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Chuck’s Place: Mind Your Words

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Practice saying it…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

There are many voices in the head. The most prominent is that of the ego itself, the voice of consciousness that directs thought and decision making in waking life.

Just beneath the ego is the voice of the subconscious, that which stores the knowledge of our personal experiences in this life, as well as our genetic and ancestral knowledge and the archetypal programs that distinguish our species.

The subconscious also houses the split-off complexes formed through traumatic experience, which maintain their own consciousness. The voices of these split-off complexes represent learned beliefs, which exert their influence upon our everyday emotional states and mental functioning.

Additionally, the subconscious houses the soul’s journey through eternity, which includes many sub-personalities that weigh in on current life from their vast and varied experiences in infinite life. These influences, though pronounced, are generally veiled from waking ego consciousness, which spends most of its energy navigating survival and the tasks of daily waking life.

The subconscious is also the powerhouse of manifestation. All humans generate the life they are in via the suggestions delivered to the subconscious mind. The mere flicker of a possibility, housed in the words of a thought, immediately registers in the chemistry and emotion of the human body. The thought, “Did they get home OK?” can generate acute anxiety in the pit of the stomach, as the mind imagines possible accidents.

The shamans of ancient Mexico identified a parasitic, inorganic entity that produces an internal dialogue, which they called a flyer. The flyer influences the subconscious mind with incessant negative thoughts, generating intense emotion, the stuff of its sustenance. This parasitic relationship between species is quite common, as all life feeds upon life on this planet.

Whether the flyer be considered real or metaphorical, the effect of the internal dialogue upon human life is the manifestation of the consensus reality we live in. Essentially, the internal dialogue is a tour guide that cynically, and incessantly, defines who we are and the life we are in. The inner dialogue knows the fragility of the ego’s plight: a stranger in a strange land, cut off from the knowledge of its soul’s fuller journey and resources by the veil of the blank slate, which is installed upon birthing into this human life.

Through the internal dialogue’s generation of constant negative thoughts about the ego’s incompetency, and its negative view of outer reality, the ego easily becomes overwhelmed and thus spends much of life preoccupied with attempting to establish its worthiness. Meanwhile, it remains cutoff from its true royal lineage as a magical being. As a result, all the capabilities of its energy body soul self remain unknown and unavailable to ego consciousness.

The advantage of this parasitic arrangement is that the ego is able to remain fixed in the waking life it is in, thus effectively fulfilling its purpose for being in this life, which, cutoff from its history, it has little knowledge of. Had we full knowledge of our history, we would know of our immortality. Such knowledge would overshadow the time space limitation of this life, which actually motivates our efforts for fulfillment because of those limitations.

The disadvantage of the internal dialogue is the constant negativity it spews to the subconscious mind, which manifests in both anxious and depressed mood states. When we are cut off from our soul self, life can be made to appear nihilistic, foreboding and meaningless, with little possibility for joy and fulfillment.

Actually, the internal dialogue can be viewed as the gargoyle that guards the gates to the deeper knowing of our true selves, until we are able to subdue its influence upon us. Despite its negative influence, we tend to become addicted to the familiar sense of self that its cynical words generate and, regardless of our conscious intent to become more positive, we resist moving away from the comfort of a known self and world, with all its inferiorities and limitations.

Perhaps the greatest suggestion the shamans of ancient Mexico offer to transcend the insidious effect of the internal dialogue is to suspend judgment. When the ego gives this suggestion to the subconscious mind in the presence of an extraneous thought or interpretation, it opens the doorway to the world of possibility. Limiting beliefs are mere hypotheses that needn’t automatically define reality.

If we truly suspend judgment we are freed to open to a world of infinite possibility, with access to our magical selves. We are free to explore the subtle dimensions of the energy body, with its ability to travel beyond the body and communicate with more evolved spirits, who can guide us to latent abilities, such as telepathy and the deeper knowledge of the soul’s journey, with its many relationships in infinity.

The practice of suspending judgment is quite simple. Don’t engage in argument with the internal dialogue. Accept the basic truth of the inferior position of the ego. Rather than get caught in the struggle for proving self-importance, utilize the ego’s ability to approach life with the innocence of a child, in awe with the discovery of life and all its possibilities.

Mind your words.

State the intent: “Suspend Judgment.”

Enjoy the momentary inner silence such a suggestion manifests.

Allow the suggestion that anything is possible to be tested in the experiment of daily life.

Discover the positive outcome of such unbiased exploration. You won’t regret it!

Suspend judgment,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Human Complexity

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Working on unity…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Carl Jung defined a psychological complex as a ‘feeling toned idea’ that acts quite autonomously in the human psyche. When Jung was performing his word association tests he observed that certain words triggered delayed reaction times and emotional reactions in his experimental subjects. Something ‘else’ was interfering.

This led to his discovery that there are autonomously functioning parts of the psyche acting outside of consciousness. Jung called these influences ‘complexes’. Freud spent his entire career highlighting the Oedipal complex, which he considered the greatest unconscious influence upon the human psyche.

Today we have terms like alters, ego states, fragmented parts or archetypes to depict these autonomous influences upon consciousness. Robert Monroe took Western psychology a step further with his research into out-of-body (OBE) states, where consciousness discovers non-material parts of the self that regularly influence consciousness from subtler planes of existence.

Monroe’s discoveries concur with Hindu science with respect to the emotional/desire body as the first to be encountered in an OBE state. Many OBE explorers report an encounter with excess sexual desire in their early explorations. Monroe also discovered a preponderance of sexual preoccupation by many travelers who had left human form through physical death, as they remained fixated on sexual activity, though lacking a physical body.

Monroe’s discovery certainly lays credence to Freud’s emphasis upon the overarching significance of sexuality for human beings. Sex may be the major karmic issue that sends disembodied spirits back into human life. Monroe also reported encounters on the astral plane with the energy body of sleeping human beings, equally preoccupied with sex in their dream states.

Beyond sex are the many emotional attachments that humans, in their energy body OBE states, are found to be preoccupied with. Civilization, with its emphasis upon reason, uniformity and conformity, has suppressed and repressed the spontaneous living of impulse. What we previously considered as repressed and contained within the psyche in the physical body may be very actively living on the astral plane outside of human consciousness.

The current polarized attitudinal split in the human race might actually reflect this polarized split within the human psyche, manifesting as an outer collective opposition. If we distill this opposition, it could be reduced to, simply, reason vs impulse. Resolution of this opposition is fundamental to unified progress.

Shamans introduced the practice of recapitulation as one’s individual soul retrieval journey. If one can bring consciousness and reconciliation to all of one’s parts, one can achieve wholeness while in human form. To the extent that this remains incomplete will determine one’s karma. After all, how can one go forward as a fragmented soul. One must first discover and gather together all of one’s parts.

Elmer Green served as his wife Alyce’s shamanic guide in her journey through Alzheimer’s disease. Alyce had spent her entire adult life immersed in the highest of spiritual principles. As her energy body journeyed into the astral plane, as she went the course of Alzheimer’s, she encountered her shadow self, the repressed and unloved side of herself, for the first time.

Besides her memory loss, she became paranoid and rageful much of  the time. These experiences were largely driven by her encounters with her unknown self. With extreme patience, Elmer helped her to get grounded and reconcile with her fuller self. This enabled her to enter infinity at an advanced level, well beyond the shadow bardos, when she physically died in this world.

Jung’s choice of the word complex to denote autonomous parts of the psyche truly holds up. Humans are complex beings! The key challenge in human form is to resolve all of one’s complexes and become one’s true wholeness. With wholeness one’s energy is fully united, as everything becomes possible.

From complex to unity,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Completing Karma

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What goes around comes around…

Causes have effects. Karma is the effect of a cause, the place we land subsequent to taking an action. And where we land is the only place we can launch from in our next action in life. It is truly where we are.

We are comprised of many dimensions of karma. At the genetic level, we are the karma of our DNA, the historic journey of our ancestral line seeking answers to its mysteries. At the High SOUL level, we are the next chapter in our SOUL’s journey through infinity, part of our ego-Soul’s sojourn to gather experience for our greater SOUL group.

In the karma of everyday life we might write something on Facebook. From this action we generate reactions to our post that may enrage or hurt us. To complete this karma we must make peace with our feelings. Short of fully detaching from our feelings, we remain bound to the karma of our feelings, which on some level will determine where we launch to next.

For instance, we may decide to defensively avoid our feeling reaction to people’s reactions, by allowing our feelings to slip into the body unconscious. The karma of this action may result in a stiff muscle, a headache, and a depressed mood. This unsettled state of karma awaits future reckoning if it is to be completed.

The body may house many incomplete karmas. In traumatic recapitulation an individual’s body may be seized by the full reliving of a completely dissociated experience. The karma of that forgotten experience is completed as it is transformed during recapitulation into a deactivated memory, carrying no emotional charge.

Carl Jung discovered, in his Word Association research, that the subconscious mind is filled with incomplete karmas, which he labeled psychological complexes . A complex is a feeling toned idea, in the subconscious, that gets triggered and intrudes emotionally upon everyday life circumstances. Triggers are caused by latent karmas seeking completion in the events and interactions of everyday life.

If I house a ‘complex’ karma of feeling belittled, I (it) may be triggered by anyone seeking to give me feedback in life. Actual completion of this karma may require both emotional discharge and full acceptance of the defining experience of being belittled. Full acceptance of that defining moment frees me from the legacy, or karma of that false belief. Incompletion of this karma would result in continuing to feel offended by people’s feedback, as well as maintaining a belittled complex within.

The subconscious also stores a composite of the many selves we have been in the many lives we have lived. There may be incomplete karmas from former lives that need completion. What we call our Soul Group is the cast of characters that seeks the wholeness of our SOUL, but struggles with a preoccupation with incomplete karmas from the separate lives we have lived.

Fortunately, the current life we are in has attracted many thematic elements from those prior lives into the composition of who we are in this life, providing a playing field for our past life karmic completion. It is not necessary to return to the knowledge and experience of a past life. All you need to complete prior karma is present in the circumstances of your present life.

Completion of karma can also be witnessed on a planetary level. Don Juan Matus admitted that in ancient times female shamans dominated the shamanic playing field. He contended that once the male shamans were able to gain the advantage, they swore they would never give up control again.

This position parallels the patriarchy of our planet, which has, until recently, succeeded in enacting a karma of powerlessness and pervasive self-doubt upon the feminine. The karma of the lopsided rule of the masculine upon the body of Gaia, planet Earth, has resulted in the pervasive breakdown of the world, as we now witness.

The fact of the matter is that all human life issues forth from, and is nurtured by, the body of woman. Earth, under the management of men, is on the brink of destruction. It is the inevitable karma of woman to restore the health of the planet. For this to happen, the feminine must be restored to its divine power.

Of course, this does not mean that women must once again solely rule the world. Women are equally capable of being dominated by a patriarchal mentality. All humans must restore the feminine to its rightful place to put the evolution of the world on solid footing. At present, political advance of the feminine values of love and interconnectedness represent the true collective karmic completion of planetary need.

Grappling with true karmic completion in our individual lives contributes holographically to the planet’s healing and advance. From a heart centered place, we are guided to the karma of right causes and right effects. Let’s pay it forward.

From the heart,

Chuck 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Mood

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Bad Mood!
– Art by Jan Ketchel © 2018

“I woke up in such a mood; I can’t seem to shake it.”

What is this heavy feeling state that mysteriously envelops us like a fog as it thwarts our familiar energetic sense of self.  A mood hardly seems part of our typical ego consciousness. It seems to derive from elsewhere in the vastness of our psyche, having gained enough momentum to overtake and color our state of mind and energy for the day.

A mood is the emotional expression of an other part of the self, a sibling of the ego, that typically resides in our shadow, the part of us that is also “us” but resides in the dark, outside our conscious light-bearing ego self. A mood is a concretely experienced example of a separate and distinct part of ourselves that impacts  our consciousness, as well as our attitude, as we approach our daily lives.

Jung originally coined his psychological approach “complex psychology” when he discovered the existence of other characters in the psyche interfering with the conscious ego’s ability to respond to certain words presented in a word association test. This was expressed through delays in reaction time, as well as through physiological indicators of emotional distress. For Jung this was clear evidence of what he called “feeling toned complexes” or sub-personalities that coexist in the background or unconscious part of the psyche.

A mood can be understood as a form of communication to ego consciousness from an inner complex or sub-personality that expresses a powerful negative reaction or attitude toward something present or emerging in life. Given its debilitating impact upon the will of the ego, the mood may render the ego deflated or depressed. Often this can lead to an immobilized or compromised moody state.

The emotional tension generated within the individual by the mood frequently seeks relief via blaming someone outside the self as the problem. This of course can lead to endless misunderstandings and bickering as the scapegoated other reacts to questionable accusations. Unfortunately, the defensive need to relieve tension within the self often blinds a person to such distorted projections.

Ultimately, the sub-personality or complex behind a mood must be owned and reckoned with directly by the ego through an inner process of reflection and negotiation. The ego must suspend judgement toward the troublesome complex if it hopes to engage it in a reconciliatory process. Although the ego must endure a mood, it must also establish that it remains in control of all actions taken. Nonetheless, it must be willing to let the mood have its own voice too, that is, allow it to express its point of view, the reason for its mood.

The ego must be careful not to decide it automatically knows the reason for the mood, it must consult the mood directly. As we sit quietly with the mood we seek to have it communicate its point of view directly. We can do this through a process of amplification, by acknowledging the feeling state of the mood and asking for more information. Perhaps at this point an image or thought spontaneously comes into mind.

Perhaps we see a familiar person’s face in our mind’s eye. Perhaps we hear them saying something. We can listen and give attention to what they might say. If it’s just an image, no words, we can stay with the image and see what associations about the person come to mind. If we write down our associations we can then feel our way through them to see what associations feel more energized in this moment. In effect, we are building a communication bridge with the mood that gradually fills out its message.

Perhaps it becomes clear that our ego has felt obliged to accommodate a plan with another person because it doesn’t want to disappoint them. The mood becomes recognized as a shadow complex that holds the truth that we don’t want to do something. Its mood is an attempt to subvert action and have the ego assert itself.

The ego is now in a position to acknowledge the truth of the mood and the need to become more assertive with its true feelings. The ego can then validate the shadow complex and pledge to move gradually toward greater self assertion. This might set the stage for a fairly quick lifting of the mood. Sometimes it can be that simple, at other times far more complex.

The key to the resolution process is the acknowledgement by the ego of the autonomy and right to exist of the complex itself. Giving attention to the complex warms it toward the ego, but it must realize that the ego is in charge of all final decisions of action.

Treating a mood as an invitation to a dialogue shifts the focus toward positive collaboration. As difficult as that process may be, it stands to advance us toward inner unity and healing.

Move over Freud! Perhaps communing with moods is an even more efficient royal road to the unconscious, though of course dreams are always welcome!

Mood lifted, blog written,

Chuck

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#724 Chuck’s Place: “Seeing” with Jung: Prelude to Encounter

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When the seers of ancient Mexico scanned the human body with their “seeing eye” they saw thousands of vortexes of twirling energy.* From this vantage point they discovered that we humans are physically comprised of countless individualistic energy fields functioning as an integrated unit.

Carl Jung discovered that the human psyche is similarly comprised of many complexes: segregated, individualistic sub-personalities, many of whom, though they co-exist in the psyche, remain unaware of the existence of each other. For Jung the dominant problem for modern Western civilization is its near total reliance on one complex within the psyche, that is, the ego complex. In fact, the rationally dominated modern ego complex dismisses, denies, and remains deeply alienated from the greater part of the psyche, appropriately called the unconscious. The vast majority of mental illness and world strife can be traced to this imbalanced condition within the human psyche.

The seers of ancient Mexico saw death as the unifying moment when all separate energy fields of the body become one energy. Jung discovered a method he termed individuation, that enabled the ego to embark on a journey of interaction and synthesis with all its opposing parts, to arrive at a place of psychic wholeness and equilibrium.

Jung himself undertook an intensive journey of self-discovery with his inner complexes or parts, as documented in the recently published primary source: The Red Book. Jung recorded the dialogue between his ego or conscious personality with complexes or characters within his psyche who spoke back to him autonomously with their own voices. Jung later termed this technique active imagination.

Through these dialogues, some of which were intense confrontations, Jung learned many things. He discovered that we have complexes inside our psyches that we acquire during our lifetime as well as complexes that we inherit. In his dialogues Jung spoke to figures from the Middle Ages who possessed ancient knowledge and wisdom and spoke in the vernacular of that time. From these experiences Jung determined that the unconscious was both personal and collective, of this life and beyond.

Jung also discovered that some complexes are quite powerful and can exert a strong effect on the ego. For instance, one complex with a female voice repeatedly attempted to seductively convince Jung that he was a great artist. Jung sternly refused this suggestion, stating in return that his use of art was part of his process of self-discovery. Jung realized how easy it could be for the naive, insecure ego to come under the sway of complexes with their own agendas, attempting to commandeer the ego through bolstering its self-importance. This became the basis of his understanding conditions such as psychic inflation and deflation, or in their extremes, mania and depression.

Inflation is a condition where the ego identifies with a complex, becomes greater than it truly is, and embarks on behaviors driven by the interests of the complex. In deflation the ego feels utterly diminished by an encounter with a complex, shrinking into powerlessness and depression.

Jung realized that his ego had to maintain control as he encountered these powerful complexes or sub-personalities within himself. To do this his ego had to be receptive to listening to points of view and potential truths that challenged completely his conscious attitude. He committed to honest reflection upon these views and submitted to change when he discovered his ego attitude to be limited. However, he refused to automatically accept any new truth without a scrutinous conscious processing.

Ultimately, Jung’s encounters with the perspectives of different complexes modified his personality in a new synthesis with a vastly broadened awareness. This enlarged consciousness was not an inflation, that is, an ego identification with a sub-personality. To the contrary, this new synthesis represents a reconciliation of many opposing parts of the self. The ego, in this new synthesis, accepts its relative but important place as the center of consciousness but not the center of the personality. The ego accepts its role as mediator of the greater forces of the self, with definite challenges to take on in this life. The ego acknowledges that it is not lord and master of the personality but, as a complex with consciousness, is charged with learning the truths of the self and acquiescing to the appropriate needs and expectations of the total self.

In a future blog I will explore in more detail the technique of active imagination. The necessary prerequisites to its practice are to be gleaned from Jung’s personal journey. Engaging directly the unknown self, or the unknown not-self, requires definite safety precautions.

1. The ego self must be ready to engage in dialogue with an entity or a complex within the self that is not part of the ego. Don’t underestimate how tightly the ego holds to the security of seeing itself as the whole personality. We must be ready to accept and make room for the Not I.

2. The ego must stay present and insist on consciousness remaining in control during interactions with other parts of the self. Sub-personalities are allowed a voice, but not a take-over coup of the personality.

3. The ego, with its growing knowledge and awareness, must not identify with any entity; that is, it must not see itself bigger than its humble ego self because of its ability to have contact with other entities or their influences. This would be inflation. Nor must it allow itself to turn over power and guidance of the personality to any entity, no matter how benevolent or helpful. The ego must ultimately take personal responsibility for all decisions. We are in this life to live it, grow from it, and learn from it. We are not here to turn our life over to another. This is an evasion of responsibility and ultimately a predatory arrangement, no matter who the entity is. In contrast, acquiescing to the higher power of the self, or spirit, is a decision rooted in consciousness, a decision based upon the resonance the ego feels in its encounter with spirit. This is not an evasion of responsibility but an acceptance of the appropriate ego position in relation to spirit. In simple terms, this is the ego assuming its proper role in alignment with the total personality versus going off on its own agenda or turning its life over to the control of another.

With these prerequisites in place we are ready to journey deeper into self and beyond, in interactions with infinity.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

* Paraphrased from Carlos Castaneda’s Magical Passes, page 91.

NOTE: Books mentioned in this blog are available in our Store.