Open-Secrets

Category: Questions

  • Universal Consciousness

    ConsciousnesRumors and reports from the front lines abound around universal consciousness. And yet, a quick glance into the daily world, the newspaper, the blogosphere or a few minutes on Bill O’Reilly or the Huffington Post reveals universal unconscious still reigns supreme in the hearts and minds of the masses.

    Most people think they are conscious. Even if you define being conscious as being awake or merely aware, most mystics would still proclaim that the conscious masses are still, unfortunately, unconscious.

    I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and saw Jill Bolte-Taylor’s book – My Stroke of Insight. I ordered it today from Amazon. Ms. Bolte-Taylor probably has a few things to say on the subject of consciousness that might interest me.

    It’s been a long while since I read anything by J Krishnamurti, but I still hold his inquiry into violence close to my heart:

    When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.

    When it comes to exploring consciousness and universal consciousness, the same open and open-ended inquiry needs to be engaged. It’s a bit more challenging though than lettin go of your country or religion or any particualr piece of identity because when it comes to the exploration of consciousness the whole enchilada will be challenged at levels we hold near and dear.

    Can a catchy t-shirt help raise consciousness or universal conscioiusness? What say you?

  • Holding Environment

    Holding-environmentHow much holding do you need in your environment?

    Winnicott wrote a great deal about the importance of the holding environment for psychological development. When doing individual or group work with a therapist or spiritual teacher, the holding environment is a major concern.

    Issues of basic trust are a concern for individuals involved in deep psychological or spiritual work. The holding environment needs to be safe enough to venture out, but risky enough to push our developmental envelope or edge. If there is no risk, is there ever expansion or going beyond the familiar and known?

    At first, one needs more trust in the other (teacher, therapist). As personal work deepens, trust in the process or one’s self becomes more foreground than trust in the other.

    In the 40 years I’ve been on the journey, I’ve seen holding environments that ranged from the self-serving, to the sublime, to the truly inspiring.

  • Fakeness – Being a Fake

    FakenessHow do you respond to fakeness?

    What does it mean to be fake?

    When I think of fakeness and being fake, the first thing that pops to mind is insincerity followed closely by inauthentic and not real.

    In the normal world, fakeness is often used to describe someone who seems too caught up in image and superficial living, someone who is not being straight with others – not necessarily a liar, but more of a “spin person.”

    Fake people feel empty or hollow and fakeness seems to impact our hearts with a sense of disappoinment or loss.

    The greater issue with fakeness is that the ego itself is fake – 100%. The ego identity is a fake self, so it can’t be anything other than fake regardless of all the striving to be real.

    Most of our lives are lived from a place of fakeness – what we take to be real in ourselves is mostly based on the fake – ignorance, misundertanding, false ideas and beliefs, wishes, hopes and dreams. There is a drive deep within us that longs for the real, for authenticity, but that drive is being co-opted by something fake trying to improve itself for others’ approval.

    It’s a real conundrum – how can a person, identified with their fake self, become real and authentic? What kind of alchemy can transform fakeness into the real?

  • Ipseity

    Ipseity according to the dictionary is: selfhood; individual identity, individuality. [from L. ipse, self, himself]

    The absolute is both my nature and my identity. Is the nature of the soul and her very identity. It constitutes her manifestations but it is also her depth and deepest essence. Alternatively, we can say the absolute is our true self, our objectively actual self. But it is also the nature of the soul. That is why we like to refer to the absolute as ipseity, for the word ipseity means both nature and self. To recognize the absolute as ipseity is a profound experience, for it is the self-realization of this dimension of true nature. A. H. Almaas

    Breathe into Being

    The Sufis say that existence came about because the Divine ‘Himselfness’ (Arabic: Huwiyyah, often translated as ‘Ipseity’ in scholarly works) breathed the Breath of Compassion, Nafs ar-Rahman, on the possibilities (Arabic: ayan-i-thabitah) that were latent in Himself.

    Be that as it may, the human soul is referred to in the Qur’an and elsewhere as a breath, nafs. (Interestingly, the word for spirit – ruh – also means ‘wind’). God moulds Adam with his two ‘hands’ and breathes into him His Spirit. And that part of us that is not moulded ‘clay’ (our materiality) is the nafs, the breath, our soul.

    According to some Sufi sources, there are seven gradations of the human nafs, ranging from the habitual, unreconstructed self of people who have done no ‘work’ on themeselves (the so-called ‘commanding self’, ‘Nafs al-ammarah’, which is really nothing but fragments of conditioning) through to the ‘completed self’, Nafs al-kamilan. – from James

    What would the Buddha say about ipseity? Is there self-identity in the absolute nature of the everything/anything

    Image by Amy Theiss – Ipseity 28

  • Rapprochement

    Rapprochement-conflictIn Googling rapprochement, 3.3 million results are returned. In scrolling down the page, it appears that more than 90% of the returns elate to rapprochement in its use in diplomatic relations.

    A rapprochement, which comes from the French word rapprocher (“to bring together”), is a re-establishment of cordial relations, as between two countries. In the political scene of an individual country rapprochement means the bringing together of diverse political factions.

    In terms of human development, rapprochement refers to a human developmental milestone occurring around 18 months. The child moves away from and then returns to the mother for reassurance.

    The rapprochement conflict is something that recurs on the spiritual path more than most people are aware of. The rapprochement conflict usually reasserts itself anytime we are challenged with leaving the familiar for the unknown. On the spiritual path, this happens a lot.

    This rapprochement conflict is usually reenacted in our work, after the Personal Essence is experienced in a sustained manner… We find that every individual, regardless of how integrated he is on the ego level, has an unconscious rapprochement conflict. A.H. Almaas

    Maintaining a familiar sense of self is JOB #1 at ego central. Thus, venturing afar from our familiar identity can trigger insecurity and anxiety. This usually quites down when we return to the familiar and is one of the reasons why the ego likes to reify or co-opt spiritual experience – so, it becomes part of the familiar.

    When identity shifts from ego to true nature, the rapprochement conflict ends as identity is not fixated now but resides in a flow of consciousness from one unknown moment to the next.

    What do you notice about your relationship between the unknown and the familiar? Do you love wandering afar into new territory, but also feel the need to return to the familiar? Can you spell – rapprochement?

     

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  • Google God for Guidance

    I’m still reading Your Soul’s Compass and came across a paragraph I just have to share –

    Seeking spiritual guidance is often misunderstood as consulting a cosmic Dear Abby or a universal Google for advice on relationships, health, and illness, pathways to financial freedom, or even great car deals. While there’s guidance out there fabout everything in life, the kind that we’re most concerned with here sheds light on the spiritual journey itself. Are we going in a direction that helps us become less selfish, more compassionate, and peaceful? Or have we gone off on a tangent that keeps us tethered to old habits and perceptions, which perpetuate fear, greed and ignorance?

    That first sentence is wonderful. Many people seem to approach God, True Nature, Allah, Jehovah, Brahma… with this kind of cause and effect orientation which is clearly an anthropomorphism of the divine consciousness.

    I don’t want to get into that debate, but what do you think – can you Google God in your head or heart?

    Google-god

    I guess if that doesn’t work then…

    Dear Abby,

     

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