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The archetypal master is the primal answer to a primal anguish that people encounter at a certain stage in their development. The master removes it by pointing the way to fulfillment of a promise felt within. In our day and age, more and more people are facing this anguish and are starting to sense this promise. 5
Today there are clearly two distinct groups: one is content to progress by acquiring worldly knowledge, skills, and savoir faire; the other looks beyond this to an inner maturing toward the true self, a process that neither depends on nor provides an increase in worldly knowledge, skill, and possessions, but aims at closer contact with supra-worldly Being. This requires a different kind of experience, penetrates the mystery of Being, and bears within itself the way that leads to Being. It is “initiatory” knowledge. To “initiate” means to open the way to the mystery. This knowledge is possessed, transmitted, and made effective by masters. 9
The primal truth of Life can take human form in two figures: the sage and the master. They are genuine historical figures only when the depths of otherworldly Being have utterly made them over. At that point they both know that, although surrounded by the world’s limitations, they are basically subject to none of them. They have overcome the ground notes of human existence: fear, despair, and desolation. 11
In addition to sages and masters, there is always a third category - people in whom Life comes to consciousness chiefly in the form of knowledge. They are “great knowers,” men and women of learning(corresponding to the Indian Pandits), but not conventional scholars, because their interest is in things that can be known but not understood. Without being totally transformed themselves, they can communicate “esoteric knowledge” to others. This means that they must have something of both the sage and master, but they live as seekers and researchers, buried in secret things. in hidden laws, in the primal meaning of images. Perhaps Carl Jung was one of them. 11
Somehow we have made contact with the otherworldly, with the divine, in a way that forces us to look into ourselves and direct our future steps on a new path. We do not ourselves know what has really happened – we only know that it is vital to make lasting contact with whatever has touched us. And so we start looking for someone who can show us how to do this. We know that neither father, mother, doctor, teacher, psychotherapist, nor even priest can help. Who can? This question point straight to the master. 15
Far more people than we imagine have come to this threshold today. Many of them become physically sick when the fail to cross it. Life is bottled up in them and struggling to get out, choked aggression fills to turn – although the light of the original experience still flickers dimly deep inside. The next step comes when they start looking for someone who knows the way out of the impasse and into a new life. 18
The experience that triggers the call for the master is always an encountering with our true nature, in which the Absolute breaks into consciousness. It comes without warning and defies comprehension, but its impact and the joy it brings are sufficient to make us start looking for someone who can link us to it permanently in a manner that both matches the truth of what we are and allows us to meet the world on its own terms.
In most cases, the freedom and joy that a person’s first contact with supra-worldly Being brings are also a saving answer to the three fundamental problems that darken human life and that the natural ego can neither endure nor accept: annihilation, meaninglessness, and solitude. 21
But in extremes like these, where the unacceptable – imminent death, ultimate absurdity, or total isolation – can no longer be avoided, we may be given the strength to do something that the natural ego cannot do: accept the unacceptable. 21
We have experienced the miracle: by accepting annihilation we have found a life beyond life and death, a life that has left annihilation behind; by accepting meaninglessness we have found a meaning beyond meaning and unmeaning; and by humbly accepting isolation we have found a security beyond security and isolation as the world understands those terms. In other words, we have experienced ourselves in indwelling transcendence, in what we truly are: a person who shares in supra-personal, universal Life, and to whom Life has revealed itself – in its fullness as absolute strength, in its order as absolute meaning, and in its unity as absolute love. 21.2
In all but a few cases the two traditional pillars of existence in the West – exploring and shaping the world, and secure beliefs – have left two things undeveloped: responsible awareness of the fact that inner maturity is something that we can and should attain, and responsible awareness of the fact that there is an inner development process that we can and should undergo and that allows us to experience, in a broadened consciousness, something hitherto possessed only as a pious belief. This is why many leading public figures – business people, politicians, and even priests and ministers – are incredibly lacking in true maturity and wholly fail to see that something is missing. they are unfocused, ego-centered, authoritarian, unfree, wary of criticism, angst-ridden, emotional, and lonely. This shows that they lack sustaining contact and a permanent link with their own true nature. 24
Once the anguish of failing to fulfill our true nature becomes conscious, neither worldly success nor a return to belief can remove it, because it actually springs from a situation in which ordinary achievement no longer provides fulfillment and beliefs no longer support. And so the longing for guidance on the inner way cannot be ignored.
But supposing no masters are available – what then? There are three answers.
First, anyone whom true anguish has driven to the edge always finds the master! It is a strange fact of human experience that great suffering generates its own remedy. Again and again, people driven by despair to seek the counsel and help demanded by their true nature themselves construct the helpers they need, simply because they are suffering and searching so intensely. They receive a master’s answer or a master’s guidance from others who are by no means masters themselves. 25,6
The need of the one and the readiness of the other have stretched a mysterious string between them – and the bow is wielded and the saving note sounded by some third force. It is thus true to say that anyone can act as our master if we call him or her in the right way.
Second, there are far more people than we suppose whose own development and experience would fit them to act as master if they only knew that they had those qualities and trusted them. Those with long experience in counseling and caring(psychotherapists, for example) always include some who could take others at least part of the way if they were only aware of the dimension that concerns us here and were willing to take on the possibilities and duties that go with it – had, in other words, the courage to take the step from therapist to guru. 26
So far, modern therapy has concentrated solely on pragmatic healing and relieving worldly suffering; that is, the suffering we feel when we fail to meet the world’s demand. But who can cure the other kind of suffering, the suffering we feel when we fail to meet the demands of true nature? Who knows about the suffering that comes from being separated from our true nature and the Absolute within it? This is the suffering that really typifies our age. Initiation is the keynote of the only healing that can cure it, and the purpose of initiation in this sense is learning how to be reunited with our true nature, to stay united with it, and to live from it. To help us on this path, however, therapists must have the qualities of the guru and master! In this day and age, they have a positive duty to acquire those qualities!
And yet the most important answer to the question “Where do we find such a thing we find master?” is “In ourselves” – for there is such a thing as the inner master. 26,7
The word master means three things: the eternal master, the here-and-now master, and the inner master. 31
The idea behind the word master is that of the homo maximus, the universal man or woman, in whom Being – Life in its totality, as fullness, order, and unity – manifest itself in human form and, changing and creating, works itself out in the world in a way that both transcends the world and masters it. For students, the true master realizes the idea that has woken in them as the inner master(as potential and obligation), the idea that they hope and intend to realize themselves on the way shown them by the master.
Like the master, the student and the Way also exist in three senses: as idea, actuality, and inner truth.
It is in the threefold unity of master, student, and Way that absolute, otherworldly Being overcomes all resistance and limitations and takes on form in our here-and-now world.
Our duty and destiny as human beings is to prepare ourselves increasingly to play a part in this process; that is, to obey Life’s urge to manifest itself in the world and cooperate with it. 32
Our notion of Life is essentially conditioned by the way we experience and perceive the relationship between absolute and contingent reality. If we see Being as the one true reality and ourselves as the prisoners of the world, then the only way of fulfilling ourselves and getting back in touch with that ultimate reality is to leave the world utterly behind, die, and so finally enter the reality of All-One-Being. If, on the other hand, we see Life as transcending the antithesis of otherworldly Being and worldly reality, and manifestation of the Absolute in the worldly as our real objective, then we fulfill ourselves by witnessing to it in our ways of living, learning, and acting in the world. And so there are two fundamentally different ways in which true Life manifests, fulfills, and consummates itself. The first step is common to both – death, dissolution of the world-hardened, world-centered, here-and-now ego in Being, beyond space and time. The thrust and purpose of the process differ, however, depending on whether the human condition is ultimately denied and left behind or is consciously accepted as the ultimate manifestation of divine Being. The law of the spirit made flesh applies in the Judeo-Christian West. And this is why the idea of masters ultimately means something different in East and West.
The eternal master is Life, Life lost to itself in objective consciousness, trying to find itself again and seeking to manifest itself in the world – as fullness that sustains and nurtures every living thing, as unity that allows every living thing to become one with itself and everything else and is constantly creating wholeness anew. Life can manifest itself only in a neverending process of dying and becoming. In the master, it appears in pure form as the principle of eternal change. The whole point of change is the person who successfully fulfills his or her destiny by witnessing to Life in his or her physical existence. The eternal master intervenes when our persistence in preventing Life, present in our true nature, from manifesting itself has gone beyond a certain point and created a situation we can no longer endure. 33
Two things can take us over the threshold that leads to the master: suffering and promise. Suffering is always the result of standing still or going astray on the way we are meant to follow, of offending against the inner wholeness that seeks to realize its own totality and depends on constant change. The inner promise first comes home to us when the ultimate source of true selfhood, in one liberating act, to sweep away the barriers of objective consciousness; suddenly we wake to the sense of a greater life within us that is merely waiting to be let in. It is at moments like this that the Absolute, present within us as a latent creative force, can defeat the contingent in an instant. When this happens, a new conscience is born – and the inner master, who embodies Life, awakes! 34
There are always two levels on which master and student cooperate in bringing Being into existence in human shape: one is the external, contingent world, where master and student meet as real human beings – and the other is within the seeker himself. The master here is not an outside figure but the authority directing the student from within. Deep inside ourselves, we are all masters and students in this sense, and this is due to the anguish and strength of true nature, forcing its way within us toward self-realization in worldly form. But we must bring this fact to consciousness. Seeking and finding the external master depend, like everything that master does, on the inner master.
People who have matured to the Way and are looking for a master to guide them, but who cannot find the maser they need near at hand, should know that they carry a master – the inner master – in themselves. Otherwise they could never find and outer master – would not recognize him even if they met him. As Goethe put it in Xenien: “And were the eye not of the sun, it never could the sun descry.” Nor, if they had no inner master, could an “outer” master do anything for them.
We can find and accept outside masters only if, deep down in our true nature, we are masters ourselves and are starting to realize this. This is what one master meant when he answered the question “How does one become a master?” by saying “Simply let him out.” From the outset we are always ourselves; fundamentally, the person we seek to become. The inner urge that sets us seeking its itself the thing we are looking for.
The outer and inner master come only when we need them, when we have reached a point in our development where separation from Being has become a source of suffering. A master is someone who has overcome this separation and reunited himself with his true nature. 35
To be truly humble is not just to avoid seeming more than one is – it is also accept that one is, in some respects, more than one seems. There exists a false modesty, actually a disguised fear of greater responsibility, that prevents the inner master from emerging. We have independent power to find and follow the Way, but this power becomes effective only when we sense the inner master as an instinctive urge to “be like God” and accept that urge. If we say that certain people have missed their way, we are implying that they could in fact have followed it. 36
To recognized and accept an outer master, one must first wake to the inner master, wake with him to the inner student, and wake in both to the inner Way. 38
Marked by and charged with this greater Life, guided by and serving it, the master has matured to a point where he can manifest the Abolute. He has overcome many of the obstacles that prevent Life from emerging fully, and is thus human and superhuman at the same time. His ways of thinking and acting are no longer ruled by the world’s social, moral, or theological systems and demands; for he is rooted in otherworldly freedom. He may respect the world’s conventions, but is not obliged to conform to them. This is what makes him a troublemaker. Life’s truth accepts the world’s fixities only as long as they neither interfere with nor obstruct the process of becoming. 37
In the master, Life comes to awareness of itself in human form. Basically, the master knows that it is not he who is coming to awareness of Life, but Life is coming to awareness of itself in him. In the master, Life senses itself in the radiance of a special experience, reveals itself in the light of a special knowledge, and becomes effective in the healing power or a very special activity.
Becoming a master is a matter of becoming a transparent medium for one’s own nature. Because he is in touch with his own true nature, the master can see the true nature in everything he meets. And because he has become a window for the Absolute, he can turn others into mediums as well. Wherever the master is, Life becomes manifest. 38
The three essential qualities of Life are all combined and present in the master. Life’s fullness is tangibly apparent in his primal potency and strength. Its law and order are manifest in the special authority that allows him to generate form that accords with Being, even when he “does” nothing. Its unity can be sensed in his primal connection with everything that lives, in the depth of his humanity, and in a love that has largely left “feeling” behind. All of these are signs of his maturity. And so he also possesses the three primal qualities of true nature: power, status, and maturity.39
The master is the appointed intermediary between the world and otherworldly Being. He looses the ties that prevent people from attaining true selfhood and shows them what the poles are. Having done this, he again bridges the gap in a way that makes it possible for world-ego and true nature to coexist and cooperate consciously in a process of creation and redemption.
The master is master only in relation to a world that is capable of changing and wants to change. The sage requires no students, but a master without students is like music without listeners – nonexistent.
The master is master only because he is linked to a higher authority, at those command he acts and to which he is responsible. When he mediates between heaven and earth, he always acts at its bidding. He never claims to be the source himself, but refers to a higher reality, to an otherworldly authority and his veneration for those who have served it before him are an intrinsic part of what he is and does. Its presence shapes and infuses all his “ceremonial” actions.
A master who lacks humility is no master, or is an inverted master – the satanic emanation and embodiment of transcendence usurped by the ego. 39,40
The master’s entrance is like the lion’s roar – it heralds a life-and-death struggle, the struggle that no one destined for a higher level is spared, that no one called to the Way can escape. It is a struggle that holds the ultimate promise but demands the ultimate effort: “dying and becoming” in the fullest sense, and not once, but as the Way’s everlasting rule and principle.
The master is not a conventionally perfect human being. He does not embody the traditional values and virtues of beauty, truth, and goodness in any obvious sense. He says and does things that horrify the normal, decent citizen – and repeatedly aims his sharpest arrows at precisely that normal, decent citizen. He does not shore things up, but turns them upside-down. No one can say what he will do next. He is as unpredictable and contradictory as life itself, for he embodies Life, and is himself life and death, Yin and Yang in neverending alternation. He is both a creative and a redeeming force. He is living and dying – perilous, incomprehensible, and hard. Peace, security and harmony are our normal human goals, but the master tears up the roots we have barely put down, knocks over the things we thought secure, sunders the bonds we have contracted, and pulls away the ground on which we stand; 41
The master overturns the neat and ordered. But no sooner has he done so – shattered the existing structure, created what looks life total chaos, and left his student floored and gasping – than that student suddenly senses that something new is taking shape, a new order being born and a new form emerging. And he starts to see the love behind the master’s harshness and the meaning of the darkness into which the master plunged him, for a new and unexpected light is dawning.
The master’s activity has its root in inactivity. Fundamentally, he “does” nothing, but acts as a medium for Life, which works through him and transforms others in the process. 41
Whenever people previously content with ego-world consciousness come to see that they are in fact the prisoners of contingency, the moment of total change has come. When they then unmistakably hear the voice of the Absolute in their true nature, hear the summons to conversion, and wake to the possibility of obeying it, the students wakes within them. But they become students in the full sense only when they decide to accept the “great service” and call for a master to guide them. 42
When the student wakes, the inner master wakes with him – and the instant, urgent search for a real-life, here-and-now master itself guarantees that such a master will shortly make his appearance. 42
It is not always some great, cataclysmic event that wakes a person and turns him or her into a student. the slightest thing can suddenly provoke the inner change; for waking to studenthood has always been prepared for a long time beforehand by the anguish of true nature struggling to breathe. The change can express itself in many different ways, ranging from physical discomfort through neurosis to deep depression and suicidal urges. The greater the anguish caused by the suppression of true nature the greater the likelihood that some pinprick will trigger the change – some trivial incident that suddenly makes true nature ring out, unexpectedly reveals the hidden and unknown, and “initiates” the seeker, throwing open the door to the mystery and bringing something “totally different” palpably home. 43
But when can a person call himself a student? He can call himself a student “only when he is consumed with longing, when anguish has brought him to the ultimate barrier and he feels that he must break through it or die.
“He can call himself a student only when restlessness of heart holds him fast and will not let him to until he finds a way of stilling it.
“He can call himself a student only when he has set foot on the way, knows that he cannot turn back, and is willing to be led forward and obey.
“He can call himself a student only when he is capable of unquestioning faith, can follow without understanding, and is ready to face and endure any trial.
“He can call himself a student only when he can be hard with himself and is prepared to leave everything for the sake of the One that is forcing its way within him toward the light.
“It is only when the unconditional has seized him that he can accept every condition and endure all the hardships of the way on which the master leads him.
“ALL OR NOTHING is written in large characters above the door through which the student passes on his way to the exercise room. He must leave everything behind, but can take one certainty with him: it is not caprice that awaits him, but the clearsighted wisdom of the master, who focuses unwaveringly on what he really is and spares no effort to bring it to life; a kind of dying is expected of him, but its meaning is not death, but Life beyond life and death; not the destruction of existence, but Being that irradiates it.” 45
The inner master’s voice demands only that we be totally faithful to the inner core experienced in our own soul, and it may even tell us to reject all our world ties and obligations. This is why absolute conscience can also make someone who has genuinely woken to studenthood capable of actions that the world mistakenly condemns as faithless, cruel, or treacherous. 46
The inner master’s voice is uncompromising, and no one can call himself a student unless he is willing to obey it. This obedience also implies unconditional discipline. 46
In accepted discipline, we trade freedom of the ego (freedom to do or not to do whatever the ego wants) for freedom from the ego (freedom to do what our true nature wants). ….. If there is no inner master, the outer master has no power to transform – indeed, there are no masters. This is also why a genuine master repeatedly withdraws, leaving the student to himself. In doing this, he is testing and summoning the inner master – and making way for him. 46
An Eastern master was once asked to defined the difference between students and masters, and answered: “When a person can really call himself a student, he’s already where the master is – on the Way – only you can see it more clearly in the master’s case.” This means that people who have really become students are no longer in danger, in their constant battles with the world ego, of betraying the neverending process of change that leads to manifestation of the Absolute – that is, of rebelling against the master. Those, on the other hand, who have merely opened their eyes to the possibility of studenthood are still a doubtful quantity. It is true that the Absolute has already touched them, that they are willing to follow and may even have promised to perform the first exercise – but they are still not totally committed to the Way. They are on the way to the Way, but have not yet passed through the gate of total change, beyond which there is no turning back. Take the eternal prayer as a benchmark: we can say that students have passed through the gate when they no longer but when the prayer utters them. They remain human, of course, and are thus repeatedly tempted to stand still, but the real danger is past. To say that they are on eh Way in this sense is really to say that the Way has got them – and will keep them. 48
If laziness or fear keeps us in prison all the same, then we are betraying our true nature. 48
The master has five ways of doing what he does: doctrine, commands, charisma, examples, shock tactics. 49
A true master’s doctrine satisfies the need to understand in two ways. First, it demonstrates the validity of specific things he has said by showing how they are anchored in the overall pattern of movement and change that makes up the way he points out. Second, it strengthens and justifies the student’s hope that he will receive the help he needs to “become himself from his true nature.” It thus answers both a rational and an existential question. 50
Masters always have one thing only to communicate. But the one, repeated message always sounds new, and the devices they use to convey it, the means they choose to illuminate it, and the paths on which they lead their students to the Way are infinitely varied. 50,1
For him, everything that blocks the student’s true nature is summed up in one fatal error: a clinging to things that the student regards as unchanging and that stop him from changing himself. This is the root of the evil, and it must be torn out completely. 51
As soon as certain stories and images take root in the student’s mind, as soon as certain formulas and conecepts acquire independent validity and substitute imperceptibly for the living truth, the master sets out to destroy them. Images and concepts must never be anything more than pointers, reminders, hopeful indications of a possible experience. “The finger pointing at the moon must not be confused with the moon,” say the Eastern masters. 52
One of the signs that a student has “understood,” has really woken to the truth, has traditionally been rejection of the words in which the truth was first communicated to him or her. Again and again, students have burned the sacred books of doctrine, for written words are “empty straw” compared with the new life within them. If the master is a real master, this action – which shocks others – delights him. 53
The difference between masters and conventional psychotherapists is that the master interferes, leads, corrects, and issues instructions. And the difference between the students and the conventional subject of psychotherapy is that the student expects these instructions and is willing – indeed eager – to follow them. The difference becomes particularly plain when the master tests his students’ confidence, which is the very basis and justification of the whole relationship, by telling them to do things they do not understand and do not want to do. 54,5
It is undoubtedly important to stress and encourage independence from the start, to recognize that children also have their human dignity and to see that it is respected. The master’s authority, however, is grounded in the fact that his orders follow the law of the student’s own true nature, which he has the task of helping to develop.
Authority always derives from the fact that the person giving orders embodies more fully than the person obeying them the system that the latter has agreed to serve. 55
In every genuine master-student relationship, the student always remains free, and this freedom is expressed in obedience. The discipline that he accepts is not external, but internal. Just as he is free to move on whenever he wants to – because he feels that he no longer needs a master, because he no longer feels equal to the Way’s demands, or because he wants to change masters. This is one of the saddest things that masters have to face – repeatedly being left, for various reasons, by students on whom they have worked wholeheartedly for years. When students want to leave, no one tires to stop them. But while they remain, they accept the master’s authority freely. Indeed, students are quicker to complain that their master is not testing them enough, is not being sufficiently demanding, than that he is being unduly hard on them. Everything depends, however, on their knowing that the Way is an ongoing battle with the puny, self-willed ago, whose only concern is its own security. They follow the master’s instructions even when this is hard – not in blind obedience to a stronger worldly will, but because the master knows and is more than they know and are can help them throw off the ego’s tyranny and enter the freedom of true nature. 56
A master serves the cause of Life only by leading his students to themselves and bringing out the originality in them. This is the difference between real masters, who make their students independent, even allowing them to say what they like, and pseudo-masters, who usually insist on being imitated and stifle their students’ individuality by forcing them to parrot certain fixed formulas.
For the students, the master represents the looked-for, longed-for, ideal reality in human shape. He embodies it in his words and behavior - and, even more, simply in what he is. But his example is interpreted correctly only if it wakes the inner master and, through the inner master, the student’s real self. 59,60
The master is a model because he is a window to his own true nature. In everything he says or does, he is, quite simply, himself. His actions express what he is, naturally and with none of the conventional ego’s restrains. To this extent, he is also beyond ordinary conceptions of virtue.
When a master is labeled as goo, devoted, self-sacrificing, gentle, and loving, or, on the contrary, as wildly ego-centric, self-willed, irascible, aloof, and harsh to the point of cruelty, the description may be true or false. Either way, it has nothing to do with what he is as a master or the things that make him a master. His way of living his own life is determined by the way in which Life comes to form in him; he himself is marked, molded, and energized by it, and never stops to wonder how this affects others. He has outrun the standards of the worldly ego, with its roots in community, and is bound only to Life. 61
The small-scale imitator is one kind of false master. Another and more dangerous type is the person who actually possesses a master’s gifts but uses them to evil ends. Such a person represents the powers of darkness. He is genuinely in contact with transcendent, otherworldly forces, and can mobilize them in himself to work apparent wonders. An ostensible master like this is really someone whose innermost core has never been purified, who has subordinated contact with the other dimension to his everyday ego and cheapened it into sorcery. He has magnetic power over others and uses it to rob them of their independence and reduce them to blind obedience. His incontrovertible power serves his ego, which usurps the place of the divined and exacts adoration, like an idol. In all of this, it is not God who is at work but the devil.
The true master possesses higher powers and supra-sensual faculties – but is quicker to conceal than display them. He does not flaunt them publicly, but uses them to serve the Absolute. 62
When we come to see the Absolute as divine Being active in our own true nature and seeking to manifest itself in and through us, we necessarily stop seeing our dependence on God as one-sided and realize that, if we depend on God, divine energy also depends on us and on our willingness to let it work in and through us. The turning point may come when we suddenly sense that we are actually stopping that from happening, and realize both what we are in our true nature and what we would life our true nature to make us. This insight, when it comes as something felt, and not merely thought, is a shattering one – the realization that we, as solitary individuals, can obstruct the power of Life! 65
The realization that we can stop Life from manifesting itself in us and in our world has the right effect on us only if we feel it in the deepest personal sense. It must hit us life a thunderbolt, and if it does, it may generates a new conscience.
It sounds at first totally incredible, yet it is perfectly true: Life’s success in realizing its transcendent potential in the human world depends on individual human beings. This is why we can truly say, not simply that people need God, but also that God needs people. The individual must be prepared, for he is not simply seeking God: God is seeking him, too – and he must let himself be found. It is true that human life fulfills itself in fusing with the superhuman, but it is also true that Being fulfills itself in the human world only when a person lets it in – in other words, allows his or her otherworldly true nature to “become flesh.” 65,6
We cannot shift all the responsibility for our own failure to live up to our true nature(that is, the mode in which Life is striving to become real in us) onto circumstances or other people. The extent to which the image within us realizes itself in this world, and the way in which it does so, is partly determined by ourselves. And, if we wake to our true nature, it is the “inner voice,” the voice of Life – the voice of the master in ourselves – that tells us that this responsibility exists and how great it is. 66
Opening ourselves in a new consciousness to what the old conceals from us, and what we still are in our true nature, this is the everlasting challenge. We need the master’s help on the Way to meet it. 67
Developing as ego-world-consciousness, our consciousness is always between two fixed poles: the self-anchored ego and the world, which we also perceive as anchored and definite. The anguish we feel at the static, petrified reality of the world around us is the only thing that can open our eyes to the dynamic reality of our own true nature and to the Way we are meant to follow. 67
Suddenly, the static world and systems of objective consciousness must yield to the dynamic reality of true nature that frees us and constantly makes new demands on us. Only when this happens does realization become the threshold to the way of initiation. This way does not, however, lead us to egoless, objectless, supra-worldly Being – but back to the here-and-now world and to self-Being, in which true nature reveals itself in a new and vitalized ego capable of bearing witness to the higher world in this one. At this point we are on the way to becoming masters ourselves. 68
True nature’s claim to take on form in the world must be experienced and accepted. It is only when its insistent demands win out over those of the ego and come clearly home as promise and as obligation, when their worldly realization in the true self becomes the central issues, and when we understand that we ourselves are permitted, able, and required to help realize them, that the time comes to take the great decision: to choose between serving the world in the old, self-willed way, and – still serving the world, but also transcending that service – serving Life itself. We can realize this possibility only on the Way of initiation, on which we become truly ourselves. This is a Way that we cannot travel alone. We need a guide! 68
Our sufferings, if we obstinately resist Life’s drive to become something else, are immense. ….. The only way out is a total change of attitude. This may come when we realize that we are ourselves obstructing Life and that Life needs our cooperation and consent if it is to achieve its intended form in us. 69
Being’s urge to manifest itself intensifies as we advance from stage to stage. The more the pressure builds, the closer it comes to exploding our fixed form. In this situation, we experience true nature as a destructive force – but it is destructive only when we identify entirely with our present worldly form and personality and fail to hear the master’s voice. 70
The extent to which we are still in tune with Being or have moved away from it is revealed in the way the numinous affects us. It cannot get through to us while we remain cut off and imprisoned in the ego. It is only when expanding consciousness again allows us to transcend the world-ego and its way of seeing that we can meet Life again in our true nature and – in what it tells us to do and not to do, in its exhortations and instructions – experience “ourselves” simultaneously as our own master and our own everlasting student. 71
When we call the master we are calling for someone to lead us on the Way. What kind of way? The Way that opens the door to the mystery, the Way of initiation. The mystery is Life and Being hidden in our lives and existence. 72
People advancing on the Way are not only increasingly conscious, in spite of all their imperfections, of their deepening links with the divine; they are also increasingly marked by the divine, and for it. For this very reason, they are increasingly, painfully conscious of everything that is still “none-divine” in themselves, so that their humility grows as they progress. 72
No one can receive the gifts of the Absolute without utterly surrendering everything that is worldly in him. There is nothing unnatural about trying to conceal our shortcomings from others, but we cannot achieve true selfhood until we let them see us as we are. Having the courage to go naked is a part of the Way. 73
The Way of initiation means changing utterly, undergoing a mighty “conversion,” and committing ourselves irrevocably to service of the Absolute. It means sacrificing everything that prevents us from serving the Absolute and unconditionally accepting everything that helps us to do so. It is a life-and-death matter. It means obeying the master, who embodies Life and so has sole and absolute authority over his students. Submission to his authority is an expression of the freedom that comes of being totally, limitlessly connected with Being – a freedom that increases day by day as the bond becomes closer.
There are three stages in human development, and the Way of initiation begins with the transition to the third. 74
At the third stage, the only things that count are “true nature” and the individual’s transformation as he gradually achieves unity with divine Being embodied in his true nature. His first contact with it comes when the Absolute erupts commandingly into consciousness. He now senses otherworldly Life, not merely as the right to life or the duty of serving the world, but also as a promise and summons, telling him to seek union with the divine and to serve it. 75
There are two developmental stages on the Way of initiation. At the first, a repeated letting go of the old and letting in of the new gradually brings us into a state where we become permeable to our own true nature and its inbuilt law of change. Nothing can be pure enough to manifest Being unless it is permeable in this sense. This stage is the way to the Way. At the second stage, we become a perfect medium, achieve permeable form and formed permeability – and ourselves become the Way.
As initiation, the Ways is the process in which Life, having once been missed, now takes on form in a preordained sequence of steps and stages, and finally breaks through. Before this can happen, a special experience must have shown us our true nature and destiny, and we must ourselves be willing to sacrifice everything to fulfill the destiny it has revealed. 75
On the Way, the eternal alternation of Yin and Yang becomes conscious and is willed, as we learn to leave all the old forms behind and to let new ones in. The Way is long and hard until the shifting balance of Yin and Yang generates the polar rhythm in which Tao can live itself out unchecked. 76
The way to the Way begins at a threshold that can only be crossed by leaping to another level. We reach that threshold when carrying on in the same old direction or continuing to live in the same old way would mean the end – stasis, paralysis, or all-consuming apathy and sloth. We reach it when the nearness of death makes true nature rebel – when we have come to a dead end and must take the leap that carries us pass it. 76
The third stage comes only when our vision of reality transcends objective consciousness and we become able to devote, not only our self-willed individuality, but also our selfless, idealistic worldly instincts, to the service of Being, which is coming to awareness in us and perpetually remaking us. At this point Being itself becomes the center and source of meaning and we are on the way to our true self. From now on, anything we do to serve the world is also an opportunity to help the One reveal itself.
As long as we have not ourselves been seized by Being we seek fulfillment in valid worldly form, creating a series of more or less perfect structures that seem to give logical, aesthetic, and ethical principles a durable form. At this stage, we find happiness, meaning, and security in these structures, in the midst of the suffering and vicissitudes of our everyday existence. But our very talent for “objectivity” and our belief that we can always turn transience into permanence are the source of a danger – the danger of standing still ourselves. 77,8
The Way of initiation starts with a wholly new vision of life – a Copernican revelation – when Being experienced shows us that we and our world are not the center of the universe but are rotating around another center and must now do so consciously. But this realization does not mark the start of the Way unless it comes as a shattering experience, is instantly sensed as practical obligation and evident meaning, and is accepted in a spirit of selfless commitment as the vital center of existence. 78
The real center, on which everything turns, to which everything must be related, and in which everything originates, has been described in various ways, but it cannot truly be named. It is always experienced, however, as a “you” – as personified challenges, salvation, yardstick, compass, and sharping principle. Whether we call it God, Life, divine Being, Buddha, Christ, or Holy Spirit; whether names like these give it a definite place in a definite theology; whether or not it has taken on human contours in traditional stories and images – as the center of the Way it lies beyond words, stories, and images, and works through direct, wordless, pictureless experience as the ultimate source of strength, meaning, and security. 79.80
We long for his call from the depths of our true nature. Our call is, however, the master’s call, which is registered first in our longing and then in our will. His call is the call of our own true nature. 80
There are two methods we can use to master these evil forces and make them contribute to our transformation on the Way. One is the psychological method: this involves identifying the roots of repression and allowing its energy to express itself in liberating, helpful ways. The other is “asceticism”; this means relating to God in a total sense and sacrificing our own harmful urges and demands with true humility. This sacrifice is genuine only when the ego itself is unconditionally sacrificed. This is the kind of action that effects total change – an action that is freely performed for God’s sake and that wins new life by accepting death. 81
The Way of initiation is not a straight line but a spiral – a spiral of centripetal and centrifugal forces. It involves movement from the periphery to the center, and from the center to the periphery. It leads from the periphery to the center, from infinite distance to the innermost heart, and then back to the periphery. 81
The leap into the other dimension involves letting go, giving up, and often destroying the things that bind us to the world, and doing this lets us live from a new strength, in a new meaning-system, and in a new love. Worldly love ties us down, fuses us with the love object, and makes us incapable of letting it go. Absolute love is the unity and union experienced in true nature, and freedom experienced within the contingent – an experience in which nothing is clung to.
Superficially, someone who is on the way to the Way may retain his old ties. Basically, however, he is free of them. They no longer serve as yardstick or signpost, and he gives them up instantly when they come between him and the Way.
Ultimately, the Way that concerns us here is not a way we travel but a way that travels us. We do not enter the Way – one day, the Way enters us and takes over. 82
The only effort needed on the Way is that of resisting any temptation to try to determine the direction ourselves – even with paradise as our destination. If we see the Way in our own terms and make a conscious attempt to maintain the right heading, then we have already lost it. All we have to do as we approach it is to stay vigilant, listen, obey, and hold the ego – even the well-meaning, “salvation-seeking” ego – firmly in check whenever it tries to interfere.
The Way that travels us is the everlasting master as way. He is the real Self within us, the Whole that was there from the start. ….. When we call the master, we are really echoing the eternal master’s everlasting summons to us – indeed, it is only when we have heard him that we call him. 83
The freedom we have is the freedom to say yes or no to the options in front of us: to the movement of Life that pushes us on to further change or to the movement of the ego that seeks security and stasis. 83
When we have entered on the way to the Way and are determined to serve Life in the everyday, then the everyday can itself become our master on the inner way. Once we know how to listen for it, we hear the inner master’s voice everywhere: for example, in the way we use our body, perform daily actions, confront ups and down of life, react to our own highs and lows, and resist or give in to the lures and temptations of the world. 91
Once we have woken to the Way we are always aware that our real task is preparing to become perfect mediums, and the voice of conscience, in which the master speaks to us, is never silent. For the true students, everything that happens in daily life is a test. 91
When you are really on the way to the Way, any pause, any straying from the path, immediately wakes the master’s warning voice. But we also hear his approval when we “are there” in the right way, and hear him encouraging us and urging us on whenever a new approach to the Way presents itself and we have doubts about taking it or are afraid to do so. And when our way of “being there” is really the right one, we sense it deep inside in a vital, bright approving stillness – a stillness beyond “psychic movement” and beyond the world’s calm or commotion. 92
Really to wake to the Way is to reach a rare and lofty stage of human development. People today, for whom “right living” is summed up in three things – success, productivity, and good behavior – are light-years- away from it. But the clearer-sighted among them are no longer really happy with all this, and indeed feel the painful pressure of all the genuinely important things that the world forces them to forget. This is way it is vital to try to wake the conscience from which wholeness and true nature speak. An intellectual grasp of the sublime insights and maxims that guide us toward full selfhood, toward becoming all-round human beings, is not enough. They must be physically real, and we must be able to tell whether we are succeeding or failing on the path to mediumship from our bodily condition, posture, breathing, tension and relaxation, and even the most trivial everyday events and the specific job we do. It is precisely into those areas that the “spiritual” person finds most alien and least interesting – the body, the most ordinary everyday actions, and even the “lower levels” of sport and physical exercise – that the initiatory effort must reach.
Once we have woken to the Way we feel the inner master’s eyes fixed on us all the time. The all-seeing eye of God in no longer believed in, but is experienced personally, and everything becomes, as an Eastern saying has it, “the best of opportunities” for further progress on the inner Way. And yet, differences in character, maturity, and background mean that we all individually have areas in which we are particularly likely to catch the master’s voice, or particularly inclined not to hear it. But there are three areas in which everyone who wakes to the Way hears the master’s voice: in encountering his or her own body, in searching for the center, and in facing up to death. 93
The only answer is initiation therapy, which aims at transformation and maturity, a therapy in which doctor and patient must both listen for the inner master’s voice in the body. 96
Keeping this body “healthy” thus depends on an initiatory healing art that has nothing to do with pragmatic therapy. 97
This is why initiation therapy is always concerned with the bodily manifestation of true nature as well. The key to obeying this law is, however, a state of mind and being whose main feature is transparency.
Transparency means “permeability.” It allows us to admit Being to consciousness in such a way that we can then witness to it physically in our everyday existence. 98
Our bodily form is “right” when it allows Being to show through from our true nature, and when we ourselves are “fit” in a way that enables us to witness externally to its fullness and unity, internally present in that true nature. 98,9
When the body is seen not as something that people have but as something that they are – as the sum total of the gestures in which they live themselves out, that is, express and realize themselves in a visible, external form – then this form must also point to what they really are. The implication here is twofold – it must show what the world has made them and must also show what they are in their true nature! Form in this sense also shows how and how far their bodily being connects with their true nature. In this “personal” view of the body, character is not a particular bundle of characteristics but the relationship between two types of form – the form imprinted by the world and the form intended by true nature! 99
As soon as we start looking through the outer and visible to the inner and invisible and trying to see how form and meaning relate, most of the old body/soul dichotomy vanishes. The soul then becomes the body’s meaning, and the body the expression of the soul. 99
There are also two elements in the “inner” and “outer.” self: what he has actually become in response to the world around him, and what he really, absolutely, is and should be from his true nature. Seeing a person in his body (seeing him fully and correctly as a body) is thus seeing him in terms of the worldly body/true form relationship and registering the extent to which his physical form reflects his “true nature.” 100
However, Being can manifest itself in a person only in that person’s predestined form, and people can validly find their way to Being only by realizing the form implicit in their own true nature.
As it shifts its sights from repairing performance to fostering emergence of the true self, that is, to fusing true nature and world-ego in the sign and service of the Absolute, therapy becomes initiation therapy, and the therapist becomes a guru. 100
But the eye and ear needed to perceive true nature in oneself and others and to read discordances with true nature in the body’s language are the privilege of the therapist who is already on the Way. And this is also the kind of therapist who leads patients to see themselves in terms of their true nature. 101
The body’s natural language is a treasure still largely undiscovered, and discovering it – that is, systematically bringing it to consciousness and building on it- is of great potential significance for diagnosis and, later, personal therapy. Considering how important body language is in practice, amazingly little attention is paid to the study and interpretation of movement, expression, and gesture in conventional therapy and therapeutic training. As soon as a therapist becomes a guru, however, he or she also develops another vision of the body, and with it a knowledge of the symptoms and signatures that point to person’s true nature. 102
Just as the whole body expresses the whole person in the body’s language, so every part of the body expresses the person in the language of that part. this is why it is not absurd, for example, to speak of a science of the hand, which goes beyond experimental observation and statistical notation of certain signs and characteristics to show what they mean and why they mean it.
So far, therapy has largely ignored the language of the hand. And yet a glance at the hand can immediately tell us certain basic things about other people: whether they are naturally loving or self-centered; whether they are naturally reserved or enterprising in their dealing important in person therapy, which focuses on their true nature – they possess the primal, extrasensory sensitivity that allows them to perceive the numinous. The hand also shows whether people are primarily elemental, spiritual, or intellectual; their way of experiencing and witnessing to the Absolute will vary with these factors. 103
Graphology is one form of therapy that involves the body. Every therapist’s training should cover the basics of graphology, not merely as a diagnostic instrument but also because of its usefulness in both initiation and pragmatic therapy. 103
It[hand writing] also says something about the way in which their world-ego and true nature relate, and thus about the stage they have reached in openness to Being and readiness for the Way. When their handwriting shows them this, their inner master is also speaking to them from it.
Graphotherapy’s purpose is not to improve people’s handwriting but to open their eyes to the underlying attitudes expressed in particular handwriting styles and ways of forming characters. 104
People who are “on the Way” may find graphology particularly useful in opening up new fields for self-knowledge and development, for their handwriting can tell them how far the person they really are and should be has emerged or is blocked by the ego. In this case the inner master speaks to them from their own handwriting. 104
Movement therapy is the most helpful way of harnessing the knowledge and practice of expressive movement. 105
In initiation therapy, dance can play a special part in helping us to achieve self-awareness and fulfill ourselves from our true nature – particularly when it comes to finding our very own, personal rhythm. 105
When we are on the Way, we hear the master’s warning voice not only when our way of moving is out of step with our own rhythm, but also when our way of living is off. 106
The more clearly a therapist sees the bodily form of his patient’s persona, the more sharply he senses the shadow behind every communal mask and the more acutely he perceives, behind façade and shadow, the blocked inner form that must ultimately be revealed in a specific outer form. 108
Just as the body “types” a person, it also shows whether he or she belongs on the natural, spiritual, or intellectual level. Therapists must “see” who they are dealing with. Each of the levels has its own health, its own potential beauty, and its own potential way of meditating the Absolute. With every step taken on the path to “infusion with the spirit,” the body changes materiality, refining away from its initial coarseness and ultimately becoming a kind of ethereal pointer to another dimension that appears in, shines through, or radiates from it. 111
To do this, they must first be aware of their own nature and level. This is essential if they are to see and treat them – even if the treatment is wordless – in a manner appropriate to the level that they “see” in them, and not assign their patients to the wrong form or drive them onto a level beyond their reach or keep them on a level they should leave behind.
By wordless treatment we mean that the therapist wakes the inner master and allows him to start working in the patients. This is not just something that therapists should do, but something we all should do whenever we find ourselves in full, responsible contact with another human being. We can only do it, however, if we are ourselves students of the everlasting master and if the inner master is at work in us. Then we, too, can functions as masters. 111,2
Personal mediumship means being present from Being and for it. We are persons in the full sense only when Being sounds through us without realizing it and when our own way of “being there” reflects an inwardness consciously rooted in true nature. 112
Personal form in this sense is determined by overall posture, breathing, and the inner balance of tensions( the inner relationship between tension and relaxation). 113
The rightness or wrongness of posture, breathing, and tension depends on the extent to which they match our own basic law and help or hinder us on the path to mediumship. the world-ego’s dominance is the main cause of their being wrong. That ego’s self-assertion is admittedly a part of being human, but as soon as it tries to take over it prevents us from maturing out of our true nature. Its dominance is reflected in incorrect posture, shallow breathing, and an alternate tightening up and letting go that replaces the right balance of tension and relaxation.
Practicing toward the right state of mind and body primarily means trying to anchor oneself in the right center, to achieve the right center of gravity. This is located in the pelvis/stomach region. In “personal” terms, these are not simply parts of the body but denote the maternal region of change, the “spiritual soil” that absorbs fixed forms and melts them down and makes them over, releasing them into new forms and linking us with the forces of the cosmos as it does so. To reach this center is thus to escape the ego’s tightening carapace and to be liberated into a new form that grows out of true nature. This is why the “vital center,” which the Japanese term Hara, is universally important. 113
Three things can stop us from achieving the “right” form) a form that accords with our true nature) and finding salvation: going rigid, letting go, and giving up. …. Each of these kinds of resistance indicates that we are lost in the world-ego and out of touch with our true nature. All three aberrations are reflected in certain ingrained gestures. And so working on the right center means practicing gestures that both express and generate confidence in the Absolute, a sense of the need to achieve the form dictated by our true nature, and a renewed affirmation of Life. 114
The right center exemplified here denotes an attitude in which the whole person is at one with himself and the world, controls the situation in a very special way, and is totally, freely present as “himself.” The example of the rider shows that “being in one’s center” is a personal matter and has nothing to do with the body/soul antithesis – it is a person’s mode of being in the world. The more we explore this special mode of being, the clearer it becomes that we are really centered only when we live from something that transcends the everyday but in which we share in our true nature. 115,6
The nature of a peron’s self-consciousness and the extent to which it is absolute or conditional show whether, and how far, he not only feels but is in his center. Self-consciousness again reflects the threefold unity of Being: it can mean consciousness of our own strength, consciousness of our own value, or consciousness of our links with other.
Consciousness of our own strength is the certainty that we are ultimately invincible. It is the feeling that we can face and overcome any danger – that somehow we will cope and win through. It is the firm belief that we have the strength to make up for any hurt, damage, or loss – however great - and to renew ourselves and put things right again. Once we have this sense of our own strength, every danger gives us an opportunity to test it – and is welcomed, rather than feared. Indeed, this bedrock conviction of our own strength is the very foundation of a life without fear.
Consciousness of our own value is the certainty that the world makes sense, that our own position in it is a meaningful part of a meaningful whole, and that our own value and the validity of our own existence are thus beyond doubt. Our faith is utter and positive, and despair cannot touch us.
Consciousness of our links with others is the certainty that we are safe in life’s community, that we “belong.” We never feel excluded, but are sure that we are loved – and sure that the love we feel for others is accepted and returned. It is the feeling that life is, by definition, a matter of living with others, and that this pattern has proved its worth universally. It gives us a radiant sense of being at one with ourselves and with the world around us. 124
We feel centered when our self-consciousness is, in these three respects, intact. Similarly, we feel alienated from our center when this is not the case. But to decide if we really are centered, we must take a closer look, always remembering that threefold self-consciousness can be present or absent on very different levels. In fact, there are at least three such levels: the first is naïve self-consciousness; the second is the self-consciousness generated by the worldly ego as long as it remains within its own horizons and relies on its own abilities; the third is the self-consciousness that comes when the self experiences Being and successfully fuses world-ego and true nature. Putting it another way: the first is the child’s naïve, unfragmented self-consciousness; the second is the self-consciousness of ego/personality, and derives from the strength, talents, and skills needed to play a particular part in the world; the third is the self-consciousness that dawns when a human being becomes a window for the Absolute and thus, in the fullest sense, a person. 124,5
True nature has not yet been obstructed by world-ego. The child’s life-consciousness survives intact until something unexpected flaws the primal bond or something terrible serves it entirely. 125
The more clearly a therapist sees the bodily form of his patient’s persona, the more sharply he senses the shadow behind every communal mask and the more acutely he perceives, behind façade and shadow, the blocked inner form that must ultimately be revealed in a specific outer form. 108
Just as the body “types” a person, it also shows whether he or she belongs on the natural, spiritual, or intellectual level. Therapists must “see” who they are dealing with. Each of the levels has its own health, its own potential beauty, and its own potential way of meditating the Absolute. With every step taken on the path to “infusion with the spirit,” the body changes materiality, refining away from its initial coarseness and ultimately becoming a kind of ethereal pointer to another dimension that appears in, shines through, or radiates from it. 111
To do this, they must first be aware of their own nature and level. This is essential if they are to see and treat them – even if the treatment is wordless – in a manner appropriate to the level that they “see” in them, and not assign their patients to the wrong form or drive them onto a level beyond their reach or keep them on a level they should leave behind.
By wordless treatment we mean that the therapist wakes the inner master and allows him to start working in the patients. This is not just something that therapists should do, but something we all should do whenever we find ourselves in full, responsible contact with another human being. We can only do it, however, if we are ourselves students of the everlasting master and if the inner master is at work in us. Then we, too, can functions as masters. 111,2
Personal mediumship means being present from Being and for it. We are persons in the full sense only when Being sounds through us without realizing it and when our own way of “being there” reflects an inwardness consciously rooted in true nature. 112
Personal form in this sense is determined by overall posture, breathing, and the inner balance of tensions( the inner relationship between tension and relaxation). 113
The rightness or wrongness of posture, breathing, and tension depends on the extent to which they match our own basic law and help or hinder us on the path to mediumship. the world-ego’s dominance is the main cause of their being wrong. That ego’s self-assertion is admittedly a part of being human, but as soon as it tries to take over it prevents us from maturing out of our true nature. Its dominance is reflected in incorrect posture, shallow breathing, and an alternate tightening up and letting go that replaces the right balance of tension and relaxation.
Practicing toward the right state of mind and body primarily means trying to anchor oneself in the right center, to achieve the right center of gravity. This is located in the pelvis/stomach region. In “personal” terms, these are not simply parts of the body but denote the maternal region of change, the “spiritual soil” that absorbs fixed forms and melts them down and makes them over, releasing them into new forms and linking us with the forces of the cosmos as it does so. To reach this center is thus to escape the ego’s tightening carapace and to be liberated into a new form that grows out of true nature. This is why the “vital center,” which the Japanese term Hara, is universally important. 113
Three things can stop us from achieving the “right” form) a form that accords with our true nature) and finding salvation: going rigid, letting go, and giving up. …. Each of these kinds of resistance indicates that we are lost in the world-ego and out of touch with our true nature. All three aberrations are reflected in certain ingrained gestures. And so working on the right center means practicing gestures that both express and generate confidence in the Absolute, a sense of the need to achieve the form dictated by our true nature, and a renewed affirmation of Life. 114
The right center exemplified here denotes an attitude in which the whole person is at one with himself and the world, controls the situation in a very special way, and is totally, freely present as “himself.” The example of the rider shows that “being in one’s center” is a personal matter and has nothing to do with the body/soul antithesis – it is a person’s mode of being in the world. The more we explore this special mode of being, the clearer it becomes that we are really centered only when we live from something that transcends the everyday but in which we share in our true nature. 115,6
The nature of a peron’s self-consciousness and the extent to which it is absolute or conditional show whether, and how far, he not only feels but is in his center. Self-consciousness again reflects the threefold unity of Being: it can mean consciousness of our own strength, consciousness of our own value, or consciousness of our links with other.
Consciousness of our own strength is the certainty that we are ultimately invincible. It is the feeling that we can face and overcome any danger – that somehow we will cope and win through. It is the firm belief that we have the strength to make up for any hurt, damage, or loss – however great - and to renew ourselves and put things right again. Once we have this sense of our own strength, every danger gives us an opportunity to test it – and is welcomed, rather than feared. Indeed, this bedrock conviction of our own strength is the very foundation of a life without fear.
Consciousness of our own value is the certainty that the world makes sense, that our own position in it is a meaningful part of a meaningful whole, and that our own value and the validity of our own existence are thus beyond doubt. Our faith is utter and positive, and despair cannot touch us.
Consciousness of our links with others is the certainty that we are safe in life’s community, that we “belong.” We never feel excluded, but are sure that we are loved – and sure that the love we feel for others is accepted and returned. It is the feeling that life is, by definition, a matter of living with others, and that this pattern has proved its worth universally. It gives us a radiant sense of being at one with ourselves and with the world around us. 124
We feel centered when our self-consciousness is, in these three respects, intact. Similarly, we feel alienated from our center when this is not the case. But to decide if we really are centered, we must take a closer look, always remembering that threefold self-consciousness can be present or absent on very different levels. In fact, there are at least three such levels: the first is naïve self-consciousness; the second is the self-consciousness generated by the worldly ego as long as it remains within its own horizons and relies on its own abilities; the third is the self-consciousness that comes when the self experiences Being and successfully fuses world-ego and true nature. Putting it another way: the first is the child’s naïve, unfragmented self-consciousness; the second is the self-consciousness of ego/personality, and derives from the strength, talents, and skills needed to play a particular part in the world; the third is the self-consciousness that dawns when a human being becomes a window for the Absolute and thus, in the fullest sense, a person. 124,5
True nature has not yet been obstructed by world-ego. The child’s life-consciousness survives intact until something unexpected flaws the primal bond or something terrible serves it entirely. 125
At the world-ego stage, consciousness of our own strength depends on what we have, know, or can do. …. The vital factors here may be health, money, position, superior knowledge and ability, or reliance on the people we live with. Feeling safe in this sense always means overcoming the dangerous and conditional elements in life. Coping is a question of having the right abilities or knowing the right people. If we have, or think we have, these abilities and connections, we feel safe. And this confidence allows us to feel – if only temporarily – that we are together and can now live from our center. …. Admittedly once these conditions seem fulfilled we temporarily feel centered – but this still does not mean that we really are centered. 127
The world we live in must in some way be “in tune,” or at least not as odds, with our notions of justice and meaning. Here, too, our consciousness of our own value depends on being understood, acknowledged, and valued by the world. As soon as one of these conditions is lacking, uncertainty sets in, doubt undermines our sense of our own value, and we try to hold of feelings of inferiority by making an impression on others. In this situation our natural balance and serenity have been lost. We no longer rest within ourselves, we no longer feel centered, our self-consciousness has been disturbed. Once we turn into worldly “personalities” and sever our primal links with Being, any sense that our qualities are not being acknowledged, that we are not getting our due, disables us. We lose faith in meaning and justice, and this makes us lose touch with our center. In other words, we have a temporary feeling of being centered only when the world sees, values, and treats us in the way we deserve. The world being what it is, however, this kind of consciousness of our own value stands on shaky ground, and so we may well ask: are we ever really centered while our sense of ourselves and our belief in life depend on being acknowledged and grasping the meaning of everything? 127,8
As long as we remain the world-ego’s prisoners, our consciousness of belonging to a community depends on the actual presence of another person or a sheltering group. Here, too – as in the case of consciousness of our own strength and consciousness of our own value – there is, of course, a naïve self-consciousness that nothing can shake or discourage. 128
But once the primal contact with Being has been lost, we no longer have this automatic sense of community. When we are alone, bereaved, or suddenly expelled from “our” community, life becomes impossible. Robbed of our center, we wander in a void, as if we had lost our own self. Conversely, when we have a warm and loving family, are happily married, or form part of a group in which trust, acceptance, and love are the norms – in other words, when “belonging” seems a fact of our existence – we feel that we can really be ourselves. …. And surrounded by the people who mean most to us, we feel that we have also reached our own center. But are we really centered? No, because the center we have reached is still conditional, still dependent on circumstances. Our true center must be unconditional, must show that we are anchored in the Absolute. 128
We can also experience a deeper self-consciousness – self-consciousness from our true nature. Paradoxically, this affirms itself at the very point where everything that self-consciousness needs at the world-ego stage is missing or has been destroyed. It reveals itself chiefly in the three “Great Experiences” of Being, at the very moment when the normal foundations of life collapse beneath us. These are the experiences that bring us the sense of new life as death draws ineluctably nearer, of hidden meaning in the world’s absurdity, and of deeper security in the midst of solitude – all of them lying beyond the world as we know it. There are the moments when Being enters inner consciousness – and this is why, when terror seems natural, we are filled with supernatural confidence; why, when the world’s absurdity should drive us to despair, a new belief is born; and why, when ultimate loneliness should make life unbearable, we suddenly have an inexplicable sense of being sheltered and cherished. …. Quite simply, the wisdom that dares to accept annihilation and to sacrifice the security, meaning, and fellowship demanded by the world-ego. When this happens, the ego collapses at the limits of its strength and wisdom, and true nature is revealed! 129
There is way of standing in otherworldly strength in the midst of weakness, experiencing otherworldly clarity in the midst of the world’s darkness, and sensing the sheltering presence of and incomprehensible love in the midst of the world’s indifference. It is only when something like this “enters our heart” that we touch our real center. In other words, this center is nothing more or less than true nature, faithfully affirming itself in here-and-now contingency – true nature in which timeless, absolute Being is present within us. Once special experiences like this have shown us the truth of Being in existence, then the center we have reached – at first hidden from us – can become the conscious center of everything we do. And, once the Way has taught us to hear the inner master’s voice, any straying from that center can wake it. It is only at this point that everything in us can start to revolve, consciously, responsibly, and freely, around the unconscious center and purpose of all life – manifestation of Being in the world. 129. 130
If it is true that the state of being genuinely centered is a state that allows transcendent Being to manifest itself progressively in consciousness, then the way to this state in the Way of initiation and individuation. It begins when a person experiences Being. 131
The threshold to this way is “conversion” – a radical change of direction. From that point on, Being – or, rather, its ability to infiltrate our consciousness and turn us, step by step, into a personal medium for manifestation of itself – becomes the only thing that really counts. …. Conversion is effected in three ways: experience, insight, and practice. 132
Experiencing Being and being transformed from it are two different things. Experience is not enough – insight and practice must follow if contact with Being and experience of it are to re-make a person. Being shown the light is one thing – seeing it is another. 134
There is, however, a second barrier, beyond static ego-world consciousness, that prevents our true nature from revealing itself and thus seals off our true center – the shadow. 135
Our task is to prepare the ground in which the seed of Being can flower in what we experience, and ultimately in what we are, without being instantly chocked by covert mechanism, undisciplined desires, precocious longings, and illicit attempts to seize the supreme good without the necessary maturity. It is no easy undertaking. 135
Transformation is a complex process, and people who are being transformed must experience, suffer, and live the great forces that confront each other in them – light and darkness, male and female, rich and poor, height and depth, life and death – both as relatively separate and as antithetical principles, before the opposites coincide in the real experience of change and are resolved in the experience of light beyond light and darkness. 136
But becoming centered in this way is by no means the end of suffering. On the contrary: it is only when we open up, let the other dimension in, see it as the indestructible root of our own being, recognize that we have a duty to it, and accept the duty utterly, that we can accept suffering. Indeed, one of the signs that we have reached our center is that we can suffer, not that we stop suffering! To overcome suffering in our true nature means being able to be suffering. This victory over suffering first tempers the form that witnesses reliably to Being in the world. Anyone who has really tasted Being naturally feels the urge to lose himself in its redeeming presence and turn his back on the world. But failing to hazard the brightness of contact with Being in repeated confrontation with the dark forces of life is surest way of losing it. Risking everything is the only way of attaining the form that allows us to maintain contact with our true nature consciously, responsibly, and freely, and so remain centered – not temporarily but permanently. 137
Also vital in preparing for the revelation of Being in existence and thus for the state of being centered is practice. ….. This always includes a disciplined effort to make the body right. 137
Discovering our “vital center” ( or earth-center), which is physically located in abdomen and pelvis, is decisive on the way to becoming a medium. It constitutes the first step on the way from world-ego to person.
Generally speaking, we are not on the way to mediumship, and thus our own center, until we have experienced, recognized, and begun to practice resting calmly in the body’s center as the precondition of the right relaxed state and the right form. Admittedly, Westerners are at first surprised, if not shocked, when they hear that the belly( or, more accurately, the abdomen and pelvis) is the first center they must establish and maintain to make the body, too, a medium for Being. 140
But we can “have Hara” and “be in Hara” and still not be centered. Hara is still not the personal center. Reaching the earth-center is not enough – we must also connect firmly with the heaven-center.
The heaven-center is on a different plane. Reaching it means contacting the forces of the spirit. The earth-center must be kept open, however, if a person is to receive the seed of the spirit(Logos) without confining it in logical systems and thus distorting it.
In body symbolism. the earth-center is located in the abdominal and pelvic region, the natural matrix that links us with the forces of the cosmos, while the heaven-center is located higher up – not actually in the head, but around the head and also in the chest-neck-head complex and its aura. 141,2
Basically, the heaven-center is Being, which space/time contingency does not and cannot touch – in other words, the source of those experiences of Being in which we encounter the Absolute beyond space and time, Life beyond the reach of death, meaning purged of all unmeaning, and love transcending all the world’s indifference.
When we experience his heaven-center in ourselves and remain in it, we leave the world behind. When we are in this state, and totally filled with our true nature, we may briefly feel centered in it. But because we are human and inescapably linked to the body, as we are to space and time, we are not truly centered as long as we rest in true nature alone – although the moments when true nature totally fills and sustains us give us a foretaste of what being truly centered means.
Only when heaven and earth are reconciled and fused do we reach our true center. This center – again in terms of body symbolism – is the heart. 142
This means that sharing in the earthly( cosmic) and heavenly( spiritual) powers that transcend the world-ego is still not enough to make a human being a person. On the contrary, sharing in these forces is not personal – either in the ordinary sense or in the special sense that concerns us here. The forces of the earth are pre-personal, those of the spirit supra-personal. 143
Every true teacher, doctor, therapist, and indeed, pastor, knows that his relationship with pupil, patients, or seeker-after-help changes dramatically when he is suddenly driven to open himself entirely, step though his official function, and confront the other as the person he really, totally is. The dangers are many, but he knows deep down that he is now getting through as person to person for the first time. Of course, this is really beneficial only when the giver and guide has himself reached his personal center. The breakthrough to genuine personal commitment is easily missed if the giver has, as it were, shed his self in allying himself with the cosmic or the spiritual forces. He lives, loves, creates, and operates from his earth-center or his heaven-center, but still not from the center of his personal “being-in-the-world.” What he does may be useful, but he does it prepersonally, like many healers, or non-personally, like many priests. “The human being seen as a whole, that is, in the round, is not just a link between earth and heaven, between nature and spirit, and both himself by turns – but the fusion of the two in an enlightened consciousness.”
“The person is the central connecting link that the human structure needs, and without which it would be something merely thought, and not real. ….. In body symbolism, the numinous person is located at the point where spirit and body, upper and lower, intersect.”
And so the personal center is not what Hara embodies, or the upper realm represents, but the heart! This is not the hear as seat of the positive and negative emotions that bind us to the world – but the heart that opens only when we have left everything behind at the ego stage, have plumbed the earth, scaled the heavens, and finally discovered the point that connects them both in ourselves. This is the great heart, the heart venerated by Christian iconography as the heart of Jesus – it is no mere chance that Christian iconography places it at the center of the body, close to the solar plexus. This is the heart we mean when we speak of the heart as our personal center. 143,4
The heaven/earth antithesis is actively implanted within us as the Yang and Yin rhythm – the eternally creative process in which Life goes out of itself, loses and fulfills itself in individual forms, and returns redemptively home to the great All-One. 145
When we look into the eyes of someone who is really on the way to wholeness, however, what we see is not merely world-ego contending with its own destiny, or true nature concealed behind that ego and beyond the reach of fate, but a personal ego – an ego located at the intersection of the timeless verticals and time-bound horizontals, at the center of that tension, compounded of longing, promise, and suffering that characterizes the everlasting struggle to bring heaven and earth, true nature and world-ego, absolute Being and contingent existence together in the right way. It is only in this tension’s energy field that a person’s true center is formed, and only in that center that he or she reaches wholeness. It is only from that center that the heart of the center opens – the heart whose love is neither the vital but impersonal warmth of the cosmos, nor the bloodless, intellectual love of a “heaven-center” that either knows nothing of the earth or rejects it. The personal center in the true sense opens only when heaven and earth are united. It is revelation of the Absolute in the contingent – strength in weakness, sense in absurdity, love in world’s cruelty – that brings us to our true center, where we are conscious of being united, in the world, with something beyond it. 145,6
Ultimately, this means that being personally centered is not a matter of finally reaching a fixed point but of faithfully and calmly accepting the situation symbolized by the cross, and cooperating uncomplaining with an everlasting to-and-fro movement in which we live and work from the world to the center and back again. In this movement, absolute spirit repeatedly takes on here-and-now form, “losing itself” in multifarious contingency, which must then become transparent so that heaven’s light can shine purely from it. And so it is only when living out this conflict of intersecting forces( the cross ) becomes the determining factor that a human being is really there, as a person, at his or her center. This center is thus the Absolute, driving on toward self-manifestation in the individual, but revealing itself in the human world only in the form of the cross.
When individual people find this center – become, in other words, windows for the Absolute – their experience acquires a special radiance; they themselves emit a special light, and everything they do, everyone they meet, also becomes a window for the Absolute. For, with a kind of gentle force, they center everything and everyone on their path. 146
When we experience ourselves absolutely in our true nature as Being’s special mode, we do so in contingency, not in spite of it. And it is precisely by affirming our own contingency that we may be given the grace to sense universal true nature in our individual true nature, to experience ourselves united in faith with the source of all form, with Christ as “Word.” 146,7
Because we are anchored in the world, we are never completely united with our true nature, and our only experience of union with it comes in the form of a vital encounter. In this encounter, and provided that we experience ourselves personally at the agonizing point where heaven and earth intersect, Christ appears to us, not as a principle, but as a divine You.
The inner eye of personhood does not open until we experience ourselves in relation to the cross, the point of intersection. And we are not personally centered until the eye that is spiritually, essentially, “for the sun” has opened – the eye we may term the Christ-eye, in which the person who sees becomes one with the person who sees him or her. Strictly speaking, this eye is no longer the normal human eye, and the center it shows us is no longer the center of an “external” life lived entirely from the ego, or an “internal” life lived completely from true nature – but the center of the life we live as the person we remain when world-ego and true nature are fused, at the point where “inner” and “outer” meet and intersect. In experiencing ourselves as focused on the point of intersection(the cross), we might even be said to enter into dialogue with Christ. The personal, divine “You” reveals itself in us as humanity’s innermost ground. In experiencing ourselves to the end, we experience personal dialogue with God, and thus with our divine partner, who is our real inner master, repeatedly drives us back to this experience.
We can thus say that a person is centered when he or she is in Christ. 147
The way of initiation is not meant for everyone. But some people are meant to experience Being in the way possible for them, to learn from those experiences, and, as an ongoing process of individuation pushes back the natural limits of consciousness, to become consciously what they are fundamentally – children of heaven and earth – and witness to it. Even for people like these, the experience of the Absolute that makes them feel safe and floods their hearts with peace – the ultimate stage that a “simple soul” can reach – can become a threat, can turn negative in the temptation to stand still and thus throw everything away. At the very moment when they believe they have reached their center, they lose it again because they stop moving! But then, if their call is a true one, the master’s voice startles them into realization and throws them onto the roack to further change. 148
Death commands silence, and its stillness at first reduces everything around it to silence. Silently enduring this silence is the only way of coming sufficiently close for it to start speaking. Death speaks only to those who are silent before its mystery and still in its presence. 150
There are three kinds of anguish that can kill: fear of annihilation, despair at life’s absurdity, and utter loneliness. But when death seems unavoidable, new life can suddenly burst from all three: when we are given the grace to do something we could never ordinarily do – to accept the unacceptable. 156
True human progress – the progress that humanizes in the fullest sense – is not a matter of finding new ways of making life safer (that kind of security can actually mark a regression), but of increasing the strength that allows people to win an inner triumph over death. This only comes, however, from deepening experience of a greater Life that has nothing to do with the death died in time. 156,7
Death becomes birth, darkness turns to light, and, by surrendering the present and actual, we make room for the future and possible. This pattern of change is the underlying formula of all true meditation. 158
As prisoners of worldly-ego, we are doomed to forget that our origin is twofold and that we belong to two worlds. As children of earth, we belong to the contingent, limited, here-and-now world – but as children of heaven we also belong to transcendent, absolute, and limitless Being. In the world of the natural ego, everything has a beginning and an end. In the world of true nature, there are no beginnings and no ends, no births and no deaths. Every life in this world has its death. But the great Life within our true nature lies beyond life and death. Waking to the Way means remembering our twofold origin and hearing the promising, challenging voice that summons us to the life-form that unites heaven and earth in a third dimension. 160