For so very long my
favorite word has been paradigm. I heard on some intellectual circuits
that paradigm is dead and we should use meme instead. Sorry, I like
paradigm. The word evokes an image of the boundaries I’ve drawn around my
reality. I believe this and this must not be challenged. Good luck
with that. Paradigms are meant to be re-drawn ; that’s evolution.
Listening to some of our
great contemporary spiritual teachers , I have to count myself
lucky. We are exhorted daily by the media to worry about the
economy and about our survival, but these teachers are reminding us that there
is much more to our experience on this planet, or in this dimension of reality,
than how much money we can make. What can you take with you, especially
if you know for sure that this “life” experience is but a chapter in our book?
What I can take with me is
the evolution of my consciousness. What does it mean to be
conscious? If you haven’t read Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” and “A
New Earth”, I very highly recommend these as a solid answer to this
question. But just about every mystical or martial teaching around
the world is based on this principle; honing awareness on the present moment,
something that is aided by focus on the breath, is crucial. The mind, the
drunken monkey as the Buddhists call it, is a detriment to our well-being, our
sense of balance. The Ego, says Tolle, is insane, driven insane by
the constant messaging of negative, anxious or fearful thoughts in the
mind. Being is more important than Ego, as I like to put it,
there’s more to me than meets the I.
Jung, that wonderful old
witch doctor, as he called himself, developed a powerful, if a bit esoteric,
paradigm for the psyche of a person. Central to his thinking is that each
person must develop an open dialogue between the Ego, the center of
consciousness, and the Self, the center of the unconscious. He held
a firm conviction that our psychic affairs are far more important than
our wordly ones, in fact, that when we remain unaware of the transpersonal
nature of the unconscious, and so ignore it, we project all our blind beliefs
into the world and create the mess we find ourselves in. So, as he put
it, “The world hangs by a thread, and that thread is the psyche of man.” (If he
were writing today, I'm sure he'd use more inclusive language.)
What excites me so
very much is that by connecting us with the multi-dimensional experiences of
the unconscious, dreaming teaches us to be more conscious in our waking
life. A dream practice is a very royal road to expanded consciousness.
Projection is an
unconscious need we fulfill. I feel unlovely or, a man might feel
unmanly, so I fall in “love” with someone other than my husband/wife,
(without deep love and respect, familiarity often breeds contempt) and
have a torrid affair. Long story short, it all blows up into a frightful relational mess, until I examine my own story, my waking life, and ask, “What part
of fulfilling this story did I play?” If we pay attention, our dreams will tell
us in no uncertain terms, but in a way that inspires us to move forward, not
wallow in shame or guilt. Collective projections are probably the
scariest: mobs, fans, religious fanaticisms of all sorts. These lead to blood shed
that leaves us reeling, but as that old joke says, “In an avalanche, no one
snowflake feels responsible.”
Withdrawing projection,
individual and collective, is a huge psychological accomplishment. Taking
responsibility for my own life story, how it plays out and accepting its
outcome as A-okay, that’s the summit of individuation. It’s
enlightenment. It’s a step-by-step, day-by-day process; there’s no
arriving at enlightenment, there’s only the immediate living of it. Being,
not Ego. must drive the bus. Or, since the Ego, to feel strong must feel
in control, I entertain the metaphor that the Ego is the chauffer of my limo,
but the Self, sipping champagne in the back seat, is the one who says where
we’re going.
Withdrawing projections isn’t
all that complicated. I like to remind myself of Gandalf’s final words to
Bilbo in “The Hobbit”, when puffed up with the success of his adventures, Bilbo
gives his opinions on the prophecies. Gandalf says to him:
“Surely you don't
disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about
yourself? You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and
escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very
fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you, but you are only quite a
little fellow in a wide world after all.”
To me this means, I’m part
of this human story, but I’m not the whole story. You who are other than
me, have your own part to play in this story. If our paths cross and we
partner for our mutual good, let it always be in mutual respect and affection.
If we don't see "I to I", then let us give each other the space to
evolve as our personal timing dictates.
When people get very angry
at each other, especially people who’ve previously “loved” one another, maybe
married, they project like gangbusters all their hurt and disappointment on to each other. ET (Eckhart Tolle) explains this as each person projecting their
own pain body on to another or others, because this also happens on a collective
level in mob insanity, violence and war. Tolle believes that we are at a
watershed moment; however, that humanity is taking great leaps in the expansion
of consciousness, self-awareness and withdrawal of projection. He
believes it’s happening because, as Jung predicted, if we don’t evolve into a
non-egoic paradigm, we’ll bring the whole house of cards of material form
down with us. So, owning one’s own shadow is a major accomplishment on
the road to individuation, and withdrawing the negative projections we have is
one task in integrating the shadow and creating a better world.
To echo ET again, some
things are very hard to grasp in words and with our left brains, but we project
on to others because it fulfills an unconscious need, one we have never
acknowledged to ourselves. The only way we can catch projection is when
we shine the light of consciousness, the Observer, not the Ego, on to our
behaviors and life situations. Of course, dreams open the doors to the rooms we
must air; they present us with the images and clues we need to trace our way
home.
I find this topic
fascinating and tracing my own shadow through my thoughts, words, deeds and dreams extremely rewarding. It’s not “patrolling” for negative behavior.
The shadow is not necessarily bad or dark, certainly not evil. It’s the
repressed, rejected or too painful to deal with bits of our personal history
along with all our karmic stuff. Befriending a shadow aspect can bring great
rewards.
The Ego projects. The Self
observes, recognizes and balances the Ego. The Ego needs a story, the
drama, and often feels life-threatened. The Self knows its own divinity, its own
immortality, something the Ego must fathom in order to be strong. Dreams give
us the resources, the counsel and guidance we need to achieve this
breakthrough; and once enough of us do, we can dream a new dream collectively
with the power to save our planet for future generations of divine little
fellows, like each of us is.
If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of
yourself.
If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world,
then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.
Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of
your
own self-transformation." ~ Lao Tzu
