The fundamental premise of spiritual Teachings is that man is composed of two bodies: a physical body created through sexual union, henceforth known as the ‘lower self,’ and an ethereal body composed of a Divine spark, henceforth known as the ‘Beloved’ or the ‘Higher Self.’
Spiritual Traditions teach that while man is not born with a complete soul, he may, through engaging in certain struggles and spiritual exercises create one. Thus for the spiritualist, the meaning and purpose to life is to transform our Divine spark into a raging fire, i.e. a complete soul.
The means by which we create a soul is through the moment-to-moment struggle between two opposing forces that exist within the lower self.
One force is firmly set on keeping us asleep to the existence of the Higher Self, while the other force is desirous of promoting the presence of the Beloved.
The force opposing the promoting presence is the lower self, and the force wishing to engage presence we shall call the ’lover.’
Although the language, rituals, and exercises used by spiritual traditions throughout history to promote the presence of the Beloved vary, they all share a common goal: transforming the spark of the Divine into a soul through uniting the lover with Beloved as often as possible.
In the Old Testament, the Song of Songs overflows with the imagery of the lover longing for the Beloved. The same spiritual song has been sung in every spiritual teaching throughout the Ages. It is the song encouraging us to ‘be here now.’
Queen Elizabeth the First is reported to have said, “Man’s head and feet are rarely in the same place at the same time.”
This means that we are rarely aware or present to what we are doing in the moment. We are either in imagination about some future event, or reliving a past event.
Imagination is the most potent weapon utilized by the lower self to prevent us from experiencing the Beloved.
We experience the Beloved when we are present to what we are doing in the moment. At all other times we are living in the world of imagination or sleep. It is correctly called ‘sleep,’ because we are oblivious to the beautiful state of paradise that we carry with us throughout our lives.
While growing up, due to the spiritual ignorance of our teachers, friends, clergy and parents there was no one to teach us of the existence of the Beloved, nor how to seek the Beloved. Thus, for most of our lives, we were deluded into thinking that the world of imagination is the world of reality.
An excellent analogy for understanding this idea is the alarm clock.
It is not until the alarm rings that we awaken out of our sleep, and immediately come to the understanding that we were living in the world of dreams. However, while we were dreaming our dreams certainly appeared real.
With the world of dreams is behind us, we have been taught that we are now living in ‘reality.’
Yet, spiritual wisdom teaches that all that actually had happened is that we have, without much effort, awakened from the world of dreams to the world of imagination. We are still asleep to reality.
Reality can only exist beyond the realm of imagination: in the realm of presence.
The following quotes will serve to illustrate the universal nature of all spiritual teachings.
The Baal Shem Tov: The work of man in the world is to struggle and re-struggle till his last breath.
Lao Tzu: In a resolute struggle of the good (presence) against evil (sleep,), there are definite rules that must not be disregarded if one is to succeed.
The Sufi Al-Jilani: Struggle with your lower self. Either you ride it, or it will ride you.
Al-Maghrebi, a Sufi: If anyone supposes that something of this Way will be opened to him without the necessity of struggle, he is in error.
Symeon Metaphrastis: If a man is entangled in the things of this world, it is very hard for him to recognize that there is another invisible struggle and another inner warfare.
Hindu Texts, Bhagavad Gita: There is a war that opens the doors of heaven!
Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road: It is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.
Old Testament, Isaiah: Kindle a fire and encompass yourselves about with sparks. Walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.
Sufi Shihab al-Din: The soul is but a spark of God’s divine Glory.
Theophan the Recluse: The true life of grace in man is in its beginning only a seed, a spark.
It is possible that I have been looking for the Higher Self since I began to understand human flaws. Perhaps this began at five when my mother and her religious friends criticized my father for not going to church. This desire grew in me as I grew up, maybe even at the same rate. I was a very good girl; I went to church, I confessed my sins, but I felt in that a kind of diminishing the Self. To me, God had to be Higher than man, not just more powerful, and just as recriminating. Then I turned to secular studies – philosophy, art, literature gave me an inkling that maybe this Higher was a higher intellect. Still, the longing for a connection with this all encompassing Higher something remained withing me.
One day I found P.D. Ouspensky’s in “The Search of the Miraculous”. I felt at the time that he was rather arrogant. Two years later, I came across his book the Fourth Way, and I read that, and tried to practice Self-remembering. It didn’t work, but I continued practicing it until I found The Fellowship of Friends. It took me another two years to find it, but when I did, I knew it was an esoteric school. Still, finding a school was not the answer until I found out how hard one has to work on oneself, and no matter the extension of one’s efforts, it couldn’t be forced! It wasn’t about thinking, even though acquiring the knowledge was important.
By then I was middle-age, in graduate school in the 80′s – a cerebral time at that. I knew everything. I had an answer for most things even about school Work. Then I learned that talking about what you don’t know as if you knew, meant to lie, not as a fault, but as an obstacle. I was fortunate that the director of the Chicago Center was a very kind man, and so was his wife. I’m grateful for their patience and kindness. I also found a job as an art historian and juggled the development of my soul, while developing also my intellect. It was all good and well, I struggled with keeping up with the Work, but my career consumed most of my energy. The center in Chicago dispersed, and I stayed here, alone, visiting Apollo, centers in other places. When Robert changed the form, I couldn’t keep up and nearly lost my Way.
All in all it was not a bad thing for I came face to face with the Lower Self, and learned much from the experience. I came to know, really know, that what I used to think as “thoughts” were indeed useless ramblings. Robert, our teacher, calls that imagination, or “the ten thousand ‘I’s. It is a kind of hypnotic state where one is pulled in this horrifying illusion of one’s own importance in one’s community, and in the world.
The thing is, how to pull away from that state? I knew how to do the Work, but I lost it for a while. Really lost it. So how could I pull out of this horrifying situation? It was similar to asking how do I get rid of all these illusions? How do I discard my thirst to get even? How do I discard my features – my personal baggage. How do I drop all that, and return at least to some of the understanding I used to have? How do I drop the old baggage by the road and become my True Self?
How does one do that? How does one get rid of the bodies desires? How does one discard judgmental ramblings, blame, condemnations, envy, fear, greed, egotism, pride? Impossible. One does not get rid of flaws, but one can learn that one is not one’s flaws.
As long as the mind occupies itself with ongoing grievances, or the pursuit of immediate satisfaction of desires, what is called “thinking” is, or are, the ramblings of dissatisfaction which keeps one from developing into the True Self one is supposed to Be. One cannot do this by oneself. One needs a school, a teacher, a guiding light. I am grateful I have one, in spite of all the sufferings I have been through.
Finally, even though I have probably always had a connection with the Higher, I do not know how to explain it. I do know my own verifications, and I have verified that I am in a Real School.
“All in all it was not a bad thing for I came face to face with the Lower Self, and learned much from the experience. I came to know, really know, that what I used to think as “thoughts” were indeed useless ramblings. Robert, our teacher, calls that imagination, or “the ten thousand ‘I’s. It is a kind of hypnotic state where one is pulled in this horrifying illusion of one’s own importance in one’s community, and in the world.” Jamirte.
And yet, one must function meaningfully in the world, which is not so horrifying that it cannot be encountered. The words you use, ‘discard’, ‘pull away from’, ‘get rid of’ are all branches from the same root.
I do not believe in this sense of getting rid of the world or even our sense of importance in it – are we not just trying to ensure that our importance is based on a real substance, something that is not imaginary?
One of the measures of progress in our inner life is how successfully we function in Life as a whole – how sincere we feel our connection with Life to be. At least, I don’t know of any other battleground.
Marcus Aurelius says it is a problem of consistency:
“If a man’s life has no consistent or uniform aim, it cannot remain itself consistent or uniform. Yet that statement does not go far enough unless you add something of what aim that should be… namely that which affects the welfare of society.
Accordingly, the aim we should propose to ourselves must be the benefit of our fellows and the community. Whoso directs his every effort to this will be imparting a uniformity to all his actions, and so will achieve consistency with himself.”
Consistency is equilibrium. Everything you have truly learned internally – rather than what you imagine you’ve learned – will find a form of expression in the oustide world and the larger fellowship of humanity.
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