Pain and Growth

The subject matter for this download is represented by PAIN:

Just as Wittgenstein thought that “pain” was in one sense a name and in another not, so he can regard ‘I am in pain’ as in one sense a description and in another not. … To treat the expression of pain in this way as a description of pain is to make it seem too distant from pain. … A description must be independent of what it is to be compared with …

Kenny A. 1975, Wittgenstein, GB, Pelican.

This suggests that one should be aware that ‘I’m in pain’ can be used to manipulate feelings of guilt for the purpose of control.

The second symbol describes the unconscious material as ALONENESS:

When one who is becoming explores the Universe - other systems are found, other Planets … at their own unique level of awareness. Through a satellite of expectation one seeks … to find another - a kindred Planet, a like level of awareness. … In terms of evolution, there are those above and those below, desolation in-between. One finds our ‘self’ a consciousness alone at a level exposed to our fear which transforms into need and expectation. … submit to Source. … Keep your introspective knowledge to yourself … [or be accused of] arrogance … those of similar kindred spirit will find you and you will find them.

Polakow E.S. 2000, Your Soular System, SA, Spearhead Press.

Everyone who has experienced a change in their world view, who has survived the transition to another level of consciousness, understands what being alone means and how rare it is to find a kindred spirit.

The third symbol introduces FEAR as a motivating force within the Aloneness. The thing about personal growth is that transformation archetypes are activated when the time is ripe for change. There is a real fear of these forces that are then perceived as dark forms, a conditioned fear that is the result of having suppressed the feminine over hundreds of years. We are warned that one needs a stable ego-consciousness to face this fear.

JRH Christie - murdered at least six women … As a result of fright he lost his power of speech for several weeks, and was able to speak only in a whisper for many years. … [p126] The Nietzschean ‘Will to Power’, the craving for complete consciousness, expresses itself on several levels. But it is always a striving to overcome the repeating mechanism.  … We dream of finding the hidden lever that operates the flood-gates of vitality … Consciousness is synonymous with vision, and vision means godhead. … [p134] a sex crime could be a step in the direction of conquest, of godhead. … Sartrian attitude …

Wilson C. 1963, Origins of the Sexual Impulse, GB, Aurthur Barker Ltd.

The synthesis of these symbols relates to Fromm’s work on sadism and masochism, and Nietzsche’s ‘Will to Power’. In his book The Fear of Freedom, Fromm writes that both tendencies are the outcomes of one basic need, the inability to bear the isolation of one’s self. These tendencies are an attempt to escape an unbearable feeling of aloneness.

An awakening implies having to work at changing and healing the relationship that one wakes up in. The emergent self is under pressure to realize its freedom and must struggle to deal with anxiety, doubt, and feelings of powerlessness.

The core issue calls for an understanding of what is meant by CONFLICT.

Real conflicts between two people, those which do not serve to cover up or project, but which are experienced on the deep level of inner reality to which they belong are not destructive. They lead to clarification … Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the centre of their existence, hence if each of one of them experiences himself from the centre of his existence. Only in this ‘central experience’ is human reality, only here is aliveness … constant challenge; it is not a resting place …

Fromm E. 1979, The Art of Loving, GB, Unwin – This is recommended reading along with his other book: The Fear of Freedom.

I interpret this to mean that real conflict is what helps get both people up onto the next level, but I think this is only possible if both have the potential to self-actualize at the same time.

As a consequence, the situation is represented by the symbol DRAGON:

It pulled him under, he looked around and saw nothing in the brown water, but then his eyes changed … pure white, he saw the weird beast … gills … eight tentacles ... It looked like a dragon … the beast was coming for him.

Elliott K.R. 2008, James Litel, SA, New Voices

The changing of his eyes relates to the change in one’s world view to acknowledge the relationship one must develop with the unconscious as represented here by the anima. The responsibility one has in these transformation dramas is to find one’s DIGNITY when everything is being stripped away.

dignity of a human being … man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment - he has made out of himself. … swine … saints … Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Our generation is realistic for we have come to know man as he really is. … invented the gas chambers … entered upright.

Frankl V.E. 1964, Man’s Search for Meaning, GB, Hodder & Stoughton.

Ouch! It was as a prisoner that Frankl was able to gain this precious insight into human behaviour. But to understand how this relates to relationships one probably needs to believe in archetypal forces and the notion that superior decisions are called for. The problem we find here is that decisions need to be true to Self and not what society and family expect if one is to grow to the next level.

The predictable outcome is presented by the symbol FEAR and it suggests what I believe most people are intuitively aware of: a fear of change and its source, the unconscious.

… how people looked deeply into themselves, how many different fears came into the daylight. … the dam broke … how the Work and group support gave him the courage … There are overwhelming, draining, corroding fears caused by fantasies, projections of future events, dread of catastrophes … “the fear of the unknown.” … The part of a man that he is afraid to see in himself. … You can be afraid of being asked for more and greater efforts in the Work. … What is the opposite of fear? It is courage. It takes great courage to see all this in you - not to turn away, but face it.

Fuchs J. 1994, Fourty Years After , GGD

I tend to see two threads: one relates to the personal and the other to the collective. The personal thread uses this symbol to motivate the freedom to choose to work for another outcome. In terms of the collective: this week is about the Copenhagen summit on climate change, so consider the subliminal effect of millions of interconnected minds focused on this threat.

The conditioning one must overcome is the fear of the unconscious as represented by the ANIMA.

Neumann writes: “The ambivalent female figure may guide the male or beguile him. Side by side with sublimation stands abasement … And how close ecstasy is to madness, enthusiasm to death, creativeness to psychosis, is shown by mythology, by the history of religions, and by the lives of innumerable great men for whom the depths has spelled doom.”

To see more specifically how these dynamics operate, we will examine in detail “Morella,”(Edgar Allan Poe) … apocryphal appearance emphasizes her ultimate origin in the narrator’s own psyche.

+[p65]Neumann call “uroboric incest.” … to be understood symbolically,  … as regressive and ultimately ego-destroying …

+[p66] The feminine as it appears in Poe, then, or in any other writer who treats women as psychic externalizations, can be viewed first as either elementary or transformative in character, the Great Mother or the anima.

+[p68]anima seeking recognition and union … Janus face ... Morella’s philosophical studies, exciting and terrifying.

Bickman M. 1980, American Romantic , Spring.

It follows that one needs to develop the right attitude to overcome the conditioning, and here we get to examine the symbol SEDUCTION.

… if we can make the imaginal leap from seduction as shameful to mutual seduction as a universal dynamic, then our idea of Jung’s notion of individuation and the self will change. … self as symbolized in the legendary Echenis fish … It is now the fish that draws out the fisherman! … Alchemists sought to replace the fish with an instrument … the “magnet of the wise,” can be taught as a body of practical knowledge, Jung writes, and he makes the connection between this secret knowledge … and the practice of psychotherapy. The magnet is described … crowned figure is raising a winged, fish-tailed, snake-armed creature … monster.

+[p120] The path is now not something to avoid being seduced away from; rather it consists of reflections upon the various seductions, fascination, or fallings away that become as the path itself. …

+ [p121] but if I say something is extracted through seduction, I am assuming a dual source of energy …  the reciprocal flow.

+[p122] Different aspects of the soul appear  in the world through the movement of different kinds of loves. ... Eros then, is the purposive, the striving, the intending of universal patterns.

 Schenk R. 2001 The Sunken Quest, the Wasted Fisher, the Pregnant , Chiron.

I think it is important to realize that Eros and seduction places one in a position to interact with unconscious projections that need to be recognized and integrated. The problem lies with the name and shame belief that most people have.

It all makes sense so far, but what does one make of the symbol BREATHING as the right-action to take here. It suggests practicing a breathing meditation to get control over one’s mind (fears) as preparation for whatever comes next.

Breathing is a very important part of almost every awareness-freeing tradition. Even the word “spirit” is part of “inspiration,” “expiration,” and “respiration.” … When a person learns how to watch his or her breathing without influencing it in the slightest, he or she will be very close to being able to do the same thing with the mind. … Work with the breathing can constitute the sole practice of meditation. 

May G.G. 1977, The , , Paulist Press

The download uses the symbol WEAPONS to communicate the required quality and quantity of the preparation.

He went to the forge and said, ‘I will give orders to the armourers; they shall cast us our weapons while we watch them.’ … They cast for Gilgamesh the axe ‘Might of Heroes’ and the bow of ; … the weight of the arms they carried was thirty score pounds. … they came through the gate of seven bolts … ‘I, Gilgamesh, go to see that creature … I am committed to this enterprise: to climb the mountain, to cut down the cedar. 

Sandars N.K. 1972, The Epic of Gilgamesh, GB, Penguin.

It makes sense if I interpret these special weapons as an extension of one’s will, and link this to the commitment shown by Gilgamesh.

The right-action is about preparation that must include the objective, which represented here by the symbol FAITH, which fits rather nicely. The resultant image is that of a spiritual warrior.

Our situation today is not unlike that of Abraham and of Paul and we must emulate their faith. We, too, have the promise. This time it is the promise of Jesus: ‘I will be with you all the days even to the end of the world.’ What precisely this promise entails we do not know. We will only know from day to day as it is revealed to us by the Spirit. … We live in an age which asks for faith … mystical faith. It is an age in which we accept the formulations but see their inadequacy; we believe in the doctrines but do not cling to the words … we are open to change. … We are going on a journey into darkness.

W. 1981, The Eye of Love, GB, Fount Paperbacks

The final symbol PREDICTABLE introduces Wittgenstein again, whom we started with under PAIN.

Wittgenstein … was saying … I can make nothing of the notion of a private language … my own response to the suggestion that perhaps some genius might render what is now unpredictable predictable. … Given that there are these unpredictable elements in social life, it is crucial to notice their intimate relationship to the predictive elements. …

+[p99] We are thus involved in a world in which we are simultaneously trying to render the rest of society predictable and ourselves unpredictable.

Macintyre A. 1981, After Virtue, GB, Gerald Duckworth.

The right-action is to prepare the mind to direct one’s will and to have faith in the unfolding purpose of one’s life. The final outcome brings these together in a relationship that mirrors what the Wisdom of the I Ching is about: the superior person’s decisions that shape and direct his will in harmony with Tao.

Relationship with the Anima

Introduction:  A Feminine figure, analogous to the human soul … The Sophia resides in all of us as the Divine Spark. … In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia (Greek for "wisdom"). Definitions are courtesy of http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com

This blog records the flow of unconscious knowledge from a mysterious source we refer to as right-brain, supermind, higher-Self, and sometimes Sophia. The method involves downloading and interpreting weekly packets of information from the unconscious. The words in italics are the symbols we extract and interpret according to the Mx formula.

I must report on synchronicity: I found the I Ching translation by Richard Wilhelm, as was recommended in the second download [11Nov], in our local second-hand bookstore. It happens often that Mind directs one to find something to bring specific information into awareness. The I Ching is a book of divination that evolved into a book of wisdom in which the individual shares in shaping his fate, making it possible for the unconscious man to become active.

This blog is about communicating with the Anima/Animus. It answered a question I had regarding automatism and paraphrasing from citations i.e. to restate passage in other words to clarify meaning as a studying or teaching device.

The subject for this download is Deconstruction [01] from David Lodge, Modern Criticism and Theory, Longman (1988):

Deconstruction … interpretation … The previous text is both the ground of the new one and something the new poem must annihilate by incorporating it … so that it may perform its possible-impossible task of becoming its own ground. … in a perpetual re-expression … which forms itself again today in current criticism. … The relation is a triangle, not a polar opposition. There is always a third to whom the two are related … which they divide, consume, or exchange.

It calls attention to methods of textual criticism that involve discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying ideas that form the basis for thought and belief.

The download introduces Criticism [02] from Plato’s Theory of Knowledge:

So the defence ends. Socrates’ dialectical construction … the identification of perception with knowledge is finally rejected.

The Socratic method of instruction was by way of question and answer to elicit truths he considered to be implicitly known by all rational beings. We find threads to Sophia and the term Sophist, which is a synonym for one who teaches, especially by writing prose works that impart practical knowledge.

The mystery composer of this download reveals itself as the Anima [03] using E.A. Bennett’s book, What Jung Really Said (Abacus, 2001):

“femme inspiratrice” … separate the outward relationship from the inward creative fecundity … Music is a heavenly art … she may serve as muse, inspiring his artistic or spiritual dev, and putting him in touch with correct inner values and hidden depths of his personality. (Also as the “Soror Mystica” or female alchemist.)

The synthesis of the first three symbols is the critical interpretation of unconscious knowledge from the Anima using deconstruction methods.

Anima [ http://www.nyaap.org/index.php/id/7/subid/44 ]: The inner feminine side of a man. The anima is both a personal complex and an archetypal image of woman in the male psyche. … The anima is personified in dreams by images of women ranging from seductress to spiritual guide. It is associated with the Eros principle; hence a man's anima development is reflected in how he relates to women. Within his own psyche, the anima functions as his soul, influencing his ideas, attitudes and emotions. …  One way for a man to become familiar with the nature of his anima is through the method of active imagination. This is done by personifying her as an autonomous personality, asking her questions and attending to the response.

The Deconstructive Phase [ http://www.socraticmethod.net/ ]: The purpose of the first phase of the Classic Socratic Method is that it prepares people to think.  The only people who are incapable of thinking about an issue are those who are already convinced they have “the” understanding of an issue.  There are no “Socratic teachings”, but there is a Socratic goal. … This is its value.

The download gave us the symbol Interpreting [04] from R. Blum’s The Book of Runes (1982):

The seed of God is in us … seeds grow … and God seeds into God. Meister Eckhart. … In approaching an ancient mystery surrender is required. … It remains for us to honour our own natures and trust the Knowing Self within … a single question … simple prayer … show me what I need to know for my life now.

It tells us to let the unconscious have free rein to answer questions because one must first get hold of the unconscious material before applying a critical interpretation. The next symbol is that of the seal woman (anima) [05] from CP Estes’ book Women Who Run With Wolves (1992):

she wanted to stay with her child … but something called her, something older than she … older than time. She dove into the sea … seal woman and her child … yet it came time to return the boy to land. … I am always with you. … She is known as Tanqigcaq, the bright one, the holy one … It is said that humans are not truly animated until the soul gives birth to the spirit, tenders and nurses it, filling it up with strength.

This appears to fit Jungian theory that the anima will return to the unconscious when it is properly integrated. The download makes one aware of one’s responsibility with the symbol of reaction [06] H.G. Barnett  (1953) writes in Innovation:

Rossman’s study of war and invention reveals the degree of interrelationship between these variables. … There are individual and group reactions to emergencies and security threats. … Individuals with narrow ranges of experience and little training in objective thinking have only a limited number of responses to any given situation at their command. Their restricted frame of reference makes them more susceptible to first impressions and to suggestions … unable to set the impression or the suggestions in a realistic context. … The naïve and the uneducated therefore characteristically respond to crises in unrealistic ways.

This relates to the use of oracles. One needs to develop the right state of mind to receive and interpret unconscious material. This may also relate to humanity’s reaction to the unfolding threat of global warming and how we will be looking to try restoring the balance. Capitalism however, with its focus on driving materialism, has corrupted our symbolic spiritual life. Marketing gurus treat the unconscious as a frontier from which to exploit the naïve masses. We are then given the symbol Implicit association [07] from G. Zaltman, How Customers Think  (2003):

… measures the relative association of two sets of concepts in consumer’s minds … many psychologists argue that implicit attitudes ... not only reflect consumer’s real attitudes, but also more accurately predict their actual behaviour. Consumers may sincerely believe their own stated thoughts, but they may not consciously understand the opposing forces that drive their behaviour.

Humans are predictable, no surprise there. But add to this the fact that our brains are probability estimating machines linked to a web of interconnected minds (like our internet), and add the collective unconscious (which is another place altogether), and then think of why millions die in wars etc. The unconscious helps us build weapons, helps us kill each other, if that is what we want, or what it wants. The conditioning that we need to overcome is covered by the symbol renunciation [08] which in ’s The Inner Eye (1981), we are advised to

Renounce all clinging and craving! … Once liberated from self-centered craving one gets everything back and can cry with St John of the Cross: Now that I least desire them I have them all without desire … the journey is the answer to a call and is made under the sweet influence of grace and the gentle guidance of the Spirit.

People need to think about this in terms of the current financial crisis. Capitalism is a greed based ideology that drives consumerism, and it falls to the individual to awaken to what the term unsustainable means. The download calls for a change in attitude if one is to try doing the right thing. We need a vision [09] to work towards. B.K.S. Iyengar (1993) gives us his interpretation of the sutras:

develop emotional stability, the prerequisite of spiritual realization. … A yogi can develop a balanced head and a poised heart, and from his visions of … (great teachers) he may obtain guidance and inspiration … Through the faculty of spiritual perception the yogi becomes the knower of all knowledge. … impulsive nature is transformed into intuitive thought.

The sutra III.33 is a synthesis of "head, light, perfected beings, vision" that I take to relate to the example set by enlightened people and the vision one needs when striving for higher consciousness.

The right-action is more cryptic, it is the symbol look [10] from Goethe’s Faust:

Helena: the ancient night … The royal House … A veiled and giant woman seated … not like me who sleeps, but one deep-sunk in thought. … Thalamos adorned … near the treasure-room: But suddenly … the wondrous figure sprang, barring my way … showed herself … There look, yourselves! She even ventures forth to light! Here we are masters, till the lord and king shall come.

Or is it? ‘There, look for yourselves!’ Does this refer to higher consciousness (royal), the thalamus (information), pituitary (treasure), anima (veiled), ego consciousness (light, masters), and higher consciousness (king)? The quality of the relationship with the anima [11] is covered by E.A. Bennett in What Jung Really Said (2001):

The anima is an autonomous complex and is not set in motion by the conscious intentions of man. It just ‘happens’ that he projects his anima, that is his image and ideals of womanhood, on a particular woman. As the friendship develops her other qualities (and his) will become apparent. Consequently ’falling-in-love’ whatever meaning we attach to this indefinite state of affairs - may well be a compound of projection and conscious appreciation of the qualities of the other person. … paintings … usually the eyes are veiled.

The quality of anima experiences depends on becoming aware of one’s own projections. The download tells us to focus on an objective, the symbol is orientation [12] which E. Fromm, The Sane Society (1955) explains:

… is to develop a productive orientation … The fact of suffering, whether it is conscious or unconscious, resulting from the failure of normal development, produces a dynamic striving to overcome the suffering, that is, for change in the direction of health. … repression … refers to the irrational passions, to the repressed feelings of aloneness and futility, and to the longing for love and productivity, which is also repressed. … next step … changing a practice of life which was built on the basis of the neurotic structure. And which reproduces it constantly.

I interpret this as meaning that the objective is to develop a productive orientation towards the anima. The final outcome of this download is from the symbol body-mind [13] out of J. Levey’s book Simple Meditation & Relaxation (1999):

experience your body as hollow, open, and filled with clear space. … an inner openness within which feelings and sensations can freely come and go. … the integration and optimization of neuromuscular, autonomic, and central nervous system functions, as well as to reduce pain and enhance endurance and overall mind-body coordination.

Work with the anima, try integrated it. Get help, use alternative energy healing systems like BodyTalk.

Spare a thought for Tiger Woods and Joost van der Westhuizen.

The Mx Injunction

I have found another explanation for Mx and how it fits in with Knowledge and Wisdom.

Ken Wilber writes that all valid knowledge - in whatever realm - consists of three basic components, which we will call injunction, illumination, and confirmation ...

1. An instrumental or injunctive strand. This is a set of instructions, simple or complex, internal or external. All have the form: " if you want to know this, then do this."
2. An illuminative or apprehensive strand. This is an illuminative seeing by the particular eye of knowledge evoked by the injunctive strand. Beside self- illuminative, it leads to the possibility of:
3. A communal strand. This is the actual sharing of the illuminative seeing with others who are using the same eye. If the shared vision is agreed upon by others, this constitutes a communal or consensual proof of true seeing.

... the injunctive strand demands that, for whatever type of knowledge, the appropriate eye must be trained until it can be adequate to its illumination ...

Now if a person refuses to train a particular eye (flesh, mental, contemplative), then it is equivalent to refusing to look, and we are justified in disregarding this person's opinions and excluding him or her from our vote as to communal proof ...

One can train the mind's eye for outward philosophic seeing or for inward psychological seeing ...

In Zen: zazen, satori, and imprimatur. There is no Zen without all three strands; there is, in fact, no real esoteric or transcendent knowledge without three. One first takes up the practice of contemplatio, which may be meditation, zazen, mantra, japa, interior prayer, and so on. When the eye of contemplation is fully trained, then look.

Wilber, K. Eye to Eye: the quest for the new paradigm. Shambhala Publications, Inc. 2001

Initiation

The subject matter of this download is INITIATION s[1]:

There should be some sort of initiation into true adult consciousness. … There should be the intense dynamic reaction: the physical suffering and the physical realization sinking deep into the soul, changing the soul forever.

  D.H. Fantasia of the Unconscious, 1977, Penguin Books

The external view on this gestalt is given in the symbol MEDITATION s[2]:

Wolgang Kretschmer's techniques of psychotherapy also have pronounced shamanic aspects. … takes his patient through symbolic imaginal situations which relate to specific functions within the psyche. … through a meadow … up the side of a mountain … meadow provides a symbol of the hypnotic level of conscious-ness and stimulates the emotions on this level. The individual takes an ordinary situation as the means of experiencing the primordial content of the symbol of the meadow. This in turn may lead to an experience of the meadow as Mother Nature or … the obverse image … demonstrates aspects of his psychic condition. … up the side of the mountain is of special interest … is symbolized in the Tarot path of The Hermit, in which the magician journeys in isolation slowly upwards to the loftier reaches of the Tree of life. … Climbing is a symbol of a movement toward the goal of psychic freedom, the peak of human being. The passage through the forest on the way up the mountain gives the meditator the opportunity to reconcile himself with the dark, fearful side of nature.  

Drury N. The Shaman and the Magician, 1987, Arkana

           

The internal symbol of this gestalt is LSD s[3]:

           

Dr John Lilly … an account of his experiences with LSD, hypnosis, and various forms of meditation. … The result of the experience was a determination to attempt a systematic exploration of 'inner space' using LSD … he experienced telepathic contact …he speaks of levels of consciousness. …Lilly likes to speak of 'natural man' as 'the human bio-computer' … he emphasizes that man is, on th e physical level, an immense computer or robot. … According to Lilly, there are four positive levels, above, everyday consciousness,  and four negative ones, making nine levels in all. … Level three is of far greater intensity. … achieved under LSD when he met his two 'guides'. More significantly, he claims that this is the level at which we can exercise 'paranormal' powers.   

Wilson C. Mysteries, 1979,

The SYNTHESIS s[2+3]: I am not able to use the various visualize techniques, and I have had the idea to use LSD ever since I was a teenager. I felt handicapped back then. LSD confirms what is missing: suppressed right-brain faculties that allow one to experience life at a higher level of consciousness.

The core issue at the heart of the synthesis is ART s[4]:

Calligraphy is another field of art in which Zen priests have made a lasting name for themselves. … The appreciation of such calligraphy more than any other form of art represents the beauty of line. The ultimate ideal in Japanese landscape gardening is the elimination of all trace of artificiality and the embodiment of nature as it is. … Such gardens often include mountains … Mushi dokugo, i.e., enlightenment accomplished by oneself without relying upon a teacher. … a harmony is achieved between opposites, and it may be viewed as a direct attestation of sudden enlightenment. … In summary, the ultimate goal of the artist is to be enlightened by himself, to have his work express his religious understanding spontaneously. … The practice of serene reflection meditation, which has an inseparable connection with the Japanese term mono no aware (the Ah! Ness of things), has produced an original, profound and vitally free art based on a refined and elegant simplicity. … Zen art can be summed up by simplicity, profundity, creativity and vitality.

Zenji K.C.K. Soto Zen, 2000, Shasta Abbey Press

As a consequence of the above, the MEDITATION s[5] is more profoundly in tune with nature.

Through deep green vistas where the boughs arched overhead, and showed the sunlight flashing in beautiful perspective; … walked in tranquil meditation …

Fernie W.T. The Occult and Curative Powers of Precious Stones, 1973, Harper & Row

           

The symbol SCI s[6] suggests that one has a responsibility to find our what happened to the World Plan of 1972.

Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) - A World Plan: On January 8, 1972 in Majorca, Spain, Maharishi inaugurated a World Plan to make SCI and TM available to everyone on earth. … Ever since the first substantial research on TM was published by Wallace in 1970 … scientific technique for both unfolding and studying man's full potential. … the World Plan has seven goals which guide the application of SCI to social problems …

1. To develop the full potential of the individual.

2. To improve governmental achievements.

3. To realize the highest ideal of education.

4. To solve the problems of crime and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man.

5. To maximise the intelligent use of the environment.

6. To bring fulfillment to the economic aspirations of the individual and society.

7. To achieve the spiritual goals of mankind in this generation. …To achieve these seven goals, Maharishi prescribes neither an ideology nor a moral system. He insists only that individuals experience pure creative intelligence through TM and understand that experience by means of critical scientific scrutiny. … Maharishi's working definition of creative intelligence - "that impelling life force which manifests itself in the evolutionary process through the creation of new forms and new relationships in the universe."

Bloomfield H. Cain M.P. Jaffe D.T. Kory R.B. TM - how meditation can reduce stress, 1978, Unwin

           

The probable outcome links the problem of hidden meaning with AESTHETICS s[07]:

Aesthetics and Analytical Philosophy: The German philosopher Baumgarten (1714-1762) coined the term 'aesthetics' for the category of a specific area of judgment and experience. … An underlying question here is whether there are forms of communication and understanding that are not simply reducible to literal description, and (if so) how such forms may connect with other domains of thought. … Kant argues that we commit ourselves to a hope in a common core of human capacity for understanding and imagination … 'common sense.' … central role of aesthetic thinking - that we thereby celebrate our sense of a common humanity, and thus provide the grounding for morality. For Kant our aesthetic capacity is to be able to 'communicate universally without recourse to concepts.'

Appelbaum D. World Philosophy, 2002, Vega

The conditioning one needs to overcome is given in the symbol TECHNIQUE s[8]. This makes more sense when read together with s[9]:

The Truthful Witness: Never try to discredit a truthful witness. … Perhaps more difficult than the technique of cross-examination is the ability to refrain from cross-examining a witness …    

Brand J. Labour Dispute Resolution, 1997, Juta & Co

           

The attitude one needs is to be open to PARADOX s[9]:

Drawing is full of paradox, as is creativity itself. And dealing with paradox requires that one be able to      hold in the mind simultaneously two diametrically opposed ideas and, as novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, "not go mad." The paradox we must deal with here is the following: the second stage of creativity, Saturation, requires finding out as much as possible about the problem - ideally, a thorough research of the chosen subject. At the same time, one must maintain a "clean-minded approach to a problem," to use James Adams' phrase, a state of mind in which one knows nothing, so to speak. … One must be alert for misinformation or misinterpretation, yet at the same time be willing to risk taking chances. One must search outside oneself for whatever is related to the First Insight, testing confidence in the rightness of the initial question or insight by constantly checking information for fit. But at the same time, one must acquiesce to being completely unsure of the next move, or in fact of the whole process. A paradox … Drawing requires just this kind of approach.    

Edwards B. Drawing on the Artist Within, 1995, HarperCollins

           

The right action to take is found in reference to GNOSTICISM s[10], as the task of the philosophic man.

Neoplatonism: … mysticism … Gnosticism is 'secret knowledge'. … by this pilgrimage the soul rises from the fallen and earthly state mere men to spiritual enlightenment and a return to its true heavenly home. … men needed deliverance, and this deliverance depended primarily on knowledge, a secret knowledge, perhaps too some kind of intellectual illumination … Plotinus (A.D. 204 -270) … The work of Plotinus is to be regarded as an amalgamation of Plato's philosophy and Oriental mysticism, and is deeply tinged by Gnosticism. … Plotinus draws a sharp distinction between the world of sense and the world of the mind, between the phenomena of change and the unchanging eternal, between the everyday facts of experience and the truth behind them attained by reason. The task of the philosophic man is to seek the intelligible world beyond the illusions of appearance. Behind the differences and disagreements of life, behind its difficulties and unsolved conflicts, there is eternal truth if we know how to find it.

Lewis J. History of Philosophy, 1970, Unwin

The download gives CREATIVITY s[11] to unpack for insight into the quality and quantity aspect of the right action.

a definition from Thomas Moore … 'Creativity is the process of using our imagination to continue the creation of the world, the process of further elaborating on the world itself.' … we can view creativity as the process of 'everyday making'. I use every-day making in the same way as Mary Catherine Bateson talks about 'composing a life'. … Creativity becomes a process of acting in the world to continually put together the familiar in unfamiliar ways and of finding existing pattern rather than imposing pattern. This according to Bateson, is the skill we need to value and develop if we are going to be able to survive progress.    

Funes M. Laughing Matters, 2000, Newleaf

           

            The objective to aim for when taking the right action is given in CREATIVE s[12]:

The mode of the Creative is not rest but continuous movement and development. … In this way each thing receives the nature appropriate to it, which, from the divine viewpoint, is called its appointed destiny. This explains the concept of furthering. With each thing thus finding its mode, a great and lasting harmony arises in the world … In all these explanations there is an evident parallelism between the Creative in nature and the Creative in the world of man. … The doubling of the trigram Chi'en, the Creative, gives the image of powerful and constantly repeated movement. The doubling suggests that one draws strength from within oneself, and that after each action a new one follows, without cease.   

Wilhelm R. I Ching or book of changes, 2003, Penguin

           

The final outcome is a transcendent one with the symbol FLYING s[13]:

Flying connects with the gaining of independence and expression of one's potential. We are all born into a certain paradigm or 'reality'. … To break free of such paradigms and from the 'gravity' or hold our parental and social authority has on us to find a measure of emotional and intellectual freedom, takes … will, effort and learning.  

Crisp T. Dream Dictionary, 1994, Wing Books

The Journey Starts

Introduction: For the Gnostic Christians, the Sophia was a central element in their cosmological understanding of the Universe. A Feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the Feminine aspects of God and the Bride of Christ, she is considered to have fallen from grace in some way, in so doing creating or helping to create the material world. For the Gnostics, the drama of the redemption of the Sophia through Christ or the Logos is the central drama of the universe. The Sophia resides in all of us as the Divine Spark. According to the Pistis Sophia, Christ is sent from the Godhead in order to bring Sophia back into the fullness of Pleroma following her repentance. In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia (Σoφíα, Greek for "wisdom") refers to the final and lowest emanation of God. 

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com

The words in italics are the symbols we extract and interpret according to the Mx formula.

[1] The subject matter for this blog is from the scriptures, in which the term ‘rather than’ relates to a choice between X on the one hand and being afflicted; judgmental; ignorant; a door-keeper; desiring only gold and silver. This suggests a choice commonly regarded as a spiritual calling.

[2] What is described as a soul has many and even complex definitions, all of which are impossible to prove. But even though there is no agreement on the existence of a soul we still need to strive to find a method to communicate with the unconscious mind/Mind. We have a duty to make a trial of it and try demystifying it.

[3] Accelerated learning systems such as Lozanov’s suggestopedia use Baroque music at 64 beats p/min together with 4 sec data chunks and 4 sec pauses with 7-8 words in different combinations. We know that it involves brain waves and that meditation helps control the body-mind relationship (brain-Mind). Music is another internal factor with complex quantum components that we need to explore.

[2+3]: The synthesis suggests a developing a method around discoveries in super-learning potentials. The challenge for us specifically is to develop an Alternative Language of Thought (Mx) as a learning system.

We need to ask how the symbol resurrection relates to a super-learning system as a core issue? The number three is somewhat significant: In the Tree of Life the top three sephirot relate to higher knowledge and understanding that requires a special formula or state of mind to get the wisdom necessary to cross the language barrier into higher consciousness. Three is Binah which stands for understanding and beauty; In the I Ching the three represents intuition; In Tarot it is the Empress who symbolizes the gateway of birth and death. In Christianity their eyes were prevented from seeing Christ and they were slow to believe the prophets. Resurrection also suggests we take the spirit body more seriously as a link to higher consciousness and Mind, and consider the implications to trying to teach the brain something that the Mind already knows.

 In the West we mistakenly believe that the ego is in charge and grudgingly accept that Fate will play a hand. Although humans have potential to use another language of thought to think at higher level of consciousness it is also clear that this depends one’s spiritual gravity. As far as the masses are concerned, Fate directs a prolonged nightmare of death such as war, and suffering, from which only a small percentage of the masses appear capable of awakening to the falsity of their society’s beliefs and values.

 We have a responsibility to develop creative minds i.e. to strive to understand what the potential of mind/Mind is. In terms of the method: knowing that a job is made for one requires faith in a creative mind. The challenge is to eliminate negative thinking.

 It is a normal outcome to drift to the techniques the East developed to work with the subtle body, such as with the various breathing meditations. Jung warned that Westerners think differently and should therefore develop complimentary methods.

 The advice to overcome negative conditioning is to work with the upper 3 partzufim of the Tree of Life. I believe we need to look at the sacred marriage between Chokhmah and Binah in terms of whole-brain thinking, to get the two minds working together in harmony and in a way that opens a gateway through which the mysterious waters of the feminine can be safely tapped as Sophia’s wisdom.

Binah, meaning "Understanding" is the second intellectual Sephirah on the tree of life. … it may be alternatively related to the "left eye", "left hemisphere" of "the brain" or the "heart." Binah is often defined as the ability to understand one thing from within another. In Western occultism, Binah is seen to take the raw force of Chokhmah, and to channel it into the various forms of creation. For example, in a car, you have the fuel and an engine. While Chokmah is the fuel, pure energy, Binah is the engine, pure inert mechanism. Either one without the other is useless.

Ze'ir Anpin meaning "small countenance", is an important term in Kabbalah. Ze'ir Anpin is the partzuf of the midot, corresponding to the emotive faculties of the soul. Initially, the midot consists of the six Sephirot from Chesed to Yesod. These six midot develop, in the rectified world of Atziluth, into the full partzuf of Ze'ir Anpin, by the addition of the three mental powers drawn into them by means of the partzufim of Abba and Imma above them.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Zeir+Anpin

 Right-action relates to the symbol Horus [Christ] son of Osiris and Isis, the great falcon. He is the suffering child but is always healed through the power of magic and the intervention of the gods. From the Chaldean Oracles it is written that God is called silent by the divine ones, and is said to consent with Mind, and to be known to human souls through the power of the Mind alone. This suggests adopting the right relationship to a universal Mind, in much the same way that we accept the relationship between computer (brain) and the internet (Mind).

 This download raises the paradoxical dangers of living in a realm of leisure, and that active imagination can conjure up more than free play or ‘fun’. Playing games with the mind, together with advancements in technology, will continue to evolve in ways that must we must learn to balance with a moral sense that can only come from listening to a higher Self.

 Prayer needs to be revised to move from being religious to being spiritual. There are many paths such as the Japanese Zen ‘mu’ which is recited with faith to clear the upper layers of consciousness and bring the deeper forces of the psyche into play; and mantras that can be likened to a brook that murmurs in the heart.

 Nietzsche had something to say about the fury of resentment: That law in the world represents the very war against the reactive feelings, … by the powers of activity and aggression, … Justice is practiced, justice is maintained … The foundation of law … violation … “right” and “wrong” first manifest after … Life is essentially something which functions by injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and annihilating ... From his book The Genealogy of Morals.

 This makes us wonder at what will happen when more and more people start realizing that their future has been stolen, that Global Warming is the rising feminine that Jung and others warned about. There is no line demarcating the point of no return, just as there is no boiling point at which Gore’s frog is going to recover from.