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..:: Enlightenment
VII / Vibration ::..
By
Alan Schneider
As we attend to the
material world through the evidence and interaction of the physical
senses, we are operating always in some combination of the first three
Chakras already mentioned in this series. With the introduction of
the concept of spiritual vibration, we must look beyond
the realm of Newtonian physics – the physics of sensory experience – and
begin to perceive in the realm of Relativity physics – the physics of
collective perception associated with the extra-personal impressions
of at least the beginnings of Einstein’s “events” manifest as
standing waves, i.e. vibrations, in spacetime. How can this
shift to such an enhanced level of perception be attained? By
refocusing consciousness away from linear material perception and onto
the higher level of dynamic chaotic threshold perception – the
experience of pre-manifest conditions knowable from the vibrational wave
that precedes them into their expression of forms and actions
experienced in the senses. This is the level of intuitive perception
that is associated with the Fourth Chakra and represents the mode of
knowing experienced through and by the Self from its largely disembodied
perspective beyond physical expression and physical limitation. The
first key to understanding this phenomenon is the consideration of the
concept of collective manifestation.
We may choose to view the
world of events through many lenses of perception – the lens of static
manifestation, the lens of dynamic expression, the lens of social
implication, and so forth – the list is functionally endless, in fact,
and determined solely by our personal mental condition at any given
time. If I choose to utilize Static Manifestation as my lens, then I
tend to experience myself moving through a linear continuum of discrete,
bounded conditions perceived as objects delimited by time. At the
other end of the spectrum of perception, we have the individual
experience of the collective vibration. What, specifically is
this mode of experience? It is the higher comprehension occurring in the
higher mind of the existence of groups of entities that act as fields
of vibration, even though they apparently exist as individual units
when viewed through the sensory condition. It is from this phenomenon
of vibrational fields that all intuitive perception of spiritual
vibration issues. The matter can be explained very simply. All cats,
for example, are a part of the feline collective vibrational field
actively resonating in the higher portion of the total mind. This
might be called feline collective consciousness, and, although it
pertains superficially to cats and their behavior, it also pertains on a
more subtle level to the cat-like elements of human behavior as
well. There is also something like an insect collective vibration
composed of all the individual insect manifestations existing everywhere
(and perhaps throughout all time as well) and we demonstrate this
vibration in our behavior when we practice particularly mindless
conformity to social norms and expectations – the hive
mentality. A somewhat higher level of this manifestation is seen in
the herd or pack mentality present in mammal populations around the
world, up to and including humanity. It is a common axiom in the world
of commerce that the vast majority of people prefer the security of
following to the risk of independent social experimentation,
and advertising routinely exploits this fact among the masses. The
list of such collective analogies is extensive – only rarely does one
encounter an individual existing apart from any type of similar,
corresponding group affiliation. There are aquatic collective fields,
avian collective fields, and even mineral collective fields resonating
within the total mind.
The Jungian archetypes are
all expressions of this level of collective vibration. We may perceive
individual interactive displays through our physical senses, but it is
the archetypal model of experience that gives these meaning and
purpose. Beyond that, there is a complex of pre-programmed
interactions associated with the archetypes – tendencies for the symbols
they express to behave toward each other in predictable ways – and
these interactions remain suspended as scenarios in collective mental
“space” much as Einstein’s events remain suspended in spacetime. The
tantalizing implication here is that Jung’s collective unconscious is
analogous to Einstein’s spacetime, sometimes also referred to as
“hyperspace” in the literature of both science fact and science
fiction. There are certainly similarities between the two – neither
is subject to direct sensory observation – both essentially exist in the
chaotic region of pre-manifest form – both feature image formation that
is complex and fantastic, and the images involved (whether literal
in the case of hyperspace or symbolic in the case of collective
space) remain more or less fixed in their relational characteristics to
each other. Probably the salient distinction between the two is that
events in hyperspace were portrayed by Einstein to be the literal
physical truth of existence (although human’s cannot yet directly
experience that truth), while Jung’s archetypal symbols were portrayed
as superseding even the level of truth represented by hyperspace reality
through their fundamental psychological significance in the total
mind. For Jung, the Self was the source of all knowing and being,
including and eclipsing both the hyper knowing and hyper being of
Einstein’s merely intellectual spacetime continuum.
The intuitive perception (or,
perhaps extrasensory perception, if you like) has its beginnings in the
Third Chakra, in the form of what is popularly known as the “gut
feeling” often occurring in response to “concrete” events in linear
reality. As the term implies, the gut feeing is frequently quite
visceral in nature – often even involving literal abdominal physical
sensations as a portion of its character. The gut feeling is very
similar to the intuitive perception of the Forth Chakra – in both cases,
we often have no “real” evidence to support our impression, yet it is
there in our field of consciousness, nevertheless – along with a strong
sense of conviction that it is somehow justified and valid. The
distinction here is that intuition is a generally more expansive and
subtle phenomenon, and may involve visions, auditory and visual
“hallucinations”, and have an expanded reference in time – encompassing
decades, centuries, and even millennia in either the past or the future
from the individual’s observational perspective here and now. In
comparison, the gut feeling is customarily oriented toward the
here and now, and occurring in the here and now, or at least not
very far removed from it in time. And the gut feeling is fundamentally
amoral, rooted as it is in physicality, where intuition always tends to
have a moral implication associated with its content, and a moral
direction indicated to be followed.
As with all other
observational phenomena that occur beyond the comfortable boundaries of
sensory experience, intuitive impressions must be analyzed within the
psychological pervue to be genuinely understood, and step one in this
process is the conducting of a comprehensive internal inventory
regarding the trigger event or events associated with the extrasensory
perception involved. What do as many of the symbols as I can recall
present in the experience mean to me as individual perceptual units of
experience? This goes well beyond the superficial intellectual level
of meaning – in the case of intuition, it is the emotional
meaning that is most significant. It can be very challenging to
identify this level of meaning, particularly when the images involved
are unpleasant or threatening in character – as in the case of
nightmares, for example – but Freud’s observation that “the dream is the
royal road the unconscious” (an area in which he and Jung were in full
agreement) is entirely accurate – dreams are often prophetic in nature,
in addition to explanatory, qualifying them as legitimate intuitive
perceptions. Of course, the dream is not the only type of intuitive
experience, but it is the one common to most people’s psychic lives, and
a good place to begin our description of symbolic analysis for that
reason.
Ultimately, it is the way the
dream/nightmare/vision makes us feel that is at the core of its
existential meaning in our lives, and each significant element of this
type of unconscious phenomenon carries a portion of that meaning. The
specific symbols present in the dream are the personal and archetypal
carriers of the emotion experienced, and it is the grand challenge of
dream interpretation to penetrate to their core, unlocking their
messages in the process. To refer back to an earlier example in this
essay, the feline collective essence is often associated with females,
women, and female characteristics as literal expressions of its
content. Woe be it to the observer of either sex who mistakes the
warm, furry, affectionate element of felinity with defenselessness,
because the cat is very well armed as many have discovered to their
dismay! And the female aspect of consciousness is correspondingly well
defended by subtlety, seduction, and guile, however open and positive a
specific woman may be. Thus, it appears as a sound idea to approach
the mysteries of the feline and female with caution, wisdom, and
respect.
Even if nothing more than the
emotional content of a symbol occurring in an intuitive context can be
known, this is often sufficient to proceed with a course of action in
this regard, with the proviso that we must not stop there. If
I am feeling frightened or intimidated by an image, I must further
investigate why this is the case, because there will probably be
a series of both personal and collective motives involved. One must
never simply engage in an impulsive reaction to any intuition – negative
or positive – in any situation other than an absolute emergency
requiring immediate response. Always take the time to probe your
consciousness completely before action is taken – the deeper
understanding revealed will invariably be worth your while! Action
taken from an unenlightened perspective is almost always mistaken, and
bound to produce unfortunate results for all the parties involved.
Once I have explored an intuitive experience to the level of the
underlying psychological motivation producing it, then, and only then,
am I prepared to act wisely with regard to it.
Without the above noted
thorough and complete self examination of an intuitive instance, the
likelihood of it being found out eventually to be inaccurate is
significant. We are all aware of cases in which grave injustices have
been carried out against individuals, groups, societies, and nations
based on essentially prejudicial grounds having little or no basis in
fact, and even the best intuitive sense is also subject to this
fallibility if the probable or actual personal motivation of the
individual involved is not taken into account. Intuition does not come
from nowhere – it comes from the collective unconscious, and is tied to
the individual’s belief system regarding morality, desirability, and
consequences, all of which may be unconscious as well. The ancient
advice of Socrates is well given here: “Know thyself”!
A highly complex and
challenging series of psychic and psychological events contributes to
the intuitive instance. If we accept the premise that the link exists
between Einstein’s events in hyperspace and Jung’s archetypal events in
the collective unconscious (which is itself quite a stretch, yet
somehow, perhaps intuitively, plausible), then at least a certain
type of hyper event that has sufficient psychological valence – i.e. one
driven into perception by the libido or the Self – may become a Jungian
collective event as well. If this event is keyed within the collective
unconscious with a certain significance for humanity, then it may also
be accompanied by intuitive pre-expressions of additional varieties
before the primary form itself emerges into perception, i.e. ESP
events. The really crucial concern here is: what kind of human psychic
vessel is this event/message manifesting within? If the vessel is
significantly flawed by any number of commonly occurring human
self-interests and desires, these will inevitably distort what is being
transmitted by the higher archetypal sources, perhaps beyond
recognition, and certainly out of the original contexts. This is the
grand problem with all psychic apperception – it emerges into a living
human consciousness that is almost invariably burdened by our old trio
of the body, physical senses, and the ego, all perennially functioning
in the first three Chakras that define lower mind. This is why
Enlightenment and its attainment is of such paramount importance – only
the genuine Seers – the truly empty vessels – can provide clear
messages from beyond the barrier of perceptual chaos, if the Self
chooses to speak through them.
For all of the aforementioned
reasons, intuitive sensation and perception must be viewed by asking
many questions, not just accepted at face value as the absolute truth,
no matter how compelling the phenomenon may be. Yes, the psychic
vibrations experienced by the adept individual are often very accurate,
and can be offered cautiously to others who may wish council in
matters of the present or future, but not as absolute givens
unsubject to qualification and reservation. Jung himself conducted an
exhaustive investigation into astrological history as a part of his
research into synchronicity, attempting to determine if the
correspondences predicated by astrologers among planetary alignments and
macrohistorical events were more accurate than mere chance would
indicate, but his results were not conclusive, and he died while in the
process of the investigation. “Not conclusive” here does not imply
“completely invalid”, however, and many remarkable apparent historical
synchronicities were suggested by the investigation – there is simply
not an absolutely conclusive causal relationship present that cannot be
argued against by other theories to justify reaching final
conclusions. This by itself is probably something that should be
taken as an additional caution regarding intuitive perception and its
necessarily inexact character. Even the remarkably accurate forecasts
of the famous Nostradamus have been argued against by skeptics as being
manipulated coincidences posited by his historical followers.
Science tells us that what we perceive as the solid, static world is, in
fact, composed of nanostructures involved in continuous vibration and
transition into and out of each other’s forms – the Quantum Mechanical
universe that composes Einstein’s spacetime continuum, and, ultimately,
Jung’s collective unconscious, up to and including the Self. If such
is the case, then even the Self may not be the final condition that Jung
conceived it to be, just the limit of current human perception in the
collective continuum, and there may be many other successive levels of
perception beyond it. As such, the vibrational sense – the ESP – that
we sometimes have is probably emerging into perception from an endless
preexisting chain of conditions, and will continue to manifest in
spacetime beyond the event horizon of human experience as it “travels”
on through infinity, making an infinite series of additional
transformations. We cannot know the final meaning of these things any
more than we can know the final outcome of the Newtonian universe we
experience in the senses, but we can at least wonder and ponder upon
these with open minds, and this is the truly incontestable significance
of intuition – the open door to the levels of higher perception so often
mistakenly relegated to the realms of fantasy, deception, and
imagination by the lower minds among us. If everything in the Newtonian
universe is ultimately a vibration of consciousness occurring within the
Self – as I believe it to be – then the possibilities of living are
functionally infinite, requiring only an open heart and open mind with
which to explore them...
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2010, by Alan Schneider)
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