wholeness of self

On the path towards spiritual unification where we go on a journey of discovery, our first inclination is to seek the higher self. It is where we are led to believe we will find transcendence from the human condition. We will leave everything which makes us human and fallible behind by seeking enlightenment and a transfiguration into a higher self where we become a spiritual being who is all wise and knowing. We figured it all out and we are at the top of the mountain and that’s where we first tend to explore. When we do that everything else comes along for the ride and it’s very frustrating; so, even though you think you have become this "oh wise one", it’s dishonest and disingenuous to pretend you have left the other parts of you behind. The demons all came up the mountain with you. You can live in ignorance and pretend the desires which make you human are no longer a part of your identity. Within that clue is seen you are still playing the identity game and you’ve basically enlightened your ego. The avatar or character you created now is blessed with a crown and this is with who you subsequently identify. Through this common process you can eventually see that you are never going to transcend the self. The self is always there; it just goes up a story in the house of cards and assumes another up-levelled identity. If you can clearly see the process that has unfolded then unfortunately it puts you back at the drawing board; so, you may be tempted to turn a blind eye towards this realization. You may reach the conclusion that this game was not it and that form of enlightenment was a delusion; so, then you start probing into the shadow or the dark side that you have heard about. For most when you are on this higher spiritual path, you externalize the dark part of yourself and believe it is left behind when you go on the spiritual journey. In truth, the dark side is actually internalized and it’s part of who you are. If you accept this difficult realization, you can turn the tables on the seeking which involved climbing the spiritual mountain.

What I mean by this, is you can take the staircase which leads down into the deepest and darkest regions of self. Here is located all the uncomfortable stuff we leave buried. Do you remember as a kid going down into the basement of your house to temporarily retrieve something and then having all these irrational fears come rushing forth? You couldn't get back up the stairs fast enough! What a peculiar psychological experience which we are all affected by. We are conditioned by our lower self from a young age to not go exploring into the dark and when we do stumble upon that region, our first inclination is to get out as fast as we can because of the irrational fear we are experiencing. In retrospect, what an incredible insight into our psychological makeup; of course we don't realize it at the time and even when I took substances, which allowed me to explore my depths, I didn't make the connection at first. I just followed the conditioned fear and got the hell out of that place and developed strategies to avoid going back. It took brief and repetitive forays into the vast darkness of self before I finally realized that's the destination the plants were pointing me towards. They had previously levelled up my courage and I am an inveterate explorer; so, though it took many years and many ceremonies, as long as I kept at it the subconscious thought must have been "well, eventually he'll get it and set off to explore the deep, dark, and taboo region of self."

It is the most difficult and frightening part of the journey to explore this part of you because the darkness wants to remain obfuscated and doesn’t want to be discovered. The set-up of the game is exquisite. In order to reclaim autonomy over the self, the. exploration of what you deny is the biggest obstacle you have to overcome. When you stop pretending that it is not part of you then you can explore all the things which make you tick. The process takes work because when you go to explore those regions the whole journey gets difficult. You face fear, paranoia, and the difficulty of continuing on the path because it puts up as many roadblocks as possible so that you do not peer into this aspect of self. The exploration of the dark self takes the most courage. If you do choose this path and you can get past all the blocks that are put in your way, eventually, you get to look into the hidden self and understand the darkness which is within all of us. Being honest with the denied part of you allows the process of integration of self and a understanding that within us all is this darkness. Yes, there're some awful parts of it but you’ll also discover that’s where love comes from and it is where passion and desire comes from. All this animates our existence and it makes this game worth playing. The whole life experience is powered by these desires that lay within you; some are dark and are not socially acceptable or culturally sanctioned; but when you bury it you also bury what makes you human and it makes our society this detached, non-loving, robotic, and self-centred existence that we all live out, never getting to the point where you see unity within us all. Love becomes a casualty of failure to integrate the human.

We are always trying to transcend the self, which we project out into this world as ego. When you embark upon a spiritual path, we all want to transcend the ego by finding a method that allows you to face ego death so you can lose the sense of self. Through the process you will find your higher self and like I mentioned, you will also find your lower self. You can ignore the darkness or chalk it up as a bad trip and then continue on in your journey; however, if you do discover the way to unity is to harmonize the upper self and lower self and bring all into the centre, known in some traditions as the axis mundi, then you have found the alchemical secret. At some point, you will come to a realization of the need to reconcile all towards the centre, as you are not going to transcend either side, which is frankly the advanced teachings our civilization has lost. In some methods and traditions, if you get past the glorification of yourself into a higher self, you will reach this point. You will discover the need to harmonize all aspects of self and that’s a huge step because you find fulfillment in being honest and recognizing all parts of who you call self. Everything comes from the centre and the self as this is the place where everything is unified. When we started dividing it up or separating things from the centre that’s when you get the opposites like light and dark, which leads to objectifying everything and makes our world come alive. Eventually, when that idea sinks in you realize that the higher self and lower self are aspects of a complete self. The two polarities of self originally come from the centre; so, in our spiritual journey we have taken the two sides and brought them back to centre but that’s what we always were; in essence a wholeness. We are reconstituting self as opposed to creating or coming to an end of a quest to do a spiritual transformation. We are returning to who we really are and once you understand that is essentially who you are, and you always had those parts, then you can realize you will never transcend them or get on one team and leave the other team behind. That’s the fulfillment of the quest in which the answer has been you all along as you have brought yourself back to centre and found wholeness. Once accomplished, you can take that self and contrast it with the no self. By bringing the higher and lower self back to self, you’ve unified the self and then you can take it one step further where you see you have a self because you have a no self. From the no self you find the elusive unity, for which you always have been searching, and you intellectually understand that in order for there to be a self there has to be its opposite which is no self. That’s the eternal game where you vacillate between becoming a self, recognizing a self, and then returning to the no self. The play of the vibration is the eternal song.