Search for the Self

Evolution of Consciousness

Humans have been on a long path of evolution from the earliest days when they were little more than animals. The earliest type of human was known as the Australopithecine who had no verbal communication and lived perhaps 5 million years ago. If there was a Garden of Eden on earth then this would have been the time, as the Australopithecine lived in a kind of bliss of ignorance without the fears and worries that a consciousness of self brings. They would have been in the earliest stages in the development of self-awareness. Following Australopithecine humans were Neanderthal humans who lived in an almost entirely preverbal state ruled by instinct and the need for survival, living day to day hunting and gathering for food. Theirs was a world of images and palaeosymbols without communication as we know it. Neanderthal humans were followed by Cro-Magnon humans who, although largely preverbal, possessed primitive language including some nouns and commands as well as the images and palaeosymbols of Neanderthal humans. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon humans were purely physical in their existence and were referred to by Wilber (1996) as Typhonic. This would have been equivalent to the Lemurian Age when human beings developed mastery over their physical bodies. To some extent they also had an awareness that they were separate selves, individuals. This was a huge step from the animal level of awareness which is characterised as being prepersonal, premental and preegoic, a state known as archaeic-uroberic more characteristic of the Australopithecine human.

Two important distinctions need to be made here; firstly, the distinction between each stage in evolution generally, and secondly, the distinction between a prepersonal and a transpersonal level of awareness. Each stage of evolution goes beyond its predecessors but still includes and integrates them into its own higher stage. Consequently, the earliest human transcended and yet included the earlier animal characteristics. Animals, in turn, went beyond plant forms but included life in their make-up. Plants were simple life but included matter in their make-up in the form of organic matter.

Earliest humans, as mentioned, were prepersonal, premental and preegoic and this is not to be confused with mystical states of awareness that are transpersonal, transmental and transegoic. The "Garden of Eden" is often thought of as a blissful state of existence, a transpersonal state from which human beings were considered to have "fallen" after eating from the tree of knowledge. Rather, they were in a prepersonal state of ignorance that ended when they became self-conscious entities gaining the worries, guilt and fear that come with self-consciousness. Aware of their mortality they tried to extend their inevitable death into the future. They started to plan for the future, also becoming more aware of the past and losing touch with the eternal present. This would have coincided with the beginnings of farming which is a need to ensure a supply of food for the future.

Not only do humans contain all the previous stages of their evolution, they also contain the potential for their future growth. In the concept of kundalini yoga humans contain, as a potential, all the higher levels of awareness. This potential is held within the kundalini energy lying dormant at the base of the spine. Thus the evolution of consciousness is the evolution or awakening of the kundalini power through the successive higher centres of awareness or chakras. Humans have the potential to awaken the kundalini energy within the human form so that they can rise to a superhuman or divine level of awareness. The next kingdom in nature, the fifth, will evolve out of the human as it now is.

As humans gained mastery over their physical bodies they would also have been developing their emotional bodies. As consciousness of self and the awareness of time progressed so did their emotions. Desires, as opposed to instincts, require both an awareness of self and the wish to enhance the self in some way and a search for happiness due to an unconscious awareness that there is more to existence than is currently being experienced. In essence they require a search for the Self. The time when humans were developing awareness of their emotional awareness corresponded with the Atlantean Age. The current Age, the Aryan Age, is one where most humans are developing their mental awareness while many are in the process of integrating their physical, emotional and mental bodies. Once the physical, emotional and mental bodies are integrated then humans are functioning as integrated personalities.

Through all the Ages there are the majority of humans who are at the level of evolution of humanity as a whole. However, there have always been a proportion of humans who have been less evolved and a proportion, such as the sages, who have been more evolved. Many of such persons have become the founders of religions, such as Gautama Buddha (Buddhism), Lao Tzu (Taoism), Jesus Christ (Christianity) and Mohammed (Islam), while many others will have helped those around them but may have been lost to history. Generally, within each successive period of history, these individuals, who represented the growing tip of consciousness, have been able to reach into successively higher levels of awareness as the majority of humanity itself has been evolving. Consequently the level of awareness of the most advanced individuals during the Lemurian Age will have been lower than those of the Atlantean Age who in turn will have been lower than those of today. This is also reflected in religion over time, showing an evolution from the worship of spirits, to the worship of Gods, then the worship of one God the Father of creation to a level of understanding that even beyond God the Father, transcending manifestation, is an absolute that is the essence of all there is and yet is beyond all there is. It is beyond egoic comprehension and yet there are individuals who have realised the formless void and can impart knowledge that there is such a level of existence.

For humanity generally, the higher levels of our existence may occasionally penetrate our normal levels of awareness, albeit often subtly, during moments of soul contact, perhaps through meditation, perhaps unexpectedly when somehow we have "clicked" into higher awareness, or perhaps during those times referred to as "woundings". This presents us with three essential issues. Firstly, we have a deeper life, an aspect of ourselves that is far more universal, linking us with higher aspects of our being, to the whole of humanity and even the Cosmos. We are only occasionally aware of this other aspect of our being. Through enquiry, contemplation and meditation we can gain a better understanding of this part of ourselves. Secondly, penetration into this realm can sometimes be found through our woundings, through those occasions when our boundaries, physical, emotional or mental are pierced in some way by the power of our greater reality. And yet because this greater reality is beyond the confines of our space time dimension, it cannot be understood by our day to day realm of existence. Thus communication from it, or about it, is occasionally found through the realm of symbolism reflected in archetypes or myths. The third issue presented is what are we really searching for in life that causes us to suffer so much when persons or objects we have become attached to are taken away from us?

The Deeper Life

Within our deeper selves there is a knowledge of a greater purpose, an understanding of the Plan and an incredible potential for growth. This knowledge can be tapped into and through it we can integrate ourselves through a process, referred to by Jung, as individuation. This integration can be carried further to include our highest potential, our spiritual Self. Included in this process of integration is the need to unite our masculine and feminine polarities and become whole within ourselves. The search for our higher self, the "Beloved" is reflected in our day to day relationships. By understanding this process we will ultimately achieve merger with that "Beloved" through a process known as Self-realisation. Due to common misconceptions I will differentiate between Self-realisation and Soul-realisation. Soul-realisation comes when the soul and personality have fused so that the individual functions as an embodied soul with full or regular soul awareness. This is achieved through an expansion of consciousness known as the third initiation. Self-realisation occurs when soul awareness is superseded by Spirit of Monadic awareness. This is achieved at the fourth initiation and perfected by the fifth. Details of these expansions of consciousness are given in a later chapter.

Myths, perpetuated through the centuries, carry the understanding of man's glimpses into another reality, one that is common to all of us. Myths are not fictitious stories, "They originate in the collective unconscious of humanity and are manifestations of the primordial organising principles of the psyche and the cosmos" (Grof & Grof, 1995, p.155). These were what Jung called archetypes. He proposed that these archetypes were composed of mythological components within the unconscious, the collective unconscious rather than the personal unconscious.

Although expressing themselves through the individual psyche, they originate from beyond it in the collective unconscious and function as its governing principle. These archetypes are universal but may appear in different cultures with specific variations. For example the mother goddess may appear as the Virgin Mary, Isis or Kali.

These archetypes are in essence "living psychic forces" which make up the content of the collective unconscious or "ordering principles" structuring the psyche, and emerging as images, processes and attitudes. They are particularly expressed through metaphor. Jung emphasised that archetypes are not concepts, but rather, are numinous experiences, charged with emotion.

In Greek mythology a sculptor, Pygmalion, created a beautiful ivory statue of a maiden. So beautiful was the maiden that he fell in love with her. Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, was so moved by his love for the maiden that she gave the statue life so that they could be together. Pygmalion falling in love with a statue personifying his highest ideal of beauty hints at the reason why we fall in romantic love with others during our lives. The deeper self within, which we are really searching for, is our own soul. It is that part of ourselves which transcends all boundaries and links us with all the loves we have ever had. The essential nature of our soul is love and so the more we are in tune with our soul the more we love unconditionally. When we have soul awareness we are not hurt when that love is not returned. We know we are one with the soul in everyone and the more we give love the more we receive of it. We see beyond the superficial woundings knowing our own immortality and oneness with all.

In order to guide us to an understanding through soul awareness, our "woundings" confront us again and again until we see the bigger picture from the point of view of soul awareness rather than ego awareness. The ego may suffer loss and slowly die to its reality, but in its place comes a greater reality and a perception from which there can be no loss. We are confronted with the past again and again until we realise that the past no longer works, until we realise there is only now, there is only love.

Transpersonal Crisis

Transpersonal crises are times when our psychological and physical well-being are threatened and our psyche is opened up, in some way, by events or circumstances that seem beyond our control. At these times we are confronted by experiences for which we are not adequately prepared, whether we have anticipated the experience or not. We are challenged to face a reality that goes beyond our normal comprehension, and are faced with the "Larger Story" rather than the one we had thought we were writing. As so aptly put by John Lennon in one of his songs "Life is what happens to us while we're busy making other plans". How much free will do we really have and to what extent are our lives fulfilling some kind of pre-destined plan? It is particularly at times of grief and loss that we are really challenged to take a deeper look at our lives, to look at life itself, and to consider the purpose behind it all. No matter how many plans we make, unless we are prepared to face up to the deeper issues, then from time to time fate itself will force us to take a closer look at the meaning of life. These moments can be painful as we are faced by a reality that is beyond the limited confines of our own comfort zone, and simultaneously seem to threaten our own very existence.

Myths, in particular, are able to make their way into human consciousness at times of transpersonal crisis. At their most extreme these crises may occur during psychoses, particularly those referred to by Jung as transitory psychosis (Grof & Grof, 1989, p.65), crises of spiritual transformation. These can trigger the surfacing of images, emotions and strange physical feelings from the collective unconscious.

Grof and Grof (1995) believe that the experiences surrounding the trauma of biological birth have a profound impact on us later in life, particularly when the unconscious psyche becomes activated. Prenatal and perinatal Psychology are new fields of psychology dedicated to exploring the experiences of babies in the womb and during the birth process. Due to the often difficult, hazardous and even life threatening nature of the physical birth, the child actually experiences a taste of death. The baby is confronted with extreme fear of death, loss of control and insanity, often psychotic in nature. At the same time the experience can also feel like spiritual birth, a mystical reconnecting with the Divine, interspersed with mythological motifs from the collective unconscious.

The death-rebirth struggle is so profound that we unconsciously carry this for the rest of our lives. Our self-definition and attitudes towards the world are greatly affected by this early experience. At the time of birth the concept of ourselves, as learned during the time of being in the womb, is destroyed through the death-rebirth experience, everything that was meaningful in life is totally destroyed. This is then followed by visions of divine beauty in which one can reclaim one's original divine nature. When we are confronted with death or loss in our lives we are reminded of the trauma of our birth.

Perinatal phenomena, as given by Grof (1993) can be divided into four phases that he calls the Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM'S). BPM I he calls the "Amniotic Universe", which represents the time spent in the womb by the foetus prior to the onset of delivery. BPM II he calls "Cosmic Engulfment and No Exit", representing the time when contractions begin but before the cervix opens. BPM III, the "Death and Rebirth Struggle", reflects one's experiences moving through the birth canal. BPM IV, known as "Death and Rebirth", represents the time when one actually leaves the mother's body. Each of these phases has its own specific biological, psychological, archetypal, and spiritual aspects.

Whenever we have a traumatic experience in life, such as the loss of someone close to us, there is an unconscious association with the corresponding perinatal material that reactivates our old emotional and physical pain. "We are then responding not only to the present situation but also to an early, fundamental trauma of our lives." (Grof, 1993. P.55). Ability to cope with difficult situations in life seem to be aided by uncomplicated births.

As we journey through life we create around ourselves "structures of meaning" with which we create a frame of reference for understanding the world around us, based on our life experiences. When, for example, someone close to us dies we are torn between the desire to retain the old structures and the need to redefine them. A painful cognitive restructuring takes place through which we attempt to adjust to the loss and gain some sense of meaning in the loss itself. Simultaneously, our own sense of self is enhanced through transcending the loss. Through an enquiry into the meaning of life and death that possibly takes place at this time, we emerge with greater maturity. Given the right conditions our own intrinsic self will move in a self-actualising direction toward health, autonomy, and soul awareness.

The song My Heart Will Go On, sung by Celine Dion, aptly portrays the lifetime of feelings one can have for a lost loved one and yet at the same time hints at a yearning for love itself and a recognition that it is within and always with us. "Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime, and never let go till we're one." In the film Titanic the song is sung at the very end where Rose, now over 100 years old still remembers the love she found and lost 84 years previous on the Titanic. This loss gave her a lifetime to reflect on the meaning of love.

Dr Goel (1989, p.26) found that the suicide of a colleague sent him into a nervous breakdown and thought he was at the point of dying himself. He felt that he was in a state of fear of death, severe depression and immense dependence. This lasted for about 7 days and was the commencement of an incredibly difficult period of Kundalini arousal lasting for several years, fluctuating between the thought that he was dying to states of bliss and ecstasy. Certainly this crisis not only challenged him to a deeper life, it actually triggered the process leading to his eventual Self-realisation.

In Jayakar's biography of J. Krishnamurti, a spiritual man who lived in India, the author's mother is introduced to Krishnamurti and asks him whether she would meet her husband in the next world. He had died several years earlier and she was still mourning his loss. The mother did not get the solace she wanted. Instead, he said to her:

"You want me to tell you that you will meet your husband after death, but which husband do you want to meet? The man who married you, the man who was with you when you were young, the man who died or the man he would have been today, had he lived?" He paused and was silent for some moments. "Which husband do you want to meet? Because surely, the man who died was not the same man who married you." ....... "Why do you want to meet him? What you miss is not your husband, but the memory of your husband." ....... "Why do you keep his memory alive? Why do you want to recreate him in your mind? Why do you try to live in sorrow and continue with the sorrow?" (Jayakar, 1988, p.2).

When someone dies we suffer grief. The grief is not because we love the person. The grief is because we have identified love with the person. When that person has gone we feel we have lost a part of our love. It is the memory of the person that confers suffering. So, somehow, our emotions are attached to the memory of the person.

We constantly live in the "past" and in the "future". If we were able to totally live in the "now" then we would not suffer as we do.

Search for the Real

It is not only at times of transpersonal crisis, or times when we seem to have reached rock bottom, that we are challenged to contemplate what life is all about and what it is that we are really looking for. A different perspective on reality is occasionally obtained in those moments of enlightenment, or revelation, when the boundaries of our normal consciousness are dissolved and a far greater, more universal perspective is gained. This may only last for a fraction of a second and yet the revelations gained can last a lifetime. It appears this perspective can sometimes be gained at the point when thought ceases, the moment between two thoughts.

We are constantly looking for something more, something greater than this everyday world presents us and yet we don't quite know what we are looking for. The Self within each of us is, however, complete. It is the divine aspect within us and is of the quality of the whole. It is the Atman referred to in Eastern Philosophy and was referred to by Harold as the Authority-Ego (Babcock, 1983). It is the spirit or Monad and is our Divine aspect. The Monad is sensed in moments of enlightenment, accompanied by a sense of union with the universe, perfect love, and complete understanding. This is the "peak experience", referred to by Maslow, which cannot be produced at will but rather comes as a gift of grace.

The Self is not evolving as it is already whole. This Self brings with it an impulse towards creation. We are not complete, but have the destiny to complete ourselves -- in Harold's view to complete our own souls. Each of us creates our own soul that will in time unite with Self to give a whole being.

Self is mostly masculine whereas the soul is mostly feminine. Ultimately, the soul seeks merger with the Self, but this can only occur once the soul is fully created within us. This cannot occur until consciousness is complete, because until then the soul cannot be complete. Consequently, we constantly seek in the outer world the love that is actually within ourselves. In relationships we invest this part of ourselves in the other person. We will never find it in the outer world, only its image. This image can be possessed, unlike the soul, yet is also evolving. When through loss or death we lose a loved one, we have lost more than just someone to whom we were attached, it is as if we have lost a connection with our soul. We can love another as ourselves but we can't possess another. When that person dies we withdraw the emotional investment we made in him or her and are at a loss until that investment can be made again in someone else.

The soul will never give itself to the persona, the ego, it tempts the persona to seek it, which it is forever doing, but the soul really seeks the Self, a union which can only be consummated in the unconscious. The Self is the immortal love within us and yet seeks an immortal love of its own, its soul. Likewise the soul in this life forever seeks the immortal love of the Self. A person is a part of the soul in the making and thus he cannot possess his soul. When consciousness is complete, the soul is complete, and the magic wedding of Self and soul can take place.

The sense of duality between our persona and our soul creates a cleavage in our lives. As we search more and more for our soul we feel trapped in a world of illusion. This is felt more after we have glimpsed "reality" through occasional moments of Illumination. "This illumination reveals the essential oneness that exists on the inner side of life and negates the outer appearance of separativeness" (Bailey, 1988. p.417). As our personalities are forged through the woundings of life to become more suitable vehicles for the soul, the soul encourages us to search for it. When the personality and soul have become integrated, then it is possible to glimpse reality at will. When fusion of soul and personality is complete, then we are also complete. The soul can then finally fulfil the "marriage" it really seeks with the Self, the Self-realisation referred to in Eastern Philosophy.


Copyright © Charles Attfield, 1999 - 2002

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