A.H. ALMAAS – FROM HIS WRITINGS
A-
Source – The Void: Inner Spaciousness and Ego Structure:
·
Psychological space or emptiness is a
requirement, a first step toward the unfolding of personal essence.
·
The structuralization of self-image, as well as
other childhood experience, leads to the loss of space as part of our
experience. Along with this loss of space, essence in its various aspects is
lost. Self-image ends up excluding emptiness and the fullness of essence as
possible categories of experience.
·
Inner change must involve a change in
self-image. Otherwise the change is either temporary or it is no change at all,
hidden behind a new form of the old. For example, a person who has a self-image
of being weak will not feel strong or behave in a strong way unless the
self-image of weakness is either changed or eliminated. For this person to
allow strength, some of his psychic boundaries will have to be changed or
dissolved.
·
Thus we see the role of space in inner change: there
is no lasting change without a change of self-image, there is no change in
self-image without a dissolution of self-boundaries, and there is no
dissolution of boundaries without the action of space. Space, or emptiness,
makes possible the ending of the old and the allowing of the new. It is the
room vacated by the old which is needed for the new to manifest. There can be
no change if the old continues. Change is the death of the old and the coming
to life of the new. This is true at all levels of psychological or spiritual
change. Changes in self-image always involve the emptiness – space process: the
small changes are those seen as psychological, the deeper changes are those
seen as spiritual.
·
The unfoldment of essence in individuals possessing
integrated and stable personality structures is a slow process of “peeling”,
done in a balanced and quiet manner. The various self-images are exposed first.
Thru awareness they then become ego-alien. Then the person lets go of them by
understanding their psychodynamics. This leads to emptiness and then to Being.
Now, as our true identity is
Being, if we take ourselves to be a certain image it means we are ignorant
(lack of knowledge or understanding) about our true nature. In fact, much of
the personality consists of wrong ideas and beliefs about what one is, plus the
emotional affects associated with them. This context clouds the clarity of the
mind space, dulling and darkening it, and is seen as “deficient space”. When
this deficient space is actually seen for what it is (a filter of ignorance
composed of images from the past taken to define oneself, accompanied by wrong
beliefs and emotions associated with the images), it transforms into space as
soon as the wrong beliefs and their accompanying emotions are seen and
understood. As the deficient emptiness becomes clearer and more precise, the
deficient emptiness slowly and gradually lights up, lightens up, and becomes
clearer and more spacious.
·
Because of our self-image representations, our
experience of ourselves is not objective – we experience ourselves thru all the
representations of ourselves.
·
If our mind is experiencing things thru
representations, our mind is closed and fixed. When the representations
dissolve, there is literally openness, lightness and emptiness – space – in the
mind.
B- Source: The Pearl Beyond Price: Integration of Personality into
Being: An Object Relations Approach:
·
Understanding that ego is a reflection, or an imitation,
of a true reality [essence/Being] makes it possible to connect to the reality.
One may not need to go the usual spiritual route of abandoning one’s personal
life and the values of that life, but rather one must look deeply into those
values and explore the true reality of which they are approximating. Most
people are not willing to abandon their personal life for a spiritual quest,
not merely because of attachment to ego, but because they sense a truth in the
values and aspirations of personal life. For such people, understanding the
reality underneath ego is a more accessible means of spiritual development than
the traditional methods, striving after impersonal reality. This is not only
because in this method they do not have to abandon their personal lives and
aspirations, but also because this path reveals the deeper values and truths of
those aspirations and strivings toward actualization
[Almaas
shows how an ego is developed from infancy upwards thru ‘self-object relations’
– each encounter with ‘other’ is part of an incremental learning process, as
one ‘builds’ one’s ego into, basically, a survival vehicle. In so doing,
however one develops a number of earlier needed survival characteristics and
attitudes which limit one’s later development. When one can develop a path of
insight into these no longer needed, but nevertheless limiting ego structures,
one can ‘metabolise’ aspects of the ego into essence (Being), and live more
spontaneously and freely. Contrary to many teachers, Almaas instructs us to
value our ego – after all it helped us survive to this point – but to also
attain insight into its limiting structures so as to metabolise/transcend the
limitations of experience.]
·
The life of ego is the childhood of humanity, and the
life of Being is its maturity - - - but since spiritual development beyond or
instead of the ego level is very rare, we can see that it is not simply a
naturally occurring continuation of ego development. - - - A possible factor
that allows the mature ego to more closely approach the qualities of Being is
that the ego becomes less defensive as it grows and develops, acquiring more
flexibility, pliability and hence openness to essential perceptions.
·
Personal Essence (Being) is the ultimate product of
ego development. Ego development and spiritual enlightenment are not two
disjointed processes but parts of the same process [a continuum].
·
Depending on the situation in childhood one can grow
to be completely identified with the self-image, or the identification can be
loose and relaxed due to frequent and prolonged experiences of the Personal
Essence. This experience becomes internalized, and influences one’s
personality. The Personal Essence is the real person, and thru ego development
this goal is realized…This evolution is the process of the personalization of
Being. It is how Being, impersonal and eternal, becomes a person, a human being
on earth. So the process is a matter of Being, which is spirit, learning to
live in a physical embodiment.
·
An important difference between the mind and Being is
the mind can absorb and identify with any psychic material it believes to be
true. It does not have the capacity, on its own, to discern what is objective
truth and what is not. The mind can be deceived, even by itself.
·
Spiritual purification has nothing to do with morality
but involves separating the true from the fake. Since development is
constituted by the metabolism of personal experience, and for this metabolism
to be complete the true must be separated from the false – the former to be
absorbed and the latter to be discarded – we can see that the specific
requirement of growth, maturation and development is truth garnered from
personal experience.
…In general, the process of
eliminating falsehood is spontaneous; the mind generally lets go of an
impression when it recognizes it to be false. Since it can no longer be used
for purposes of identification, and cannot be absorbed, the false impression
simply dissolves. An exception to this pattern is when a clearly false belief
is part of a larger system, most likely unconscious, which the mind still takes
to be true; then the mind will hold onto the falsehood until the larger belief
system is revealed.
The permanent presence of
identification systems in the mind can now be seen as a kind of indigestion or
constipation. Any such system is a mental contraction, which is accompanied by
physical contractions in the body. When the inner sensitivity is refined, the
tensions in the body which accompany identification can be seen. These tensions
are what Wilhelm Reich called “body armour”; he further recognized that any
character structure has a defensive pattern, which he called “character armour”
which was revealed in the tension patterns of the body armour. Identifying
these tension patterns can be very useful in the process of becoming aware of
one’s identifications.
·
A capacity of Being is that of empathy, and
when this is developed, one does not just vaguely sense the emotional state of
the other person, but one is clearly conscious of the exact inner state of the
other. One knows what the other feels, where in the body the feelings are, what
tension patterns accompany this state, how the other is interpreting this
state, and even what is underneath the state in the unconscious.
[If
one’s ego is inadequately developed, this same “empathy” aspect results in
‘negative merging’ – wherein one becomes so resonant with the other’s emotional
states that they cannot tell their own feelings from those of the other, and
one becomes subject to the other’s emotional/psychic disturbance. This ‘shadow’
side of empathy – one’s loss of necessary discrete individuality – occurs
1. when
one is ‘open’ without a well developed ego foundation; or
2. when
one has been ‘hypnotized’ by another, or by their own belief systems or by the
belief memes of their environment.]
[Almaas
reminds us that Being is an outgrowth of ego. A well-developed ego can
mature/develop into Being. Essential in this process is for ego inadequacies to
be recognized and ‘healed’ and be truly empathetic in the insight/metabolic
process as ego becomes grounded into Being.]
·
To move thru the ego-to-essence (Being) development
process, Will in the service and support of objective Truth is essential. Living
the life of Truth [especially self-truth] is the true meaning of inner
discipline. This discipline is not that which is under the control of the
super-ego, nor according to someone else’s idea of discipline. Living the life
of truth is very personal, and depends on the particular person and his/her
situation in life. One has to find one’s own way, one’s own application of
objective Truth in one’s life – and this is the real support and protection of
Essence and its development. The state itself will not manifest if one lives
according to lies and delusions, and ego inadequacies will remain unresolved.
·
There is no localization of consciousness in the body.
The body is completely in unity with the rest of physical reality. All of
physical reality is experienced as a unified whole, which is inseparable from
Pure Being, that is the ground, essence and substance of all existence.
·
The human being comes from Being, ultimately goes to
Being, and is the embodiment of Being, as an indispensable cell in the eternal
one-ness of Being.
Keith and Marnie
Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
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