Riding The Kundalini Dragon: Integrating Altered States

Sa'Rah,
  Wow. Hmmmm. Yikes. (repeat)
  Thank you for sharing your story with all its openness, vulnerability and honesty. I went to look at your mandala art work before reading your zymposium entry and found that it seemed to inform your story. Opening and grounding. Opening and Grounding.
  More later.
blessings,
coyote

Sa'Rah,

Thank you for putting the words together to open a window to your life. And thank you so much for your honesty. Beautiful.

Given your experience with some rather groundless energy, I was encouraged to read that you've found some means for grounding your self. I can relate to the difficulty of sitting still, and chanting/kirtan/dancing are wonderful means for descending into the body. Vibration! Yet sometimes I go into “flight” with those tools, too, so balance is key for me. That's part of why I am also called toward meditation…for the slowing down, even if it's only brief.

Anyways…thanks again!

sa'rah, what a journey you've been on! thank you, thank you for sharing your story.

your life is a miracle and i'm honored to share healing space with you.

much love

stunning, brave, beautiful and honest sarah.

i hope you won't mind if i check in from time to time over the next few days with clarifying questions - i feel like this is  actually a very dense amount of information that beautifully descibes some powerful distinctions, stage-transitions and integrative processes….

sarah, i echo coyote's sentiment…… consider adding one of your mandala images to go with the piece please! let me know if you aren't sure how to do it….

sarah,

all i can think is that i feel so honored to have read this beautiful completely real-time totally present piece…..and your worries about being inadequate or not “linguistic” are almost funny! it's so honest and eloquent and not at all mired under theory in any way, but directly comes from open grounded experience—so much so that i had a visceral response in reading it, and tremendous gratitude for your vulnerability…this is a perfect example of how wonderful our vulnerability and transparency is. i agree with julian that you described many important states and stages in your personal journey. you have inspired me to be far more open, heart-centered and vulnerable in my own piece than i otherwise would have been. thank you so much love! would that everyone were so open…..

sarah,

all i can think is that i feel so honored to have read this beautiful completely real-time totally present piece…..and your worries about being inadequate or not “linguistic” are almost funny! it's so honest and eloquent and not at all mired under theory in any way, but directly comes from open grounded experience—so much so that i had a visceral response in reading it, and tremendous gratitude for your vulnerability…this is a perfect example of how wonderful our vulnerability and transparency is. i agree with julian that you described many important states and stages in your personal journey. you have inspired me to be far more open, heart-centered and vulnerable in my own piece than i otherwise would have been. thank you so much love! would that everyone were so open…..

agreed daate.

sarah:

i am fascinated by the contours - childhoood suffering seemingly generated from within (brain chemistry/ UR) feeling of werdiness/dissociation etc…  psychiatric diagnosis, institutionalization etc…. then a falll from a bike and head trauma, resulting in an intensification of certian symptoms and a journey through a myth-like landscape of venice boardwalk archetypal schizophrenic visionary experience, complete with synchronicities, prophecies, armageddon fantasies, etc…… followed by deep ironic disilluionement that the wrold in fact is still here - and  a gradual emergence into an embrace of life, a turning to face the shadow, a groudning into the body with all the resultant intense energetic/emotional processes, wow!

now:

1) can you give a sentence or two about the function that the super new agey stuff had for you at that time in your process?

2) what do you think about the william james quote in which he says that no account of the universe can be complete that does not include altered states and then that the real question is “how to regard them…” as well as the eckhart quote i have been using: “the mad person is drowning in the same waters that the holy person swims in?”

3) can you give a sentence or two about a) what made it clear to you that relinquishing the fantasy world in favor of reality was a worthwhile thing to do and b) what helped you to do so.

4) can you tell us where you are now in relationship to all the intense symtpoms that you decribed? please include your current expereinces of energy and the purpose you feel they may serve….

Sarah, what an amazing journey.  And a lot of writers would love to have that kind of authenticity. It's such an amazing story of rebirth. Our whole culture needs to be reborn that way.

Sa'Rah,

First read, fast read.  There is something in here, in this story, that threads strongly with a barely acknowledged part of me - the “weirdness” piece I think, the finding communion with outriders (gypsies in my case) the whacked head wake-up, hating sitting still, rejecting convention, m m m m m … … . death, mmmm.  Self-abuse, shadow, shadow, shadow.  It is as if two births and a death were required to get us on the planet.  I remember that time, when it seemed I was still dragging a birth bag balloon around with me - bubble boy looking out at a world that seemed unfit for me - “what was all that weird shit people were doing to each other and why won't my brain let me alone?”

Then “whack”, bubble burst, trading alienation and “defectiveness” for real pain and a sense of spiritual responsibility.  Not so much pain now, eh?  Suffering is optional.  The tradeoff is that we have to learn to grieve, grieve so freely and with such committment that we traction in the unexpressed, the deferred grief of all others, welcomed to manifest through us.  With awareness, with this great seva, a balancing joy arises, so that the two threads of grief and delight savor each other like yin and yang, like toast and butter, like love and being loved.  Fear and suffering subside.  The heart opens.  There, the mind finds peace.

I look forward to hearing more from you, and, please, not another word about your grammar.

yer pal,
Michael

hey all - christiana is late to the game but now up and running - and i think it's a really nice companion piece to this one from sa'rah - check it out!

Sa'Rah

I loved these words of yours:

“and what helped me find reality was much of the deeply transformational work I have done with julian and others on a physical body level…cause the mind so often travels, while the body is always here…”

The mind so often travels…beautifully and succinctly put, and SO true.

Thank you for sharing.

Sa'Rah…awesome…your purpose?  pure conscious energy wanted the experiencing of being…you…

 

i dont know sarah and starlight - not sure i see the relationship of these metpahysical vagueries in teh face of the experience being shared….

can you spell it out for me/bring it down to earth?

who is it that is experiencing? 

the ego, aka Sa'Rah is a manifestation of energy, or god, or consciousness, or whatever you wish to call IT…Michael stated that everything IS Shakti…i agree…even though we percieve it in forms,  we attach the experiencing to a “my” experience, and then even years later, that  'my' experience only appears to change, because our perceptions of it shift, due to the shadows we work through as our ego/self…

the event does not change…nor does consciousness, or energy, or shakti…our split/mind, or dualistic perception of events change.  hmmmmmmmmmmmm…the event does not evolve…it is what it has always been…take away ego, one's attachment to it, the pleasure and pain, and the event is still what it was…it is the attachments to experiencing events that causes suffering or pleasure…

forgive me, i am very new here, still working through my own kinks!

Oh, I don't know J.  Some of us really do have history like Sa'Rah's.  Feeling like we missed the planet we were supposed to land on you know?  Sure there is a vagueness to the way this experience is described, but there is no doubt in the experiencer as to how it was back then.  My brother and sisters never ever manifested this out-of-placeness, nor did any of my cousins save for one, a routine babysitter who eventually was treated with shock therapy to “straighten” her out.  Now, I'm not saying this is true for all of us “bubble people” but many I know who have 'fessed up to this type past experience find sense and comfort in the notion that their adverse beginnings and subsequent struggles are worth it as we feel increasing traction along the line from where we were towards where it is that we yearn.  Was it Kabir that said something like “God only recognizes one thing, the intensity of your longing for him.”  Bubble people are generally grateful that the bubble is burst, when it is burst, and if longing has anything to do with where you start on the trail, well then bubble people got longin' down.  In other words, what may appear vague and archaically metaphysical to some, is bread and blood to the other.

Its not about God or no God, its about what leads you from suffering to peace, from isolation to communion.

As Starlight says:  that  'my' experience only appears to change, because our perceptions of it shift, due to the shadows we work through as our ego/self…

And you know J., I don't know  how this all works, it just seems to.  I tried to “understand” for sooooo long and, it was just like my old LSD days:  each trip I would come back with an unanswered question.  The next trip, there it was again.  Soon, after 20 trips or so, I had a lifetime of questions that seemed unanswerable.  I have whittled them down some in the 35-40 years since but I know that I am no closer to a “shareable” understanding.  Now, I see that as the potential booby prize.  I am way more interested in learning how to “appreciate” this wondrous Kosmos as I feel my way along the tightrope of yearning.


best,
M

“It was not so much about relinquishing the fantasy world, as much as understanding its function and integrating it…It is still there, but I can use it and learn from it, rather than escape into it… as I have learned that being in a fantasy world is of no use to myself or others…I cannot serve those in reality if I am not there also…”


Sa'rah - this is such a wonderful thing to say!  I can relate so much to getting lost in a little fantasy world.  I spent so much time in my own little world growing up and I still fight that same tendency in myself now.

But it sounds like you've made this wonderful integrative connection to it that it never occurred to me was possible.  Thank you so much for these words and your post too.

I can relate to being viewed as a “weird” child.  I think some people are born to this world just naturally being very sensitive to altered states.  We don't have any place in our culture for that sort of thing, no understanding.  It has to be hard growing up that way, with a natural tendency and no outlet, even worse, a world that treats you as “weird”.

I remember hearing about a tribe in Africa who understood this concept, that some children were just more sensitive to “the spirit worlds” as they thought of it.  But their tribe understood this and had a place for it and also knew how to handle this.  One of the things they do with these children is constantly keep them around people as they are growing up, so they are not alone, and do not wander off and become lost in the spirit worlds.

I thought this was an amazing thing!  I wondered what it would be like to grow up with people who went out of their way to keep you a part of things, to help you integrate to society, certainly much different than growing up “weird”.

michael - in a way i couldnt agree more that's why i find vague metaphysical speculation spoken as if it were rock solid truth to be - as you say - a booby prize! to me this dose the mystery a dis-service and usually indicates a discomfort with letting pain just be pain….no candy-coating necessary…. do you know what i mean?

but that may be another conversation… :O)

Yes, I think I do know what you mean and I am starting to get a clue about your concerns for people who find themselves groping alone along their trail.  The mytho-archaic evolved into the metaphysical in some people's eyes (me as one of them) and my vexing has come as I tried to study the origins and all the little nadis where the truth in the myth was expropriated and packed into the metaphysical in such a way as to render that subject as suspect as the myth itself.  Hopelessness arises along that study line as its “vagueness” as you say, cripples both a healthy appreciation for the truth within myth as well as the great effort metaphysics made to attempt to bridge the gap between reason and psi fraud.

The individual groping alone, especially the deeply alienated bubble person, is unlikely to take a logical, deductive, rationalist approach to making sense out of their world.  Open to them, written in language that appeals to the mystical nature of their beginnings, is the allegorical, tantalizing world of para-science, the occult, the akashic, and the oracular.

Here we find verbage that makes “sense” for us of a world which, on its face, confounds our sense of right and wrong.  Though much of it is hper-convoluted bullshit, there is an air about this wilderness that gives us bubble people room to breath.  Our instincts are that this is the world from which we came and not the lie-bound rationalist overlay that has rejected and ignored us.

When the finger points at us and the diagnosis of psychosis is leveled, we do not understand the basis (and probably never will) from which the charge is leveled.  To bubble people, who have not sought or been treated to the integration experience, the rationalists seem like evil slave masters out to control the world.  Not my belief as I trust that you see, but it is my problem as I know my roots are “of the bubble.”  If I have loyalties, they lie there.

best,
M

Sa'rah,
  Some reflections and thoughts about your artwork. You say that of all your practices the only one that you are completely devoted to is your painting.  I say “Yes!” I've been married to a woman who has followed that path for many years. She also is interested in the intersection of order and chaos but she approaches it from the opposite direction. Here is her website: http://www.megbrownpayson.com/paintings.html (for some reason the links thingy is not working, my apologies).
  Your story speaks strongly of  the themes of “lost and found”. The feelings and sense of being lost is a very difficult place to be. When lost, there is often an anxiety, a search for the known, a need for specific referents, markers or meaning that can offer direction and a sense of community or belonging. The difficult parts of your story could be titled by the questions “Do I belong here?” and also “Do I long to be here?” Both are very basic human needs. The answers may be ever shifting but none the less form the ground for Psyche to tread on. No ground means no traction. In their absence there is the strong possibility of latching onto, of grabbing and identifying, with any story that offers a framework and place for you. This is one way of interpreting your time on Venice beach. You were offered a story that made sense out of your experience. It was a good story. There was drama, mystery, an interesting cast of characters and a final act.  Then, the story ended and you did not. I honor your willingness to let go of the stories that no longer serve you. I believe that is true courage.
  So then,  moving on to your mandala artwork.

You have chosen to work within a very strict form. Stripped of their imagery, the mandalas are careful geometric constructions. The lines are distinct. The boundaries delineated. There is a sharp edge between the inside and the outside and between the interior sections_ a place for everything and everything in its place. No messy bleeding between boundaries. This is the essence of ordering. I understand the attraction of working within a form_ like the poet struggling with a sonnet or a musician with a fugue, what is being felt is being asked to fit, to conform, to be deliberately limited. And what doesn't fit gets left out. That is the bargain being struck.
  Mandalas are a very specific artform. I understand them as an attempt to capture fleeting feelings, images and energies of the artist's interior experience. In breathwork I have heard them described as “snapshots of the soul”. But breathwork mandalas very rarely have the same level of craftsmanship that yours have. They tend to be done quickly, messily and with less engagement in the issue of skill. The power of breathwork mandalas is their ability to reveal what has been hidden within the unconscious. Like a vivid dream, the BW mandala can be unpacked to show the creator what the inner Creator is trying to express. As such there is a tension between left brain rational thought and right brain associative space. More often than not, what is consciously expressed turns out to be something completely different. From your story, it is clear that you have no problem accessing the unconscious. In fact,  it seems that the “unconscious” is often fully present to your everyday experience. That can be overwhelming and disorienting. The mandala form offers a way to contain and map that experience.
  That is another quality of your mandalas that jumps out. Not only are the images contained (without being constrained) but they are ordered dimensionally and symmetrically. The formal geometry enforces its own ratios of spaces. It demands a “ratio-nality” from the artist. This formal demand for rationality is the means by which the art brings you to ground. The shaped body of the mandala becomes the vessel or container for the imagery. I imagine (and here I am projecting) that the process of making is a discipline of grounding, of making real, of making visible, of translating the moment and fleeting to the concrete and permanent. In short, the making is itself a performance of embodiment.
  Some other quick reflections.

Any visual work on paper becomes an exercise in “figure and ground”.

Mandalas are invitations to journey inward. The central point of focus and the diminishing circles of images imply movement. Sometimes the movement is from the center out as an expansion or explosion (controlled) and other times the images flip and become a tunnel, an opening or passageway to something and someplace other. Of course the experience is  multi-leveled. I am always aware that I am a viewer looking at a created object but I can diminish that quality of perception and actually step into the images and have a direct experience. As such the mandalas function as traditional objects for contemplation. They are “frozen information” which thaws and moves when engaged by the observer.
  Your mandalas are packed full. There are no gaps or spaces. As such they suggest moments of wholeness and full completeness. Nothing more to do; nothing more to say; nothing more to show. Full, complete, finito. Until the next one…. I see them as totems of health: vibrant with color, with liveliness, with hope.
  Absent is shadow. In breathwork sessions the first crayon or pastel to be used up is always black. I would ask you, “What does a shadow mandala look like?” “What form or formlessness would shadow take on the page?”

  So, I woke up at 1:30 am and re-read your story and comments. Now 4:00 and I am hoping I can return to sleep. Thanks again for sharing. You write powerfully.
blessings,
coyote

michael! bada-boom. what a burst of luminous clarity! yowza…. that's exactly what i am groping towards…

am feeling you Sa'Rah…what is rock solid truth anyways?  in experiencing  the undenyable mystery of this cosmic event,  and then trying to put it into words, gives rise to the sages who knew that…once truth is spoken, it is lost in translation.

i love what you say about using the pain, instead of having it use you…and that all other things fall underneath this mystery…again, wisdom shines!

once getting past the wrong or right of whatever is allowed, that is when real healing begins, and it appears that this is where you are.  your last paragraph resonates deeply…the floating back and forth…can relate to that, knowing of course that  this is still the process of attachment. 

your honesty is appreciated, and  brilliantly points to a truth greater than any words could ever…you go girl!

i wasn't having a go at you sarah - i totally get where you are coming from - i was more pointing out the general problem that is fairly common of rationalizing pain with glib assertions of universal perfection and god's inscrutable plan etc…. yeah?

one doesn't have to step back very far to see that it is a tiny fortunate few who survive tragedy - and that the metaphysics that suggest higher meaning to unfair pain only hold water for the tiny priviledged group who are able to survive and turn it around….(and i would assert that the ability to survive and turn it around can be understood better and therefore more effectively/usefully through perhaps a 4 quadrant analysis, of trauma/resource ratio, psychograph, genetics,  socioeconomic priviledge etce etc… than through recourse to a vague metaphysical notion of perfection and grace - i know i seem like a scrooge - but this comes from a sincere and heartful place of feeling like that atitude is actually a big, big insult to the reality of suffering in the world….)

to quote david whyte - “human life is so magnificent precisely because you can fail at it…”

no guarantees, no spiritual insurance policy -  tragic death and meaninglessness and loss of soul, injustice, trauma, etc are not only possibilities - they are more often the case than not - and there is no neat and tidy way to make any of that “OK” or “divine”….. without disocciating and rationalizing and going into seriious denial….

when i hear glib statements about divine perfection i think that IRONICALLY this sells the mystery and the majesty SHORT! it's too neat and tidy and it removes/deadens the achievement and the beautiful struggle on the one hand - and the compassion for all the others who have only tragic circumstances and bitter suffering with no relief….on the other.

do you see the twist i am pointing out? i find that in the open-ness and honesty of the fact of inconceivable injustice just-as-what-it-is the potency of healing, awakening and finding a way into healthy integration is magnified, multidimensionally expanded and put in a more grounded context…

again this is not an attack but a consideration of an exchange earlier in the thread and what i think it represents…

i wouldn't bring it up - except i think it is an important part of the work of integrating altered states and supporting others going through them to add a really grounded interpretive lens.

in short very little of what i write on zaadz is for this small group - i am very aware that a much larger silent group is listening/reading that numbers in the 100's to 1000's.

hope that feels ok?

nice.

i must say too that i dont think there is any either or duality between being a victim and being as survivor - one can be both.

i for example am both victim and survivor of growing up in a police state.

victim because i did not choose to be under the power of an evil system.

survivor because a) i am still here physically and b) my own humanity/soul emerged intact (and continues to heal) without being annihilated/co-opted by the evil LL waters i was swimming in….

now as to meaning.

hmmm  a much misunderstood signifier.

a few possible ways people use it:

1) meaning - what is the meaning of a sentence, metaphor symbol - what are you getting at, what do you mean, what is being said - falls under the heading of hermeneutics.

2) meaning - purpose, goal, object, of the most value, raison de etre, falls under the heading of philosophy .

3) meaning - based on a belief in a priori fate, destiny, a structured order to the universe, a way in which everyhting is connected and revealed synchronicistically, astrologically, a sense of what is meant to be and that the meaning of events, especially painful events is understood spiritually as we deepen and usually has to do with karma, past-lives, good things coming from bad, divine perfection etc etc - falls under the heading of wishful thinking, psychological defense, benign narcissistic starry-eyed fluff (if you will…. hahahaha)

now version 1) is for me the most reliable and definable - one can go through a process ( a la wilbers three strands of science, via the eye of mind to discover the meaning of words, symbols etc..

version 2) is less reliable but really important and has to do (at it's best) with the transrational integration of embodied intellect, intuition, emotion. as such we can then make statements like 'the meaning of life is to love one-another” or “the object of life is to find what makes you happy and stick with it through thick and thin” or “the more one embraces the reality of suffering the more space there is for ever deeper levels of joy and love…” etc..

version 3) is often mistaken for version 2) - it's that whole pre/trans fallacy thingee… because 3) is so ungrounded and based in wishful thinking it does not stand up to reasonable analysis and so has to rely on the position that all “meaning” is relative, personal and a creation of one's conscious choice anyway - which i do not think is technically true (or useful) in the context of the two much better ideas of what the word means…

now- the recognition that our psychograph/stage of development will determine how we extrapolate meaning - that is another observation altogether!

because this observation means that there are indeed multiple perspectives doe not mean that they are all equally valid.

from an integral perspective some are more adequate to the reality of the kosmos than others…….

fun stuff!

Okay Julian, I'll bite :-)

1) This is what often happens when two or more people are engaged in and committed to direct communication. I'm pointing towards those occasions when you say something like “I hear you. I wouldn't put it in those words but I know what you mean.” Now I think this is much more likely to happen in conversation when all the non-verbal signifiers are “in play” e.g. body language, eye contact, facial expressions, genuine interest and appreciation _ the tone and context of the conversation. It is less likely to happen when typing away on a blog thread because everything but the words themselves are missing. I can only write so fast which trails my thinking and responding and there is less opportunity to backtrack and make clear any small misunderstandings. That said, the fact that I can understand you, both cognitively and affectively, is something of a miracle. That you, a stranger but for this forum, can reach out and connect with me on  multiple levels as I type here in Maine.

2) Philosophy is its own separate sphere of conversation. It's a profession. There are rules of engagement, criteria for participation and to be fully conversant takes years of study. But the irony is that the subject itself must draw you in for that study to happen. Philosophy is what philosophers do. Having meaningful conversations is what people do. The difference is where is the shared space. Some people have elegantly constructed and argued philosophies of life. They are verbally adept, conceptually agile. I sometimes enjoy listening to such people. They are usually male. But they may or may not convey more meaning to me than less well presented ideas. Elegance, style, fluency are important but they can deceive as much as illumine.

3) This is your favorite straw man. Set him up, stuff him with all sorts of unrelated things: synchronicity, astrology, the Alice Bailey teachings, newage (rhymes with sewage) “you create your own reality” and all the rest of the usual suspects. It's good fun but a bit of an easy mark.
  But here's the thing. Meaning happens. What we find meaningful can be surprising, fresh, and unexpected. Meaning in this context can function as a mirror that reflects back to us our unconscious beliefs and expectations. But beliefs are not fixed in stone. Beliefs that are not resourceful can be released and new ones developed. Not easy. Not the way the SOM people would have you believe but it is possible to change beliefs which in turn change the meanings of events.
  The most obvious example of this is in social situations. If you go into a room with the belief “I'm ugly and stupid” you will give certain looks and actions a particular meaning. In fact to a considerable extent your beliefs will act as filters that directly affect the meaning that you discern and feel. Beliefs shape interpretation. Or as KW quotes the philosopher Pierce in reference to W. James “Perception is semiotic”.  To the extent that you are aware of your beliefs and the structures that support them (LL) you can creatively make your life more meaningful. How does that happen? By paying attention to those parts of your day where meaning is felt. Meaning has the mysterious quality of resonance. It's magical! :-) But resonance does not preclude further reflection and exploration.
  gotta go to yoga class.

smile and the world smiles with you,

thanks for biting brother!

hmmm well i think that we are all philosophers and when we start to express ideas about the nature of reality, the meaning of suffering and integrating intense psychological experiences we do well to think like philosophers - it allows for more truth, beauty and goodness to emerge.

i hear that you think i am straw-manning - but, though what i am lumping together may seem unrelated actually all of those ideas are part of the dominant zeitgeist on zaadz and in most places where the word spiritual has cache….

they belong together because they come from the same level of thinking/belief system. and it is as ubiquitous as it is ill-considered.

i am quite sincere in saying that this is a blind alley with regard to the discovery of meaning - and yet it is the most popular game around - more's the pity! do you not see the moral problem with knowing this and saying nothing?

and my comments had direct relevance to some of the exchanges i was wanting to deepen/bring down to earth….

btw 1) i am not sure where you are going with the gender stereotyping (?) i know several women who can think and speak wonderfully in reasoned philosphical ways - and
2) i really don't understand the suggestion that more truth may be revealed by poor reasoning and bad thinking? please explain….


oh and of course one's beliefs affect how one interprets reality and what one brings to situations - that is actually one of the points i am making - but how we then interpret that is teh question, no? i think it has to do with stages of development and layers of unconscious material - and very little to do with the popular beliefs about it (that i won't go into for fear of straw-manning, but pick a profile from the zaadz homepage and you;'lll probably see good examples pretty quickly…)

also btw: are you coming to the defense of the new age position, and if so - why? do you think i am just being a big loudmouth meanie?

in my defense i think the truth is in the details, the beauty is in the context and the goodness arises via the interpretation….these are good things to debate! :O)

in good humor
~j

Hi Sa'Rah,

Your story about riding the waves and integration, and centering via body, breath, mind, and emotion, rings powerful and authentic. “I realize now that integration is an ongoing process.” Amen to that.

Blessings,

Jim

to be even more direct:

i think that altere states and energetic experiences present an extraordinary possibility that is best integrated/interpreted/understood via all three modes of knowing (empirical, philosophical and spiritual), all four quadrants etc…

so to that end i am interested in:

talking about 'truth” as see through subjective and objective lenses via the window opened by such experiences as well as interpretations/leaps of faith that may not serve “truth” as well as others…

the unfortunate problem is that wishful thinking is so eaily given the stamp of “truth” by impressive phenomena - and this is a real problem if we are interested in arriving at some good conclusions about the subject of the symposium.

for me this is one of the central areas of importance - dn i say this not to invalidate, disenfranchise, scorn or straw-man anyone, rather out of a passion for the possibilities of the process….

cool?

Sa'rah,

Hi, I'm back.  :)

This thought of yours has been with me all day:

“It was not so much about relinquishing the fantasy world, as much as understanding its function and integrating it…It is still there, but I can use it and learn from it, rather than escape into it… ”

I've been pondering this and a lot of questions have come up for me.  I wonder if I could ask you to expound on this without intruding too much - I understand this is very personal.

- Can you describe a little more about how you've integrated your fantasy world?   In what ways are you able to use it and learn from it?

- Can you describe some of the process you went through when integrating it?  Is it just something which came up through your art or was it a more deliberate process?

Blessings, AT

Yes Julian cool. And I very much appreciate your declaration of good humor and your obvious passion for this symposium and the process of making some sense of it all. So for my own edification let me re-state some of the theory of states and stages.
1. Anyone can have an experience of any state at any stage. 

2. Any state experience will be interpreted according to the stage determined “center of gravity” of the experiencer. Center of gravity being defined as where a person lies on the spiral 50% of the time. This interpretive lens will reveal the person's values, beliefs and aesthetics.


3.  Stages can vary widely for each person as measured by their psychograph. Growth and talents are not evenly distributed.

4.  Psychograph maps are not static but dynamic and can be changed over time through specific practices and techniques.

All of this is pretty cut and dried. At some point you need to include the concept of Grace. I'm pointing towards the quote “Enlightenment is an accident. All you can do is make yourself accident prone.”

However, the stories in this symposium seem to show that there are other forces at work that are ultimately unknowable and mysterious. Why do some people have spontaneous kundalini awakenings at 21 and not others? Karma? Past life preparation? Cosmic humor? Who the heck knows?
  What relationship does kundalini awakening have with the non-dual state? Causal states? Subtle states?
I see all these questions as wrinkles, folds and tears in the nice neat map of theory.

there also seems to be some large gaps between the posted personal stories which are messy, human and subjective and the transpersonal theory of Integral spirituality. round pegs and square holes.

Are the posters up for having their experiences teased apart and analyzed? And who will do the teasing? I think that is a most delicate art and ultimately, like the meaning of a dream it is up to the dreamer to determine the meaning and value.
agreed?

brother coyote

point seen - partial agreement - sentiment honored.

i think we actually have adequate tools viz 4 quads, psychograph, trauma/resource ratio, genetics, the vopluminous data from transpersonal psych. to evaluate a great deal and make some pretty good educated guesses about how this sort of stuff plays out - without recourse to any metaphysics. why not draw on these nunced, integrative, research based theories?

i dont actually see the gaps you are talking about at all - this does not in any way reduce the mystery for me…… it deepens it!

the last question is one that perhapsd people can respond to  as they choose.

i have no doubt that if i was offending/being insensitive i would have gotten some feedback to that effect from someone on thei blog or via private note…. but i appreciate and value the concern.

best
~j

sounds great sarah - i was only using those phrases as examples - not meaning any of them as specific assertions - so change away….

by less reliable i mean less concrete and empirical - still nonetheless powerful, valid and verifiable using the “eye of mind” mode of knowing and the “3 strands of science”….

beautiful turns of phrase and meaning in that last comment sarah - thanks so much for making this a really juicy conversation!