The Christmas and new year period sits at a time that has had festivals of significance associated with it for thousands of years prior to the Christian age. The most prominent of these is the winter solstice which is celebrated on 21st/22nd December in the northern hemisphere (21st/22nd June in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are reversed). From the time of the summer solstice the power of the Sun and of the outer light has been waning as we move from autumn into winter. The 21st December is the day of the shortest daylight and longest night, a time of maximum darkness on the land. However, from this low ebb the power of the Sun gradually starts to increase as the days go by, giving rise to the idea of the winter solstice time as a time when the light of the world is reborn anew from the darkness of winter.
It is not surprising therefore that the Church fathers in the mid 2nd century chose to locate the birthday of Christ around this time, thus combining the celebration of the birthday of Jesus with the ancient celebration of the rebirth of the outer an inner light of the world that is the winter solstice.
With this in mind here are two questions regarding our inner growth that we can reflect on at this time of year. Amidst the social whirl of the holiday period, if we can make some quiet time available for these questions they may help us enter the new year in a greater sense of alignment and purpose:
1) 'What is it that is finished and dying within my life that I need to let go of in order to provide room for new life?'
The year is reaching its end and we find ourselves at the end of many of the creative cycles that we have engaged in during the year. We can reflect upon the outer and inner aspects of our life that have lived our their time, and that now need to be released and let go of in order that we may move onto new levels of seeing, being and acting in the world in the new year. If we hold onto parts of our being, persona, relationships and so on that are in reality no longer serving us, then we can prevent that which is ripe for manifestation in our life from arising.
When we ask ourselves this question we may be able to identify particular phenomenon that we need to release, or we may just feel a general sense of releasing old patterns of energy in our life.
Having done this we can then go onto the second question:
2)'What is it that has arisen within me this year that may act as the seed for new creativity within me?'
During the previous year there may have arisen ideas or feelings within you that have not yet been articulated, but when you ask yourself this question they naturally arise or pop into your mind. These are areas of your life that you now have an opportunity to develop or grow into. Like the previous question we may find that specific, identifiable goals and ambitions arise that we feel enthusiastic about. Alternatively there may just be a general sense that there are seeds that have been lying dormant within our being that are now ready to spring forth and give rise to new life. Asking ourself this question can help to fill our mind with a sense of positive anticipation with regard to what is to come in 2010, and we can take this momentum with us into January and beyond.
Wishing you all a very blessed Winter Solstice, Christmas ans New Year!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
How do we Develop and Grow our Intention?
This article is based around my response to a good question that was asked in response to last weeks article on ''The Vital Importance of Context for Spiritual Practices''. First, here is the question:
I guess after reading the article one of the questions I had was how do we know what is the "correct" state of mind or the proper intentions and motivations with which we should approach meditation and spiritual
growth ?
Here is my response:
Well, there are a few different ways to answer this, but one way of doing so is to say that you need to have a context or conceptual framework within which you can gradually grow and improve the scope of your intention. One such framework is a four fold division of intention and perspective as follows:
Egocentric
Ethnocentric
Woldcentric
Cosmocentric
These four stages represent four stages that ideally speaking each human being should evolve through in their lifetime. Unfortunately most people are somewhat stuck in the first two. Someone who has a solely egocentric view is basically someone whose perspective and intention includes/is focused on only themselves. we are all functioning from this point of view as young children, but if we do not grow out of this as we move into adult hood, then essentially any act we engage in, including spiritual activities will be based around selfish motives, and in its extreme form will manifest as sociopathic or psychopathic behaviors.
Someone who then evolves (as most people growing up into adulthood naturally do) to an ethnocentric worldview essentially learns to identify with family, racial, religious and other conventional ''tribal'' roles, behaviors and ways of viewing the world. Such a person may develop compassion, love, humility and sacrifice, but it is always bias toward their particular race, religion etc. For example the Nazis did advocate compassion, sacrifice, humility and all sorts of other noble qualities, but it was all in the in the service of the Aryan race. It was this ethnocentric bias that enabled them to cultivate these good qualities with regard to ''their own'', whilst at the same time euthanizing groups that did not fall into the Aryan ideal (eg: mentally and physically handicapped), and attempting to wipe out other racial groups (eg: Jews). So, although it is not taken to the extreme of the Nazis, probably the majority of the worlds population is ethnocentric in one way or another.
Someone who them moves to a world centric perspective and intention basically goes beyond cultural, racial and tribal mindsets and includes all humans within the scope of their care and consideration you could say that this is the first truly ''spiritual'' level of intention in the sense that it transcends cultural conditioning and truly starts to embrace the whole. So, as spiritual practitioners/mediators, we are trying to magnetize our motivation to this level at least.
From world centric we them move to Cosmocentric or Universal levels of perspective and intention, when our actions are engaged in for the sake of all living beings, not just humans (ie; animals, forests, sea creatures etc... all forms of life in the Universe are taken into account).
So, each of us as individuals have the elements of all four of the above perspectives within ourselves, and the journey toward a truly spiritual intention involves magnetizing ourselves gradually toward the 3rd and 4th levels, worldcentric and cosmocentric, over a period of time.
A final point here is that we should try and adopt a policy of ''transcend and include'' when it comes to these four levels. So, for example to transcend the egocentric level ideally means that we are making our motivation bigger than just self, but at the same time we should learn appropriate ways to look after, nurture and develop our everyday ego as a healthy, functioning unit. Looking at the ethnocentric level, to transcend this and go to worldcentric does not mean that we cannot enjoy and nurture our cultural and racial roots, it just means that our identity and behavior is not dictated by our racial and cultural background. So, the basic idea is that ego and ethnicity are included in our makeup, but they do not dictate our behavior or limit our perspective or intention .
You can find a complementary article on the above on stages of development explanation here, by a guy called Ken Wilbur who is the originator of the expression''transcend and include'' that I use above.
I guess after reading the article one of the questions I had was how do we know what is the "correct" state of mind or the proper intentions and motivations with which we should approach meditation and spiritual
growth ?
Here is my response:
Well, there are a few different ways to answer this, but one way of doing so is to say that you need to have a context or conceptual framework within which you can gradually grow and improve the scope of your intention. One such framework is a four fold division of intention and perspective as follows:
Egocentric
Ethnocentric
Woldcentric
Cosmocentric
These four stages represent four stages that ideally speaking each human being should evolve through in their lifetime. Unfortunately most people are somewhat stuck in the first two. Someone who has a solely egocentric view is basically someone whose perspective and intention includes/is focused on only themselves. we are all functioning from this point of view as young children, but if we do not grow out of this as we move into adult hood, then essentially any act we engage in, including spiritual activities will be based around selfish motives, and in its extreme form will manifest as sociopathic or psychopathic behaviors.
Someone who then evolves (as most people growing up into adulthood naturally do) to an ethnocentric worldview essentially learns to identify with family, racial, religious and other conventional ''tribal'' roles, behaviors and ways of viewing the world. Such a person may develop compassion, love, humility and sacrifice, but it is always bias toward their particular race, religion etc. For example the Nazis did advocate compassion, sacrifice, humility and all sorts of other noble qualities, but it was all in the in the service of the Aryan race. It was this ethnocentric bias that enabled them to cultivate these good qualities with regard to ''their own'', whilst at the same time euthanizing groups that did not fall into the Aryan ideal (eg: mentally and physically handicapped), and attempting to wipe out other racial groups (eg: Jews). So, although it is not taken to the extreme of the Nazis, probably the majority of the worlds population is ethnocentric in one way or another.
Someone who them moves to a world centric perspective and intention basically goes beyond cultural, racial and tribal mindsets and includes all humans within the scope of their care and consideration you could say that this is the first truly ''spiritual'' level of intention in the sense that it transcends cultural conditioning and truly starts to embrace the whole. So, as spiritual practitioners/mediators, we are trying to magnetize our motivation to this level at least.
From world centric we them move to Cosmocentric or Universal levels of perspective and intention, when our actions are engaged in for the sake of all living beings, not just humans (ie; animals, forests, sea creatures etc... all forms of life in the Universe are taken into account).
So, each of us as individuals have the elements of all four of the above perspectives within ourselves, and the journey toward a truly spiritual intention involves magnetizing ourselves gradually toward the 3rd and 4th levels, worldcentric and cosmocentric, over a period of time.
A final point here is that we should try and adopt a policy of ''transcend and include'' when it comes to these four levels. So, for example to transcend the egocentric level ideally means that we are making our motivation bigger than just self, but at the same time we should learn appropriate ways to look after, nurture and develop our everyday ego as a healthy, functioning unit. Looking at the ethnocentric level, to transcend this and go to worldcentric does not mean that we cannot enjoy and nurture our cultural and racial roots, it just means that our identity and behavior is not dictated by our racial and cultural background. So, the basic idea is that ego and ethnicity are included in our makeup, but they do not dictate our behavior or limit our perspective or intention .
You can find a complementary article on the above on stages of development explanation here, by a guy called Ken Wilbur who is the originator of the expression''transcend and include'' that I use above.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Vital Importance of Context for Spiritual Practices
I recently discovered a documentary that demonstrates very clearly how it is possible for people to be practising all sorts of ''spiritual'' activities, and yet for all of the activities to be completely corrupted by the consciousness of those who are practising it. The documentary is called ''Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy'' (click here to go to website where you can see the whole film)and it basically shows how the Nazis systematically used a whole gamut of religions and spiritual practices in order to promote and justify their message and actions. Amongst the activities that they used were:
Claiming to be descendants of an Atlantean master race (as in from the ancient drowned city of Atlantis which is so prominent in new age circles today), believing themselves to be reincarnations of past (Germanic) heroes, extensive use of astrology, pendulums and other forms of divination, use of runes, meditation, creation of temples and the list goes on!
So, the documentary really is an eye opening piece of work, and I recommend you watch it. The essential message is that it is possible for our own beliefs, agendas and motives to completely corrupt any spiritual activity that we do, and so combining activities such as meditation with ongoing work on our intention, perspective, worldview, clearing of shadow aspects of our personality and so on really is absolutely vital. If our psychology or the complex of thought structures, beliefs and perspectives in our mind is off kilter then this will be reflected in all that we do, including the things that we think of as beng spiritual.
Claiming to be descendants of an Atlantean master race (as in from the ancient drowned city of Atlantis which is so prominent in new age circles today), believing themselves to be reincarnations of past (Germanic) heroes, extensive use of astrology, pendulums and other forms of divination, use of runes, meditation, creation of temples and the list goes on!
So, the documentary really is an eye opening piece of work, and I recommend you watch it. The essential message is that it is possible for our own beliefs, agendas and motives to completely corrupt any spiritual activity that we do, and so combining activities such as meditation with ongoing work on our intention, perspective, worldview, clearing of shadow aspects of our personality and so on really is absolutely vital. If our psychology or the complex of thought structures, beliefs and perspectives in our mind is off kilter then this will be reflected in all that we do, including the things that we think of as beng spiritual.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Role of Multiple Intelligences in Consciousness Development
One of the most helpful insights regarding our inner development is to realize that our consciousness consists of multiple parts that combine together to create the whole. Each of these parts or aspects of consciousness has its own ''intelligence specialties'' as well as carrying with it a particular sense of self, a particular set of value judgments, sense of aesthetics, perception of truth and so on. By dividing our consciousness up into these different individual parts or units we can then go onto develop the functional intelligence of each of these individual units so that, when we put them all together again they will function in a much more effective, happy, strong, healthy and balanced way than they did before. This in turn leads us to experience ourself in a much stronger, healthier light, thus we are empowered to lead happier, more integrated and enlightened lives.
What I am going to do in the next few articles on the Transpersonal Psyche blog is to give nine examples of individual intelligences that we can develop within ourselves, outline what they are, what they need for growth and give practical advice as to how we can start working on improving them within ourselves.
Intelligences 1-4: Our Inner Family
The first four are a group that I call the ''Inner Family''. This consists of our child intelligence/self, our youthful intelligence, our mature or parental intelligence and our old or wise self/intelligence. Here are brief working descriptions of each:
1. The Child Intelligence - The spontaneous, joyful, creative, emotionally based self, lacks maturity therefore needs guidance and nurturing, otherwise becomes a victim and/or totally influenced by environment.
2. Young Adult/Youthful Intelligence - The initial development of the ego, distinguishing self from others, appetite for life, career/life goals, sexuality and romantic relationship awareness, willingness to keep learning new things
3. Mature Adult/Parental Intelligence - Mature ego, able to bear responsibilities in life, to plan for future, to nurture and protect the lower levels of self (child and youth), balances firmness and love in daily management of self.
4. Wise One/Old Self Intelligence - Gives greater perspectives on life, advises parental intelligence, takes in the bigger picture due to close proximity to death. Like the Grandfather/Mother of the inner family.
Intelligences 5-8: Body, Emotions, Mind and Spirit
The next four are created simply by dividing our being into its physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects to create four intelligences as follows:
5. Physical body Intelligence - Ability to listen to and manage our physical and vital bodies' energy and needs. Overall physical healthcare, diet, exercise, environmental awareness
6. Emotional Intelligence - Ability to generate and hold positive, blissful radiant states of emotion such as wonder, joy, appreciation, love, compassion, whilst at the same time managing temperamental, chaotic or negative feelings as and when they arise. Emotional connection to others and environment.
7. Cognitive/Mental Intelligence - Ability to be aware of and mange information and thought structures in our mind effectively. Maintain positive perspectives on what we are going through. To analyze and assess objectively without repressing our emotional self/intelligence.
8. Spiritual Intelligence - Ability to access stable trans-rational (ie: beyond cognitive/rational) states of mind. Maintain unity/oneness consciousness with others and our environment. Ability to see self in expanded way, as the world, the planet, the universe etc...Ability to intuit guidance for ourself as the personality from Higher Sources.
Intelligence 9 – Integrated Intelligence
This final or ninth intelligence I will define for now simply as the ability to integrate or combine two or more of the above eight intelligences together in our daily life in a practical, harmonious and effective manner. A simple example would be combining the cognitive intelligence's ability to plan with the physical intelligences ability to act.
So, in the next article I will be outlining a but more about intelligences 1-4 the Inner Family, and then go on to talk about the development of the child intelligence/self.
For now one thing that I would like to point out is that, of the nine intelligences outlined above, only one, the spiritual intelligence works directly with meditation as a method to develop it. Different meditation forms can calm and expand the mind and thus help facilitate the other intelligences, but integrated development of our consciousness requires that we work on multiple levels to solve the particular challenges of different aspects of self on the level that they are functioning on.
In general, using the model of the nine intelligences above we can start to create a lifestyle that integrates activities to help all of these intelligences develop simultaneously. For example by creating time for relaxation, play and creativity we nurture the child intelligence, by creating time to plan our life we nurture our cognitive intelligence, by creating time for meditation we nurture our spiritual intelligence, and so on...This series of articles will include ideas for how to start to nurture each of these intelligences in our daily life on a practical level.
© Toby Ouvry 2009 please do not reproduce without permission.
What I am going to do in the next few articles on the Transpersonal Psyche blog is to give nine examples of individual intelligences that we can develop within ourselves, outline what they are, what they need for growth and give practical advice as to how we can start working on improving them within ourselves.
Intelligences 1-4: Our Inner Family
The first four are a group that I call the ''Inner Family''. This consists of our child intelligence/self, our youthful intelligence, our mature or parental intelligence and our old or wise self/intelligence. Here are brief working descriptions of each:
1. The Child Intelligence - The spontaneous, joyful, creative, emotionally based self, lacks maturity therefore needs guidance and nurturing, otherwise becomes a victim and/or totally influenced by environment.
2. Young Adult/Youthful Intelligence - The initial development of the ego, distinguishing self from others, appetite for life, career/life goals, sexuality and romantic relationship awareness, willingness to keep learning new things
3. Mature Adult/Parental Intelligence - Mature ego, able to bear responsibilities in life, to plan for future, to nurture and protect the lower levels of self (child and youth), balances firmness and love in daily management of self.
4. Wise One/Old Self Intelligence - Gives greater perspectives on life, advises parental intelligence, takes in the bigger picture due to close proximity to death. Like the Grandfather/Mother of the inner family.
Intelligences 5-8: Body, Emotions, Mind and Spirit
The next four are created simply by dividing our being into its physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects to create four intelligences as follows:
5. Physical body Intelligence - Ability to listen to and manage our physical and vital bodies' energy and needs. Overall physical healthcare, diet, exercise, environmental awareness
6. Emotional Intelligence - Ability to generate and hold positive, blissful radiant states of emotion such as wonder, joy, appreciation, love, compassion, whilst at the same time managing temperamental, chaotic or negative feelings as and when they arise. Emotional connection to others and environment.
7. Cognitive/Mental Intelligence - Ability to be aware of and mange information and thought structures in our mind effectively. Maintain positive perspectives on what we are going through. To analyze and assess objectively without repressing our emotional self/intelligence.
8. Spiritual Intelligence - Ability to access stable trans-rational (ie: beyond cognitive/rational) states of mind. Maintain unity/oneness consciousness with others and our environment. Ability to see self in expanded way, as the world, the planet, the universe etc...Ability to intuit guidance for ourself as the personality from Higher Sources.
Intelligence 9 – Integrated Intelligence
This final or ninth intelligence I will define for now simply as the ability to integrate or combine two or more of the above eight intelligences together in our daily life in a practical, harmonious and effective manner. A simple example would be combining the cognitive intelligence's ability to plan with the physical intelligences ability to act.
So, in the next article I will be outlining a but more about intelligences 1-4 the Inner Family, and then go on to talk about the development of the child intelligence/self.
For now one thing that I would like to point out is that, of the nine intelligences outlined above, only one, the spiritual intelligence works directly with meditation as a method to develop it. Different meditation forms can calm and expand the mind and thus help facilitate the other intelligences, but integrated development of our consciousness requires that we work on multiple levels to solve the particular challenges of different aspects of self on the level that they are functioning on.
In general, using the model of the nine intelligences above we can start to create a lifestyle that integrates activities to help all of these intelligences develop simultaneously. For example by creating time for relaxation, play and creativity we nurture the child intelligence, by creating time to plan our life we nurture our cognitive intelligence, by creating time for meditation we nurture our spiritual intelligence, and so on...This series of articles will include ideas for how to start to nurture each of these intelligences in our daily life on a practical level.
© Toby Ouvry 2009 please do not reproduce without permission.
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