Individuation
Hold Firm To Your Uniqueness
Photo by Manuel Schlichter, Pexels.com
With a critical mass of people anchoring their uniqueness in the ways described in this course, we can avoid global tragedy, prevent widespread heartbreak, stem the tide of environmental devastation, and create conditions that will preserve all of our positive agendas.
Most people are unaware that we are in the midst of a dark night for all species. Within this night is the eye of an evolutionary perfect storm, where conditions are coming together that, without bold corrective actions, will cause the demise of billions of fellow earthlings. Fewer still are aware that the Twenty-First Century –– a time of quiet horror and pain for humans and non-humans, alike––marks a birth on a massive scale of a time of improved intelligence and grace. All births are painful, including births of renewal.
This renewal can only happen if we do the necessary work, as described in this course and elsewhere. The collective offspring of this birth of renewal needs to be an embodied divine humanity.
We need such folks to grow into the kind of secular saints this series of courses aims to develop. Such good folks need to have ensouled bodies, masculine and feminine energies, and the capability to perceive using both heady concepts and bodily sensations.
They will need to have the fortitude to resist the mainstream, obsessive, dissociated, chilling commitment to thinking in terms of separation, objectivization, and control. In taking this course, you will be given the ability to use a newly acquired free-flowing, supple, intuitive intelligence that comes from a “brain” you probably do not know you have. By changing your “self” in the way described in this chapter you can become a “midwife” that aids the birth of a more feminine outlook and approach.
This feminized outlook and approach is capable of ending the semi-demented denigration of the wild, both within us and outside of the enclosures (our homes) where we too often waste the bulk of our lives, filling the perceived emptiness of our own company by watching senseless, televised programming.
From television and other sources we are programmed to be dissatisfied, to want more, and to work for others to gain what we think will make us feel better. Over time, we are lulled to accept ruinous divisions such as the separability of mind from body, or the inseparability of man from nature, or the inseparability of “self” from “other.”
We begin this course in the way most of us currently think––as if the individual can be separated from the whole. Each of us is an individual, and, as people with agency, we have our own uniqueness. This individuality marks half of our being, with integration into the whole––discussed in the next course––making up the rest.
We may not be able to stand alone, but we can learn about our individual aspects; and, in this learning, we will begin to see how by working on ourselves we affect the whole. While this course is about the individual and the Ego, remember: as we relate to our individual bodies, so too do we relate to our world; and as we deepen our experience of the body, so too do we deepen our experience of the world.
This series of courses will make it possible for you to tap into the enormous source of intelligence that comes to you via your own newly acquired abilities to feel, deep in your bones, both Nature and a glorious sense of Wholeness. The state of wholeness feels like a lack of injury, like nothing is missing, like everything is complete, like everything is perfect, like everything is unbroken, and like you are in a peaceful state of total unity. It is an immensely satisfying feeling of love that seems native to your Soul. It is a feeling of joy marked by healthiness, satisfaction, and uncut oneness.
You will never perceive this natural unbroken wholeness––this ultimate fulfillment––until you able to feel in a more complete way with your individual body. As we shall see, this feeling of wholeness is difficult because our culture encourages us to focus on the functions of the well-known cranial brain--on concepts, rationality, analysis, and separation--rather than on a blending of the cranial brain with the little-known “brain” at the other end of the spinal column––the enteric brain–– which governs feelings and the sense of unity with the whole.
It need not be this way. We need not be mired in abstractions. We can know and use our masculinity (our propensity to be a disembodied doer) but, even as we do, we ought to also keep and use our femininity (our propensity to be a felt body). Simply put, be both the action and the actor.
Our culture could support the yearning to be free, to have creativity, and to be present amid the myriad of things. But it doesn’t. And it ought to because we need all three––freedom, creativity, and presence. There is no freedom without creativity and presence, nor is there creativity without freedom and presence, nor is there presence without creativity and freedom. We need to be able to walk around on these three legs, on these three aspects of our wholeness, so that our Selves can be complete, so that we can awaken to the integration into the whole to which our Selves belongs.
There cannot be integration into the whole without an individual being integrated. And there cannot be an individual alone, living without the whole.
You are one of these three-legged individuals––having one-leg yearning for freedom, one-leg yearning for creativity, and one-leg yearning for presence. To put all three of these useful yearnings to good use for yourself and the world, you cannot expect society as a whole to guide you. The guidance that you need requires the individual. Without individuals there is no freedom, no creativity, and no presence. Your “three-leggedness” means that it is you as an individual that has to guide and, therefore, create a better future. You, armed with the three yearnings, are perfectly suited for this role.
You may be a man or you may be a woman; but; either way, you have a mixture of masculine and feminine qualities. The masculine in you makes you a doer. The feminine in you makes you a being. You are a unity of doing and being. The doer in you streamlines, and gets right to the job at hand. The being in you multitasks, connects, and communicates. It is your feminine side that lives in accordance with the rhythms of nature and seeks to minimize aggression and war.
If you tend to wonder “What should I do?” more than you wonder “How should I be?” the masculine side is likely to be dominant in you. We will discuss more about such gender differences in the Heartwood Path course entitled “Eros.” And we will discuss the abiding reality of life, found in one’s relationship with the whole, in the next course. Here, we are focusing on the entity that is being related. With a title like “Egos” you may suppose that we will be discussing in this course the egregious, hard-to-control impulse to acquire more and more. The subject of that misdirected drive is introduced in this Heartwood Path course and expanded upon in a later course entitled “Ethos”.
Egregious wealth can be thought of as a measure of one’s ability to abuse the world. Certainly, with greater affluence one has the wherewithal to purchase more than one needs. Such consumption often comes at considerable cost to other people and the environment.
Wealth does not measure one’s ability to do good. For this reason, we will in this course focus on a better measure of goodness: one’s openness of heart, one’s ability to transform, and one’s yearning to grow in depth by adding layers to one’s spiritual development.
You will not need wealth to be successful as you progress down the Heartwood Path. You will need compassion, a sense of justice, and an unswerving commitment to reduce suffering.
We begin with the individual self, as if it stands alone when really it does not. A fabrication, the individual self is part of the “duplicate” world of concepts and words. I say “duplicate” because the individual self is not real, but a duplication of the real that comes in the form of concepts and ideas. The individual self is not made of stuff, but it is a metaphorical process, a man-made character that we shall use for literary clarity.
Despite its fictional nature, the self is extremely important to you as an individual. A fragile conceit, all reality appears to be contingent upon the individual self, which is never out of relationship with the whole. We can only speak and act as if we have no relations. In reality, nothing, including the individual self, exists alone. We can, however, talk about it separately. But let us always remember, the Self has no perseity. It is not an actual separate entity. Defined in the English Oxford Dictionary as “the quality or condition of existing independently, perseity is a false notion because isolation is a meaningless fantasy. Everything is sustained by the whole. How to overcome “perseity”––the false notion upon which the whole of western civilization is established––is addressed in the Heartwood Path course, entitled, Collectivos.
How the individual self relates to the whole brings up the notion of rights and responsibilities. An individual right is a possession that one has and typically wants to defend. A responsibility is a relationship with the whole. Such ethical distinctions are discussed in more detail in the Heartwood Path course: “Ethos.”
Without thinking of it as a fiction, we often place the individual self in the head, in the private isolation chamber of the brain. This placement is our way of getting “ahead” but it is not a good way to achieve enlightenment–– that is, all-aware unbroken harmony.
It will as you progress down the Heartwood Path often be acceptable to be empty of ideas so that you can be more in touch with your feelings. The insensate cranial brain, a numbskull, is the center for masculine doing. The sensate enteric brain is the center for feminine being. At each waypoint you will be asked to create a duplicate world of words. In doing so, always remember that you are creating a replica or re-creation of the real thing.
In the activities for this series of courses, use words to record your impressions. Specifically, focus on NNIAAL ––the Universe’s inner world constitution: Now’s Nameless, Intelligent, Alive, Attraction, Love. If truthful, write down your impressions about becoming massively connected, about how you can feel the distinction between abstract substitutes/duplicates/models and the experience of the present. Failing to feel this distinction will put you right back into society’s trap, a prison where fear of feminine being leads many of us to become tyrannical doers who placates our typical fear of being with the acquisition of possessions. The upcoming waypoint will help you learn how to correct this planet-wrenching tendency. There, you will learn how to perceive with what can be thought of as your two “heads:” the “head” for the creation of concepts and the “head” for bodily sensations. Let me explain:
We have a cranial brain which is the seat of our mental processes. We also have a visceral or enteric brain, located in the pelvis, which is the seat of our nonverbal consciousness. For much of your activity along the Heartwood Path, moderate the use of the brain in your head so that you can allow to come forth the feelings of your visceral brain in your lower body. Doing so will be important because you will be asked, over and over, to minimize conscious thinking and to highlight the feelings of conscious being. This process occurs in the individual, which is why we are addressing the topic of individuation here. As you proceed down the Heartwood Path and later in life, do not allow the head to always be the rightful ruler. And do not allow the man to be the supreme creation of the universe. The balancing of the head and the heart and the brain and the pelvis will enable you to develop a consciousness that is axial (head to tail, cranial brain to enteric brain) rather than unipolar (head or tail, cranial brain or enteric brain). It is through your axial consciousness––your ability to both think and feel––that you will become particularly well suited to making sure that for every right there is also responsibility. As you learn to develop such axial consciousness, you will be pleased about how good it feels; and you will realize that to be present in the world means making room within the corridor between the head and the pelvis for the world to be present in you. This room-making is extremely pleasurable, so much so it will make you glad to replace the known self that is a fiction made up of duplicate entities and words with a wondrous felt self that is made up of one’s body, of the revelations of felt currents, and of the expansion of compassion. Once this felt self emerges, the known self falls away. In its place is a grounded abiding presence that is also the blossoming of one’s core. And, in its place is a glorious feeling of being connected to all that is.
As you engage in the practices of this series of courses, you will be undergoing a hero’s journey aimed at healing the primary wound of our culture: the rupture between thinking and being. As a result of this journey, the self will dilate beyond the boundaries of your skin to include the presence of the universe.
This delightful opening to the whole of the world occurs within the individual, but not within an individual who is crass or brutish. The wonderful feeling of opening up to the whole occurs within a person who is gentle. As it turns out, our sensitivity, more so than our willpower, helps the world. In Ecclesiasticus, one of the books of the Apocrypha in the King James Version of the Old Testament, it is written: “Many are in high place, and of renown; but mysteries are revealed unto the meek.”
The concept of being meek is a familiar sentiment that is often confused with timidity or a retreating demeanor. By encouraging meekness, I am not suggesting that individuals going the down Heartwood Path need to lack strength. I am instead calling for a grounded presence that allows one to be in the world’s stillness in innocence. A meek person can stand tall in humility before Spacious Presence. A meek person can be patient and un-resentful under injury or reproach. A meek person can have a grounded gentleness of heart. She is one who can usher others into a relationship with the present while being fully sensitive to it. To be meek is not to dress or speak in any particular way. It is rather a willingness to be open to the illumination of vivid companionship, open to the mind and hearts’ sensitivity, and to use the medium of love for communication with anything. Writes Philip Shepherd:
“The gentler you are with yourself, the more fully you will be present. When you can be gentle with your whole life, your whole life will be present. Of course, gentleness is soft, but its effects are not. It opens the door on the flux of the world, the only reality, which moves with the power of a whirlpool. Not everyone chooses to give over to its pull. If you do make that choice, your grounded gentleness will carry you into an ocean of truth . . .Your ability to respond depends on the yielding spirit of gentleness, and whenever gentleness is offered, your ‘responsibility’ will be activated” (2010, pp. 314-315).
If we want a peaceful world we as individuals will have to be peaceful. Indeed, the world we make replicates the one we experience within.
In this Heartwood Path course you will learn about how individual and largely unconscious inner world mechanisms underlie the world’s ecological predicament. You will also learn how understanding your own psychology and developing your individual self are initial steps towards finding that place where your own deep happiness meets the world’s deep hunger for sustainability. Getting to know oneself through inner reflection is the foundation of any spiritual quest.
You will be looking specifically at the individual, singular Realm of Interiority. This is the realm of your intentions. Here, you find your purpose.
Your purpose, aims, and Will are inner world events that you do not solely produce by yourself. They are part of the Universal Source. Your role is to become attuned to them. Pardon the expression, but I invite you to use your so-called “little mind” to tap into the world’s “Big Mind,” which is really your own mind expanded. This broader and deeper mind knows what you are to do with your life. The Big Mind directs a friendly universe, one that always works on your behalf.
When you look within, you concentrate all Spirit at your point of attention. In doing so, you will discover that you are much greater than you previously had known. You become what you like to become. The power of intention is revealed as:
creativity,
kindness,
love,
the appreciation of beauty (which is wholeness, reverence for life, and truth) and the ever-growing expansiveness of life,
unlimited abundance in the nonmaterial realm, and
receptivity to receiving and giving guidance. (Dyer, 2005).
As this course progresses, we will be looking at the core of the problem. And, we will address solutions. As we shall see, one cannot just stick an intention into the blank space of the mind because there are some curious occurrences (called “defenses”) going on in there. These inner world events may get in the way of a magnificent future, both for oneself and for the world. For this reason, defenses––described subsequently— have to be understood and dealt with before one can begin to think about working out solutions.
For now, however, before working on your defenses, learn to create more beauty by uncovering what is beautiful about yourself and by applying your own beautiful uniqueness into all of your actions. Begin each Heartwood Path Activity in the customary fashion:
by going into nature,
by seeking out an attractive being found there, a
by opening yourself up to Nature through all of your fifty-four natural senses (described subsequently).
Then, as instructed in the following activity, read the text in the left column and answer the questions about yourself in the right column.
To A Positive Self-concept…
HumaNatureConnect Activity
Connecting Positively With The Individual Self
For this activity, create a positive self-concept. In the first table, read the statements below (in the left column) and give your related impressions (in the middle column) now and in the right column at the end of this course. Also note that there is another table aimed to encourage you to write down what you hope you will achieve regarding your self-concept by taking this course.
