Delimitation of Mind
The Great Spirit, Absolute Nothingness manifesting also as the all-encompassing All, actualizes its potential for self-knowledge through the collection of its differentiated aspects in the infinite variety of individual perspectives — relative consciousnesses — Monads. Each Monad, as one of the modes by which the infinite and suprareal reality knows itself, manifests in a succession of selves, embodied beings, in each of which selfhood expresses itself as a stream of subpersonalities, and each subpersonality, in turn, realizes itself in diverse streams of psychic processes flowing in the realms of intellect, feeling, and will. Thus, from a single, discrete act of awareness — a thought, an emotion, a feeling, a volitional act — to the self-definition of a subpersonality, then to the self-awareness of selfhood, to the transpersonal presence of the Monad, and finally to the Absolute nondual consciousness of the Great Spirit, the realization of this possibility takes place — the possibility of awareness of unity within multiplicity.
In other words, the realization of mind, its development and expansion, is inevitably accompanied by constant breakthroughs beyond the current state, by continual acts of transcendence: an individual psychic act, by stepping beyond its limits, flows into the unified stream of personality, a complex of subpersonalities; merging and harmonizing, they form the stream of selfhood, the sequence of selves forms the field of manifestation of the Monad, and the aggregate of Monads constitutes the all-embracing consciousness of the Absolute. It is clear that all boundaries, all divisions that arise in these streams, are largely conventional and make sense only from the inner perspective of the individual streams themselves; nevertheless, from that relative point of view, they are quite real and justified.
Overcoming boundaries, expanding the scale of streams of mind, is therefore one of the tasks of the active process of the cosmos, and forms a binary pair with the second task — the actualization of interactions available to that stream. It follows that any individual mind successfully realizing itself must, on the one hand, continually perceive its distinct interactions, and on the other hand, integrate them and expand its field.
In reality, maintaining such a balance between, on the one hand, attention to diversity and, on the other, rootedness in unity — is not easy. The mind easily either gets carried away by multiplicity, sinking into the infinity of differentiation and falling into superficial skimming across the surface of being, or, conversely, attempts to destroy all boundaries, dissolving into a potential void.
Moreover, the mind often falls into an even greater problem — feeling its unity with the entire stream of mind, with all other individual manifestations, but not finding within itself a firm axis, it tries to pull surrounding streams into its field, trying to “force” others either to be trapped in multiplicity as it has, or to be forcibly absorbed into unity. As a result, such a mind turns into a destructive agent, not only failing to develop independently, but also obstructing the development of those around it.
Particularly common today is the urge to “bring others into unity” and to “destroy the ego” of those around you. Yet it is well known that “an egg broken from the outside dies, while breaking from within gives life.” A bird moved by care for its chicks does not try to pry them out of the shell as quickly as possible; on the contrary, it seeks to create conditions in which that possibility will be realized from within. A great number of “mentors” and “preachers” enter other people’s homes attempting to impose “true values” on their inhabitants. In this sense, the experience of Buddhism is valuable, forbidding the preaching of the dharma unless requested by students. A Master, if he truly wishes the student’s development, must not try to “break” the student’s boundaries from the outside, but must seek to create conditions in which those boundaries will collapse on their own. And in this sense, the best conditions are always, of course, personal example, induction and an atmosphere of love.
In any case, it must be understood that the boundaries of any individual stream of mind are set by that stream itself and can only be dissolved by itself. Awareness of one’s own boundaries, the emphasis on one’s own development that is so important for Magic, are not signs of the magi’s selfishness, but, on the contrary, the result of perceiving the balance between unity and multiplicity, individuality and universality. Recognizing freedom as the supreme value means granting each particular stream the right to define its own boundaries. And if someone’s self-definition displeases another, one can simply refrain from interacting with a stream alien to them, leave it alone, rather than trying with all one’s might to redirect it to suit oneself.
Well said. Thank you.