Know yourself. Get to know and understand yourself, how you tend to operate, what triggers you to act or to defend, what causes you to stress out, to overdo, to fall into childish patterns of behavior. In knowing yourself the goal is to confront all those things about yourself that stand in the way of your progress, to free yourself from them so that you may arrive at a place of humility, love and compassion for yourself and others; for in knowing yourself you will know and understand everyone else as well. Get to know yourself in the deepest way so that you may experience life in the deepest way as well.
An angry God once flooded the Earth in retaliation for broken laws. Afterwards, that God humbly promised to never destroy the Earth again in that way. That power was turned over to humans, which gave rise to Oppenheimer’s world, the world we now inhabit.
Oppenheimer’s world is the reign of the human ego, with its power to both create and destroy. That great God in the sky transmuted into the High Self, the Spirit in everyone. The challenge today rests in the relationship between ego and its High Self. That relationship is in the midst of trial by fire.
Fire was originally the sole property of the gods. It took the hero, Prometheus, to steal it from the gods and deliver it to the human psyche. That deliverance was the birth of the human ego, in the form of the fire’s light of consciousness, with its ability to see and act beyond the dark control of instinctual unconsciousness.
With knowledge came independence and the ability to choose, create, destroy, dominate and be greedy. Ego has so dismissed its Spirit’s guidance that the Spirit of nature has been called in to adjust and refine the hubris.
The collective unconscious is creating fires in the passionate verbiage of pundits, who in turn are stirring the masses with similar aggressive passions. At the physical level, fires are raging around the globe.
The fiery energy of the collective unconscious is simultaneously burning through physical nature and human nature. This dual expression of fire, within and without, is what Jung called synchronicity, an expression of the psychoid level of reality, where psyche and nature similarly reflect a moment in time, as it reverberates through all of creation.
This is the same action that gives rise to an I Ching reading, where the physical action of throwing of coins creates an image that reflects one’s spiritual predicament, at that very moment in time. The oracle reflects the oneness of Matter and Spirit at a specific moment in time.
The collective energy of nature expresses this oneness, within and without, as it burns through the hubris of ego, which has abused its royal privilege, to restore the rule of the wisdom of the High Self. This is the refining action of the trial by fire we are all now living through.
On an individual level, it is important to notice that this current of collective energy is running through all of us. Be mindful to not get ensnared by this fiery energy, or take it personally, acting it out in your social interactions. Nonetheless, we must apply the fiery light of consciousness to burn through our own defenses and illusions.
All fires require fuel to continue burning. When we don’t throw more fuel on it, it won’t keep burning. When we don’t attach to an illusory story or feeling, we will not be consumed by it.
The fire is burning off all that stands in the way of Spirit truth. To attempt to defensively reason with fire merely fans its flames. Seek refuge in the truth; let others burn their way to it. Some just have to go deeper through the trial-by-burning to get to the truth.
Bring one’s ego into alignment with High Self. Understand that the trial by fire is really the proving ground to mature the ego by burning off its excesses and illusions, and shifting its attention to address the true needs of our Great Collective Spirit Self.
Change is constant in Nature, which presents an eternal flow of energy; a chaos of sorts that engages, evolves, both creating and destroying as it churns onwards. So is it with the human body and all its components; it too is in constant flux. Nothing is really stable, though control of the emotions can produce the feeling of calmness that is so desired. Calmness brings a sense of control over chaos and thus it is wise to seek calmness. Even while knowing that change is constant and that chaos ensures, the calm mind can handle anything and be at peace. In the midst of chaos what better state to be in! Seek the still point of calmness and ride out the chaos with a sense of balance and harmony, within and without.
Let bygones be bygones as you move forward now into new life. Leave behind old regrets and resentments that will only inhibit you, hold you back and keep you attached to an old self who was not yet prepared to advance. The first step in advancement is to decide what you will take with you and what you will leave behind, ashes on the sacrificial funeral pyre. For every new beginning requires the sacrifice of something old. What no longer belongs in your life? What needs to go? It’s never too late to make a move in a new and positive direction. It’s never too late to change.
Inner alchemy is the art of creating a fulfilled life that encompasses, unites and transcends all the polarities within the Self. This state of unified wholeness requires several steps to achieve.
The first stage involves the breakdown and dissolution of our current state of being. Truthfully, we are always in a state of wholeness, as we are always all that we are. At issue is the state of balance our wholeness is in.
For example, suffering a painful backache could be a displaced psychosomatic exchange for repressed feelings of sadness. Here, balance is achieved through the experience of emotional pain converted to physical pain.
Caroline Elliot’s Existential Kink playfully explores the many personality kinks hidden in the shadow of the self, which serve to balance the dominance of one-sided conscious attitudes. I recommend exploring her work to reveal the kinks that might be disrupting personal balance.
The current state of our world reflects extremely volatile states of balance that are serving the breakdown and dissolution of the world as we have known it. The primary elements of fire, water, earth and air are all engaged in environmental extremes that are insisting upon a new way of living that can usher in a sustainable balance. This breakdown of what has been is the essential first step toward new life.
Inwardly, breakdown of the ruling attitude in the psyche is the essential first step to new life. Often this can take the form of an immobilizing depression that refuses to fund our ability to experience ourselves, and life, in our familiar comfort zone. Such a withdrawal of life energy prompts the need for a soul retrieval; that is, a journey into the unconscious to discover and recover unknown or lost parts of the self, the building blocks for new life.
The second stage in the art of wholeness is the untangling and separation of opposites within the self. This is the stage of know thyself, with detachment; that is, not identifying with a one-sided feeling, attitude or judgment that precludes a broader inclusion of all parts of self.
The separation phase is dramatically reflected in the absolute polarization of citizens throughout the world into black and white one-sided attitudes. This stage of separation is still heavily intertwined with the breakdown phase, as people are blinded by projections that would have them resolve imbalance through the elimination of those who oppose them. This was Hitler’s final solution to the challenge of opposition.
Inwardly, this state of separation can result in a state of mental cruelty, with negative critical thinking constantly judging and putting the self down. Nonetheless, if one can hone this reflective impetus into objective introspection, one can arrive at a state of clarity that prepares the way for new union.
Dispassionate knowing and acceptance of the truth offer preparation for a new union of elements within the self, the third stage, in which a new worldview or ruling attitude achieves a durable balance.
This stage is represented symbolically in the conjugal union of the opposites of man and woman. The mixture of these elements will ultimately result in the creation of a child, which presents a life that has incorporated the opposites of its parents into its own unique wholeness. As I discussed in my blog last week, a child in dreams often reflects this alchemy within, seeking to find its way to birth into life.
Hold the perspective that the chaos and separation both within and without are necessary stages in the art of wholeness. Ancient alchemists performed their operations within a sealed retort, allowing the contained energies themselves to facilitate the process of transformation.
In our day and age, containment socially would mean not engaging in heated interchange, but striving to arrive at detachment and truth within.
Similarly, containment within is best served through detachment from mental cruelty, as the point is to transform the old attitudes and thoughts into a newly sincere commitment to know and serve only the truth.
