Spectrum of Development

We return to a personal account of the "lower" imaginary" (i.e. fantasy) activity associated with Level 2 (Band 3). Basically increasingly intimate exposure to such fantasy (of an erotic nature) requires the lessening of "higher" level superego control that in a complementary manner tends to repress physical instinctive response. So I found a typical pattern repeating with ever greater regularity. A bout of "higher" level intellectual activity of an increasingly holistic nature, would then be quickly followed by a lower level instinctive reaction of a physical self still craving the equal recognition that was being denied. And as long as I continued to identify with the "higher" level activity (of spiritual, intellectual or emotional insight) as superior, then the denied "lower" self (still believed as inferior) would protest with increasingly intimate type fantasies of an erotic nature. It was at this time that I made an i...

It struck me after yesterday's blog entry, how unreliable in many ways our memories of the past can prove. So in that entry I was recalling events from a time nearly 60 years ago (early 1958) when I was 9 years of age. One can validly question in such circumstances  the accuracy of the events mentioned especially where little substantiating evidence from the time has been recorded. However the idea that an objective account can - or even should - be given is somewhat fanciful. Thus when we recall any event from our past, essentially we are recreating that event in the light of our experience of the present moment. So the emphasis on particular aspects of the event and indeed the precise facts involved can undergo subtle change (influenced very much by development that has since unfolded). Therefore given the sufficient elapse of time, considerable variations in one's account can take place, even when one sincerely attempts to do so as accurately as possible. In a way ...

I do not generally refer much to childhood experience. Partly this is due to the fact that I do not remember it as an especially happy time. Perhaps because of this, memories do not readily come to mind. However recently one such memory has indeed returned in a vivid fashion suggesting to me an event that played a crucially important role with respect to subsequent childhood development. Like so many young boys growing up in Ireland in the 1950's , my earliest interests centred strongly around sport. Indeed I have maintained this interest over the years with opinions to offer - to anyone who cares to listen - on a wide variety of different sports. In my earlier years I also actively participated at home and school level. For years the back garden of our house was a popular venue where neighbourhood kids congregated to play football. In early 1958 - at the age of 9 - I was playing Gaelic football regularly in the school leagues. Things were obviously going well, as I came ...

Authentic spiritual awareness - in what can be described as the experience of God - entails a certain balance as between both cognitive and affective modes Indeed from a dynamic experiential perspective, these modes operate in a fully complementary manner as conscious to unconscious respectively. Thus when both conscious and unconscious aspects of experience are equally developed, the conscious (analytic) expression of one aspect e.g. cognitive, promotes the complementary unconscious (holistic) expression of the other aspect i.e. affective. Equally, the conscious expression of the affective aspect likewise promotes the complementary unconscious expression of the cognitive. In this way both conscious and unconscious expressions of cognitive and affective can - thr ough the volitional or conative aspect that serves to operate in a balancing manner - interact smoothly and creatively with each other. So far however with respect to "higher" spiritual development, the (cons...

We now return to a personal account of the on-going development of Band 3 (Level 2). As I have emphasised this is characterised by the dynamic interaction between "higher" and "lower" levels entailing the continual projection of "imaginary" consciousness as the indirect expression of the holistic unconscious. So once again during Level 1, the emphasis is primarily on negation of undue dualistic attachment to the horizontal polarity set of external and internal. Progress in this regard then leads to the growing nondual experience of spirit  (expressed in an ever deepening contemplative focus). Then with direct conscious experience now considerably refined and transparent to spirit, the unconscious regions of personality become free to express themselves through projection (in an indirect conscious manner).. So whereas the earlier level (i.e. Level 1) was concerned directly with the "real" (i.e. conscious) polarities of internal and extern...