The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization

INTRODUCTION

to the

Diamond Mind Series

The Point of Existence is the third volume in the Diamond Mind Series. This series is a systematic presentation of a particular body of knowledge, which we call Diamond Mind, and its corresponding modus operandi, a way of working with people toward inner realization, which we call the Diamond Approach℠. The presentation is somewhat technical and hence, it will be useful to psychologists, psychotherapists, educators and spiritual teachers, but also accessible to the educated reader. This work is in response to a need being felt in many quarters; a need for a spiritually informed psychology, or conversely, for a psychologically grounded spirituality. This perspective does not separate psychological and spiritual experience and hence, sees no dichotomy between depth psychology and spiritual work. Through a creative critique and investigation, this system incorporates elements of depth psychology—particularly those of ego psychology and object relations theory, and extends them into realms of the human psyche which are usually considered the domain of religion, spirituality and metaphysics.

This body of knowledge is not an integration or synthesis of modern depth psychology and traditional spiritual understanding. The inclination to think in terms of integration of the two is due to the prevailing belief in the dichotomy between the fields of psychology and spirituality, a dichotomy in which the Diamond Mind understanding does not participate.

The Diamond Mind knowledge is a multifaceted understanding of the nature of human beings, our consciousness or psyche, and the potential for expansion of our capacity for experience and inner development. Several points regarding the nature of this understanding will help to place it in context:

1.  This knowledge includes an understanding of normal psychological functioning which also sheds light on some prevalent mental disorders. It adopts many of the findings of modern depth psychology, situates them in a more comprehensive view of humankind, and also establishes their relevance for the pursuit of deeper truths about human nature beyond the levels psychology generally penetrates.

2.  The psychological understanding is set within a metapsychological perspective that includes a broad outline of the domains of experience and functioning of the human psyche or soul. This metapsychology is not spelled out in any one of the volumes of the series, but is gradually developed throughout its several books.

3.  This metapsychology is in turn set within a metaphysical outlook in which psychological experience is situated within a phenomenology of Being.

4.  This work demonstrates that what is usually considered psychological investigation can arrive at dimensions of experience which have always been considered to be the product of spiritual practice or discipline. The psychological work is seen here not as an adjunct to spiritual practice, but as a spiritual practice on its own. This is the specific contribution of the Diamond Mind body of knowledge which inspired this series.

5.  Not only can psychological investigation lead to realms of experience previously relegated to the spiritual; this work shows that when psychological understanding is refined by an openness to one’s spiritual nature, such investigation, if pursued deeply, inevitably will penetrate into the realm of spiritual, religious or mystical understanding. In the course of such exploration, one result is that many currently prevalent psychological dysfunctions, such as some forms of narcissism and schizoid isolation, are revealed as direct consequences of spiritual alienation, which therefore cannot be truly resolved by traditional psychotherapy.

6.  This body of work includes a systematic understanding of the domain of spiritual experience, the realm of Being, that can be described in detail in modern psychological language. Thus, it shows that this domain of experience need not be vague, symbolic or incommunicable. This work also includes an exploration of the relationships between this domain of experience and the usual psychological dimension of experience, shedding light on the nature of ego structure and identity. Thus, inquiry into the dimension of Being can be included in some modes of psychological research and investigation.

7.  The presentation in the various volumes of the series illustrates methods of investigation, as well as the personal and scientific bases for our conclusions, within a conceptually logical treatment of the various subject matters. However, because of the nature of the field of inquiry, the reader may well be aware of an experiential impact that cannot always be separated from conceptual knowledge. This points to a particular quality of the Diamond knowledge: It is an experiential knowledge that is immediate and intimately human, but which can be elaborated conceptually.

It is my wish that this knowledge will be useful in refining and deepening our understanding of who and what we are as human beings. Perhaps it will make it possible for more of us to actualize our rich potential and to live more complete lives.

A. H. Almaas

Berkeley, California

May 1994

PREFACE

The question of the nature of the self and its relation to Being or the Divine has long been explored by philosophers, mystics, and religious thinkers. Among those who have seriously entertained this question, there has developed a generally accepted set of answers, which of course cannot be conveyed in neat, easily comprehensible statements. In The Point of Existence, the exploration of the process of the realization of the self is informed by those traditional answers, and by the methods through which they are achieved. In addition, this book clarifies the relationship between the different approaches of these various traditions and the question of the nature of the self.

The question, What is the self? is also being asked by contemporary psychology. In modern theories of psychology, the range of concepts and assumptions about the self is striking. Stephen Mitchell, a psychoanalyst and historian of psychoanalytic thought, writes in his most recent book:

The most striking thing about the concept of self within current psychoanalytic thought is precisely the startling contrast between the centrality of concern with self and the enormous variability and lack of consensus about what the term even means. The self is referred to variably as: an idea, or set of ideas in the mind; a structure in the mind; something experienced; something that does things; one’s unique life history; even an idea in someone else’s mind . . . and so on. (Mitchell, 1993, p. 99)

In the course of his writings, Almaas has elucidated many ideas about the self that have arisen in spiritual traditions and in psychology. Is the self ultimately nonexistent? Yes, in the sense Almaas writes about it in The Void (A. H. Almaas, The Void—Inner Spaciousness and Ego Structure, Berkeley: Diamond Books, 1986), as well as in parts of this book. Is the self a luminous spark of awareness, knowing the Divine, or the real, and revealing the human being as partaking in this divine nature? Yes, this is a central aspect of the self, which is explored in depth in this book.

Is the self an ever-changing flow of awareness, experience, and presence, which can identify with different self-structures, at different times, or become a vehicle for different qualities of Being as they arise? Yes, this is the living organism, the soul, that Almaas defines as the whole self. Is the self a structure in the mind, determined by its biological drives, its history, by conditioning, by language? Yes, this is the nature of ego structure, patterned by imprints, self-images and object relations which shape the flow of experience and determine the ongoing experience of the self. Does the authentic self exist only in the timeless, transcendent experience of the mystics, that is in pure consciousness, or is there an authentic self which is structured, arising in time and space? This question is addressed in The Pearl Beyond Price (A. H. Almaas, The Pearl Beyond Price, Integration of Personality into Being: An Object Relations Approach, Berkeley: Diamond Books, 1988), where Almaas writes about the self which is a personal integration of qualities of Being, structured by the inherently intelligent manifestation of Being as it arises through, and as, the soul.

In this book, Almaas focuses on the identity of the self, which is related to a particular aspect of the self which he calls the Essential Identity, and describes in detail how issues of narcissism are related to this identity. Understanding and integrating this aspect of the self (which in other work he has called the Essential Self) is a central factor in the capacity of human beings to come to a complete appreciation of their true nature and the nature of Being. In particular, this aspect allows one to recognize oneself as presence or Being, or even as emptiness, in deepening dimensions as the process of realization continues.

Those familiar with Almaas’s body of work tend to think of it as a synthesis of psychological and spiritual work. It is not. This work arises from a level of understanding in which it is clear that, in the human being, these realms are truly not separate. They can be discriminated, and Almaas’s work actually contributes to a clearer discrimination of psychological work from spiritual work. However, his unique contribution is his understanding of how these realms are related, how they can be worked with in ways that allow psychological understanding to support spiritual development, and how the discoveries made possible by a comprehensive understanding of the self can contribute to psychological understanding. Further, like many philosophical investigations, this work moves from exploration of the experience of the human subject into the realm of ontology. Almaas’s inquiry powerfully illuminates how the process of freeing the self from incomplete and false identities leads to a revelation of the nature of the human self as Being itself.

Beginning with the use of self in its ordinary sense, Almaas quickly moves, in his definition of self as soul, into the realm of self as actual ontological presence. In elucidating the path through which the self-awareness of Being unfolds in, through, and as, the human soul, Almaas describes a process that will be familiar to those who have followed the quest of those mystics and philosophers whose explorations of the nature of self and awareness have led to similar discoveries.

However, Almaas utilizes tools that were generally not available to these thinkers—in particular, the theories of depth psychology, especially self psychology and object relations theory. In the past, Eastern practitioners, mystics, and the philosophers (particularly phenomenologists) who have inquired into the nature of the human subject and of Being have worked primarily with epistemological questions and investigative methods in their attempts to see through or render transparent the natural, common-sense view of reality. They have investigated questions like How do we know what we know? What is the relationship between subjective or internal and objective or external reality? and What is the nature of the knowing subject? Almaas’s work brings to this inquiry into the nature of self, of consciousness and of Being, the psychologist’s interpretation of the psychic structures that shape and render opaque the self’s experience of itself. With this understanding, questions closer to the concerns of the ordinary human being can be formulated. For example, the question What exactly am I longing for, when I desire a love relationship? will lead a sincere inquirer into an understanding of the self- and object-images which represent certain qualities of the soul that she feels is missing, and eventually to an appreciation of the essential qualities of the self which are often projected onto love objects.

The importance of self psychology and object relations theory is that they allow us to identify and inquire into with great precision the internal structures that shape our identities. Who am I taking myself to be right now? Through what self-image am I responding to this situation? How do my self- and object-images determine how I perceive the world? These questions, whose flavor, import, and resolution resemble those asked in practices of the great Eastern spiritual traditions, become imbued with increased personalness, relevance, and effectiveness when asked in the context of our knowledge of the structures that form the ego.

Spiritual traditions, as well as certain philosophical and psychological bodies of inquiry, have developed substantial bodies of understanding regarding the logical, phenomenological and experiential categories of emptiness and nothingness, as well as of presence and Being. The present work on narcissism begins with the phenomenon of the human being, or soul, as presence, but also passes through a process of de-reification of structures and essences, leading to an appreciation of the primordial emptiness which is a component of Eastern teachings such as Buddhism. Some aspects of the Western philosophical tradition (particularly continental philosophy) have developed an understanding and appreciation of emptiness, but generally without the techniques to actually integrate the awareness of emptiness into our ongoing experience. The understanding of the relationship between narcissism and emptiness in The Point of Existence brings new possibilities for embodiment of this aspect of human wisdom.

This particular book emphasizes aspects of the view and method of Almaas’s work which move toward deconstruction of ego structures, freeing of the soul from false identities, and spontaneity of experience. At the same time, this work is oriented toward truth and logic. The power and precision of this work arises from a keen appreciation of the importance of understanding the objective structures in which Being manifests. In fact Almaas’s orientation is not at all predisposed toward freeing the self from structure per se, or breaking down structure. His orientation, with its working method of openly inquiring into one’s present experience without holding on to prior positions (all the while noting the inevitable tendencies toward position-taking), investigates the phenomenon of what is actually present as the experienced self, with a view to understanding what is determining the experience of that self. It is true that this method of illuminating the structures which determine the experience of the self is inherently liberating. However, the identity of the soul, when it is freed from false (mentally determined) structures, does not simply remain in a homogenous state of presence or emptiness. Rather, like all the manifest world, it continues dynamically to unfold, manifesting as various forms arising and passing away. This unfolding has an inherent logic and intelligence, related to what Greek (and later, Christian) traditions call the Logos. Thus, as self-realization becomes more established, the experience of the soul is less and less structured by images in the mind, and more and more structured by the inherent logic of the dynamic unfoldment of Being.

The longing of the human heart to know its true nature, our passionate desire to know who we are and to know our origin and our home, is all too easily placated with ready answers. The path described in this book reflects an approach which is far from a ready answer, but begins and ends with a sense of humility before the mystery of our existence. The work of coming to know one’s true nature has perhaps been made easier by the knowledge in this book, but it remains a task requiring tremendous patience and perseverance.

The understanding of narcissism and its relation to self-realization which Almaas presents in this book is a product of such patience and perseverance. Decades of self-exploration, of study, and of work with hundreds of students, characterized by steadfast love, objectivity, integrity, and openness, has allowed Almaas to create a new doorway to knowledge of the structures of our essential human Being, and to our appreciation of our true nature as the deepest and most universal nature of Being.

Almaas’s work with students takes the form of a method called the Diamond Approach. This method involves group meetings in which students systematically explore various qualities and dimensions of the Essence of the self and the nature of Being, and the psychological structures which block our direct experience of our nature as essential Being; various meditation and other practices that support the development of the capacity to sustain open inquiry into one’s experience; work with students in smaller groups to support their individual personal inquiry; and for the majority of students, working with a Diamond Approach teacher in regular individual meetings often involving energetic body work.

Since the process of self-realization involves transformation of the self’s experience of identity, it exposes and puts pressure on all levels of a student’s self-images, and brings up issues that might normally be seen as narcissistic issues. And because narcissism is reflected in all human relationships, issues of transference with teachers at any level of this work, group or individual, are explored as part of the work on understanding one’s unconscious object relations structures. The later chapters in this book recount the typical issues that arise in such transference when a student is going through a process of transformation of identity.

Therefore, there may appear, in the text and the case histories, to be an emphasis on working with the transference with the teacher, much like a psychotherapist works with certain phenomena. However, the context of this work is radically different, since the goal of the work is not therapeutic, and since the issues themselves are brought into the student’s process by his or her participation in the inquiry method of the Diamond Approach, which actively questions the student’s assumptions about identity. Further, the students question systematically not only their object relationships with teachers, but all object relations, with friends, family, colleagues, and the various past and present inhabitants of their inner mental and emotional worlds.

The events reflected in the descriptions of the process of Diamond Approach students in the later chapters of this book reflect many levels of practice and inquiry. These students’ experiences are typically the fruition of many years of work. However, these experiences themselves are not exactly the point, nor the fruition. They represent new insights, openings, and transitions in students’ work. The real fruition is our ongoing opening to deeper levels of the self and of Being. This opening eventually becomes a stable participation in, and appreciation of, the dynamic unfoldment of Being in, as, and through us, as human beings.

Alia Johnson

Editor

July 1996

BOOK ONE

Self and Narcissism

PART 1

SELF-REALIZATION AND THE NARCISSISM OF EVERYDAY LIFE

As human beings we naturally want to be real, authentic, and truly ourselves. We might not all be consciously aware of this drive towards authenticity, but inherently we value being ourselves, especially when it is easy and effortless. Fulfillment comes from knowing what and who we are, and we seek security in this knowledge. We want the sense of who we are to be stable, and we want this stability to be firmly established beyond the need for it to be shored up by external factors. Expressing ourselves is a joy, especially when the expression feels truly reflective of our real selves. It is possible to appreciate ourselves even more when we are spontaneous, rather than self-conscious, as we express ourselves authentically. We can enjoy being creative in our lives, especially when what manifests from within us reveals what lies in our depths, expanding and deepening our experience of ourselves. When our sense of who we are is stable, real, positive, and nonconflictual, we experience a sense of worth.

When we know what we want, and see that our desires authentically reflect who and what we are, our self-esteem improves, and we find ourselves enjoying truly human interactions. The more effortlessly secure we are in being ourselves, the more we can afford to open up to others, and the more we can naturally act with generosity and magnanimity. Then we are able to feel more in touch with our humanity, and more willing to be kind and sensitive to others; loving becomes a joy and giving a gift.

However, the moment we feel insecure in our sense of ourselves, the moment we sense that we are not centered in what and who we are, this whole picture reverses. A heavy darkness descends on our experience; we cease to be open or generous, and we find ourselves forgetting our humanity. We begin to feel self-centered and self-conscious, and we become anxiously and egotistically concerned about ourselves. An obsessiveness over how we appear to others develops, and we find ourselves needing an unusual amount of admiration, approval, and recognition. Our self-esteem turns extremely fragile, and we find ourselves unusually vulnerable to feeling hurt and insulted over the slightest lack of understanding or empathy. Our sense of ourselves grows shaky and, rather than coming from within, depends upon feedback from others, making us defensive. Our actions and expressions tend to become false, inauthentic, and reactive, making it difficult to know what authentic action would really be. Without a spontaneous and free sense of who we are, we can only feel empty and unimportant; our lives will lack meaning or significance. Rather than experiencing a sense of value and esteem, we find ourselves feeling worthless and ashamed; rather than enjoying our interactions and activities, we find ourselves beset by anger, rage and envy; instead of being generous and magnanimous, we slide towards exploiting and devaluing others.

The desire to realize and maximize the first condition and to be free from the second is natural, but as we all know this is not so easily done. Even when a great deal of experience and maturity is brought to bear, sooner or later we discover, to our chagrin, that our effort has fallen flat. Out of a recognition for the difficulties of this situation, and out of our love for the truth, we have found it desirable to write this book. We hope it will be a contribution to the universal human drive to be authentically ourselves.

In this book we refer to the first condition—that of freely and spontaneously being ourselves—as self-realization. More specifically, self-realization is a manifestation of a certain human development, a development tantamount to the full maturation of humanness which a human being may attain or arrive at. The state of self-realization has definite experiential characteristics including the ones described above.

The second condition—the condition of not feeling centered in oneself, or authentic and free enough to be oneself—involves many of the characteristics that are usually ascribed to narcissism. These characteristics form a group of traits that define a syndrome, known in psychological literature as narcissistic disturbance, which is seen as a particular disturbance in the development of the self.

Our description of self-realization and narcissism thus far is rather general; it does not reveal the underlying nature of these conditions. Although narcissism is a common element in the make-up of most human beings, its underlying nature, and dynamics, which are not always perceived, are profoundly significant for the understanding of human potential. Narcissism is only beginning to be explored by the prevailing psychological theories of our time. These theories focus more on the pathological manifestations of narcissism than does our work, but they do provide us with an extensive understanding of the development of narcissistic disturbance. All of these theories view narcissistic disturbance as attributable to particular disruptions and malformations in the development of the self. On the other hand, the first condition—self-realization—has been the concern, not primarily of psychological treatises, but of many of the world’s spiritual teachings. Even though modern psychological theory addresses the healthy development of the self, which reveals the profound and intricate dynamics in this development, in order to gain a more balanced and complete appreciation of what underlies this condition it is also necessary to turn to the findings of the major spiritual teachings regarding self-realization. In addition, spiritual teachings communicate the subtlety and depth that is possible in human experience and development, levels of experience that can easily be overlooked if we content ourselves only with the psychological theories of the nature and development of the self.

This book, then, is a study in self-realization and its relationship to narcissism. We will explore in increasing depth and detail the nature and underlying dynamics of these two conditions. This necessitates an exploration of the nature of the self and the dynamics of its development. The present exploration is offered as a contribution to the knowledge of self and narcissism in the hope that we can come to understand more completely the process of self-realization, and thus make it more accessible.

chapter 1

Dimensions of Self

What makes it so difficult for us as human beings to be deeply authentic and spontaneous, to feel free to be who we naturally are? One aspect of the answer lies in what most spiritual traditions understand to be a case of mistaken identity. Most of us are consciously and unconsciously identified with self-concepts which greatly limit our experience of ourselves and the world. Who we take ourselves to be, as determined by the sets of ideas and images that define us, is very far from the unconditioned reality that deeply realized human beings have come to recognize as our true nature, who we truly are. Numerous approaches, such as psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and various self-improvement techniques can help us change our self-concepts so that we are more realistic, more satisfied, and more effective in our lives. But only an exploration of the actual nature of the self, beyond the details of its content, can bring us to realms of experience which approach more deeply fulfilling, fundamental levels of philosophical or spiritual truth.

Our experience of ourselves can be transformed from identifying with our mental self-images to having awareness of less contingent, more fundamentally real aspects of the self. It is possible to arrive at a place where we can experience ourselves as the actual phenomenon, the actual ontological presence that we are, rather than as ideas and feelings about ourselves. The more we are able to contact the actual presence that we are, the less we are alienated in a superficial or externally defined identity. The more we know the truth of who we are, the more we can be authentic and spontaneous, rather than merely living through concepts of ourselves.

Among the many methods that shift the quality and depth of experience, those used by religious and spiritual traditions are more effective in contacting deeper dimensions of the self, with a more thoroughly developed understanding of these dimensions and their significance for living life than those used by the newer science of psychology. However, psychology has contributed powerful new knowledge about the human being that allows us to systematically work through the barriers to these deeper levels of self, especially the barriers to integrating these levels into one’s identity. In particular, the current understanding of narcissism is very useful for the process of inner realization, the process of learning to contact and appreciate the deeper levels of our nature and allowing these dimensions to actually affect our identity.

The inquiry in this book is part of an exploration which can be found in several lines of tradition in the history of human thought and experience: the exploration of deeper, more objective, or more real perceptions of the world and of ourselves than we encounter in ordinary experience. These historical paths include:

1.  Western philosophy, particularly the Platonic and neoplatonic traditions, some existentialist and phenomenologist thought, and the mystical/gnostic threads within Western religious (Jewish, Islamic and Christian) traditions

2.  Modern psychological research and practice, particularly from the perspective created by Freud and developed within ego psychology, self psychology, and object relations theory (including transpersonal, existentialist and humanistic currents in depth psychology, such as Jung’s work)

3.  The Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, which have developed enormous bodies of understanding of the nature of self and mind based on powerful techniques of inquiry.

These lines of thought all explore the nature of the human being as self or subject and its relation to existence, to the divine or ultimate reality, or Being. In the West, a particularly potent thread of this exploration began with the Platonic inquiry as developed by Socrates. We will see in the course of our investigation how pursuing deeply Socrates’s admonition, Know thyself, is a powerful path of liberation from the cave of illusion, and how, in our own times, we have knowledge and techniques available to help us engage in this inquiry with more precision and ease.

The development of depth psychology has enabled us to take Socrates’s query to a new level. Freud’s discovery of unconscious aspects of the self was a pivotal development in the understanding of human consciousness. The current focus on narcissism in psychoanalytic and psychological research adds further important knowledge about the self.

However, in the current context of psychology this development of our potential for self-understanding has not really penetrated the question of the nature of the self in a way that would satisfy either the philosopher or the mystic’s quest. Existential psychology and some aspects of transpersonal psychology have explored this territory, and its explorations have led to a certain degree of integration of philosophical and spiritual understanding with psychology. In general, however, psychological theory is limited by its conceptions of the self, which we will examine in detail in this book. In the philosophic and spiritual realms the pursuit of truth is often limited by ignorance of the unconscious factors that keep our limited conventional view of ourselves and the world trapped in egoic veils, and thus often render spiritual experience as exasperatingly short-lived or unintegratable into our everyday sense of ourselves.

Not only do these limitations affect the theoretical models of the self in the science of psychology and in the traditions of spirituality and religion, but they also affect, in practice, how psychological treatment is conducted, which methods are used by spiritual traditions and psychology to explore the situation of the self, and what defines success in terms of psychological health or spiritual development.

Self-realization and narcissism

This book is an exploration of the nature of the self, and the relationship between the knowledge of psychology and that which is the focus of various spiritual disciplines. These realms have much to contribute to one another. Our research has come to an understanding which is not a synthesis of the realms of psychology and spirituality, but rather a fundamental view that encompasses both realms.

This fundamental view has illuminated one clear truth about narcissism: Narcissism is a direct consequence of the lack or disturbance of self-realization. It is the most specific consequence of this lack or disturbance, and can be completely resolved only through realization of all aspects and levels of the self. When one is self-realized, one is consciously identified with the most true, real nature of the self. We cannot present here any simple, common-sense description of that true nature; exploring it has occupied philosophers and mystics for centuries. In the next chapter we will describe in more detail what we mean by self-realization. For now, we will simply say that narcissism involves being identified with relatively superficial aspects of the self, as opposed to being aware of one’s identity as Being. This identification with superficial aspects of the self results in a feeling of alienation. The only complete resolution of this alienation, and of narcissism, is the realization of one’s truest, deepest nature.

In order to contact the deeper truth of who we are, we must engage in some activity or practice that questions what we assume to be true about ourselves. Psychological methods, as well as spiritual and certain religious ways of inquiring into the nature of the self, all have in common processes of seeing through illusions—inaccurate beliefs about oneself, about other people, and about the world. With a deeper appreciation of the nature of the self, psychology could take these processes much further, expanding both the theoretical understanding of self and its usefulness for the healing and support of human development. Also, the methods and results of spiritual traditions could be made much more effective if they utilized the detailed understanding of the nature and development of the egoic self that has been so effectively explored by self psychology and object relations theory.

Dimensions of experience

That there are dimensions to human experience other than those of conventional reality is universally known. Most of us have had profound experiences involving religious insight, deep self-awareness, or some other opening into a realm of Being not generally seen. Visual art, music, and literature aspire to enable us to see or feel aspects of the world or of ourselves without the usual veils. We have been moved by moments of awareness of a larger reality or an unseen force, or by visions or insights, that cannot be explained within the conventional concept of the self. Love and wonder, a sense of light and grace, and peak experiences of oneness in nature are all insights into deeper dimensions of reality.

In addition to appreciating these more commonly experienced deeper dimensions, it is also possible to become aware of the more specifically spiritual dimensions of the human self, what could be called the true human qualities: selfless love, radiant joy, inner strength and will, brilliance and clarity of mind. These qualities are universally acknowledged and valued aspects of ourselves that we can at least participate in occasionally.

Most of the current concepts of depth psychology cannot account for these experiences, and bodies of work which do address these levels of experience, such as Jung’s, are generally not informed by the detailed understanding of narcissism which is part of ego psychology. This situation, however, is in the process of changing, and the present work is our contribution to that change.

Even though the existence of the deeper and more expanded dimensions of experience can be easily verified personally by anyone who engages seriously in any of the myriad spiritual practices, and even though there are indeed whole centuries-long bodies of scholarship in which these dimensions are explored in detail by communities of mystics, philosophers, artists and writers, still, the current conventional mind, including the perspective that dominates modern psychology, considers such realms of experience unscientific or unverifiable. (See Appendix A for a discussion of the question of the scientific status of discrimination within these realms of experience.)

It is true that the deeper, or spiritual, dimensions of experience are not normally accessible to everyday consciousness. But this is true of many realms of experience. With respect to physical reality, for instance, it took the use of specialized instruments and a body of scientific insight to reveal that the physical world is made up more of space than of solid matter, and that the nature of solid matter is not what it appears to superficial perception. The conventional, obvious opaqueness and solidity of the physical world is a limited experience; it is only the way things appear.

By analogy, then, if the psychological researcher insists on validating only the standard levels of the self’s experience, concerned merely with disturbances in this conventional experience, we will not end up with a true science of the self, but at best, with something like folklore. A trained psychology professional can see and understand psychological phenomena that are invisible and most unlikely sounding to the rest of us. He might be aware of more objectively real aspects of the self that are invisible to his patients. However, even this greater depth of insight is limited by the prevailing psychological concepts of the self, which do not include or explain what other systems know about the self. In the next chapter we will explore a more complete view of the nature of the self and its relationship to narcissism.

chapter 2

Self and Self-Realization

In order to pursue our exploration of self-realization, we must elucidate how we are using the word self. Our use of the word is unusual in that it refers to an actual ontological presence, not a construct. This emphasis on the actual presence of what is here as the self-, rather than on the content of the constructed aspects of the field of awareness, is a crucial aspect of our method of exploration and of our theoretical view.

In our view, the self is a living organism that constitutes a field of perception and action. This is what we call soul. Fundamentally, it is an organism of consciousness, a field of awareness capable of what we call experience—experience of the world and of self-reflective awareness of itself. In this book we will use the words soul and self somewhat interchangeably; the meaning of either word is always that defined above. Our understanding of soul is not that it is a split off or special part of the self that is more esoteric or ethereal or spiritual than any other elements. We use the word soul to describe the entire organism. This usage reflects the fact that the deepest perception of the self reveals that the entire Being of the self is of the same nature as that which, in conventional reality, is relegated to the spiritual or the divine. As our discussion progresses we will sometimes use self and soul in slightly different ways. We will predominantly use the word self, however, because its connotation can include many aspects of the total self, including its structures. We will use the word soul more to connote the dynamic, alive presence of the self as distinguished from the structures of the self which pattern this presence. It is important to allow a slight ambiguity in our use of these words in order for our understanding to be faithful to the deeper perspective. The soul, as an alive conscious presence, is ultimately not separate from the structures which form the ego. It is when they are taken as the self’s identity that these structures alienate the soul’s experience from awareness of its true nature.

The most striking aspects of this organism which is the self, or soul, are its malleability, sensitivity, intelligence, and dynamism. The soul can take many forms; it is not a rigid structure but a flowing, conscious presence with certain inherent capacities and faculties. The soul learns and the soul acts. The soul is an actual and real ontological presence; it is not simply a product of the body, as much modern thought would define it. However, it is not necessary for the purposes of this book to completely clarify the relationship of the self to the body. Even if the soul were somehow a product of the body, these qualities of consciousness and dynamism of the soul would remain demonstrable, even obvious.

What is conventionally known as the psyche is part of this self. The mind is part of the self, manifesting the capacity to remember, to think, to imagine, to construct and integrate images, to discriminate, analyze, synthesize, and so on. The feelings are part of the self: the capacity to desire, to choose, to value, to love.

In addition to the realms of mental, emotional and physical experience, the self has access to the realm of Being, that is, it can experience directly rather than indirectly, its own presence as existence. The conventional realms are involved in and generally affected by the experience of Being, but when the dimension of Being is experienced there is a profound difference in one’s perspective. The reason we have the capacity to experience Being is that the self is an actual ontological presence, a presencing of Being, not simply a construct, and this presence has the capacity to be self-aware. Thus, for the self to become directly aware of the realm of Being is for it to directly experience its own nature. We will examine this phenomenon in detail in later chapters.

Two capacities of the self are particularly relevant to the development of narcissism as we understand it. The first is the capacity of the mind to form concepts and structures of concepts in response to experience. The second is the capacity of the self to identify with different aspects of experience, particularly with images in the mind and with habitual emotional and physical states.

Herein lies the mechanism for the fall of the self into narcissism. In the beginning of this chapter, narcissism was described as the identification with the more superficial structures of the self. We described the self as a flowing, dynamic presence, an organism with mind, feeling and body (but not identical with any of these), that has an open-ended potential for experience.

The fall into narcissism happens as the self forms concepts and structures of concepts, and then identifies with them at the cost of its awareness of Being. These concepts, which the self comes to identify with and to view the world through, are much more opaque and rigid than the open, free, more natural state of the soul. What we describe as the free, spontaneous state of the soul is not a formless or unstructured state. The experience of the soul in a self-realized state is patterned by the intrinsic qualities of its Being, and by the structure of all dimensions of Being, including physical reality. The state of self-realization allows the soul to remain aware of its essential nature, yet at the same time to remain aware of the world of thought and speech, of social life and physical life, and to function in this world.

In Chapter 5 we will elaborate on the mechanism of becoming identified with concepts. For now, we will simply say that this fall is not something unnatural, tragic or avoidable. In fact, what we have just described is normal ego development, as described by self psychology and object relations theory.

When, in the course of maturation, or in the context of some identity-shaking life event, or in the pursuit of a spiritual path, we become more open to knowing—or remembering—the self in its deeper nature, our narcissism begins to become transparent. If, at these times, we are graced with the opportunity to pursue the truth of our identity rather than compensating for our spiritual dissatisfaction, we can begin to reverse this fall.

When the soul is caught up in rigid identifications and relations with others and the world, it is not satisfied. In every soul there is an inherent drive toward truth, an inherent desire to feel fulfilled, real and free. Although many people are not able to pursue this desire effectively, the impetus toward the realization of the self is in all of us; it begins with the first stirrings of consciousness and continues throughout life whether or not we are directly aware of it. This impetus spontaneously emerges in consciousness as an important task for the psychologically and spiritually maturing human being. As maturity grows into wisdom in an optimally developing person, this task gains precedence over other tasks in life, progressively becoming the center that orients, supports and gives meaning to one’s life, ultimately encompassing all of one’s experience.

What is self-realization?

What is the experience of the self when the process of self-realization is complete? What is the actual experience of self-realization? Although self-realization affects many aspects of our experience (including how we relate to others and to the world around us), its central element concerns the nature of our immediate subjective experience. The experience of full self-realization is radically different from the normal ego-bound state; thus, the descriptions in this book may seem alien to the reader. It will help to keep in mind that what we are describing here is the pure state of realization; there are, however, many partial awakenings and openings on the way to the complete experience.

In self-realization our experience of ourselves is a pure act of consciousness. We know ourselves by directly being ourselves. All self-images have been rendered transparent, and we no longer identify with any construct in the mind. There is no reactivity to past, present or future. There is no effort to be ourselves. There is no interference with our experience, no manipulation, no activity—inner or outer—involved with maintaining our identity; we simply are.

We are able to respond, feel, think, act—but from a purely spontaneous and authentic presence. We are not defensive, not judging ourselves, nor trying to live up to any standard. We may also be silent, empty, or spacious. We do not have to do anything to be ourselves. We are whole, one, undivided. It is not the wholeness of the harmony of parts, but the wholeness of singlehood. We are one. We are ourselves. We are being. We simply are.

In this experience there is no narcissism. We are at ease, spontaneously real, without psychological artifacts, pretensions, falsehoods. We are not constructed, not even by our own minds. Our experience of ourselves is totally direct and unmediated.

When we experience ourselves like this—directly—we are not inferring anything from past experience or from others’experience of us. Our identity is free from and undetermined by past experience. (Although there is a history of debate in philosophical discourse over whether such unmediated experience is possible, this debate has apparently been conducted in the absence of knowledge of the methods and results of the many practices in the world which result in just such experience.)

In the full experience of self-realization, our experience of who and what we are is not dependent upon nor influenced by any image of ourselves, either from our own minds or from the minds of others. If we do see images of ourselves we clearly perceive that they usually function as distancing and distorting barriers. A student in our work, Lily C., describes such an experience. Lily, in her late twenties, had been working with the author for about three years at the time of this group session, a few months before a summer intensive retreat.

The problem I spoke up about in the group meeting was that I was afraid to go to the retreat, or rather that I was afraid my life would be so dramatically changed by the retreat that I couldn’t cope with it. I felt very small, helpless, and out of control, and these feelings made me feel very frightened, and smaller yet. After I got as small as I could, I suddenly felt so huge that I felt I had no limits at all. I felt like I was the sky, and I felt the sensations of vastness and calm for a brief time, but then I felt nothing at all. I didn’t even feel that I was anything, good or bad. I just was. Am.

Lily does not describe here the process of work that transformed her experience from being small and frightened to the sense of purely being. Without getting into too much detail, we can say that the issue that arose for her was the expectation that she would go through overwhelming changes, changes that would conflict with her identity of being small. Exploring this sense of being small revealed that it was simply an image she had of herself. This recognition dissolved her identification with the mental image, which then brought about the experience of space, the vastness she describes. This then culminated in a self-recognition not based on any mental content, image or thought. In this moment, Lily knew who she was, beyond the usual categories of experience, beyond even the concepts of goodness or badness.

The fact that Lily was having a pure experience of self-awareness does not necessarily mean that there was no conscious or unconscious image in the mind, or that there were no memories. Images, memories, and associations can be present or not (they usually are), but they do not determine one’s experience of oneself. In that moment Lily was free from her past in terms of her experience of herself. She was free from her mind—from all the memories, images, associations, ideas, emotional reactions, identifications, ego structures, knowledge, and so on—in terms of her experience of herself at the moment.

What is the experiential core of self-realization?

The description of self-realization so far merely elaborates the various characteristics of the experience of being ourselves. It does not communicate the sense of the central element. What are we experiencing ourselves as? What kind of positive given are we? This positive given, the actual phenomenon that is present when we are fully experiencing ourselves, is usually a surprise for each individual, and cannot be deduced from our descriptions. It is what characterizes authentic spiritual self-realization and sets it apart from all other psychological experiences.

When we are being ourselves fully and directly, free from all influence of past experience, a quantum leap occurs in the experience of the self. The perception of ourselves departs from the conventional dimension of experience, although most of the elements of that dimension remain available in the experience.

To be ourselves fully, spontaneously, and authentically, means simply to be. Not to be a reaction, not to be determined or influenced by image or experience from the past, not to be according to memory and mind—is to simply be. This is far more than the colloquial meaning of the phrase being oneself. It is the experience of Being. To be—and in the experience we know this with certainty—is not an action, not even an inner action. Being ourselves, we find, is being Being.¹

In self-realization we experience ourselves being present as presence. It is not the presence of the body, the emotions, the thoughts. It is the presence of presence. To be fully cognizant of oneself as presence is the central and most positive characteristic of the experience of self-realization. (See Appendix B.) The absolute given in perception is pres-ence. Presence is not a characteristic of mind or body. It is a concrete ontological given, more fundamental than either the mind or the body. The presence of Being is deeper than our conventional experience of the existence of our minds or bodies.

Suchness

This way of speaking of our existence is unusual in the modern way of thought. Presence and Being seem to be philosophers’ concepts, concepts perhaps used in the same way that theistic traditions speak of God. What is Being? How can we use this concept to describe a very personal, yet universally available, experience? We do not need to solve the philosophical conundrums of the ages definitively in order to say what we mean: In simple terms, to experience ourselves as Being is to experience our existence as such, to experience our own presence, our own suchness directly. It is the simplest, most obvious, most taken-for-granted perception that we exist. But this existence is usually inferred, mediated through mind, as in Descartes’s Cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am. Existence is background, not foreground, for our ordinary experience. To penetrate into this background, to question our assumptions about reality and ourselves, allows us to encounter directly the immense mystery of the arising of our consciousness and of the world.

When viewed from the perspective of the ordinary experience of the self, the direct awareness of oneself as Being is a very mysterious category of experience. However, for the self-realized individual, it is an ordinary, common experience. In time it becomes the everyday experience of simply being ourselves. Being, here, is not a philosophical notion; it is the concrete experience and recognition of ourselves, before any mediation, conceptualization or labeling.² It is the given of perception, the simplicity of being conscious of our existence. Words cannot do justice to this kind of experience; the influence of our thoughts and concepts on our experience of ourselves is so extensive that no description can convey the radical change in nature of experience without that influence.

The experience of Being is not an idea we have of our experience of ourselves; neither is it a conclusion we draw from it. It is the concrete, direct and present experience of ourselves as we are being ourselves. What we are is now, a spontaneity of being, an absolute given. We perceive ourselves, then, by being ourselves, by being. We recognize ourselves by being ourselves, by being. We know ourselves by being ourselves, by being.

More concretely, we recognize in the experience of self-realization that to be ourselves is to be aware of ourselves as the presence of Being. It is the direct recognition of the very beingness of our existence, the fact of our isness. This facticity is not a thought or idea, not a feeling or an intuition, but a very concrete and palpable thereness. It is not the thereness of one object or another, like that of one’s body, or of a thought. This thereness is a new category of experience. In philosophical and spiritual language it is usually termed presence. Coming upon the recognition of one’s presence as Being is surprising in two ways: first, it is so completely, astonishingly outside the normal identity; second, ironically, it almost always feels familiar, as if one is remembering something, or coming home after being gone for a long time.

We might think that if we are experiencing the absolute given of our perception of ourselves, we will be experiencing our bodies. However, even our experience of our bodies is greatly influenced by the various images, memories, emotional reactions, and associations that are characteristic of the conventional dimension of experience. Ordinarily, we do not really know what the pure experience of the body is; we cannot be aware of how and how much the content of the mind influences our experience of our bodies. The dawning of the experience of self-realization includes the body, but it is not what we usually experience as our body. The body is experienced as part of Being, inseparable from Being, as an embodied expression of Being. But the pure experience of being ourselves is not merely the experience of the body. Being is more than the felt existence of our bodies. In many ways, it includes and transcends the body. Both common sense and certain theories of the self consider the body to be the most fundamental reality, but the phenomenon of presence is far more fundamental.

How does the common experience of the self contrast with the experience of self-realization?

Under normal circumstances we experience ourselves only partially. We do not experience ourselves as we are in ourselves, in our authentic reality or essence. Instead, we experience ourselves through thick veils of ideas, ideals, beliefs, images, reactions, memories, desires, hopes, prejudices, attitudes, assumptions, positions, identifications, ego structures, labels and accumulated knowledge—in other words, through the influence of all of our past experiences. We literally experience ourselves through the past, through the totality of our personal past, instead of freshly, in the present moment.

Only when we have experienced another way of knowing ourselves is it possible to appreciate the enormous effect all this mental baggage has on our normal experience of ourselves. We see, then, that our awareness of ourselves has become so fragmented, so indirect, so burdened by mental accretions, that even what we take to be authenticity is only a reflection of a reflection of our innate and fundamental authenticity.

The mental images and attitudes that determine how we experience ourselves form the basis of a whole implicit world view. We also experience ourselves only indirectly, as a subject experiencing an object. We are aware of ourselves as an object like other objects, seeing ourselves in the world as one object among others. Even when one is aware of oneself as perceiver or subject, this perception is different from the direct sense of our facticity, from the fact of our existence. We still know ourselves through the veil of memory.

As indicated above, ordinarily it is impossible to appreciate the extent of the influence of past experience on our sense of ourselves without having some other form of experience as a referent. What gives us the opportunity to see this omnipresent influence is the direct experience of self-realization, which reveals to us the distance between knowing oneself and being oneself.³ The self is constrained by the subject-object dichotomy: one is a subject experiencing oneself as an object. In the conventional dimension of experience the most intimate way we can experience ourselves is through such self-reflective consciousness.

In self-realization we experience ourselves as presence, where presence is both Being and knowingness. Here, the cognitive act and being are the same experience. We realize that we are speaking of a level of experience that seems far removed from ordinary experience, and may seem too esoteric to be concerned with. However, thousands of perfectly ordinary people have achieved access to this dimension of understanding, either through religion, spiritual traditions, artistic endeavors, or other kinds of explorations. As we proceed in this book, it will become clear how this level of insight can unfold simply through our maintaining a consistent and open inquiry into our true nature.

The reason we experience knowing and being as a single phenomenon is that presence is the presence of consciousness, pure consciousness more fundamental than the content of mind. Although we usually associate our consciousness with the act of being conscious of some object of perception, experiencing the direct truth and reality of our consciousness requires no object.

When we can finally be ourselves fully, we recognize ourselves as presence, and apprehend that this presence is nothing but the ontological reality of consciousness. We feel our presence as a medium, like a material medium, such as water or clear fluid.

This medium is homogeneous, unified, whole, and undivided, exactly like a body of water. This homogeneous medium is consciousness. The medium is conscious and aware of itself. It is not aware of itself by reflecting on itself, but by being itself. In other words, its very existence is the same as awareness of its existence. To continue the physical metaphor, it is as if the atoms of this medium are self-aware. Presence is aware of itself through self-pervasive consciousness, where this self-pervasive consciousness is the very substance or medium of the presence itself, not an element added to it.

From the perspective of self-realization, then, the soul is simply our consciousness, free from the occlusive veil of past experience. She can experience herself directly, without any intermediary. She is thus dispensing not only with the veil of past experience, but also with the self-reflective act. She experiences herself by simply being. She knows herself to be a presence, a self-aware medium in which the awareness is simply of presence itself. She is. She is presence, pure and simple. She is aware that she is presence because presence is indistinguishable from awareness.

What does the experience of self-realization feel like?

The experience self-realization, of knowing oneself as self-pervasive consciousness, is felt experientially as an exquisite sense of intimacy. The self-existing consciousness experiences itself so immediately that it is completely intimate with its reality. The intimacy is complete because there is no mediation in the self’s experience of itself. We feel an exquisite stillness, a peace beyond all description, and a complete sense of being truly ourselves. We are so totally ourselves that we feel directly intimate with every atom of our consciousness, completely intimate with and mixed with our true identity. The contentment is like settling down peacefully at home after eons of restless and agonized wandering. Clarity and peace combine as the feeling of exquisite, contented intimacy, which is totally independent of the particulars of our situation, beyond the conceptual confines of time and space. The peace and contentment do not come from accomplishing anything, nor are they a result of anything. They are part of the actual feeling of being truly ourselves. We are not only intimate with ourselves, but our very presence is intimacy.

We will describe the experience of self-realization in greater depth as we continue with our study.

chapter 3

Self, Essence, and Narcissism

Four concepts are paramount in the understanding of self-realization: self (or soul), presence, Essence, and identity.