Search the Community

Many teachers just emphasize "mind", or consciousness, as here: You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of “I am”. It is without words, just pure beingness. Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself. (Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers to Reality]) Let the mind be present without an abode. (from the Diamond Sutra, translation by Venerable Master Hsing Yun from “The Rabbit’s Horn: A Commentary on the Platform Sutra”, p 60) You are right, self-surrender plays a vital role, as here where Gautama described the induction of the initial concentration: … the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought initial and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein. (SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol V p 174; parentheticals paraphrase original; “initial” for “directed”, as at SN 36.11, tr. PTS vol IV p 146) To "hold consciousness by itself", as Nisargadatta prescribed, is to lay hold of "one-pointedness". To stay connected, Gautama advised the extension of the feelings of zest and ease of the first concentration: … (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. (AN 5.28, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 18-19) I'm writing about that now: Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey that the weight of the body accompanies the feelings of zest and ease. The weight of the body sensed at a particular point in the body can shift the body’s center of gravity, and a shift in the body’s center of gravity can result in what Moshe Feldenkrais termed “reflex movement”. Feldenkrais described how “reflex movement” can be engaged in standing up from a chair: …When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all. (“Awareness Through Movement”, Moshe Feldenkrais, p 78) “Drenching” the body “so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” with zest and ease allows the weight of the body and “one-pointedness” to effect “reflex movement” in the activity of inhalation and exhalation. In falling asleep, the mind can sometimes react to hypnagogic sleep paralysis with an attempt to reassert control over the muscles of the body, causing a “hypnic jerk”. The extension of a weighted zest and ease can pre-empt the tendency to reassert voluntary control in the induction of concentration, and make possible a conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation. Gautama said that he always returned to one-pointedness after he lectured, that he constantly abided in "that first characteristic of concentration". Speaking of staying connected to presence!

So fascinating, you really made the whole culture and history come alive! It's truly mindboggling how connected (for better or worse) people close to nature are to spirit. But unfortunately they use it both for good and evil. Yes, awesome idea about Kurdistan. In my dream I saw a carved rock-like charm bound with leather skins, both of them inscribed with ancient signs, buried under a plot of land in Kurdistan. This was then re-energized through rituals every now and then. So if we could find it, dig it up, and destroy it, I'm sure it would stop everything for ever. Luckily things have been ok for a long while, but every time one of the family members returns from a trip to Kurdistan, all family members here in Europe start having physical, health, mental or family issues for 1-3 months. So I think when they're down there, it somehow "re-ignites" the fire of hate and jealousy in the hearts of the people living there permanently, prompting them to restart all their black magic against this branch of the family. Luckily we are more aware now and combat it proactively. Just having that awareness that black magic is real, it makes you stop and think every now and then, when everything suddenly goes wrong for no reason out of nowhere. Then you can do something about it, instead of just suffering through it, when it could be stopped/improved by spiritual means.

I find I often have dreams of myself on parallel timelines. On awakening I look around nearby timelines and put the dream next to them looking for a match. Usually the match is obvious It seems that parallel processing occurs in nature Just as well

Essence is not function. Something can be false (or magical if you prefer) and still function. For example, a dream hammer is useful in a dream, but not useful in the waking state (and vice versa).

This is a very interesting perspective. I asked ChatGPT to consider what karmic script white Anglo-Americans may be playing out, and it had this to say: 1. Ancestral Memory and Disconnect Many indigenous and non-Western cultures have retained deep links to dreamwork, ancestors, and spirit because survival demanded it. Guidance from visions, intuition, or collective rituals was essential for navigating uncertainty. For white Anglo Americans, especially those shaped by centuries of Enlightenment rationalism, Protestant mental frameworks, and colonial expansion, there was a cultural severing from intuitive and ancestral memory. Dreams and spirit were demoted to “irrational,” while reason, efficiency, and control were elevated. The karmic imprint here is loss of embodied connection, a forgetting of how to listen. 2. Spiritual Purpose of White Anglo Americans From a karmic perspective, souls incarnating in Anglo contexts may have chosen it not to inherit an unbroken lineage of spirit, but rather to learn how to reawaken what was forgotten. Their spiritual challenge is not an automatic connection, but the discipline of rediscovery: To bridge intellect with intuition without dismissing either. To humble the mind and allow heart and body to remember their rightful place. To transform alienation (from land, body, ancestors) into deep reverence for life and the Earth. 3. Karmic Connection In both Kabbalah and Sufi frameworks, karma or qadr manifests as the correction of past imbalances. For white Anglo Americans, some key karmic corrections could be: From domination to stewardship: healing the karmic wound of colonization by becoming protectors of the Earth and allies to indigenous wisdom. From abstraction to embodiment: shifting from living in the head to re-entering the body, land, and senses. From isolation to interbeing: dissolving the illusion of individualism and rediscovering kinship with all peoples, creatures, and worlds. In this way, the absence of strong inherited dream/ancestral capacities may itself be the “teaching field”—a harder soil that requires conscious cultivation, so the lesson is deeply earned. Thus, the Anglo karmic path is not to “become like others,” but to integrate their mental organization and rational clarity with the reawakened ancestral spirit. The synthesis is their dharma. White Anglo Americans, karmically, are here to learn how to remember spirit after forgetting it, to reconnect intuition with intellect, and to transform the legacy of separation into one of integration, stewardship, and humility before the living cosmos. Their lack is their teacher. Their task is not to envy the natural gifts of others, but to midwife a new balance—one where the mind bows to soul, and the heart leads once again.

And thanks for sharing about your dream, very fascinating. Yes, sounds like the sense impressions from your research lodged in your unconscious and replayed during the night as images.

speaking of dreams, I had a very interesting one last night involving an ancient feline type creature. It was wild in temperament, had pointy ears that curved inward and short grey fur. The wild feline freaked my domesticated cats out in the dream. Maybe Bastet related, I was researching some Egyptian rites yesterday.

@Lala Nila Yes, me, my dad and cousins all have it, albeit not as strongly. He had it like clockwork, whenever something was about to go down, very related to the material world and survival, the close ones, the family etc. Whereas for me it's mostly related to spiritual guidance, but I also get dreams of warnings sometimes, or guidance about the people close to me in everyday life (their true character and motives etc). My wife never had dreams her whole life, as soon as we moved in together, she started getting it too. Now it's almost a daily breakfast topic before we hit the day, we talk about our dreams and what they meant. So it's there in my energy field somehow. Now that she started getting dreams it's always about her family and how they're doing. Mine is mostly spiritual guidance as I said, but also what's happening with my family, and sometimes material warnings or guidance. Ofc also the odd psychological dream about my own emotional unconscious every now and then, but usually when I wake it's quite clear what kind of dream it was (psychological or spiritual). Also whenever people cross over, I usually dream of them, see their current state, exchange last words, sometimes help them if they're lost. I cannot always do it in the dream, then I do it in my meditation during the day. I noticed that most non-white people naturally have all these things, a natural connection to spirit, intuition, gut instinct, dreams and the ancestors. Because my one side of the family all have it, whereas the white don't at all. And ofc growing up in majority white society, no one could really mirror these things back to me, as it was just outside their experience, they didn't know, didn't feel, didn't understand. All was mental. Then when I was a teenager I got a lot of friends with immigrant background, serbians, iranians, people from the Middle East, and ALL had it, naturally. Gut instinct, dreams. I also noticed it when I became a SKY master and started giving chakra initiations to people. Non-white people receive the energy much easier and more powerfully, it impacts them very deeply on a soul level much faster. It was the same when I was doing qigong healing as taught by firstly Zhongxian Wu then later Chunyi Lin, this was between 2018-2022. All the non-white people would get visions, dreams, cry, see their deceased grandparents, they would get guidance in the session what had happened and what they needed to change, it was very natural and spontaneous, flowing. I spoke with a sufi master about it, he himself obviously being from the Middle East, and he said he had observed the same. He said it's because each race is designed by God in a particular way, orginally more suitable for physical survival in particular climates, but later now it's related to the types of souls and the "karma" (from eastern perspective) they need to work out. Ofc in sufism they say it's the qadr or qismat, or destiny/fate written for that soul. E.g. people from particular races, cultures and religions are meant to go through different types of karma and soul corrections. Some examples of "nations" and their soul types according to Sufism and Kabbalah (just to give an idea): For instance people born in Iraq are said to be souls with pure hearts, but as they were warriors in past lifetimes, in this life, no matter how innocent and friendly they are, people will attack them, betray them, fool them etc., it's their karma. Whereas people born in Scandinavia or moving to live in Scandinavia are souls which are to learn about mental organisation and structure, but their challenge is that they become "removed" from life itself. Instead of efficiency and excellence, they become robotic and out of touch with life itself, hence the epidemic of mental ilness, unhappy families etc. People born in the Carribean Islands are people who are naturally grounded, relaxed, at ease, in contact with the physical body, enjoy life naturally, but their challenge is that they become overtaken by sexual pleasure and rivalry too much. Like that the "karmic scripts" of different races, cultures and nations are said to be a hint from Almighty God about ourselves and how to best correct our karma.

@Lala Nila African Voodoo is pretty much just like any shamanistic tradition world wide, it's all the same. It's almost identical to hinduism, qigong and daoism as well. There's life force animating the universe, we should be in harmony with that, and magic is simply working with this life force as well as the ancestors, spirits and Gods. Thanks for sharing about your javanese connection, very interesting! Yes, all the ancestor energy is present in our physical body, and some of them might even be following us and helping us daily or just from time to time. Some stories about my grandfather. He was a typical "caribbean man" in the sense that he had a baby mama everywhere, children in Haiti we didn't know about, in the US with a different woman, 4 kids with 3 different women here in Scandinavia, 2 in Ireland with another women, and God knows how many else spread across the globe. He didn't really know his father, but was close with his mother. However his mother died when he was just 7, so he was sent to live with distant relatives in the US. Since that time his mom would come in his dreams and give him life guidance and messages. As he was a very free spirit who liked to travel here and there, suddenly we wouldn't hear from him for 6 months to a year, but suddenly he would call and warn us of a dream he had. And everytime it came true. E.g. employees stealing money from my dad's business, my dad's relationship breaking (divorce from my mom), my dad's relationship about to break with his new girlfriend, he would call and give the dream warnings about what was about to happen. But my dad is quite the rebel, also because my grandfather wasn't there for him so much when he was younger, so he never listened to the advice. Once my grandfather didn't have money, his mother came in a dream and gave him the numbers to the lottery, and he won using those numbers. Once he used to hang out in a boxing gym when my dad was young and on the national team. They were 3-4 old retired guys, just coming for the hang out daily. My grandfather was one of them. My dad was a fighter. One morning on the bus, my grandfather ran into one of the other old guys. They were chatting just like normal on the bus. However once they reached the gym, the other guy didn't get off. My grandfather thought it was super weird. He told my grandfather to tell the others, that he was doing well but he wasn't coming in, he was going somewhere else. When he arrived and met my dad and the other old guys, he passed the message. The old guys were shocked and got tears in their eyes, because that guy from the bus had died during the night. So it was his soul that came to my grandfather, as my grandfather was the only one who could see and hear him. I could go on and on, there are so many more stories, also my own personal stories of dreams!

Yes, 100%. I know for sure the power of my African ancestors. My grandfather (who’s now passed away, God rest his soul) had incredible dream powers naturally, though he never cultivated in any way, shape or form. These have been passed on to my father, me and my cousins too, albeit not as strong. But in all the Hindu and Daoist rituals I’ve done for ancestors, the power in the African side is immense! I get incredible dreams and visions, and it’s always of the African side. They were of course connected to Voodoo, which doesn’t need to be dark, it’s just a connection to ancestors, life force of nature and the universe, as well as spirits ofc. I have so many stories to share about this 😁 Tell me more about your Javanese connection 🙏🏼

I think the self is based on actions we take and our responses to things. I know for myself, I have gone through many choices, often ones contradicting others taken in the past. I am what I choose and do, and though I think I change and move into new attitudes, my dreams tell me differently, for in them, I behave differently than I currently believe, and what greater indicator of who I am than how I behave in a dream?

I am, he came to me in a dream once. But, being a Gringa I didn't really know how to go forward with the experience, it was an odd time in my life. It happened a few years back, I was doing some darker toned magick at the time, dealing with death and my path. Lot's of liminal places, chthonic entities, etc. This drum vid, struck a deeeeep cord with me. I use a lot of dance in my work, building cones of power, using djembe drum beats and music that resonates on a more 'primal' level. When I was younger, I spontaneously joined a drum circle in the middle of a park in Europe. I sat there stoned outta my face just playing the djembe, I had never played a percussion instrument (expect bass guitar in middle school) prior to that. I tapped into this stream, I don't know where it came from-well, I do, it came from long ago, another life...those guys that I was playing were super impressed and asked me how I knew how to play. When I allowed those vibrations to take over my body, heart and mind, I felt the current open up and became a vessel of sorts. Thank you for sharing that story about Wallenganda with me over the flames of that fire with me (yes, I saw those flames and heard the crackling). it's a lovely story, I've heard parts of it before. Sounds like a shaktipat to me! This is really wonderful and obviously set a tone going forward in your life. I find that sometimes entities from paradigms you're not too familiar with in this life time will appear to you in ways that resonate the deepest in that moment, for whatever reason- be it Undines, Star Lady of the Sea, etc. Agreed, 100%. Again, thank you so much for sharing all the above! beautiful and amazing experiences.

Yes, I think ‘Spirit’ can see through both. The mundane or ego mind, as you put it, feels it’s in charge, I think from necessity, since without Shiva present it has no container and so has to run its own defense. Yielding consciously to Shiva can feel like annihilation, because, as you say, the ego-mind doesn’t recognise its proper place as servant and not master. For reasons I don’t fully understand, it seems to me that Shiva is cast out, and when this energy tries to re-enter we resist. I had a dream at twelve of a man sitting in a chair, staring out the window, stroking a cat on his lap. He seemed both frighteningly mad and catatonic. Then I heard the words: “He is me.” That dream pulled the rug from under me, it literally broke my view of myself as a twelve year old girl, but it also set me on the path of learning to understand dreams, because I figured by understanding dreams in general I would be able to understand this dream. Now, forty years later, I believe what I had seen was ‘Shiva’, ‘Shiva-mind’, flagged as me, which I was unable to remotely comprehend then. I’ve come to think we have to walk in Shiva’s shoes eventually. Now my dreams show ‘Shiva’ circling closer: a bull circling the house, a car crashing through the walls, someone breaking in through a window and trying to roll up the blinds. Allowing Shiva to re-enter is unnerving. His energy is powerful and alien, and he is no less frightening now than when I was twelve. But the difference is that today, with more cleared ground and greater understanding, I can at least try to let the process happen, even if it is not easy.

bold above i agree. 100% Yes. time space and form are illusory mental constructs, and have no more substance than a dream or thought. here it is again. yes, this (below). This is exactly what I have been attempting to convey. These two posts here just say it a lot more succinctly Thank you.

bingo. yes. i am taking that at face value. hence the universe and everything in it vanishes. just like when a person wakes up from a dream, then the dream is no longer there. it vanishes.

Now you have just returned to your original narrow premise , To go further would be circular . Circular again , I already addressed this . I am not , you must have missed what I said . Its the whole Neuro genetic system with its receptor feedbacks and linked to genetic consciousness and memory and another faculty which is 'non-local' I already laid that all out . If you missed it and think I am claiming its in the brain .... there isn't much point continuing this discussion as it would go around in circles more , So does sleep lead to temporary loss of consciousness , but does sense of self leave ? Ever had dream with 'yourself' in it ?

My pleasure. _/\_ Duality is a persistent illusion. When you wake up, there it is. When you dream, there it is. When seen from enlightened mind... well, you get the idea. There is no "other" place enlightenment takes you... what is seen in this moment is reality. Enlightenment looks like this moment. Anything that you might think of as having its own, intrinsic (basic or unique characteristic of a person or thing) being-ness or separateness from other imagined things is illusory. Nothing exists separately. All things that appear separate of any kind, including places, times or dates, or beings and objects are ultimately not real in THAT way. Not real as a separate thing, moment, place. This is explained in myriad ways - the Cittamatra (Buddhist) school says it is all "mind", other traditions assert the reality of an outside world, etc. etc., but NONE of them are "correct". For deep reading on this topic I would suggest: Put put it succinctly, Shuryu Suzuki said: "Just THIS is it". I like to say: "There is THIS, happening now."

In a way, we are always inside our own minds. I interpret it a bit differently. I guess it depends on how we define real. The experiences in the dark are extraordinarily vivid and compelling - sounds, visions, emotional reactivity, and yet there is nothing there but my own mind. Similar to dreaming. In the dream, there is no question about its reality, unless of course we are lucidly dreaming. For me it is more about the relationship between daily life experience and the mind.

Heard this continuation of Zhuangzi's dream.* ...So then the Japanese patrol captured Zhuangzi and interrogated him. Why are you planting explosives all over our military trains routes and derailing our trains, they asked. And he's, like, I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm a butterfly, I don't interfere in your military affairs. -- And what did the interrogators do? -- What could they do, they put him in front of the firing squad and woke him up. -- And then what happened? -- What could happen? He's flying somewhere out there, visiting this flower, then that flower... *from an accomplished martial artist who thinks he's a taoist -- but far as I can tell, the only taoist thing about him is his zhuangzesque sense of the absurd. Which is good enough for me -- better than what many others who think of themselves as taoists have to show to justify the self-identification.

i always like revisiting the book in link above. The drawings and names, of bones and muscles, help me visualize and locate and work with specific areas. I am fond of anatomy and physiology books and charts And yes it is a great exercise to move my point of awareness around within the physical body. Typically it rests behind my eyes. I believe it IS important, because for me it illustrates and reiterates that "i am not my body." A teacher has us do additional exercises in this vein. One is to move the point of awareness outside the physical body, and view the body from that vantage point, say up in the corner of the room and see myself sitting typing at the computer. And then another exercise is to hold both views simultaneously. See the aerial view of me at the computer from my point of awareness up in the corner of the room; and at the same time my point of awareness is still behind my eyes in my physical body. That one feels clunkier. Teacher describes it as feeling strange but that it can become as natural as being able to hear and see at the same time (which is also dealing with two streams of data at the same time). I don't do the both views at the same time very often. But I do the point of awareness outside the body regularly. Teacher also has us do this while we are moving, for instance outside on my daily walk in nature my point of awareness is oh say 10 feet higher than my head, and five feet to the right and five feet behind as the body walks. This shifts the framework entirely, from oh my awareness is in the physical body; to instead oh the physical body is in my awareness. For me this is important, and as the post phrases it, it brings me peace of mind. It is a felt sense of oh! this is the truth of who i am. It just feels very natural and clear to be a point of awareness. Indeed, i am not my body. ---------------- [Extending this even further, everything physical (not just the physical body) is in my awareness. In that scenario (another exercise) my awareness expands from a point to be much "bigger" and it holds and contains the walking path, the building, the trees, the town, the continent, the planet, the universe and everything in it. That is an even bigger shift in the belief system. But it demonstrates what that pesky phrase means "you contain the whole world". Literally it's all in your head, like that other phrase about the physical world has no more substance than a dream, or is an illusion.] Those are some of the exercises that teacher has us doing .

Long ago I had a dream that I was in a prison camp. Someone had broken the rules but I was punished not them. I felt that was most unfair. When I awoke I asked about the dream and was told that when a member of a group breaks a rule, it does not matter which in the group is punished. Thus group karma can result in the innocent bearing the pain.

But the reason we know about Shakyamuni's battle with Mara at all though, is because it comes to us by way of the religious teachings of Buddhism. So it is understood in that context. And yes it does have a broader practical application to daily life, even if someone is not a Buddhist, even if they are living an entirely secular life, even if they are not seeking enlightment or practicing dharma. Because every person faces and deals with "what is the right thing to do" in this or that situation which they encounter in their daily life. It is sometimes called conscience. The final sentence (see below in bold) for a secular application could read: Mara is considered the one who distracts people from "doing the right thing." Mara is considered the negative qualities found in human's egos and psyche. " conscience: the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action. Was Shakyamuni a real physical human being? Yes. Was Mara and the daughters and the army of demons in physical form? No. Did he really see them? Well, physical humans have dreams and daydreams and visions. It is a reality that those occur. But the characters within the vision do not have physical substance. If you had a dream last night then for you it is real that you had a dream. That dream really happened. You know what you saw, including the characters and what they said and did and your interactions with them. The dream or vision is real, yes. Are the characters in the vision or dream physical, no. "[There] is a painted mural in Thailand about Siddhartha's battle with Mara. The story goes that while Siddhartha or Buddha Gautama was meditating trying to reach enlightenment, he was assaulted under the bodhi tree by the demon named Mara, who is often said to be the tempter. Mara used violence, sensory pleasure, and mockery to try to prevent Siddhartha from attaining enlightenment because he was afraid that Siddhartha would. Mara tempted Siddhartha with his daughters but Siddhartha was not moved. So Mara stood up with an army against him and Siddhartha touched the ground and it shook. Mara was defeated by Siddhartha and after the battle, it rained down lotus flowers. In the Buddhist religion, Mara is considered the one who distracts people from practicing Buddhist dharma. Mara is considered the negative qualities found in human's egos and psyche. " from Jess Davis, “Siddhartha's battle with Mara”

If you're capable of structuring your own learning, you can always work through their curriculum yourself. There's obviously degrees of information you won't receive or have access to, but it can give you a chance to familiarize yourself with everything they teach before you pay them to teach you the "next level" of those subjects, if that's something they're able to do. Maybe halfway through self-study, you realize you're not interested in this path as a means of spiritual development. Or maybe you realize it's everything you want to pursue, and you'll feel more confident in your choice to take the classes. The first four years lead to an exam and the joining of their order, with monthly membership meetings and other trainings, retreats, and projects. That means you'll be joining a community and forming deep bonds, possibly sharing intimate things about yourself and placing yourself in a vulnerable position at the mercy of your teachers and community (and paying a lot of money to do so!). So it's important to consider if you want to join their order, if you trust the leaders, if you want camaraderie and growth with the sorts of people who take the courses and eventually join the order, etc. If you enmesh yourself for the sake of information at the expense of relationships, you may eventually face backlash from those who have formed attachments (be those attachments "negative" or "positive"). You mentioned undergoing therapy. Starting school or a new job is difficult enough, and doing so while in therapy is even more challenging. Add magic mysteries and unknown motives, and the weight of activity could be debilitating. It's important to know what you can handle at each level. I'm of the mindset that you will find what you seek, so as others have pointed out, make sure you know what it is that you're seeking. Colloquially, be careful what you wish for. Year 1 - First Step MT101 - Meditation - Essentials to control one's mind EW101 - Energy Cultivation - Core exercises to raise one's energy levels TE101 - Visualization - Introductory training opening of the Third Eye EW102 - Fireball - Creating and manipulating energy objects Year 2 - Developing Core EW103 - Lower Dantian - Accumulation and storage of raw power EW105 - Self-Regulation - Chakra maintenance work that improves energy flow and well-being OW108 - Astral Travel - Awareness of subtle bodies and OBE training AM101 - Magic - Introduction to the Magic system through Arcana System Year 3 - Awakening OW109 - Dreamworld - Exploration of dream worlds, you'll learn skills of remembering dreams, mapping and navigation TE102 - Magus Hall - Continuation of TE101 that activates the Third Eye MT102 - Ego Shedding - Focus on freeing the mind from impediments, negative constructs, and shackles AM122 - The Fool - A module focused on the first of the Major Arcana Year 4 - Becoming Adept AM121 - The Success - Studying the energy of 21 Arcanum - The World AM119 - The Sun - Studying energy of 19 Arcanum - The Sun AM118 - The Moon - Studying energy of 18 Arcanum - The Moon PM106 - Elemental Magic - Exploring the Magic of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth - Parametrization of object scanning

Yes but that is only because of the deep and complex associations you have between Luke and your own animus towards your Animus . Now the usual associations of Animus : Emma Jung complements by saying that this lack of discrimination makes women more open to the unconscious and they often discover and appraise spiritual values more quickly than men. During the time I worked as a meditation teacher, I could verify that, these places tend to be full of women trying to connect with their spiritual sides and men often dismiss these pursuits as something “irrational” that doesn’t make any sense, in general, men tend to have a prejudice against Erotic values.“If we ask ourselves why second sight and the art of prophecy are ascribed to woman, the answer is that in general she is more open to the unconscious than man. Receptivity is a feminine attitude, presupposing openness and emptiness, wherefore Junghas termed it the great secret of femininity. Moreover, the feminine mentality is less averse to irrationality than the rationally oriented masculine consciousness, which tends to reject everything not conforming to reason and so frequently shuts itself off from the unconscious. In the Phaedrus Plato criticizes this over-reasonable attitude – especially in the matter of love – and praises the irrational, even the insane, insofar as it may be a divine gift” (Emma Jung – The Animus and Anima, p. 52).This Eros identification will generate an unconscious Logos and we know that the nature of the unconscious is to be personified, so the masculine image we find is denominated animus and it will behave like a complex with its own “personality”.“By the term animus l understand the masculine spirit or unconscious mind of woman. Emma Jung pointed out recently that one should differentiate very carefully here between the anima and the animus. The anima, as is well known, is Jung’s term for the feminine soul of man. But it is really a contradiction in terms to speak of the animus as the masculine soul in woman. (This error was made in the early days of Jungian psychology and is still often done today.) In latin the word animus means intellect, memory, consciousness, character, and spirit. It is often equated with “mind” and is also used to mean courage, vivacity, bravery, and will. In Jungian psychology it is used primarily to denote the phenomenon of “spirit” in women, and the contrast between the feminine soul (anima) and the masculine spirit (ani­mus) gives us a valuable hint as to the difference between these two figures” (Barbara Hannah – The Animus, p. 2).The animus contains all the qualities that can balance the conscious Eros, however, if the animus remains unconscious, it acquires this dark, tyrannical, and possessive quality, it escapes the conscious will and also suffocates the Eros principle. Here, we have to state the obvious and say that we live in a society dominated by the Logos principle and culturally we tend to devalue everything that has to do with Eros. Naturally, many women fall prey to these social values and devalue everything that has to do with the feminine. This generates a tendency to feel inferior and women forsake their own natures and seek to identify with more traditionally masculine values, and this obviously gives immense power to a negative animus.That’s why dealing with the animus requires that we start valuing everything that has to do with the feminine and Eros again. Women have to feel proud of who they are and don’t conform to social norms that suffocate their personalities. It’s only when we make the effort to make these figures conscious that they start to cooperate and open the possibility for individuation and unravel our inner gold, as these figures are always paradoxical, the relationship with them can either take or give life. In general, we can say that the Eros is always more interested in personal relationships than objective and impersonal facts. It gives the woman immense sensibility as she can perceive nuances in relationships that frequently escape a man entirely. Naturally, everything that has to do with Logos will be a blind spot. In that sense, the animus works mainly as an opinionating substitute:“In general the animus personifies the spirit in woman while the anima represents the soul in man. In general we can say that, at the more rudimentary levels, the animus in the woman is the producer of opinions whereas the anima in man produces moods. But actually the part of the animus to which we can react and with which we can make contact is the merest fraction of the entity of spirit in the woman. In real life, women generally deal not with the entire animus but with that part of the animus which is mostly an opinionating substitute for the depths of the spirit. This would be the spirit of rationalization which indefatigably occupies itself with making these opinions seem logical, at least as seen from the point of view of the woman or of the collective society” (Barbara Hannah – The Animus, p. 2).What happens is that the animus infiltrates a woman’s train of thought and falsifies her reality with opinions that tend to be extremely critical, demeaning, and one-sided, and they appear to be the absolute truth. It’s something the woman just assumes is the right thing, when in reality, she never really thought about it, it’s something ready-made. Barbara Hannah says that Jung has often pointed out that when the animus interferes in a woman’s daily life, it’s usually in a place where she hasn’t given the matter her fullest conscious consideration and particularly where she fails in the realm of feeling. A very simple example that I hear all the time revolves around perfectionism. With phrases like, “If don’t do it with absolute perfection it’s not even worth trying”. Or “If I’m going to clean the house I have to spend six hours scrubbing every inch of it or it doesn’t count”. Or even, “If I don’t get straight 10’s I’m an absolute failure”. When you can’t find a middle term, you can be sure that the animus is operating. Also, the animus works with very impersonal and collective opinions about how people should be and act and how a relationship should work. It’s like a formula that if it isn’t followed everything is wrong. When you ask where did this come from, they love to say “People have always done it like this,” or “Everybody says it is like that”. When the animus is operating the woman loses that personal relatedness, because these opinions get in the way of her connection with the truth and individuality of the other person, and seeing the objective reality.We can see this operating with comments like “Every man is like this” or “Every man treats women in such and such way”. Or comments like why they can’t have any female friends because “Every female is judgmental and they’re never truthful”. Or rules about how the perfect mother should be, or how a wife should behave. You can see that these are very impersonal opinions, and these rules prevent women from connecting with others on an individual level. Because if every man is in a determined way how is she going to know him as an individual? … Everything he does will be filtered through these assumptions. The Eros isn’t limited to relationships, so everything that has to do with the body, the five senses, and pleasure will also suffer. With thoughts like how you can’t have any fun and relax because you always have to be productive. If you’re going traveling, for instance, everything has to be done in an exact order, leaving no room for spontaneity, there are always rules for fun. Another pattern is thoughts about how being in touch with their own bodies is a sin and disgusting. Lastly, many women have to deal with demeaning thoughts about their appearance, their capabilities, or about what they truly want. Also, thoughts revolving around how they can’t find any good quality in them, that they aren’t unique and that’s why they can’t create anything. Or even thoughts about what they truly want in life is wrong and you have to conform to this other person’s opinion or to society. The crazy thing is that none of this is the truth, it’s just something that was unconsciously absorbed, and the animus will always seek these blind spots. That’s why the main work of a woman is to challenge these thoughts, understand that they don’t make any sense, and come up with her own values and beliefs. The relationship with the Eros principle has to be personal and individual, what matters to the woman has to be the most important thing, instead of giving in to collective rules and assumptions.However, if the problem of the animus is not faced:“If the problem is not faced, if woman does not meet adequately the demand for consciousness or intellectual activity, the animus becomes autonomous and negative, and works destructively on the individual herself and in her relations to other people. This fact can be explained as follows: if the possibility of spiritual functioning is not taken up by the conscious mind, the psychic energy intended for it falls into the unconscious, and there activates the archetype of the animus. Possessed of the energy that has flowed back into the unconscious, the animus figure becomes autonomous, so powerful, indeed, that it can overwhelm the conscious ego, and thus finally dominate the whole personality” (Emma Jung – The Animus and Anima, p. 7).This is a principle in Jungian Psychology, every time that we don’t consciously exert some faculty, it becomes unconscious and instead of functioning properly, it becomes destructive. Emma Jung says that when there’s an identification with the animus, the women either didn’t pay attention to her spiritual side or developed it in the wrong way. She points out that many women have this over-identification with their masculine side and externally it might seem that they have a positive animus, however, this always comes to the detriment of feminine values, and especially their relationships.“To busy ourselves simply in an intellectual or objectively masculine way seems insufficient, as can be seen in many women who have completed a course of study and practice a heretofore masculine, intellectual calling, but who, nonetheless, have never come to terms with the animus problem. Such a masculine training and way of life may well be achieved by identification with the animus, but then the feminine side is left out in the cold. What is really necessary is that feminine intellectuality, logos in the woman, should be so fitted into the nature and life of the woman that a harmonious cooperation between the feminine and masculine factors ensues and no part is condemned to a shadowy existence” (Emma Jung – The Animus and Anima, p. 13).“For when the feminine side is so overwhelmed and pushed into the background by the animus, there easily arise depressions, general dissatisfaction, and loss of interest in life. These are all intelligible symptoms pointing to the fact that one half of the personality is partly robbed of life by the encroachment of the animus” (Emma Jung – The Animus and Anima, p. 15).This animus identification has two main expressions, either the woman feels hopeless and powerless, or she adopts traditionally masculine traits in a very toxic manner, in both cases her relationships suffer. There needs to be a fine balance between the Eros and Logos principle, there isn’t a recipe about how a man or woman should be, this is an individual pursuit. But we always have to remember that the conscious mind tends to be unilateral, so an over-identification with each side will always be destructive. Furthermore, developing the animus isn’t about doing traditionally masculine things, it’s something much deeper. It’s about finding your own sense of meaning and direction in life. It’s about crafting your own cosmovision and feeling fulfilled. It’s about deeply knowing what you want, what’s valuable to you, and going after it. It doesn’t matter if you want to become an engineer or a dancer, what matters is if that’s an authentic expression of your personality. Nowadays, we see many women trying to get their power back, however, they end up adopting the worst facet possible of the masculine, and then they become toxic and destructive, not only to themselves but to everyone around them. Again, this is not developing the animus, it’s simply becoming possessed by it. There always needs to be a balance between Eros and Logos, and each person has to discover what this means for them. In the previous chapter, we explored how the animus and anima make a pair of opposites with the persona, so when we’re too identified with the persona, we’re also subliminally identified with the animus and anima. “One of the animus activities most difficult to see through lies in this field, namely, the building up of a wish-image of oneself. The animus is expert at sketching in and making plausible a picture that represents us as we would like to be seen, for example, as the “ideal lover,” the “appealing, helpless child,” the “selfless handmaiden,” the “extraordinarily original person”, “the one who is really born to something better,” and so on. This activity naturally lends the animus power over us until we voluntarily, or perforce, make up our minds to sacrifice the highly colored picture and see ourselves as we really are” (Emma Jung – The Animus and Anima, p. 19). It’s always important to challenge these labels and identities because they’re our worst enemies. We have to pay close attention to the stories that we have been telling ourselves because they rarely contain the whole truth. Opinions about how a woman should be and act are especially insidious because this prevents women from discovering their true individualities, there’s no spontaneity. Also, this animus identification generates an inflation and women put themselves on a high horse dictating how everyone should be and act, they believe they own the truth and act like a judgmental tyrant. That’s why Von Franz says that one way of escaping animus possession is by taking a humble attitude and dealing with your own shadow.Lastly, anytime that you feel hopeless, powerless, and such a victim, you know that the animus is operating and you must challenge these thoughts and assumptions. Because another thing a negative animus promotes is this constant pondering about the past, about all your mistakes, about how you should’ve done things differently, and how things could be in the present moment, a bunch of “what ifs”. This is not thinking, you’re just indulging in a fantasy instead of dealing with what’s right in front of you. Emma Jung says that the animus voice has mainly two ways of functioning, first it judges and criticizes absolutely everything a woman does, and second, it issues commands and prohibitions. Also, because the animus and Logos are impersonal, they tend to appear as a council of condemnatory judges, and less frequently as a single figure.How To Deal With The AnimAt this point, you might be asking yourself, “So how to deal with these intrusive thoughts, opinions, and assumptions?”. Well, since the animus is a complex, Barbara Hannah suggests that women have to personify the animus. This is actually a good idea to deal with any complex, because when we’re able to personalize it, we create a separation between us , the conscious Ego, and this part, and this allows us to have a more objective perspective. At the same time that these figures are a part of us, they’re also autonomous complexes with their own personalities and laws, and we have to get to know how they operate. So when you have a thought you have to ask yourself who inside you is thinking this and what is the part of yourself having these thoughts. This will help you detach from this automatism “One of the techniques that Jung recommends for getting acquainted with our animus is to keep a sharp lookout on our speech, in particular our thoughts, and to constantly question them as they pass through our minds: “Did I think that?” “Where did that thought come from?” “Who thought that?” This is a most disagreeable technique, and we always find good excuses to avoid it, such as never having the time, and so on. But if we can force ourselves to practice it and to write down the outcome – for we forget such thoughts almost before we think them – the results can be exceedingly instructive” (Barbara Hannah – The Animus, p.17).Women have to pay close attention to the stories they’re entertaining in their minds and question them. The first part is always to understand where a certain opinion comes from, for instance, if you have a fixed thought about how women should dress or the kind of work they can do. You can ask yourself where this comes from, a lot of the time you’ll discover that this is exactly how your mother or father viewed women, and you just absorbed it and never questioned it. Remember that in women, the mother complex serves as a basis for the persona and the father complex serves as a basis for the animus. But often, the negative animus of the mother is what shapes the sense of identity of the daughter, so pay special attention to that. A lot of this work will be focused on separating yourself from the parental figures, their values and beliefs, so as to create your own cosmovision. Obviously, not everything comes from the parents, so you have to question these thoughts and see if you can connect with any experiences you’ve had.You’ll also discover that many thoughts don’t have a clear origin, and make no sense at all and this happens a lot during my sessions, I’ll hear an opinion and reflect it back, and the person suddenly realizes how crazy it is to think such things. One example I can remember is about this woman who wanted to create something new, but every time she had an idea she would research and see if someone had already talked about it, and obviously, she would always find something. She had this fixed idea that in order for something to be considered creative it had to be so original that no one had thought about it before.Obviously this a crazy inhuman thought and this was preventing her from being creative. However, this woman was very artistic and she was a great writer and painter, but she never considered her creations original enough. That’s what the animus does, it makes you believe in these lies and prevents spontaneity and creativity. During the sessions, we challenged all of these opinions and she finally started to appreciate her own creations, furthermore, she understood that as long as she did it in her own way and added her own experience it would always be unique. Instead of operating with assumptions, she came up with her own beliefs around this. I already said that to deal with the animus you have to question these thoughts, but sometimes this can be a trap and you get lost. What’s important to understand is that these opinions prevent a woman from experiencing things as they are, she sees everything through these lenses, so what really matters when dealing with the animus, is to just experience reality as it is. For instance, if you want to relax and the animus voice keeps telling you how wrong this is, just tell him to shut up, and go enjoy yourself. If you’re feeling guilty because you need your time alone or because you’re doing something that is just for you, just tell him to be quiet, and go do your thing. Obviously, this advice is for someone who has a hard time doing that, because the animus can also be experienced as negative when he wants to push your forward but you’re resisting. Another example, many women feel guilty about pursuing a career or doing something that it’s just for them that doesn’t involve any relationships. When the Eros is overdeveloped it makes you lose your sense of identity in your relationships and you’re always dependent on them. It makes a woman extremely passive and afraid, and she never pursues her individuality. However, a positive animus helps a woman to have this sense of direction, be driven, and create a life for herself that isn’t dependent on others. However, if you resist acquiring this independence you’ll forever remain in an infantile position, and most likely be identified with the Puella Aeternus.The gift of the animus is to make a woman independent and uncover her true personality. But for it to happen, you have to devote time and learn how to consciously exert its function. It’s really important to dedicate time to craft your own perception of life, your sense of identity, and your relationships. The first step is obviously to observe your opinions and question them. But we also have dream interpretation, active imagination, creative endeavors, and of course, analysis. Barbara Hannah says that writing is especially important for women as the word is the primary vehicle of the Logos.When you write you have the chance to make these opinions conscious, at first, you should just allow them to come without any judgment. But after that is time to activate your critical mind and separate what makes sense and what doesn’t. It’s always important to insert your conscious perspective into these dialogues, so as to educate the animus. These inner figures also need to learn human values and limitations and you can find out more about this process on the active imagination chapter. Lastly, artistic expressions like music or dancing are the realm of the Eros and there the animus can’t touch you. So having an artistic outlet can be a great way of depotentiating the animus, and uncovering your authenticity. Finally, you have to dedicate time to craft your own cosmovision and develop your own sense of spirituality.

byzantine icons dream of Andrey Rublyov frozen in pigment