I am starting this thread to hopefully get some perspective on the emergent shadow at third-tier consciousness.  I have recently been able to take what appears to be a very large shadow and project it's energetic compenents onto others.  I have been a little timid at opening or using my psychic/transpersonal knowledge because I somewhat lack the etiquette or desire to control some of it's negative components.  However, as I have found to be absolutely true, stages are fixed and short of a witch-trial, I cannot stop my impulse to bring forth my inner light and maintain openness, even with my under-developed self-aspects.  I am without a teacher, or an integrally aware therapist, so the progress I make on illuminating some of these, pretty nasty subcomponents of myself is done slowly, and sometimes in very ineffective ways (eg, telepathic manipulation, mismanagement of the siddhis- things that break what I thought to be a strong ethical awareness).

The thing that does sound absolutely mad, and is, is that I have found my-self-shadow (okay?) to be tricking me into dipping out of consciousness in order for it to enact some pretty powerful and sometimes shameful displays of pre-personal aggression.  I am not only curious about exactly the structures of consciousness in motion when this happens, but most importantly, how to transmute the emotions once it becomes 1st person in my awareness.  Oftentimes, I find myself re-repressing the shadow again because, once given a mouth in my awareness the evil is not something I want to own.

What is worse, perhaps, is that I stifle my "bright shadow"- the truly luminous form I know exists, gets taken for granted and I end up in a perspective battle where everything gets washed into grey, because I don't want to see any of it- and yet I do, such is the paradox of the integral self, I guess.

Any thoughts or direction would be very! much appreciated.

Love from my point on the planet,

Sean.

 

Hi, Sean - I like how you presented your dilemma here, a dilemma of how to live with and express your third tier experiences, without mis-using or abusing with some of those gifts and powers that can have a shadow cast behind them. I probably operate much from first tier dynamics, but still I might be able to say something useful.

You sound frustrated by the apparent dilemma of potent capacities that don't feel good kept repressed, I'll say, and the potential messiness and harm that might arise when these capacities and their accompanying shadows become personal in you. I respect your dilemma and caution, I'll say, because there may be risks. You may know this better than me - is there a risk of getting moved between the acts and energy that you designate as good and those that  you designate as disruptive or 'evil'? Concern about this seems legitimate to me who tends to be fairly conservative in many ways. In the high energy experience fields that you are exploring and subject to, couldn't a person get swinging between various poles, like the good and evil that you seem to imply? Couldn't one get disoriented pretty easily? Because I'm not personally familiar with your states and activities, I'm sort of guessing, maybe erring on the safe side. Hey, apparently, you already have so much going for you, there's no hurry is there? I wish I knew of some source of wise and solid guidance for you.

Wishing you ease and wellness. Yo, ambo.

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Ambo Suno

Hey

there is a saying "invoke often."

another one is "this is only a game."

another iz "rush of panic and the lock has been raped."

im deisiging a text zine called bRain sKat (raining kats and dog po0) so i like your title.

i get what your saying.   you allow your-self-shadow the freedom a truly open heart must allow, but when he takes the command seat he tends to hang on past his time and likes having nothing to do with the light and the other structures, because that's how he's used to it when he's around.  i haven't resolved or even probably approached the problem from your depth, but i'd say .... the repeated invocation of all selves, shadow, intellectual, spiritual, will break down the fences.  the game of the narcissistic tyrant will grow transparent as long as you don't hide from it in spiritual 'knots' (allied with intellectual order).... and don't think it all has to be perfect, even grotesquely blessed, all of the time... it's perfectly ok to be a sleep walking parade of stupid me-mes sometimes, as long as it all moves on.

---

the fabric begins to tear
and i don't really care

and ive begun differentiating the shadow from that which is in the shadow, so that to be 'integrated with the shadow' is in fact to have no shadow... just a little semantics, but it means alot.

you also ask in your first post "Seperated Shadow Self" about it's emergence in the context of different centres-of-gravity.

its a question i have been thinking about this week.

let's say you are highly intellectual... einstein... and einstein wants to break dance.  it would be nearly impossible for him put away, even breakdancing, his sophisticated orientation to the action.  his outbursts are made for good reasons with wise plans... i think it would be healthy for him to chuck all that away and rock out but its hard when you're an architect.

let's  say you are highly heart centred... jayzus... and jayzus wants to break dance.   to him it is embedded in the context of love sanction, rather than only a plan.  there is absolutely no holds barred by the heart.  but still it is FROM the level of third-tier subtlety. therefore if jayzus rocking out gets in the way of someone else rocking out, there is a bar made by him which is not of the heart.

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the fabric begins to tear
and i don't really care

matrix man - shadow sam = chaos

"shadow" is only the truth we don't want to know.   the part of the holistic super man we still want to amputate but cant because we are it so much. so how do i fit this in to the grand System of light instead, and eliminate the shadow.   it must be possible to negotiate the better than substandard existence of our shadowed selves within an evolutionary process.

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the fabric begins to tear
and i don't really care

sorry to flood you :/

the concern about the shadow arising in the space of psychic level capacities... like shadow impulses will take the higher opening to run amok, like we saw when the internet was thought to create a global 'brain' of world centric humans and instead became the ground for every kind of nightmare.  your afraid your higher social networking capacity will be used against it's very higher level embrace of the network.

don't be afraid to exercise other structures.   it isn't always about the trouble children, be disciplinary.

the internet is good that it did include anyone with a modem, but there comes a time even on the internet we have to buck up and put some order inplace.

even better some SOUL in place.

i bet you are sensitive to symbolism, so carry through with that sensitivity and make your environment the most comfortably integrated place in the world in an aesthetic and meaningful way.  use symbolic devices to replace identification with other realms of the psyche, but allow the other realms through in a way that fits into your evolving harmony.   it's an intuitive play or alchemy of form and its energetic perception.

it's about a workable freedom-together with an emerging heart on the horizon of awareness........ shaking loose but not insanely, evil justifying itself... shaking loose to come together.

i hope that made some kind of sense.

 

What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support, That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 1

Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.

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the fabric begins to tear
and i don't really care

I've done some Thunday Morning reflection on the nature of my self-entanglement, and I thought it'd be helpful to share with everyone my self-diagnosis.  I consulted with the Ken Wilber texts (Transformations of Consciousness, Integral Psychology), looking closely at the passages on Fulcrum pathologies and their remedies for reinstalling healthy integration when I came across in myself, a very neglected hierarchical system of subpersonalities often dominated or repressed as they struggled to gain center stage at my level of altitude (which I believe is an emerging Level 7, psychic/para-mind).

I'll make an attempt here to make some of what I discovered coherent.

What I found is that the subpersonalities have their own COG, with specific needs, specific to their given level of origin (the age at which they became disenfranchised from the overall self).  However, these needs have to be met within the self's current altitude.   This would explain why when, a red/orange subpersonality steps into the consciousness of Level 7, it has shadowy demands for power or sex, and there is an energetic reverberation that lets EVERYONE know about it because part of the self-system is legitimate, transpersonal communion with all of nature.  It is also true in my case that the neglected hierarchy allows this because there is a pathology also at Level 7, allowing for psychic inflation.  Which I would describe in myself as a very rude assertion of soul-level-existence in an almost infantile refutation of it's own interconnection in the universal system(?).  Or, more kindly put, a child-like curiousity of the Yogic potential, with crazy ignition.  Unfortunately, a weak green in my case might disallow for the healthiest integration or communion because of low-self esteem, so there's an automatic assertion of say, red to refortify the system- improperly.  I do find that open communication with others, using an open heart and compassionate awareness, while holding the map, is the best way to check the integrity of the self's structure.

Perfection does not come at the higher levels of consciousness, only greater insight and clarity, which can easily be denied and repressed in the awareness, if there isn't a clear understanding of how the self should best articulate or express it's insight. 

Hi, pt. You really are digging majorly into these issues of self. If you've heard kw and mm's exchange you are more fully aware of the larger version of Transformations of Consciousness that will come out. You'll probably dig it - it sounds that you understand a lot of what he's pointing to. I'll probably get that book when it comes out. Shucks - no perfection? Daang! Smiling, ambo

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Ambo Suno

I did hear that discussion- I was glad Ken finally started picking apart the stage transformation of third-tier with someone who has been so dedicated to making meta-normal capacities a legitimate field of inquiry.  It's something I've been interested in my entire life. 

What I recommend for reading, if anyone has interest in the awakening of psychic capacities, is Pantanjali Yoga's Sutras.  They (the Sutras) do an excellent job at outlining the potentials inherent in the human organism, and they are also put into perspective in relation to enlightenment.  Really, exploring our extended consciousness is only a part of making the subtle realm an object of awareness.  What's cool, is that often times their functionality follows the same basic principals of the laws of nature.  What is even cooler, is the process of excavating the soul from the mind and body.  A beautiful process of recognizing the good, the true, and the beautiful in it's magnificent expansion.  It makes you feel awesome.

I have found through my experiences that once the antenna is up, or the satelletite is broadcasting, the siddhis and their movement in the self depends in large part on how the individual personality operates.  For example, if there is still a temporary, unfulfilled or unfermented need for friendship, one's broadcast might go ape-shit in the pursuit of reaching a false sense of unification with another.  I do say false, because, communion at that level should be soul-deep, as much as the individual is capable of finding strength, and clearing away the bullshit to allow for their interior illumination to bring grace and love.  I am drawn to pause on the relationship between the self in culture.  Ken often speaks of an Integral closet.  It seems if we're ever to actualize an Integral age, it is necessary to bare soul, and allow our extended embrace to operate as fully as it can.  Even if it mesmerizes, exhilirates, or confuses.  I find that at second or third-tier, it is extremely necessary to think about how to formulate a sense of self that best represents the Integral life.

PT, cool on your life-long  interest. I think that maybe I was more interested in meta-normal quite a while ago, but now I'm not quite sure how I'd describe my interests.

"What I recommend for reading, if anyone has interest in the awakening of psychic capacities, is Pantanjali Yoga's Sutras.  They (the Sutras) do an excellent job at outlining the potentials inherent in the human organism, and they are also put into perspective in relation to enlightenment.  Really, exploring our extended consciousness is only a part of making the subtle realm an object of awareness.  What's cool, is that often times their functionality follows the same basic principals of the laws of nature.  What is even cooler, is the process of excavating the soul from the mind and body.  A beautiful process of recognizing the good, the true, and the beautiful in it's magnificent expansion.  It makes you feel awesome."
Also, quite a long time ago I did look at Patanjali's Sutras - that was a primary interest and emphasis of Desikachar and I studied briefly with him in Madras. As you may know, he wrote Religiousness and Yoga and he refers to Patanjali as a foundational resource - he used to teach at Colgate and this book is based on his lectures. I was a dabbler as I often tend to be so have no great knowledge of yoga, but just by being in his Patanjali Sutra classes I couldn't help but get an enduring respect for the fact of it's breadth and depth. I'm saying this to vibe with you in the minor way that I can about this subject.

"I have found through my experiences that once the antenna is up, or the satelletite is broadcasting, the siddhis and their movement in the self depends in large part on how the individual personality operates.  For example, if there is still a temporary, unfulfilled or unfermented need for friendship, one's broadcast might go ape-shit in the pursuit of reaching a false sense of unification with another.  I do say false, because, communion at that level should be soul-deep, as much as the individual is capable of finding strength, and clearing away the bullshit to allow for their interior illumination to bring grace and love.  I am drawn to pause on the relationship between the self in culture.  Ken often speaks of an Integral closet.  It seems if we're ever to actualize an Integral age, it is necessary to bare soul, and allow our extended embrace to operate as fully as it can.  Even if it mesmerizes, exhilirates, or confuses.  I find that at second or third-tier, it is extremely necessary to think about how to formulate a sense of self that best represents the Integral life."
I appreciate and follow some what you are saying here, to the extent that I am able from my ordinary point of view. I am sort of fuzzy still about the word and meaning of soul, especially as it relates to me. I think I get a hint of what might be meant by this - "I do say false, because, communion at that level should be soul-deep, as much as the individual is capable of finding strength, and clearing away the bullshit to allow for their interior illumination to bring grace and love." - it sounds beautiful and I may be moving towards that, almost while not knowing that I am.

"It seems if we're ever to actualize an Integral age, it is necessary to bare soul, and allow our extended embrace to operate as fully as it can." 
I don't have enough of a sense to know what baring soul means; apart from maybe acting at each moment from one's best, as one can, given our multiplexity and the incongruities that may exist among the various aspects. It seems to me that owning and baring the "low" as well as the "high" might be important work as well. This is probably implicit in what you are saying, and you are maybe speaking from a greater wholeness and integration where those subpersonalities and fascets are no longer latent or active. Since I am so far from that, I naturally wouldn't undertand such soul-work much. But I like the sound of your words.

"I find that at second or third-tier, it is extremely necessary to think about how to formulate a sense of self that best represents the Integral life."
I can relate more with this. This is a question that has been more active in me lately. If one hasn't been blessed through early life with a cohesive, functionally agentic self, as I have not, then one might ask at some point "how to formulate a sense of self . . ." And if one has been blessed with fairly healthy self, one might come upon limitations at some stage and maybe the old healthy structures become strictures. I suppose that the old would have to be included and transcended as it is said; however in my imagery of the moment, much may have to be dropped or has been tattered and one might ask that question, "how to formulate a sense of self that best represents the Integral life." How does one now raise oneself? At least this, PT, is where I often find myself. Now that I notice I have so much freedom of action and sufficient understanding and some control over my self or actions, thought, feelings and such, how do I live? How do I formulate myself. Maybe I consciously look to what "integral" has to say for guidance and maybe I look in whatever manner I know that fits my way - because that's what I tend to do - my way. How do I really formulate myself freshly and sanely and maybe holy. As you are suggesting,"integral" information may make a very reasonable orienting framework. It would probably be clear from the outside that I am already guided by "integral", yet for whatever reason I feel I need to open to original impulse or insight or influence - from where?

I hope PT that this riff isn't too vague, confusing or convoluted. I wanted to speak as I am feeling/thinking now without checking too much for whether it is intelligible or reasonable.

With some connection, ambo

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Ambo Suno

Hi Sean

I was looking over your queries and insights about the third tier shadow and had some thoughts of my own. But the first thing I was wondering is how you came into your psychic abilities? Were you born with a gift or did you actively pursue developing them? You mentioned Patanjali’s Sutras so this could mean you were consulting them to learn more about a gift you already had or because they could help you develop something you didn’t have yet but desired to have.

Anyway, one doesn’t hear much talk about development into third tier mainly because many people are struggling just to get to second tier. But I don’t even think that the psychic realm is considered to be a level of development these days (you put it at level 7) as much as it’s considered a state of consciousness which can be accessed from any structural level of development, be it amber, orange, green etc. That being the case, the knowledge one gained from accessing the psychic realm would then be interpreted through whatever structure level one was actually at. From what I understand, the way to determine the structural level one is at, one must take the important lines of development i.e. cognitive, moral, interpersonal, self, affective, etc. and make a psycho-graph by determining if one is, say, egocentric, ethnocentric or world-centric in each line. Then I suppose some sort of averaging will tell you something as to where you can locate your altitude.

In a number of your statements, I think I’ve been able to identify some developmental lines. Without comment, I will excerpt a couple of them and in parenthesis put the line it may pertain to:

"I've done some Thunday Morning reflection on the nature of my self-entanglement, and I thought it'd be helpful to share with everyone my self-diagnosis. I consulted with the Ken Wilber texts (Transformations of Consciousness, Integral Psychology), looking closely at the passages on Fulcrum pathologies and their remedies for reinstalling healthy integration when I came across in myself, a very neglected hierarchical system of subpersonalities often dominated or repressed as they struggled to gain center stage at my level of altitude (which I believe is an emerging Level 7, psychic/para-mind)." (cognitive)

 

"I am without a teacher, or an integrally aware therapist, so the progress I make on illuminating some of these, pretty nasty subcomponents of myself is done slowly, and sometimes in very ineffective ways (eg, telepathic manipulation, mismanagement of the siddhis- things that break what I thought to be a strong ethical awareness." (morals line) (interpersonal line)

 

"The thing that does sound absolutely mad, and is, is that I have found my-self-shadow (okay?) to be tricking me into dipping out of consciousness in order for it to enact some pretty powerful and sometimes shameful displays of pre-personal aggression." (affective)

"Unfortunately, a weak green in my case might disallow for the healthiest integration or communion because of low-self esteem, so there's an automatic assertion of say, red to refortify the system- improperly." (self)

This leads me now to comment about the "shadow". The shadow is something in us which is unconsciousness. It is not separate from who we are except in that it would be so humiliating to admit that this too is me, that we simply project it onto someone else. If the shadow becomes known, it is no longer shadow, but something we now need to take responsibility for. I believe it is the Self line which contains most shadow and through that line, it contaminates the other lines. I also believe that the bottom line of the shadow is a self-centered desire for power which originates in a deep-seeded lack of self esteem and sense of unworthiness. The most important thing in elevating one’s level of awareness and consciousness is to make the shadow known. And the simplest way I’ve found to do that is to 1.) Just start making statements out loud about people who annoy you and 2.) then realize you have just made a true statement about yourself and 3.) go interiorly and find examples in your own life where you have done the very same thing you have just accused that other person of doing and 4.) now armed with the power of self-knowledge you not only have the ability to change in yourself that behavior which was shown to you by another through projection, but also the next time you see that actual behavior in another, you will be able to respond to them with compassion because you have realized that that very same thing is also contained within you and you know the reason for it.

Psychic ability can be a great gift. But it can also lead one into the depths of hell and deception. It can be used for personal gain and self-aggrandizement or in an act of service to another. I believe that the highest ideal would be to use this gift in the service of others. But first one needs to get oneself to the highest level of structural development possible for the simple reason that the limit of your service is the limit of your development. In other words, you can not accurately interpret or understand the information or the needs of a person who is above you--only those below you. So the higher you are, the more profound and real, your service. And one more thing; in true service, there is NOTHING in it for the personal self.

Richard

 

 

Wow -great job Sean (or at least to the part of you that worked so hard to get here).  Have you tried to ride the perspective battle, where you maintain equanimity and allow the perspectives to emerge without taking sides? 

"The thing that does sound absolutely mad, and is, is that I have found my-self-shadow (okay?) to be tricking me into dipping out of consciousness in order for it to enact some pretty powerful and sometimes shameful displays of pre-personal aggression."

I am wondering if this is the soul attempting to re-gather previous experiences that went unintegrated by enacting them for your dismay at a higher altitude.  Shame guards us from experiencing these deeper feelings.  Really experiencing shame calls you into being.  

My advice?  Keep turning toward your experience and keep identifying who is having the experiences.  & find some effing community where you can simply share your experience & people can recieve it.  My guess is that you have some kind of practice -are there other practioners in your area?

I hope this helps you manage the chaos.   

Warmly,

Steve     

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The power of the imagination is being realized. Being realized is the power of the imagination.

Interesting stuff, everyone.

 Sean, I finally found the time to read this thread and felt inspired to toss some musings into the mix.

What I picked up was a sense of someone (you) aware enough to have a choice about what thoughts and feelings to focus on and express. Of course, I could be wrong, but anyway.... By some standards, this freedom of choice would already be called an "awakened" state. But I don't want to get hung up on definitions and semantics here. Because what you describe, to me, is a place where a jump occurs, a very minute shift from a pre-meditated way of being, where you still calculate and ponder a lot - thus being a slave to thoughts - to the naturally present fact of simply *being*. This shift can happen many times a day, at least in my case. Once the shift happens, you are in This-now-present-unadulterated innocence. And of course, nothing compares, nothing... This simplicity is so absolutely, supremely fulfilling -- the almost imperceptible subtlety of the subtlest, most sober bliss. And I find it in the barenaked experience of just presence.

So much space... finally enough space to contain... this... that I have been from the beginning. And in *this*, thoughts arise, feelings arise, all sorts of gyrations, but there is no sense that they can really control you, at least not for long anymore. It's too late for that, all those age-old, twisted, worn-out games, Big PsychoDrama panoramas... good versus evil, and being versus non-, and all those rabid fears and desires... well, we just keep facing these formations, we go on swallowing this mass-produced darkness, the writhing mass of maya with her whole enchilada -- and where is it then?

free, we have to be, because that is the truth of our being. In freedom we can't know things beforehand. Freedom by its very nature must be an absence of what was previously known, thought of, and is now gone with the wind. This freedom is also a second kind of innocence. Many mistake it for ignorance, but if anything is third tier, (which I don't care about 'cause that's going into the domain of classifications, and they're all made-up) .... so, if anything is third tier, then a spontaneous outpouring of uncensored self-expression must be the hallmark of it.

It's important to get the difference between what Ken calls stages and what he calls states. The nondual state is out of time; it is freedom from time. Stages are structures in time that have been shown to unfold in several different cultures in the same or similar way. If a person rests in the nondual state, they will then come out of that state and express it through various structures. We can rank those expressions in terms of care, inclusion, beauty, etc. For example, Carol Gilligan's stages go from selfish, to care, to univeral care, to integrated.

The structures or expressions that we already know will be very easy to express; they will roll right off our tongues, right off the cuff. The structures we don't know so well will be difficult to express with any kind of spontaniety, espeically under pressure. The next highest stage or structure a person is moving into will often be difficult, and under a lot of pressure a person might not be able to express it at all, let alone with spontaneity. Even under pressure a person will be able to express the stages they learned long ago with spontaneity, but it won't be representative of their highest self.

A person has to discriminate carefully if they want to express the highest structure available to them, be willing to bear some pain, make some sacrifices, and they have to increasingly care for something greater than themselves. This is hard work, harder in many ways than the horizontal state realization. It requires moment-to-moment discrimination. But it is very important to do because it is just as important a mode of emancipation as the nondual state and because what a person expresses affects others around them.

mm