Disidentification Meditation

My previous post emphasized the fact that some realities, like being in love or the nondual state, cannot be fully understood conceptually but must instead be realized through direct experience.  The eternal truths that the mystics arising from all the different religions have discovered buried beneath the layers of their consciousness and seated in the centers of their hearts have been strikingly similar with one another. 

One can learn more about the parallels that exist in the experiences of the men and women who have sought to find truth/God/reality through the experiential means of meditation by studying the Perennial Philosophy.  One such parallel in the conclusions of the mystics worldwide has been that Spirit (God/reality) is found within and to realize and encounter that reality we must shed ourselves of our egos and enter into a nondual state.

In Grace and Grit Ken Wilber and his late wife Treya Wilber discuss this aspect of the Perennial Philosophy as Ken is preparing for an important interview on the topic. During their discussion Treya says to Ken, "St. Paul said, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ in me.' You're saying that St. Paul discovered his true Self, which is one with Christ, and this replaced his old or lower self, his individual soul or psyche." Ken responds, "Yes. Your ruach, or ground is the Supreme Reality, not your nefesh, or ego. "

In Grace and Grit, Wilber states, "Spirit transcends all duality. But one discovers this by consistently looking within, until "within" becomes "beyond"....The individual self or ego is precisely what blocks the realization of the Supreme Identity in the first place."

When one seeks to enter the nondual state they are seeking to enter into the awareness of reality itself. To drop the ego and awaken oneself to what truly Is.  I mentioned at the end of the post that there was a particular meditation that I found useful in helping me enter into and experience moments of awareness in the nondual state. I originally came across this meditation in  Grace and Grit, and it was again repeated in the book I am currently reading Introducing Ken Wilber: Concepts for an Evolving World, by Lew Howard.

The following meditation is known as a disidentification meditation because it begins to help us disidentify from our egos. It aids us to perceive our egos as object rather than subject. It draws the meditator into a deeper awareness of Self. It is adapted from Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis, and used by Ken Wilber in a number of his books.   I hope it leaves you inspired. If you decide to practice it please feel free to share your experiences. In the next post I will describe my own experiences and reflections, limited as they are, of entering into the nondual state.

I have a body, but I am not my body. I can see and feel my body, and what can be seen and felt is not the true Seer. My body may be tired or excited, sick or healthy, heavy or light, anxious or calm, but that has nothing to do with my inward I, the Witness. I have a body, but I am not my body.  

I have desires, but I am not my desires. I can know my desires, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Desires come and go, floating through my awareness, but they do not affect my inward I, the Witness. I have desires, but I am not desires.   

I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I can feel and sense my emotions, and what can be felt and sensed is not the true Feeler. Emotions pass through me, but they do not affect my inward I, the Witness. I have emotions, but I am not emotions.   

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can see and know my thoughts, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come to me and thoughts leave me, but they do not affect my inward I, the Witness. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.   

Then affirm as concretely as you can: I am what remains, a pure center of awareness, an unmoved Witness of all these thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations.

Lew Howard (2005-05-17). Introducing Ken Wilber:Concepts for an Evolving World (Kindle Locations 5404-5412). AuthorHouse. Kindle Edition.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the Comments Section. Thank you!

Knowing Nonduality

Some things can't be truly known or realized by means of the intellect but  must be known through direct experience. Consider the phenomenon of being in love.  You might try explaining to a friend what this condition feels like. The butterflies in your stomach, the tingling sensations of spontaneous goosebumps as he who holds your affection touches your skin. The longing for your partner when he isn't with you.

You can try explaining all of these sensations and feelings to others in hopes that they will be able to "get it". That they will be able to truly understand what you mean when you speak of your being in love. But try as you might, they never really will "get it" unless they decide to plunge into the tides of human experience and taste that reality for themselves.


Language is very limiting. Especially towards such profound and abstract experiences like being in love. That is why every culture blooms with song and prose using elaborate and sensual imagery in hopes to capture the sentiments associated with this profound condition. Metaphors and symbolism are used to express the full power of desire, the taste of union when our hearts melt into our lover's. We can find songs both ancient and newly conceived that attempt to capture this state in such a way that those hearing can relate. Sometimes it's the instrumental pieces that contain no lyrics at all that express it in a way where words fail. Without words that can mislead they put forth  haunting melodies capturing heartache and loss, thunderous crescendos revealing climax, light and playful notes strung together to have our senses view the merry tango of souls courting one another. It's almost like we feel we are there...almost...

And so too, it is with the spiritual experience. There comes a time when words simply fall short. When one who has experienced a particular state of consciousness or spiritual reality will attempt to share that account with another but find his audience looking back at him with a vacant or bewildered expression. When a concept seems too "big" for the mind to wrap itself around and understand by means of the intellect.

This can especially be the case when it comes to those who have had their soul's palate be whet with the foretaste of nonduality and still more for those who have dived far enough below the ego's multi-layered garments to shake them off entirely, leaving the eternal core within naked and exposed, blazing with a light that outshines a thousand suns.


I am currently reading "Introducing Ken Wilber: Concepts for an Evolving World" by Lew Howard.  In his chapter on nonduality, Howard  notes that reading descriptions of nondual awareness can often seem like a paradox to those who haven't experienced this state of awareness themselves.  He echos Wilber's emphasis that those that have journeyed through the laboratory of the consciousness, personally unwrapping their own layers of ego and exploring the Self within, have left us with descriptions.  Seekers from all of the world's religions have sought the Self that lies buried at the core of our consciousness and their experiences can illuminate the path before us but we still have to walk down it ourselves. Their descriptions provide a layout of the land, of the different layers, stages and states of consciousness that must be traversed. To see this land for ourselves we must set out on our own journey into the mind via the method of meditation.

To get an idea of what one experiences in a nondual state, this is one of Wilber's descriptions of what it's like. Just as a note, the term Witness that Wilber uses is synonymous with Self:

"Everything continues to arise moment to moment—the entire Kosmos continues to arise moment to moment—but there is nobody watching the display, there is just the display, a spontaneous and luminous gesture of great perfection. The pure Emptiness of the Witness turns out to be one with every Form that is witnessed, and that is one of the basic meanings of “nonduality.”

 …the real world is given to you once, immediately—it is one feeling, it has one taste, it is utterly full in the one taste, it is not severed into seer and seen, subject and object, fragment and fragment. … Real experience, before you slice it up, does not contain that duality—real experience, reality itself, is ‘nondual.’ You are still you, and the mountain is still the mountain but you and the mountain are two sides of one and the same experience, which is the one and only reality at that moment.”

~ Ken Wilber, as quoted in, Introducing Ken Wilber:Concepts for an Evolving World (Kindle Locations 4703-4706). AuthorHouse. Kindle Edition.

If this doesn't make sense to you don't be disappointed! To most of us it doesn't. It takes training of the mind and a determination towards the spiritual discipline of meditation to begin to experience such a state of consciousness. To really understand the nondual state one has to realize it experientially and not just try to grasp what it is about through means of one's mind. "The Self cannot be known through study of the scriptures, nor through intellect, Nor through hearing discourses about it it...The Self cannot be known by anyone who desists not from unrighteous ways, controls not the senses, stills not the mind, and practices not meditation." (Katha Upanishad 2.23a-24a)

It was my intention to share one of the meditations I have enjoyed incorporating into my spiritual practices that has helped me disidentify with my ego and begin to taste the nondual state. I feel because of it's length it would make this post too long so I will share it in the next post. There are many paths to the same destination.  Wilber notes that seekers from all of the different religions in the form of their mystics have developed ways of meditating which aid individuals  ascribing to those religions in experiencing such a state of oneness with God/universe/reality (whatever is one's perspective!).   One just has to pick which path calls out to them and pursue it with passion and dedication.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the Comments Section. Thank you!

Four Faces of Spirit: An Intro to Ken Wilber

On the road to the Divine there can be many twists and turns. Sometimes the way seems clear of obstruction, a light from within guides our direction with a sense of certainty that thrusts us onwards like the strong winds that prompt the sails of  ships forward. At those times a feeling of elation stirs the spirit onwards, thirst is alleviated as we ride aboard our soul's vessel, mist spraying, satiating our parched senses and renewing our vigor. Refreshment from the Divine pours upon us as if some great warrior pierced the underbelly of the mammoth beasts of clouds above, allowing rain to break upon our heads jerking us awake. Completely aware we travel on. Feeling and seeing everything moment to moment. There is no separation between us and the vessel we ride upon or the sky above or the rain falling down. We are one with All. We are one with Spirit.

Unfortunately, the journey towards awareness and Spirit isn't usually so elating and satisfying. Moments like those are sometimes referred to as "peak experiences", temporary and fleeting, but giving us a foretaste  or peek, of what we can expect to experience in even greater quantities and on deeper levels as we plod onwards and progress from one stage to another on our journey towards understanding.

Instead, the spiritual journey, at least mine, can be more likened much of the time to that of trekking through the woods on a path that hasn't been cleared for ages. Sometimes the way seems quite sure, the path widens and I can walk with relative ease and assurance. Other times it's as if the path stops entirely and I need to get out my machete, take a breath and seek direction as I start to carve my own path for awhile, hoping it will soon find it's way back to a more sure trajectory towards the Divine. Going completely on intuition to guide me. It's easy then to miss out on small clues that can help lead me in more fruitful directions as I miss the markings and signs around me.  Completely focusing on the large branches blocking my view I miss out on the subtle intricacies offered.  If only I would step back and take it all in, breathe, and see the view before me in a more complete way.

I haven't written many posts lately as I have done a lot of seeking inwards and that has caused me to write less and read and meditate more. My pursuit toward a  more clear comprehension of reality has lead me to drop a lot of the excess spiritual and dogmatic baggage that I once carried. In the recent past I've spent a great deal of energy untangling myself of the attachments I had towards presupposed ideas of what I've always come to accept as true so I could get a glimpse of what truly Is. After such a process I found that  I now could identify the many illusions I one held as fact, but once they finally scattered it was like what was left was a void, vast and shapeless, infinite and dark beyond comparison. How do I navigate myself in THAT? How do I find my way when there seems to be no objects between spans of space, but just merely space itself? It was like I found myself stumbling through a dark night with not even a trace of the moon above to guide me. Empty and wondering if there was even a Divine to seek after.

What I needed was perspective and discernment. No, the space before me was not empty I just lacked the insight and vision in which to make out the shadows, shapes and form that becomes ever clearer the more one objectively gazes outwards.  I believe God and reality are synonymous. To see reality more clearly is to  understand God more clearly. The tool I realized I needed was a helpful framework which I can use to orient myself in the journey onwards. Something that will help me see and absorb my experiences and the reality which Is, with a greater sense of depth and objective clarity.

This is where Ken Wilber comes in. Following the suggestion of a friend who has always provided me with great resources I began to read, "Introducing Ken Wilber: Concepts for an Evolving World"by Lew Howard. I had read some of Wilber's work in the past and listened to some of his lectures and interviews on YouTube but must admit his work at first glance can seem very complex and daunting. If one approaches it without a sturdy foundation it is likely that one will miss a lot of points and concepts that Wilber introduces to readers. That has definitely been my experience in the past. So, I decided to try out Howard's book and see if I could gain more insight and understanding into Wilber's philosophy and if it could indeed aid me in my journey towards understanding reality in deeper ways.

Wilber has designed a comprehensive map  which one can use in order to see reality more clearly. It is called AQAL or All Quadrants All Levels. The basic theme around this map is that all of life consists of holons. You are a holon, I am a holon. Anything that you can possibly think of is a holon, including the thoughts and concepts you use to process the very information you are reading in this post. Howard desribes holons as any "entity that is itself a whole and simultaneously a part of some other whole." For example, an atom is a holon. It, in itself, is an identifiable entity, a whole. It also finds its identify of being a part, a part of a molecule. Howard notes that even ideas are holons. There are more encompassing ideas that are composed of smaller ones. Reality consists of an eternity of nested holons. Everything is always both a part and a whole.


Wilber's philosophy includes the assertion that all holons are manifestations of Spirit. There is no one holon that is more "spiritual" than another for all are grounded and arise equally from the same source: Spirit. When Spirit manifests a holon it always arises having four perspectives, or as Wilber sometimes puts it, Four Faces of Spirit. This is where AQAL comes in.  There are four perspectives in which we can see any one object or occurrence (holon). All holons have a singular, plural, interior and exterior nature. When we learn to see things with these four perspectives simultaneously we are indeed seeing things in their true entirety. We are starting to immerse ourselves in a more complete awareness of what really Is. We start to see the interrelated nature of life and thus begin to understand ourselves and others in more complete ways.

This is a representation of Wilber's AQAL model:


Courtesy of Google images


I am not yet finished with Howards book and plan on discussing Wilber's philosophy in much greater detail but I'd like to add a very important point to Wilber's AQAL model. When an individual begins to focus on any one of the four quadrants when interpreting a holon, it dramatically skews one's perception. This is called reductionism-when the four quadrants essentially are collapsed into only one quadrant. When I read about this phenomenon I automatically identified myself as having recently got too caught up into the upper right hand quadrant. Identifying and focusing with the physical and almost disattaching myself of late from the spiritual. One can see clues of this in my recent article "The Fragility of Existence" where I reflected on whether or not reality was just comprised of the physical. This is not an uncommon pitfall for many and in fact the upper right quadrant is where a lot of reductionism takes place. The fact that Wilber's AQAL model helped me to realize this shows how it can be practically applied in helping individuals to understand themselves better.

Howard states, " To believe that the only things that exist are physical objects would mean that things such as love, mind, soul, and spirit are derived from material physical objects-if they are even admitted to exist at all." To maintain this view would be to look out at reality through the means of tunnel vision and lose the full spectrum of perception that is possible. This is an easy stumbling block for many who seek out the truth to find themselves in because science emphasizes the physical yet neglects the spiritual and sometimes it's easy to begin to think that only science can provide us with true objective answers. But science is just one perspective among three in which is needed to interpret reality and must be balanced with the others to get a more holistic and integral view.


I look forward to discussing other dimensions of Wilber's  philosophy of integral theory in future posts.
 

Thoughts? Please share them in the Comments section. Thank you!