Self-Awareness and Meditation Course

Lesson Two

The Psychology behind Self-awareness and Meditation (1)

Before we can look at techniques to enhance the meditation experience and at how meditation can be incorporated with self-analysis to help clear the old patterns we have which obscure the light within, it is necessary to have at least a basic understanding of the nature of mind and emotions from a holistic perspective. Viewing a human from a psycho-spiritual perspective you have a complete picture that includes mind body and spirit both as they are now and in their full potential. This goes beyond what traditional psychology understands by including our spiritual essence which lies at the basis of who we really are. This is not new knowledge, it has been known for thousands of years and is often referred to as the 'Ageless Wisdom'. In India the link between our psychological self and spiritual self is known as the antahkarana. In more recent times it has become known as the rainbow bridge.

With Self-awareness and Meditation you will:

1. Understand yourself better

2. Learn how to connect with your spiritual self

3. Clear unwanted emotions easily

4. Create a life that is more fulfilling and aligned with your purpose

5. Help others through your own awareness and understanding

6. Learn how to meditate to connect with your inner self

7. See through the illusion of the reality you have created around you (maya)

8. Gain greater spiritual awareness

The Three Stages of Self

First Stage

Essentially, a human being consists of individual consciousness, energy and a physical body. Individual consciousness is part of Cosmic Consciousness or Shiva while energy is part of Cosmic Energy or Shakti. At birth the our individual consciousness is a pure part of Cosmic Consciousness but gradually, over time, it is immersed in Cosmic Energy which is gradually controlled by it. This is what initially happens after we are born and constitutes the  first stage in the formation of who we become in the world.

How much can you remember of when you were a baby? The simple answer is not much if anything at all. Essentially, this is because the awareness you have now has been created since then. Almost everything you do is a conditioned response based on what you have learned about the world around you. Even your memories are based on what you have learned about how to perceive the world. If you look at a table, for example, you know you are looking at a table. You unconsciously and consciously know so much about it and this informs the perception you have of it. You can see that it has four legs, you know it stands on the ground because of gravity, it is solid, it is made of wood, it is flat, you can put things on it, and so on. Imagine what your perception of the table would be if you had never learned anything since you were born. What would you see and what kind of memory would that create. You may even see the table for what it truly is, a form of energy, or more precisely a form of consciousness. There would be absolutely nothing against which you could make any comparison at all. You, as pure consciousness, would see a very different table to what you see now. You would be a pure being, one with all that you see. When you were born this level of consciousness was the first stage in the formation of who you are now. This was your first stage self. It was the closest to your real inner self.

So what happened next to that new born baby?

Second Stage

Apart from pure awareness the baby is born with a physical body, an emotional body and a mental body, these three sheaths form the physical being that is the baby. At this level of awareness the baby relies on instinct for survival which is based on its genetic code. From this point on the baby begins to learn about its world through interaction with the environment around. This, of course, includes the people the baby  is associated with, such as mum, dad, brothers sisters and society in general.  The baby has three basic needs. There are two physical needs, the need to feel safe and the need to fulfil hunger. There is also a spiritual need, which is the need of the spiritual being within the baby to return to its source, Cosmic Consciousness.

With physical contact, particularly with the mother, the baby's spiritual need for merger with its source gets transformed into a need for contact with someone else.  Later still this becomes the need for sex. The pleasure found in sex is an unconscious reminder of the bliss attained through merging with source.

The baby's natural reactions to the world around include curiosity, love, hate, attachment and jealousy. These are not instincts but a result of spiritual energy attaching itself to a reaction to form an emotion. The formula here is:

Emotion = Natural Reaction + Spiritual Energy.

Desires and delusions are also born at this time such as the baby's desire to possess its mother and the delusion that its mother belongs to him her. Thus it can be seen that the child's individual consciousness becomes trapped in thoughts and images related to the world of form. Human suffering is based on this focus in the physical world and in the evolution of worldly consciousness this represents the second stage.

Society does not allow the child to live out its desires and delusions. There are acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and these are taught to the child through the people around. The child receives positive reactions such as love, appreciation, acceptance and fulfilment, and negative reactions such as rejection, being ignored, punishment and rejection. This leads the child to gain certain understandings about itself, both positive and negative. The positive reactions fulfil the child's spiritual and physical needs and are pleasant and free flowing. The negative reactions are frustrating and block the free flow of energy and lead to understandings of being weak, dirty, foolish, dependent, inferior and so on. These are painful to experience and lead to feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Positive feelings produce few thoughts and imaginations while negative feelings are the basic cause of our thoughts and imaginations. Spiritual energy underlies all of these feelings and emotions.

The various reactions of society to the child get incorporated into the child’s mind, whether loving or criticising. This develops into the super-ego which can create acceptance and love or fear and anxiety. A lot of spiritual energy is incorporated into the emotions created by the super ego and these are divided into two channels in the nervous system, the love-channel and the hate-channel which form the foundation of the person’s personality. Obviously, the person wants to get rid of the pain giving aspects of the super ego. In adult life our behaviour patterns are largely caused by a repetition of behaviours created by the super-ego in childhood and transference of behaviour patterns created towards significant others in childhood is eventually directed towards others in adulthood.

Third Stage

The child does not like the image it has created of itself. It has feelings of worthlessness, self-hate and self-dislike. This leads to what Freud referred to as a desire to die, a desire to escape from these unpleasant feelings. Rather than a desire to die, though, it is more an instinct to return to the original spiritual state. The child cannot bear to live in a world which creates such unpleasant feelings of worthlessness. This results in a kind of transformation within the child in which he creates a new self-image which is strong, likeable, important and great. This metamorphis is actually a denial of the more real second stage self for a self which is totally acceptable in the world. These denials are defences against the realities of the second stage self. As a child this is played out in fantasies, imaginations and associations with important people. This is an ongoing process into adulthood and serves to provide security and a sense of importance, a need to be somebody of significance in the world. This is the third stage self and is, in reality, less real than the the second stage self.

The third stage self is what is known as the ego. The strength of the ego is determined by the degree of metamorphosis that took place during the second stage self. At the same time the degree of metamorphosis is also an indication of the likelihood of mental troubles such as neuroses and other psychological problems. A person with a very strong ego who has created a powerful presence in the world is also likely to suffer more when any of the worldly 'securities that have been created are upset or disturbed.

It is worth pointing out here that the childhood personality one gains is not accidental or simply caused by those persons and conditions one comes into contact with in life. The idea of cause and effect, or karma, plays an important part here, and along with this comes the concept of the the collective unconscious of past lives or reincarnation. This aspect of our personalities is beyond the realm of modern psychology.

Lesson Three

References:

Copyright © Charles Attfield, 2006

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