Before Transcendence, Inclusion

Just by being born into existance we have all and deserve all. We are, in a sense outside of judgment, having no agenda but to be objects of unconditional love. But we cannot help growing up, developing all sorts of egoistic desires that help us in our journey through existance. We have a hierarchy of needs, like the psychologist Abraham Maslow explained, and that is all very well. We need to develop interest in our own ego, as the separation from the primary caregiver turns into individuation. This is know as the separation-individuation process in psychological terms. And all is is still fine.

 What causes problems, though, is that people we are surrounded by as we are growing up have their own worries as well. Where all this started is beyond my comprehension, but to say that everyone is more or less fucked up will suffice for the time being. Anyway, as those worries are usually experienced as lacks of something, we tend to try and make up for the experienced lack by taking energy from other people. This is something Toru Sato explains in his book The Ever-Transcending Spirit. When we are young our inherent innocence and being-outside-judgment - nature experiences small dents and bruises as people close to us instill their worries into us, tapping into our abundant energy resources. In a word, they cast their shadows upon us. And those are the humble beginnings of our personalities.

Now, there are many sides when it comes to the formation of a personality. To use Ken Wilber's Four Quadrant - model, there are at least the influences of our forming intentionality, the genes we've come up with, and the culture as well as the society we grow up in. But what I am suggesting is that the experienced lack of other people projected onto us is a huge, huge, huge influence on what we become. We have our individual versions of feeling of coming short and with those shortcomings we tend to shower others, on our worst days. So in a sense, experiencing lack is not real in itself but only the accumulated karma of generations where we are bathed and thus become so accustomed to that we claim it "our own".

Carl Jung speaks of families having a karmic inheritance, and this is my interpretation of it. Using other peoples' felt shortcomings as our own may still have a story to tell: in coming to terms with our parents, for example, really welcoming them into our hearts, we may have an experience of embracing our own shadows as well. As we forgive our parents for their lacks, we can see how we experience similar lacks in ourselves and forgive ourselves as well. Loving our mother and our father is an actual practice, a difficult one at that, but in the end it may be also one of the most useful ones. Seeing through personal illusions like the shortcomings we hold so dear can happen through loving those we sometimes feel deserve it the least.

 In recent times I've noticed that the shadows of our psyches are something to measure our personal growth by. There are at least three ways we use in trying to avoid confronting them. None of them cannot be sustained were long, I thnk. Trying to stay put is one way. The sun will change it's position and our shadow will become visible. Trying to hide is another: immersed in shadows means only the absense of light. And running away won't do either. Our shadow follows on our tracks, like the tail we no longer have a use for, a constant reminder of our animal, instinctive, wanting, craving, grasping, and clinging side. When we seek growth, or step outside of the dark, or stop the incessant running and just see, we notice that bad stuff comes with the good. Finding ways to deal with our shadow sides and commiting to them are measures of our coming to terms with the full spectrum of our humanity. Thus, accepting and owning there's more and more and infinitely more to our Self we ever thought possible, in bad and in good, can be seen as the yard stick in assessing where we are in our personal development.

 So here are some thoughts on how our individual personalities form and how we can start embracing our totality, thus having a possibility of going beyond our experience of reality. Seeing through ourselves starts with seeing ourselves as we are, not as we wish to be. I have had many a painful lessons on the subject and I'm still refusing, constantly, daily, but I'm trying. That's more than I was willing to do for the longest time, and I'm glad I finally mustered enough courage to try and meet my personal material. There's lots and I'm thankful for it. Seeing the layers upon layers upon the countless layers residing in myself, and trying to make them my own gives me hope of finally transcending them. But before transcendence, inclusion - and isn't that the darnest part!