that we cannot think of anything else, we are amused by the “adventure” and as a child on a rollercoaster, we delight in the loss of control and the inner tsunami. Passion is the greatest of tensions, but at that moment we don’t want to know it. For a good reason it is called “falling” in love.

Falling in love is very different in quality, reach, and implication to the spiritual experience. Sensations acquire personal meanings. Physical chemistry and emotions mirror the activity of natural law: duality, friction and wear. They create addiction. Human consciousness limited to material function reflects the basic fear of separation: matter consumes itself and depends on the tension of polarity to exist. The fear of being alone is a constant shadow. The emotional upheaval and impotence that are lived when the center of fascination changes or absents itself, leads to a despair that is anything but pleasant.

Some spiritual paths evoke the state of loving, directing it towards devotion and the divine ideal. Headstrong individual are able to transfer spiritual value onto that which is material, transported by pleasure and personal satisfaction. Here the experience of the transcendental is restricted to the company of the other, or to a sensory technique that adjusts to appetites and daily routine. As often happens in the sexual act, only that amount of peace or intensity that fits into and heightens our world is allowed.

The problem of fear or limitation that invisibly accompanies human love and the processes of opening, accommodating, abandoning or surrender, have to do with the quality and focus of attention of the individual. Or we limit meaning and value to that which is loved, excluding all else, or we allow ourselves to recognize the love in all without reducing it to something personal. The material world consists of purposes, appropriation, separation and quantity; so too love between bodies. Only the soul is able to include and perceive itself as one with Infinity.

When we look for meaning outside of ourselves and everything revolves around another person, we create attachment. This fosters hunger and insecurity that lead to impotence and dependence, even if we see it as something transitory and inevitable. We see through the senses and all appears beautiful and useful. Instead of divine Order, the laws of chaos prevail. However, when we blend with greater Nature or we allow ourselves to be transported by a stirring melody, there is no focus, distinction or division. The flute and the drum compose a unique symphony. Everything acquires equal importance and harmony reigns.

The mayor difference in the type of love lived is the quality of desire that emerges and the ability of the individual to sustain levels of energy. In a relationship, the personal “I” addresses itself towards the possession of the other. In the spiritual experience there is no center or direction; desire itself becomes its purpose and meaning. In the state of contemplation or meditation an inner space opens from where all is embraced. The Ideal or Other and the “I” become One.

Spiritual contact cannot occur where there is fear or where the law of opposites operates. It emerges from fine-tuning and affinity within an infinitely deep center within us. It has to do with Unity and a direct experiential link within. Time also stands still and each moment is unrepeatable. Cohesion reigns. At worst, discomfort appears by contrast in the tension, gross sensations, meaninglessness and demands of daily life. Real spirituality does not adapt itself to life; life adapts to it embracing, softening and raising all, including matter and human relationships.

Love is always delicious. The meeting with another person is something precious, but the way of love that opens beyond depends on us, our limitations and fears, or our strength and degree of inner integrity.

What is the price that we are willing to pay? The love that surrounds us is the result of a barely conscious decision. We should ask ourselves how we wish to live and what we value. Is it security, or freedom? Is it being cared for, protected and approved of, or being authentic and self-sufficient? Are we moved by personal satisfaction, or by the quality of inner life? The type of relationship, situations and conditions that we create in our lives reflect the answer.

The problem, like ecstasy, is never in the other or in the relationship. Like the solution, it is within each of us. 

LIVING THE IDEAL

This article is a collection of fragments answering students’ questions on the nature of a group and the function of personality and emotion on the spiritual path. I hope it will inspire others toward a better, more conscious and natural world.

The significant impact of spirituality on commonplace issues today responds to the composition and constitution of many spiritual groups that outline a major shift from personal to collective priorities. Group unity may sound like a familiar formula, but the particular resonance of this current urge is entirely new. A leaderless dynamic based on united and multiple sensitivities is emerging. It has nothing to do with hippie or yoga issues, political, social, or gender interests. It has to do with tangibly living an Ideal that embraces individuality and inner sensibilities.

An intangible resonance draws us inward, upward, and farther into personal and social expression. The Ideal of my school of Inner Alchemy is not based on personal goals or usefulness. Here, individual development consists in learning new ways of perceiving and responding that appeal to both sensitivity and intelligence, blending soul aspiration with the uniqueness of personality expression. Result: an emerging world order. It is not that each person is part of the group; each of them IS the group. Instead of control over external forces, we discover inner power and the impact of unified group consciousness as a defining influence.

The Work

Between the egoism of the personality and spiritual Truth, there are multiple chasms of self-deceit, wishful thinking, and personal selectivity. Prior to and within the group, the real work invariably ignites within the personality, managing self and involvement with one another. Transformation depends entirely on personal acknowledgment of the need to change. In this respect, the greatest hurdle always concerns our interpretative filter, along with the persistent attempts of the ego-self to attain the limelight. Even if the purpose is lofty, such as liberating authenticity and individuality, there is no “nice” way of dealing with egoism. The very urge to refine and gain entrance into a more gentle reality carries with it a desire to withdraw from society. This becomes, ultimately, the major issue in the spiritual curriculum. Dealing with life becomes a voluntary obligation. The difference now, is that the impulse comes from another place, a sensible intelligence that enables adequate management of personal energies.

Balance and poise come as a result of continuous “surrender” and faith in one’s Self. Increased sensibility quite often and quite literally puts ego in check. The accent is placed on containing, holding and transforming energies within, and also on the management of raw power. The student learns to access, use and more importantly share it. To this end, he or she needs to discover its own source and brand of power and BE powerful, at the same time honoring and administering simultaneous sources of other people’s power. To embrace such tremendous force, we learn, is only possible if it originates from Heart Consciousness. And this unique brand of Power revolves around eternal, universal Principles that stand taller than anything else: Ethics. THIS is where the difference lies to everything that has preceded this age. It embodies the meaning of Ideal.

In the Intelligence of the Heart there are no emotional conflicts; there is no room for “mistrust”. The sensibility of the heart reigns above emotions or the rule of law. The (Alchemical Alignment) experience is one of fullness and strength at the same time. We have come to learn that our own and others’ sensibilities require appropriate and deliberate response.

Spiritual group bonds are forged on soul connection, dimensional intelligence, and on harmony beyond personality clashes or issues, chains of command or clever labels. A flexible aware personality is able to distinguish soul expression from personality interests through the very faculties imbedded in its conscious personality. Sublimation implies skillful handling of oneself with a sense of humor, identifying talents and even inadequacies appropriately, leading to the rechanneling the very same frequencies one had sought to control or repress. Rather than adaptation to the status quo, the spiritual group process brings forth the dissolution of rigidities, so that all that is good and beautiful in each one may come through. This requires self-responsibility as well as humility, unrelenting perception, and sincere dedication to Humanity. We live in the knowledge that the “collective soul” is each of us.

Each student is made aware of two perspectives at all times: (1) the world as seen through the personality, and (2) multi-dimensional perception, carefully decoded through the filters of the former. THIS is Alchemical Alignment, a simultaneous multi-dimensional stance that functions through the ordinary mind, emotions, and physical body here-now, spontaneously (not controlled). Alchemy happens by contact with the inner power of Self.

Leadership

Leadership requires tuning into people, an impossible task if one is avoiding one’s own shadows. To connect with people in order to lift or inspire them, one must take the energetic (emotional) temperature through one’s own self. Instructions given on a theoretical level are wholly inadequate. Energetic resonance is contagious and leads to spontaneous discernment. Every moment consciously lived becomes The Guide. In Inner Alchemy this is accessed directly through the Alchemical Alignment and spirituality is the obvious result of a conscious flexible personality in the world.

The Inner Alchemy that happens through Inner Woman and Inner Man requires tuning into both heart and human feelings. Instead of maneuvering perception and faculties in order to reach a higher plane, a higher vantage point is attained through sustained, aware sensitivity. Instead of constantly preparing for all eventualities, as we are taught in schools, in naturalness greater force and insight are reached.

Inner Alchemy embraces all paths. It stimulates a group spirit that no longer pursues personal goals and satisfactions. You “feel” it, you “know” it … but it can’t be defined. It cannot be forced. It happens because of love and the sentient intelligence of the heart, which is sharp, clear Mind in equal proportion to emotional involvement, rather than need. It emerges from the awareness of reciprocity.

Alchemical Alignment (see entry 10 oct.2015) is practiced deliberately, with discipline, under ALL conditions of life. It is achieved through constant application, involving, of course, risk and trial and error. If “Alignment”, like many spiritual practices, is reserved for only certain conditions, mastery is never achieved. To embody it requires faith in your Self, in Love, in Truth… Inner Alchemy happens TO you, within you. You are the alchemist and you are the “way through”.

This Alignment requires a deep acceptance of your humanity AS YOU ARE, which is perhaps more difficult than any formal esoteric discipline. It calls for everything you have, all the time. When you feel with another person, you do not need to exert effort through eye or physical contact, or shut anything else out… You don’t “do” it. You know. The heart intelligence, awakened in that contact, leads.

The Group as it is emerging is very different from a therapeutic or corporate group based on theoretical maxims; it is more akin to the authentic spirit of Family and intangible ties. Obedience is always implicit, but at a totally different level than that required by a child to its parents or to a social system. IF the commitment to the Ideal is greater than personal and physical investments… if this commitment is what draws you together…. you will continue to leap and rise together and the world has to follow.

INNER ALCHEMY: SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS

I have been training people in Inner Alchemy for thirty+ years and it is always a challenge to describe its methods without using terms that imply “doing” and the acquisition of knowledge. Inner Alchemy cannot be compared to ordinary instruction or any form of therapy. The training is not about information and abilities but about a catalytic process of transformation that begins within the individual and extends into reverberations that affect the universe.

Human transformation is a difficult process. No amount of understanding or traditional learning can qualitatively alter ego-structure because restructuring does not involve a decision or the activation of the linear mind; on the contrary. Alchemical transformation occurs by grace of soul and spirit involvement beyond the rational mind. The individual must separate itself from its identifications and stand firmly in an energetic identity that is formless. Unless the personality is under the conscious command of higher will, and its connection with spirit is clear and firm, alchemical operations are impossible.

Only a human being in alliance with planetary and cosmic forces can execute an alchemical operation. The lodestone is not a physical magnet but the person itself, who evokes, handles, and directs energy and force. The aim is transmutation and the reconstruction of worlds through the powers vested in a human being who, as Consciousness incarnate, embodies prime substance. The operator is the higher will of Consciousness through flexible, clear human intelligence.

Natural processes of perception and redirection of energy are automatic, unconscious, but in Inner Alchemy they become conscious tools. The difficulty for people lies in forsaking their tenacious hold over personal reality, and perceive, understand, and act “out of the box”. The greatest part of the work is to stop doing what we do normally and to unlearn the standard classification system erected on “credible”, tangible, concrete fact. We develop another form of intelligence that is non-linear, more closely attuned to feeling sensibility than to intellectual categorization.

Unlearning is difficult; it implies making space rather than filling it. Putting aside the habit of relying on sensory perception and meaning is equally arduous. Learning becomes all about space and hidden sensitivities, about flow and direct experience transmitted in rhythmic codes and deeply subjective resonance. As enigmatic as its methods, alchemy occurs in a hiatus, an empty space of not knowing resembling meditation, with the distinction that it calls for the ability to differentiate frequencies, quality, and material reality, from emotional and spiritual expression. One does not just let go and float in a space of tranquility; focus and purpose are called for. As we unlearn and relearn, we hone the ability to observe, experience, and know, human attributes that allow for discernment and discrimination, direction and construction from another perspective.

In the context of the teaching, “inner” implies the perception of ultra-high frequency phenomena through inner sensibilities or “senses”. There is no one formula; its activation is dependent on individual heightened sensibility beyond personal interest. Perception is empowered by the highest level of Self and then decoded through the conscious management of unique polarized human faculties, inherent to gender. A person living in awareness of its human and divine abilities is capable of managing substance and determining levels of reality. It perceives deeply and its influence extends over vast spaces.

Inner Alchemy training involves refining the instrument of perception, and that instrument is none other than the personal self. As we are and where our interests lie, so we perceive the world around us. Inner objectivity is needed, where perception occurs beyond subjective psychological processes. Although the work is not analytic or therapeutic, it involves a certain tolerance to insecurity and doubt, and a self-critical appraisal that is bound to be uncomfortable. Anyone who is willing to go beyond the comfort zone to clear the windows of perception qualifies for instruction. More mental or intellectual types of intelligence struggle the hardest, as do emotional and sensory types that cling to self-gratification.

Through the in-depth study of oneself and the ingredients that we use spontaneously – thought, feeling and resonance – we learn about Nature and its dynamics. Then our conscious body-mind triggers the refinement of matter, and the elements of earth, water, fire and air express themselves as natural human attributes of coherence, feeling, inspiration and communication. Angelic collaboration is possible. Just by becoming conscious and fully aware, we alter the proportion of consciousness and matter in favour of light and expansion; we acquire the power to recondition elements, and redefine our global context. Once the basics of Inner Alchemy have been mastered, we become purposeful agents for global change.

Men’s mind can be attuned to Inner Alchemy, but it is easier for women who already live in non-linear realities, the main reason why the Feminine Mysteries programme is such an important project of our agenda. At present, an activation of women’s peculiar energy polarities combined with the intellectual flexibilization of men’s abilities is called for. The purpose of Inner Alchemy is to bridge human with divine perception and manifest it through gender excellence as the “inner woman” and the “inner man” in our concrete world. The end result is to liberate a transmuting force onto our world that will facilitate an evolutionary leap.

Inner Alchemy responds to present day humanity’s urgent desire to create a better world for us and for generations to come. In the same manner as the fine particles of our personality composite vibrate as one and respond collectively to any alteration, the entire physical universe, solar system, and galaxy also responds to the modified structure of a single human being. Inner Alchemy aligns the individual with the greater Intelligence that rules the universe in order to attain to the highest condition that incarnated wisdom allows – becoming a channel of earth and cosmic force.

What conditions our personal conglomerate is that same as that which rules the universe: Consciousness. Inner Alchemy liberates Consciousness and then shows us how we can apply it in benefit of the whole. We become the whole. Super consciousness IS the cornerstone of Alchemy.

FREEDOM

 Am I free because circumstances allow me to express myself, or because I feel free?

We don’t seem to know how to enjoy life’s intensities without having to “do” something.  What we can do becomes more important than the experience of being free.

“Freedom” is often another excuse to “do” more. When we are unable to differentiate real freedom from performance, freedom leads to exhibitionism.  Our world is full of such manifestations.

Freedom is a spiritual state of Being.  Its experience leads to respect for all life. If we know ourselves free we feel compelled to allow others their natural rights.  A spiritually free person responds to life without going into hiding or isolation.  Such a person lives a process of continuous introspection, striving for purity in expression. If something is offensive, the first step in the mind of a spiritual person is to investigate what is being offended and clear any shadows from within.  The finger points back to self rather than to the surrounding world.  Freedom speaks through us in our silences as in our words and actions.  It inspires and invites.

It is my belief that spirituality and living go hand in hand; they reflect and support one another.  Spirituality lived consciously is life-affirmative.  There is a great need today for the essential recognition of freedom.  Buddhists call it “right action” and Christians call it “service”.  It bespeaks justice, truth, and love. Gone are the days of monasteries and convents as an indulgent isolationist solution.  Today, we are forced to look around us.  We are obliged to act.

Unfortunately, those who take action are often those who do not know the experience of inner freedom, and those who do know keep it to themselves.  Too many people prefer to force changes upon the world, rather than on themselves, reinforcing the overwhelming importance placed on the outer world. Every time we switch on a radio or glance at a newspaper, the list of atrocities only grows, forcing sensitive people to switch it off and ignore what is going on.  Assured of their freedom to live life the way they choose, they settle for illusory peace and condemn the rest of the world to chaos through their inactivity.  This must stop.

Awareness implies bridging the chasm that separates us from one another and from ourselves, as well as from inner and outer realities.  Life, especially now, is a tremendous opportunity to learn where priorities really lie and eventually arrive at that nexus within us that determines our lasting satisfaction, not because of what surrounds us or what happens, but because “I” am happy within myself.  That central focus is both the beginning and the end.

Freedom of speech and freedom of press is a wonderful thing when we compare it to the authoritarianism that has preceded us. However, freedom has progressively evolved to mean permission to say and do just about anything. Freedoms have been granted at face value without awareness of the subtleties that arise from human needs.  Natural rights to Be involve the development of consciousness.  Laws cannot determine consciousness; the family and individual human beings must develop it within themselves.  It used to be called “conscience” and delineates the ethical limits of life.

Spiritually, “freedom” qualifies the way we perceive life and conceive ideas, the way we touch and feel everyone and everything.  It underlines our understanding of life’s purpose and takes us into lifting veils to find deeper meanings.  Freedom also awakens our sensibility to the invisible side of our everyday lives, what we condone, what we let slide and what we pretend is not there.  The concept of “humanity” defines the broadest freedom.

Where do I go to find the privacy in thought, word or deed that is my human right?  Where does it say that I have to suffer distasteful visual, auditory, olfactory and sensorial stimuli because someone else is exerting the right to express themselves? Must I be subjected to lewd lyrics simply because I enter into a department store?  What do I need to do to preserve the sanctity of my body?  We are living in a democracy but we are not taught discernment or discrimination. Where is the sense of public decency?  And who stands for conscience?

 Our parents certainly did not teach us, nor are we taught ethics in schools or religious institutions where, instead, more rules and ready-made beliefs are imposed.  It is taken for granted that we will learn the value of freedom while being manipulated and shaped into patterns that are not of our free choosing.

An entire civilisation places premiums on freedom and conquest, side by side.  Subjugation is disguised as concern by governments and organisations whose only interest is to perpetuate themselves.  Killing goes on in the name of Eastern and Western conceptions of God and the right to self-defence.  All of them exert their right to tell us how to live.

There is racial, sexual, mental and emotional slavery right at home, in marriages and in so-called friendships in the bosom of the educated Western world.  We don’t need to travel far to find hunger, insanitary conditions, and poverty.   A pitiful contribution of leftovers is thought to absolve the more affluent members of society from any guilt.  Wealthy plutocrats emigrate to eager countries that help them avoid taxes at home.  Political, economic and governmental institutions in the North, South, East and West are riddled with corruption.  There is no end to greed, but it is o.k.  It is democratic, and democracy stands for freedom.

Those who mount demonstrations ultimately achieve nothing, not because they can’t; it is because as a whole very, very few people care enough to sacrifice something of their own. Children starve or receive sub-standard rations in the name of goodwill, while our children train in hockey and prepare to go to college. Our air is polluted with toxic substances but worst of all are the toxic thoughts of anger, lust, fear and envy that corrode the heart. Natural rights are not important enough; they don’t bring money, prestige or power.  “Taking care of oneself” is another term for “hypocrisy” and “selfishness”.

I don’t know when the word freedom acquired the connotations of violence, indifference, selfishness, and insensitivity.  From the speakeasy to our own countries, from humanity at large to our own self…   I cannot understand why it has become so difficult to distinguish right from wrong, genuine concern from veiled prejudice and vested interest.  Somewhere we went from black and white to infinite shades of filthy grey.  We are living in a repugnant world of uncontrolled, sanctioned libido; enormous tides of peer pressure everywhere force us to accept bondage and ugliness as a norm for freedom.

Where are our Christian faith, our Hebrew commandments, our Buddhist codes, or Muslim principles of peace?  Religions and societies loot, rape, ostracise, patronise and condemn just like in the Middle Ages.  Even the president of the United States defends the right of a racist to produce and distribute a movie that mocks a recognised World Prophet and incites the basest instincts, while a rightist Christian fanatic is allowed to post anti-Semitic propaganda reminiscent of the Hitler era, on the public subways.  Adolescent girls in skin-tight-jeans avidly absorb overtly suggestive lyrics and dance… all in the name of freedom of expression.

 If we have transgressed every single notion of propriety and sanctity it is because of an absence of common sense.  In advocating for technical progress and broadmindedness, democracy and reform, we have eradicated all sense of conscience. It is no longer just a question of gender.  Nobody holds itself accountable for the current state of indecency in secular or religious states equally.

Enough.

It is time for comfortable, educated, sensitive, spiritual people to get off their pious asses, switch on their TV’s, read newspapers, come out into the world and embrace others who are different from themselves, help through example and by getting their hands dirty.  It is time to stop complaining about the economy and unemployment.  Everywhere in the globe there are severe difficulties imposed as a consequence of our own past self-indulgence.  As part of the solution, all it takes is for people to regroup and help one another.  So many unemployed could volunteer to do whatever is required for the good of all and for themselves, keeping themselves busy.  It is time to command the life our spiritual conscience calls for, and draw the lines of demarcation between freedom and abuse.

If we don’t act, we ought to know that others who are much less conscientious will.  Life abhors a vacuum.

BEING REAL IN AN UNREAL WORLD

Norman Rockwell, Girl at Mirror

The world we see is not the real world.  To recognize its splendour we must first come to terms with our own, beneath and beyond the numerous filters we use to apprise all we perceive.  Our judgement is at best “fickle”, adjusting endlessly to fit into one or another definition of reality.  We know when we are not being real and secretly, many of us wish there was a way through into a truer life.

We long for authenticity as a state of being that is not qualified by what we do or how we appear.  We long to live it.

It begins with the desire to be and have more than what the material world can offer.  The longing grows to mammoth proportions, instilling a dissatisfaction that far from being negative awakens an ardent yearning for expression and greater sharing.   Women tend to confuse this longing with love and partnership, men with competence and renown.  However it manifests, it escapes every one who looks for it in the outside world. 

When the moment comes and we feel that craving, something in us knows beyond doubt that there IS a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Like first love, we will leave everything for it.  Nothing less will do.

Striving to be genuine then leaves us with something of a puzzle.  Being real does not mean we forfeit the desire to play, but how and with whom?  What to do or not do?  How to “be” in a world that seems increasingly artificial and unfulfilling?  Carefully at first, we unlearn the way of the automaton and learn to walk a tightrope on a path that is razor sharp and tricky.  Will we lose the affection and the comfort of all that we have worked for?  What is going to happen in that great “out there” where nothing is predictable?

So we turn within to find a quality and space that is wholly ours, without interference from the outside world.  We discover a depth that lies beyond what may be seen.  Keenly, we begin to distinguish that innermost space from the other one covering it, where feelings and physical reactions play havoc. This inner space harbours us and is uniquely ours; to reach it we must navigate uncharted oceans beyond fear, without disconnecting from the material world.

We live in a society founded on opposition where even the most outrageous rebels fit right in with the sheep.  Being real in an unreal world, is not just challenging, it is anguishing and complicated. It implies that we unlearn the very attitudes and behaviour that allow us to go unnoticed, be comfortable, and feel secure within borrowed beliefs, imposed norms, and hand-me-down expectations that forge our identity.

Being real requires we take a deep and serious look at the way we express ourselves in the world and the nature of the meanings we attribute to it.  It is a frustrating, complicated, upsetting art of retraining perception, changing paradigms, and looking out through windows of perception that arise unexpectedly.

Our world gradually changes and we attract what we begin to live, and find the support of individuals who have walked a little farther.  They tend a balancing hand, lovingly steering us away from our habitual drifting, all the while careful not to dictate our moves or condition us.  In authenticity, our actions are always and wholly our own, emanating from that inner space where being flourishes.

Nobody can tell us it is easy but if you feel it, if you have begun to hanker for it, you already know that it is a glorious expedition into a Reality that is majestic beyond the imagination of this world. 

APPRENTICESHIP MYTHS

Under the Teaching Tree by Terence McKenna 1985

Apprenticeship Myths

He who has eyes to see, let him see.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

 The great universities of the Renaissance expanded the teaching of classical philosophy, arts and sciences to a wider public. The system demanded great effort, discipline and initiative from the student; the responsibility was entirely on him and the means at his disposal. Before that, teaching was limited to technical instruction and selective training in a rigid and unilateral way and for only a few.

At present, the concept of teaching embraces the innovative principles of the XXth Century that responded to the development and flexibility of the mind and the dominant role of personal psychology. Schools such as “The Little Red Schoolhouse” and Rudolf Steiner’s approach revealed the importance of reaching and stimulating the student first, so that it is he/she who desires instruction. Several types of intelligence were identified, and perception of the unique inner world of each acquired as much importance as purpose.

At all times, apprenticeship involves all aspects of daily life and experience. It begins with the home, the family, social surroundings, and extends to the university or technical school. Each type has different requirements and stresses different disciplines. Nevertheless, generally speaking apprenticeship continues to be regarded as a force that is exerted in one direction only: it is the teacher who imposes the rules and the material. The relationship between teacher and pupil remains formal.

Of them all, spiritual training distinguishes between external application that focuses on execution and appearance, and inner in-depth capacity of perception.

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Spirituality

Spirituality is not a trade for which a person can be trained; it depends as much on the teacher as on the student. Spiritual apprenticeship does not follow a manual of rules and instructions, nor does it require intellectual effort. It requires breaking with all mechanical formulation and voluntary immersion into a state of constant receptivity, awareness, and energy management. Movement and flexibility are essential, as are the delicate arts of listening and transmission.

To develop Consciousness requires a sort of juggling where rules of the physical world are observed while remaining firmly loyal to the dictates of inner sensibility. The first deals with the administration of form, what is lived in the physical body and is managed daily. The second follows a universal ethics where in-depth inner reality mirrors absolute perfection. For the normal personality this spells fear, insecurity and constant risk. Instead of comfort and convenience, the spiritual path is one of discrimination, and even if it may be followed in urban life, it does not cater to usual material priorities.

It is not a doing. It emerges from within the seeker, predominating over everything else. It defines the way in which intelligence and the senses function, determining priorities that appear abstract to others, evoking a wider and deeper vision of existence. The spiritual teacher can only facilitate the experience that the student bears inside of himself, and help him integrate this state of being in the world. The purpose of the information the teacher brings creates space and defines affinities, tracing an invisible ancient route. It is the opposite to the habitual preparation of the student for the world. Instead of accumulating information, he is shown how to extract the essence of reality to allow for revelation. 

Attention

The posture of the apprentice in the field of spirituality is to sustain lucidity and purpose on an Ideal while holding a broad diffuse perception of the emergence of subtly fluctuating phenomena. It transcends time and space, basic ingredients of physical survival and management, simultaneously maintaining physical, mental and emotional health in a complex world of reactions.

Vision emerges from a change of vibratory frequency in the whole body that develops attention without tension. This activates a higher holistic intelligence that transcends personal interpretation. It resembles the type of attention and opening necessary to supervise a wide field of possibilities, without a fixed point/perspective. 

Perception

Perception is the decoding ability of intelligence. At the spiritual level it requires an adjustment of the lens of the observer who goes beyond the experience of being the subject who perceives the external world and relates to it as active and manipulative agent, to being a receptive aware being who influences and is influenced by its surroundings.

It may be compared to dreaming or an elevated state where one perceives oneself from a sort of subjective objectivity on equal footing with what surrounds us. Reality is an experience that reveals a different and yet familiar world, more luminous, and of greater and more extended dimensions.

Attitude

To adjust adequately his or her capacity of sensibility, the apprentice must be familiar with the vast region of ordinary emotions and at the same time must have acquired a certain mastery over them, so that they no longer control attention. The feeling experienced at these levels involves the whole self. Interpretation, recognition, or revelation comes as a result of an impersonally affectionate receptivity.

The experience of Truth is caught with all the senses, at all levels and possible purposes, in a state of transcendence, without definition, priority or material meanings.

The spiritual teacher guides the student of Truth towards global perception and the recognition of perfection through the depth and amplitude of his or her own experience in the world. He (or she) never forces or demands anything that does not emerge from the availability of the individual. Explicit or implicit responsibility and permission is fundamental for the simple reason that learning involves the development and refinement of willpower. The teacher orients through insinuation or directives rooted in universal ethics, and whatever conclusions a student draws are never verifiable or comparable in the material sense.

The authentic teacher inspires the student in the experience of being alone before Truth, and whole, making his or her own decisions, assuming consequences, and learning by sharing and leading in the world. Instead of a traditional placid shepherd who gathers and feeds needy sheep, in the spiritual path the teacher is a teacher of teachers.

Myths

Teachings create expectations and apprenticeship, ambition.

In places like South America, there is a tendency to adopt a posture of distance and conditionality towards the teacher. Such a one is elevated for its title, even if in truth he/she is another employee, paid to forge an image or a form. The student only needs to obey, and this attitude is called “respect”. It does not think for itself but merely repeats what “should be”, automatically responding to the prevailing confusion over knowing and being. A teacher is expected to model the student through instruction and imparted information. Subsequent interpretation and flexibility is a side effect to which not much importance is placed.

Under the stoic surface of the “respectful” student, resentment and demand may be found: someday he or she will be recognised as someone special. Interest is limited to short attention spans where material priorities prevail – the senses and the intellect. Under it all, an infantile hopefulness is detected: the promise of a formula of “being right” that wins respect and admiration from elders and peers. Because, for such an individual, Truth is a prize that is won with time and money, confirmed by eventual certification.

In some places of the world the posture of both the teacher and the student go to the extreme opposite. There is little obedience or respect, and under the seal of individuality and creativity truths are distorted and absurd expectations sold.

Conclusion

Imitation is not reality. We would need to understand better the concepts of education, mastery, discipline, types and levels of learning, and finally recognise the implications of aptitude and individual disposition. Most important is the recognition of the dignity involved in the nature of transmission and the depth of genuine commitment that a person must make to prepare him or herself to learn.

For everyone, the laboratory or school of learning is always life, the substance-matter that composes daily experience and common situations. Along with this consciously sustained perspective, the keen eyes and senses of the apprentice behold a universe of subtleties, tonalities, meanings and relationships of all sort. The most difficult situations become a challenge and acquire a purpose that opens the understanding of multiple possibilities and probabilities.

In this type of experience, the relationship between master and student becomes one of integrity, authentic respect and gratitude – the first for the opportunity to serve, and the second for the essential inner contact that reveals infinite nuances of feeling and greater meaning.

The only thing asked of the apprentice is to get out of center-stage. Essentially, there is no great difference among technical, university, or spiritual learning. Instead, it is one of individual priority and discernment.

ALONENESS IS NOT LONELY

“There is a hole in aloneness that leads into everythingness.”   –  ZR

Normally, we don’t know how to be alone.  We look for things to occupy our time and space, and immerse ourselves in projects, people and intensities, anything so as not to feel ourselves.  Many people who claim to enjoy being alone use isolation as an excuse to do and be as they please, without distractions, diving into some activity or another to cover up the fear of insufficiency, meaninglessness, and their own selfishness.  This is not aloneness.

Aloneness is pure experiencing, free from boundaries or targets.  We are at the centre as sentient observers, but do not concern ourselves with any self-description or reflection.  Instead, the experience suggests a positioning whereby we are whole, good, perfect, and in a sense irrelevant.  There is no time and space in the experience of Self.  There is nothing to criticize, complain about, compete with, or achieve.  It is an utterly sensitive participation in the totality of life in any given moment, as deep as it can be subtle.  Aloneness is the portal to genuine lasting fullness and joy.

Loneliness reveals a need for outer parameters.  Without them, we don’t know who we are or what to do with ourselves. The mere thought of being disconnected from the company, support, and general context of others, triggers the despair of non-existence, unimportance, and uselessness that sets the stage for the confusion we equate with the experience of emotional love.  In truth, love doesn’t need anyone or anything, and it doesn’t fill the void of one who does not know himself.   Love IS.  It is an end in itself because it is who and what we are when we experience life without descriptions.

Unfortunately, our conception of life is centred on active, physical participation; a “doing” which invariably requires the presence of others, a context, and constant validation.  Our whole world is defined by it.  Far from bringing us together, such activity, like the body that performs it, separates us from one another and from Creation.  The doings, and the significance we elaborate around them, prevent us from experiencing life directly.

Personality is the invisible counterpart of body, loaded with subjective meaning.  It is limited and limiting.  To be anything other than the collection of quirks, likes and dislikes that define our reactions, and us, is inconceivable.  To preserve itself, the personality needs to “do” and “show”.  Exercise power and build meaning. 

In an unconscious world, we are taught to “do”, not to sense or feel.  We learn to identify with the things we do, substituting impartial awareness with linear thinking.  This is how our actions and the persons and conditions associated with them, become more important than the state of being.  Then, when inner connection is impossible, we experience loss, imagining ourselves deprived of what we believe is reality.  By this time, fear, as the absence of real Self, has taken hold, closely followed by its shadow, loneliness.

We become who and what we identify with, and then believe this is the nexus of our being, without recognizing the faculty within us that makes this possible.  The personality is the result of a mechanism that we use automatically.  However, at the centre of it is Self, a state rather than a condition of Being.

In a state of aloneness, movement perceived inwardly is one of abundance, non-specific and non-directional.  We experience the whole within us through simple affinity and resonance.  This gives us genuine confidence, as subject connected to the whole.  Once this focus is gained, we are able to take our personality in hand, adjust our resources and reshape our world.

To “be” requires a positioning in aloneness in order to experience fullness and power; it requires that solid sustainable base that is gained only through experience of Self.

A human being is not meant to depend on anyone or anything, but to express wholeness and authenticity.  We can’t do this if we are subject to descriptions.  Everyone and everything appears quite differently when we gain the depth of intimacy and fullness of thriving in aloneness, as the most natural of experiences.  To reach it, we need to stop looking for things to do, and this includes planning and calculation.  Everything needs to be in its place and in its true perspective.  When it concerns us and the direct experience of Creation, doing has to be replaced by sensitivity, and thinking transformed into a state of wide awareness.

In aloneness we do not cease to be who we are, but we cease to participate in the endless dependence we create, when we identify with what we do, and with what others hold us to be.  On the portal of Aloneness (All One-ness) we envision the ocean in a drop of water, and totality in the One.  This One is who you really are.

The Intelligence used in constructing our world is a force that requires a conscious driver.  It is invisible, the most powerful dynamic in existence, formless, unlimited, and empty of self importance.

The challenge to an evolved human being is to own it in full knowledge and responsibility for the extraordinary power it represents.  Learning to direct it requires we construct a bridge in Consciousness between our Presence as aloneness, and a conscious temporary personality.  The choice is between allying ourselves with limitation or with creativity, with the things we construct or with the power that constructs universes. 

THE NEUTRAL MIND

Neutrality comes from wholeness. It does not imply tolerance, effort, control or calculation. It is the state of human intelligence when not under the grip of ambition or outside control. The Neutral Mind is the true Intelligence of a human being embracing its humanity and its divinity. The posture releases a powerful force capable of transforming our world. ZR

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Every serious student of Truth is faced with a great challenge: to acquire neutrality that starts with self. For this the person has to break with the habit of accepting face values and indulging in personalized thinking, radically altering the dynamic of understanding and managing data, and adopting a causal perspective of life dynamics. This requires a flexible mind that decodes perception separately from personal identity.

Usually we learn, understand and evaluate through a linear mind that manages isolated events and impresses them with fixed meanings. We analyze everything in this way. Except in rare instances, we do not employ holistic vision, which in our work we call the “Neutral” or the “Christ Mind.”

To access this mind, one must transcend attachment to separation, the precious ego, and specialness. The best way to relax the mind and sensitize the emotions is through the Alchemical Alignment. In our school, the work of Introspection studies the dualities implicit in our beliefs and behavior in order to reach a global perspective. Added to the experience of alignment, the understanding of this polarized mind leads the student to perceive accurately.

We confuse intelligence with information that is gained by thinking in formulas, approved and rewarded by the collective. This information is the mere sum of belief, opinion and human behavior obtained through linear thinking and relates exclusively to the material world and its rules, a far cry from the Intelligence of Being. This kind of thinking is unfortunately transferred to our feeling world. There are no emotions or perceptions in our life that do not involve evaluative labeling.

The dynamic is built upon standard dichotomies, good-bad, useful-useless, and comfortable-uncomfortable that correspond to polarity. It guides, protects and rewards us, but only at the physical tangible level. Even mathematics and philosophy repeat the pattern, and “meditation” falls into the same criteria, prizing the “absence” of thought. Unfortunately, this kind of posturing undervalues the intelligence, barely remaining at a level of concretion – inert and categorical – and making it impossible to serve as inspiration and refinement of humanity.

To stop the mind as suggested by some traditions is impossible. What takes place is an evasion of the essential function of the human being and the purpose of incarnation. Human intelligence is created to access worlds and levels of reality and act as a bridge between them. We are destined to develop a flexible mind, capable of functioning at different levels.

The work of an aspirant is to adopt a position of neutrality that understands the excesses, embraces the opposites that govern our perspective, and transcend them with sensibility: a holistic or hologramic mind, which is known as the Neutral Mind or Christ Mind (without religious implications).

To understand it, you first have to understand how the common mind works.

The common mind and thinking.

Every day, the mind catalogues and associates. It is forced to make judgments, even if they are momentary, to guide us properly and to help us function in society. It reflects the desire to understand, communicate and belong. It involves consensus. Any activity, including the perception of a plant or tree, applies the same mechanism: to evaluate or identify based on a common physical and emotional language.

Thinking involves a very limited aspect of intelligence, yet it has become judge and guardian of our person and our world. It concentrates on measuring differences and describing the apparent, even when referring to emotions. It perceives individually and then fits the pieces together into a unit. It contemplates, handles, interprets, deduces and filters what the senses and opinions imply, reflecting a historical legacy by adapting and measuring elements appropriately.

In Inner Alchemy we teach to perceive with flexibility instead of fixity. To manage and modulate energies, a clear and conscientious Personal Focus of Consciousness (PFC) must be used (e.book “Personal Energy Bodies”). Without falling into intellectualism or emotionality, we apply an observation that recognizes dual causes. It perceives beyond.

It is about sensible intelligence rather than calculation or deduction. It concerns freeing the concrete mind from its categorical incarceration and revealing the genuine power of intelligence whose nature is neutrality. Approaching the transparency that allows for the manifestation of the individualized Being.

We cannot manifest Being and see what it IS without having crossed the borders of our temporal identity. And, since to be of use in this world we need the ego at all times, in the process, the personal structure must become flexible without losing its stock of information. Unfortunately, the person automatically resists relinquishing habits of duality, as the senses insist on clinging to a polarized vision of reality. The student finds it difficult to recognize its dual nature, material and spiritual; thinking continues to swing between good-evil, positive-negative, black-white for a long time. The usual result is an increase in the level of tension and frustration, applying judgment instead of correction.

We must proceed step by step. We begin by understanding sensitivity.

Sensibility.

The normal person confuses sensitivity with emotion and feeling because he has no other perspective than that of his body and his material reality. That is why the Alchemical Alignment, which teaches the experience of energy mobilization and perception, is the first step.

Sensitivity is the subtle aspect of the ego that underlies beliefs. Sensations produced by beliefs, dressed in emotional nuances, reflect subjective values. Emotions give cohesion and quality. Within the popular compendium, everything acquires description or personal category. This is how “love” has come to include all kinds of addictions, controls, conditions and quasi-commercial transactions.

Getting rid of personalism is perhaps the hardest thing to do. Releasing these references for many people means to risk living a bland life. Connection with greater reality will not occur until that leap into apparent emptiness is made, supported exclusively on the direct experience (faith) of the Inner Presence.

What would neutral sensitivity be? It is the direct experience of Intelligence that includes supra-emotional sensitivity.

The Neutral Mind.

The nature of the Self is to see-feel as a state of continuous perceptual activity. The Neutral Mind is the real Intelligence of the human being connected with multiple levels of sensibility and manifestation.

Time is a reflection of matter and the polarity (linearity) of thought. In the neutral mind, although it embraces the understanding of all Time, time is not a separating factor.

Example. “We see-feel” in moments of great jubilation, of energetic intensity similar to an “awakening.” At that moment we see, feel and know simultaneously. We call it “insight,” a flash of perception that includes the concrete faculties of understanding through the mind, and feeling through the emotions. Once connected with this unified state of being, we perceive from the Presence and the personality at the same time.

While we are in a body, the material aspect necessarily takes precedence over the subtle, although the one should not fully exclude the other. Nonetheless, this means that attachments, tastes, conveniences and physical three-dimensional utility continue to exert a strong appeal until we fully awaken. The process suggested by neutral thinking leads to another way of seeing, feeling, and knowing that does not involve time, or calculation. Unlike the concrete mind, the neutral mind does not involve time or personal convenience, since perception and interpretation onto the concrete world occurs simultaneously.

But this intelligence is not entirely new. If we pause to remember, we find moments when we have used intelligence in a relaxed, expansive way, where the vision we reach is equated with compassionate understanding.

Observe the mechanism of the mind, your mind. Take note that everything you see is linked to circumstance and labels. As an exercise, look at things now – objects, people, and places – as they are. That is, remove associative memories. Instead of looking at the dining room table and remembering where you bought it or who gave it to you, if it is beautiful or ugly, you observe it for what it is – its shape, texture and composition – without the associations, either emotional, psychological, social or utilitarian, to arrive at a direct appreciation. This exercise teaches you how to use your Personal Consciousness Focus (FPC) without the interference of the emotions and your expectations.

On another level, now conceive of a conflict between two parties, such as the interminable war between Israel and Palestine, the conflict in Syria, or the racial and religious tensions in so many parts of the world. Seek to achieve a neutral perception without taking sides. Take note if it is difficult for you, in which case you will detect your own prejudices and deep-seated beliefs. On the other hand, if you achieve it, take note that it will be from a position of intelligence where your mind is relaxed. You see the component elements, including the reasoning, guilt and virtue of both sides. You will also see the succession of historical events, all without drawing your attention away from any one of them. At the same time you notice something else.

You have an experience of causality that understands. You feel with the mind. The mind acquires sensitivity. In this position it is possible to see THE solution, which is not concrete but rather “intelligent” and “sensitive”. You will see that it is not a vague and diffuse idealism; it is something very possible. Peace and coexistence appear to be within reach. You understand what the steps are as you perceive the past and the possible future. This is the vision of the Neutral Mind, the faculty of Intelligence of the mediator (the Christ concept) in you. Without this mind there is no perception of the real; all we usually think we see has been but a projection of desires.

Let us now approach the most difficult perception: that of seeing oneself. From the onset we face two difficulties. We are used to perceiving from a position of centralized personal convenience and energetic comfort; the new sensation of intensity and dislocation is uncomfortable. Neutrality implies taking a distance and even when achieved in alignment, sustaining a focus of neutrality requires avoiding flights of imagination and illusion.

The other difficulty lies in perceiving behind personal justification. For this, the willpower of the aspirant emerges, giving permission or access to the linear mind now devoid of interpretive filters. In other words, you will observe yourself observing.

How to do it?

Exercise of perception from the Neutral Mind: concrete steps.

º Visualize the Alchemical Alignment.

º Turn your attention away from the physical body and your habitual reality to the sensation of elevation and finally to the focus established by the Presence. Accelerate vibrationally to the frequency of your Presence. You will no longer be subject to the references of the body in spite the fact that you still access senses and sensation. Sustain the experience of accelerated energy as you orient your senses in a new way.

º From that higher frequency LOOK down at the body. At first you will think you are imagining it and it will be difficult to prove that you are, indeed, perceiving. Keep going. Focus. What “seems” to be there? Distance yourself from your emotions or expectations. You will be watching neutrally.

º Once you have grasped the sensibility involved at the vital level from this new perspective, sense the emotional range. At this moment you will feel yourself feeling from the perspective of the Presence, which now adjusts itself to a higher dimension.

º Re-orient yourself to a global perception that comes from your Self directly. How do you “understand” the person you are perceiving (yourself)? Sense its place in the evolutionary scale. At this time you will be using neutral intelligence and your linear mind will be at the service of that higher intelligence. It no longer responds to personal imperatives or to the automatic conclusions forged by the linear mind. It responds to the “impression of Knowing” as you experience the unit globally. Allow yourself to see and know. Take all the time you need.

º At this moment you intuitively understand the dynamics and real possibilities within the reach of Being (Self). It is a new perspective that you may have experienced with others but never with yourself as object. Release any trace of personal attachments and expectations, in the same manner that you perceived the possibilities of peace for the places in conflict in a previous description. Take note of what you perceive that you had not previously perceived. Do not stop to analyze or do anything that can lower your vibrational level. Sustain that energy and state of Being-Intelligence that injects its vision into your linear mind. Familiarize yourself with it so you can evoke it at any time.

º You are now in a position to create a protective, energizing thought-form for yourself. Retrace the next steps frequently in order to fix the protocol and learn the management of that particular energy. It is the following:

º Visualize the whole of your Alignment, including the higher and lower range of frequencies. Project the Light Tube and follow this with the Electronic Circuit. The blue indigo dimensional ray appears as a curtain, a wall around you. Place yourself within that walled enclosure, while projecting and sustaining it with your visualization from the higher perspective. You will find yourself in both places (both dimensional ranges) at the same time, exercising both your Neutral Mind and your concrete linear mind.

At first you may feel confused, in conflict, “doing” one thing and then the other. Over time, by relaxing, you can sustain the visual, sensory and subtle postures simultaneously. You learn to access that intelligence without the tension that characterizes linear intention. You can identify and decode its mechanics of global perception and decipher it for specific use.

Get used to sustaining that protection and perception. Repeat the experience under different circumstances and places.

You will learn to apply the Neutral Mind over everything, and the next time you find yourself in difficulty, lost or confused, irritated or afraid … go to that complex of visualization-feeling from the Presence and listen-see what is actually happening, and how you can perceive solutions. Apply the power of that intelligence to change the distribution and voltage of your emotional, mental and physical body.

There will be no more excuses for not seeing-knowing. But bear in mind: thinking alone, even if it appears “neutral” will not change anything if it does not include the direct experience and management of vital and emotional energies.

If you succeed in grasping this experience energetically and psychologically, you will be in a position to apply it to situations in daily life and solve problems without the demands, effort, or suffering that usually accompany an attempt. If you can see yourself unobtrusively, you will embrace yourself in the neutral sense of the word. You will “know yourself” with all the tenderness of the teacher who watches over a child recognizing its potential.

By understanding yourself you cultivate individuality and authenticity, and succeed in using intelligence without judgment. Thought becomes one more tool, the most important, since it is the way your Self handles, guides and conditions reality.

Before a problem, your own or another’s, you will be able to set aside personal reactions (which will always be there) and fixed beliefs (bequeathed by the environment), and perceive causes in order to manage energies with clarity. You will have done your part, the only thing that the spiritual path in which you find yourself in, asks of you.

Conclusion.

Now to practice the faculties of the Mind as: (1) the habitual, polar, partial mind, connected with personal emotion and belief, and (2) the impartial Neutral Mind connected to your Self.

For a better understanding and coverage of the subject refer to the study manuals, e.books: “Personal Energy Bodies” (PEB) and “Perception”.

Note for practicing students: Including work on personal ego, non-personal ego, and handling of personal energy bodies (outlined in the e.books mentioned above), Introspection and the Square have been steps in this direction. It would be necessary to now move from the exclusive perspective of the angles of the Square to perceive the personality unit and recognize its purpose, characteristics, and original potential.

The management of the PEBs already prepares you for this perception.