CALISTHENICS MAY 1982 SYMBOLISM - -EGOS – PATTERNS – OTHER ORDER OF LIFE –“WE” – TOGETHERNESS ---CHRIST AS DIRT ---
Today I want to speak of symbolism and the use of symbolic language. Those who can follow, act on it; for Heaven's sake, act on it.
Language is a convention, a convenience, if you want. We have adopted a certain number of words, we could say a certain number of symbols, that we can mix in different ways to give different meanings. But words are only symbols of the meaning you want to convey. Words are not the meaning in themselves, they only hint at the meaning.
As you know, we have spoken, quoting Steiner, of that condition of mankind, when long ago the personality was separated from its base, the whole of the being, so that mankind could become centered on developing the personality. When man incarnated he had no memory of where he came from. I call this "the gap"; it is also sometimes called "the great amnesia". This condition is not real, it is plainly artificial. So we live two aspects at the same time: the whole and that which is separated from the whole. The basic condition is not that of separation, only an aspect is separated for a specific purpose. This is what allows you to say "I" (ego in Latin). Now you have to understand that the personality that has been developed, the mask, with its ego, only symbolically represents the real you, it's not the reality.
Historically, when you received a teaching, that teaching had to be expressed in terms of ego, so that you could understand, because you had no memory of the other side. Not remembering the fullness of reality is like having a ceiling above you, or, to use another symbol, it is like living in a vast tunnel. After thousands and thousands of years of living in the tunnel, of course, you got used to it. Then, when someone comes along and try to tell you about the world of sunshine, the openness etc., you don't understand. So, that someone must use terms according to what he can observe in the tunnel. For instance: "Sunshine is like this glow worm you see here, but like millions of glow worms concentrated in one spot". This is an approximation you can understand (living in the tunnel). If you are still in the tunnel, you use all the features of the tunnel to define what is outside.
Now, as you know, we are coming into a new Age. One of the features of this new Age is that you come out of the tunnel -- not suddenly, but you begin to see the daylight for the first time, and it's a lot better than a glow worm. You suddenly begin to realize, if you adjust to the dayLight , that all of your symbolism, your entire system of symbols (acquired through the ages),is fit for tunnel life, not for outside life. All of the descriptions, all of your imaginings about what the outside looks like, is defined according the the tunnel. obviously .
Now we face a problem and a major one. All, and I do say all, of the spiritual teachings deal with you (because of the tunnel) as ego. It's the only thing you could understand. In the tunnel, your understanding of "you" is division: person/ego. This is also your understanding of ÒweÓ : an addition of egos. Ego is always the base.
Now, let's go further. You are taught you have a small ego, but obviously when you look deep inside there is something else : a higher ego. Then, obviously, there must be something higher -- perhaps to take an initiation. It is said that an initiate of the first degree is as different from the average man as an average man is from an animal. okay , so this would be a way to grow a new ego that is even broader. An initiate can take care of a million people (in case you didn't know it), and now you realize that you are into other dimensions.
Then, of course, you might want something bigger, because all you know is the tunnel, and the tunnel is linear. You know you began here and the end is over there. Nowadays you even see a small light, so you go in that direction. The habit is a linear one. (See, when you have a symbol that is fairly good, it can be used from many angles.)
So, you have greater and greater egos, a whole hierarchy of egos. This is the Hierarchy, beings spoken of ego-wise. You understand them as higher and higher human beings -- or maybe not so human finally because they are too high. The highest is supposed to be something like the fifth or sixth degree of initiation. But you can go higher, and then they might be from somewhere else. Finally you come to the Planetary Logos, whose body is the planet. Those who observe closely can realize that the planet has two egos: a small one, taking care of the planet physically, and a higher one, which is the spirit of the planet. It's funny, the Logos has a personality exactly like you, with a greater ego and a smaller ego as well. There is a saying: "As above, so below". What actually has been done is to describe all that is above according to what is below.
Nowadays, you know enough psychology to recognize that the mind has patterns. If you follow these patterns you discover that all of the teachings are structured according to the ego-personality situation of what is called the human person. Now it is perfectly well known that man is more than that.
You have a small circle, let us say, called personality, within a big circle, that is "you", symbolically speaking. How can you expect the awareness of the bigger circle to be the one of the smaller one? You know there is the super conscious side, higher than thoughts, higher and higher: manas , buddhi , atma , according to certain teachings. Each one represents, symbolizes, or triggers a new type of awareness that is broader than the sensory, emotional, or mental. How can you logically expect that things be described ego-wise? I challenge this system -- the whole of it -- and I invite you to do the same with/in yourself. Challenge it. It's simply that mankind was (because of the tunnel) in a position where this was just about the only way to do it. Things are different now.
You have heard, and not only in Christian teachings: "If you haven't opened the eyes of the spirit, you are blind indeed". People in the tunnel are obviously blind relative to the outside world, the whole world. This means, symbolically speaking, that the sensory awareness, the awareness of the personality, is blind relative to the whole. It can perceive only that aspect called "the life of the tunnel". It is shocking when you suddenly realize that you are facing a system of symbols from the past, and that you persist in using them, when there is the opportunity to face the situation and the sunshine in a different way. Persistence in using the old way is what makes you blind. It's as simple as that.
You believe that if you want to live a higher condition you first have to train your personality in-order-to... You believe that you have to accomplish the different steps required for the candidates for initiation, so you first you have to to this and that ... We have always skipped that. Not that you can do a lot better, but at least you can experience different conditions, in spite of your consciousness, which shouldn't be possible. We can do this because reality is different. There is that which is divided and there is that which is not divided -- we work with the latter. We show it to you time after time when we are together; you experience it all the time, even now as I speak.
I have been telling you for years that things are different, but you experience the persistence of that egocenteredness . So, today, I give you something very simple: applied psychology. Follow a pattern, discover the pattern, discover the projection, or the paradigm you are using to describe everything according to the assumption that you are an ego with a physical body and that's it.
The mass of humanity is still in the tunnel, so the pressure of the tunnel is quite obvious, but you are not daring enough to get rid of the tunnel, because you are used to it. You are used to the discomfort of the tunnel. It is something you know so you go back to it. Every time you are in doubt you go back to it. This is what makes your life hard.
You will notice that the automatic reflex, when you have difficulty, is to shut yourself up in your small "I", then you ask for help for that small "I". Everything else is forgotten, until you realize this is not the way to do it.
You have examples of people who are always helping out, they "forget themselves" according to the popular expression. People admire that, and for good reason; they set an example of a "we" action. Everyone would like to graduate to that live" level, but most don't have the courage. Most people don't have the stamina, they prefer to vegetate. At that level you feel comfort in being self-centered, at least you believe you do -- but actually, when you assess the moment, you don't find it comfortable at all. But then there is that habit again. Graduate from "I" to " we ", it will be a lot easier.
Now we can go further, even more seriously. There is a well-known symbol, the sun, it stands for God. On another octave the same symbol stands for the ego. Now, the teaching tells you that man cannot reach even the spirit of the planet, and to connect with the sun is impossible. All the patterns of teaching are of the earth, with the Logos as the superego. Do you follow the pattern? Do you follow how far it goes?
Okay, let's say this is not sufficient. They have found that the sun is part of a system that is called a galaxy. Now place the sun as super-ego again, and you have a main sun that is the invisible sun of the galaxy. But still you are not happy. So, you can take a system which comprises galaxies of galaxies. Always exactly the same pattern but greater and greater.
Do you really believe that it follows the pattern of the person? To that extent? Maybe you have missed something somewhere. There might be other orders of life that are fully and completely different (and we are here to tell you that there are), but it's always the linear system made bigger and bigger. I'm not saying these things don't exist, they do, but I do say that the teachings are understood as a huge. expansion of the ego. What happens when there is another big bang? Your ego will be so bloated that it will explode; then perhaps you will realize that what remains after the blast is what it is all about.
Follow another aspect. Man is making war, man is destroying man, and God is allowing all that. God is against war, but God is blessing cannons. You have heard and seen all this, if not in reality, at least in the movies. So you know that it happens. One thing becomes obvious, if you train, is that the well-being of the physical person is definitely not the main goal. There are things that come first. The well-being of the person will follow, but there are values that come first. People are put through difficult situations until these values come out, and these are not according to the typical image of ego.
You might have read in the teachings of the Arcane School that (I think) it was Sanat Kumara who sometimes introduced energies, help, from the so-called "outside". These were huge energies, and they provoked a huge geological upheaval on the planet, and among mankind as well, creating a lot of apparent destruction. And this is called "help", and it was help, but for a part of you that was somewhat different from the usual. I wonder if you know these things, and how you put them together with the average level of teaching. Don't you realize that things are different? And that the whole is a lot bigger than the astronomical whole? There are aspects that are not spoken of. They don't make sense in the tunnel, so why speak of them?
Among other things, there are what I call other orders of life, not just other dimensions, but other orders of life. You don't hear about that, and you have a hard time realizing what is it -- unless you are able to act according to the symbolism of the hologram, in which the greenhorn aspect contains all human knowledge, spiritual or material. And when I say all, I do mean all -- all has no divisions. Then you come to a place where all of your consciousness (no division) is a complete blank, then you have a chance to live another order of life. Unless you train and train seriously, you won't find it. It doesn't come to consciousness, it functions differently. It's different from every function the consciousness knows.
Now, please realize that in the personality you have a finite number of functions, but you are not only that. You, the real one, actually covers a big range, with lots of functions your consciousness doesn't know. And obviously when I speak of the real you, it cannot have the connotation of ego.
When we face practical situations, as we do in the healing group, when you radiate, flow, something for someone else, you have to adjust to that someone. The easiest way to adjust and the way-that always works is to relinquish the ego. You live Life. I told you last time that if you check you will find in and all around me (same with Georgette), characteristics, if you want, abstract characteristics.of every one of you. If you look at someone, find a specific characteristic and note it, you will find it here also. This means that our life covers your life. If you live a more encompassing life, you cannot speak of "you" or "me" because these are gone ,, We need it language-wise, because language demands it, but when you adjust to another situation, you just live it, it's part of yourself. But, if you are still seriously ego-centered and you try hard to adjust, it won't work.
In the healing group, when I test, I ask the person to tell what he or she is going to do, so that I can follow along that line -- then they start doing it. In one example there was a first moment of greater radiance that was more or less tuned to the situation, then the mind took over, made an image and then felt "Well, that's it". I said, "Wait a moment, what you live has no connection whatsoever with the person on the chair". It had no connection. It was only a strong image and did not have any connection with the person.
Now, one way you can recognize the connection is: If you want to do something and it is done livance -wise, it shows in the field immediately -- that's one for those who can see -- and the patient shows it too, immediately. The action starts instantly. If you are more trained you could say that at that instant the action is done -- everything else is just to adjust the personality.
In the example I described the healer tried to be persuaded that the image would work, or tried to persuade the image to work. It was a complete failure. Not that the capacity wasn't there, the first moment was really beautiful, but it lasted only a few seconds and then the action was utterly and completely beside the point.
Incidentally, for the discipline of the group, please, if you see that it would be best to work this way or that, if you cannot show it, don't say it. You have to be able to stand behind what you say. What you say is welcome provided you can demonstrate it. If it is only an opinion, it is useless. It only brings confusion all around. It's not a matter of what you think, but of what you can do. We come into a time when the M function is emphasized and this implies doing. Humankind has already learned to conceptualize, now let's go a step further . Practice it, put it into action. Move.
If you accept it as a discipline only to propose what you can back, you might be so enthusiastic that you believe that you can back it. So you make the demonstration and it fails, then you will realize that you were carried away by your enthusiasm. Well, it's very nice to be enthusiastic, but reality is harsh. Believe me, I sometimes see tears in the eyes of those who suddenly realize it doesn't work.
Also, if you fail to demonstrate, it does not mean that you never will be able to. Continue to work and maybe you will next time and maybe at another time, Provided you continue to work. It requires a lot of determination, a lot of stamina. You have matured quite a bit already, and you are on the verge of something a lot more effective, but there is still that ego-centeredness. In healing, giving to someone, ego- centeredness does not make sense.
So we come to the "we". Later the "we" is lost also, but still, ego-centeredness is the child position. The "we" is the adult position for the time being.
If, for instance, you have an idea of something that ought to be done and you want to propose it because you would like to be heard or seen, that's one position. But then you might also realize that the quality, the shade ,you perceive is really needed in the working groups, and you do it for the sake of the group, at that moment you might be able to do it. I hope you will experience instances when the ego-centered position is not productive so you switch to the "we" position in which you really do it for the "other", and you find that it suddenly works.
You know perfectly well in your own experience that when help is asked and you forget yourself, meaning you really give, it is a lot easier to come with a finer quality than when you try to egoically generate it somehow.
And if someone is in front of you, look first at the kind of flow that is needed, not at what you would like to give then you might have a chance that it will work. But if you are still in the position of "wanting" to give, then you will probably fail.
…I would like to go back to the symbolism I was speaking of earlier. I am not implying that the teachings are wrong . but rather that the symbolism used has become outdated. It now has the tendency of standing in the way. You can see movements on the whole earth toward group action. People are reacting against the ego of the government. The "we" action is not exactly new, but the difficulty of being fruitful is tremendous because the center.of gravity is still ego. You have many egos demanding togetherness, but the real togetherness is something else -- there is togetherness because there is a higher principle at work.
Participant: I'd like to get something clarified. You have suggested that practicing Epistemics is a disciplined way of learning to practice this "we-ness" as against ego-ness -- the implication being, somehow, that learning to do that as an ego discipline will lead to a capacity to function from a "we" base. Yet, it's been my experience that almost anything that's been initiated ego-wise as a way of training to restructure or remold is an old pattern, and it ends up being an act of futility.
Martin: I agree with you, but you can look at it differently. For instance, you can see that the training is not a matter of ego, it's a matter of consciousness, and consciousness, on that level, is mainly emotion, mind, and combinations of these. So, it's not to train the ego itself, but to retrain the functioning of the feelings/mind in another way.
Participant: The same thing as relating to yourself as a sample of mankind rather than a separate person?
Martin: Same principle. Actually you are training functions. You don't care about ego, you address functions. But I would agree with you that the tendency is precisely, as you said , to evolve the ego. You believe:"It's me that thinks this way". No, your mind works that way. In Epistemics you learn that there are rules, that are known to be effective, and you apply those rules. I don't say it's the only way. Those who are gifted can work directly on higher principles, and this way works much more quickly and more evidently, But not everyone is able to do that, the majority need a kind of feelings/mind discipline.
I hope everything is clear. Actually , if you follow the pattern it is very simple. You can see your own understanding of what you are: an ego with a body. Every being man sees is given a human shape more or less. God is an old man with a white beard, angels are human beings with wings. You are not used to one technical feature, i.e., that same being can be seen in any shape at all: as a human being to you, as a dog for a dog, a horse for a horse, a rose for a rose, a rock for a rock, and all simultaneously. Once you learn to know so-called higher beings, it's exactly what happens. You see them in a certain shape because of the way you look. You have to be able to develop your mind to deal with situations like this, that is, if you want to bring so-called higher consciousness through the mind.
Now, something else. There is that great being we call the Christ, who is the Planetary Logos, whose body is the whole earth .. Now, let's follow logic: The logic of the tunnel is that the more you realize, the more refined you get. Then you get into whatever initiation, possibly you don't incarnate anymore because you have other functions, so you have other bodies, more refined bodies. Glorious bodies. You go higher, it's still more beautiful, and finally you don't see them anymore They have such transparency that you don't see them. Then we come to the top for this planet, the Planetary Logos Himself. His body is the planet. And what is the planet for your consciousness? Dirt. Just plain dirt.
Face the situation. You accept joyfully the higher and higher bodies, but for the Christ, the highest of them all, you see only dirt. Do you see how far the tunnel consciousness goes? obviously something is wrong and deeply wrong -- the system of symbolism fails . It had it's use, but it's now outgrown. is obviously this piece of dirt is a lot more than the consciousness tells. Now, this piece of dirt and your physical body are the same . I don't say they are similar, they are the same. Obviously you know it, so act on it.
When you believe you know the Christ and you are able to see His body as just a piece of dirt, then what is that knowledge? Projected ego awareness from the tunnel. Otherwise you could not see it as you do.
Do you really think that if an entity incarnates in the earth that it doesn't do something to the earth? You are not that stupid, are you?
Whatever teaching you learn is completely hopeless unless you practice with the substance that is behind the symbol. But learning the symbol and trying to believe in the symbol is just plain nothing.
I learned lately that Krishnamurti is saying that all religions are useless, and we come into a time when it will be true. But I prefer to address the symbolism used, so you can face the fact that it is a projection. If you want to live whole you cannot use the projection.
All your endeavors to improve yourself put you in difficulty and ultimately fails . I don't say that the personality couldn't be better, and that you couldn't do something with it, but I speak of "you". You are not the ego.
The fantasy is in how you define yourself. Remember: "In the beginning, man was created in the image and likeness of God." It's time to face things with a little bit more maturity.