A short essay on the subtle architecture of our inner life

[Bindi]

I have come to see the psyche not merely as a mind in the psychological sense, but as a layered energetic system populated by subtle forces. At the heart of this view are the subconscious emotional and mental currents, and deeper still, two complementary unconscious currents that I’ve come to think of as the Shiva aspects and the Shakti aspects.

 

The emotional and mental currents we’re all familiar with, but the Shiva and Shakti currents are less obvious, so I will go into some detail about them.

They can be recognized through many vivid symbolic pairs:

 

• Wildfire / Fireplace
  The dynamic blaze that consumes and transforms.
  The hearth that holds the fire safely, giving it purpose and warmth.
• Fish / Fishbowl
  The darting, elusive vitality moving through hidden depths.
  The clear bowl that contains, supports, shapes, and protects its motions.
• Cat / Dog
  The graceful, sensitive, easily startled nature that seeks comfort.
  The loyal guardian that stays close, watching over and calming.
• Fearful / Protector
  The trembling instinct that recoils from perceived danger.
  The steady presence that stands firm, offering safety.

 

These pairs are not idle poetry. They illustrate how the unconscious houses instinctual forces that must evolve together. The Shakti aspect represents a dynamic, vital current — the drive toward life, transformation, emotional vitality, subtle creativity. The Shiva aspect provide containment, the instinctive intelligence that knows how to protect, restrain, channel, and nurture what would otherwise be chaotic.

In each pairing:

• The dynamic life-force is untamed, vital, transformative.
• The caring containment is protective, shaping, enabling that energy to flourish without harm.

 

They are co-arising: the wild needs the safe space to exist meaningfully; the container finds purpose in cradling the life within.
If one seeks only to awaken the dynamic energy (as in a blind kundalini pursuit), without fostering the complementary instinct to contain and guide it, imbalance is inevitable. The system can flare into anxiety, delusion, or emotional overwhelm. This is why so many teachings stress that cultivation is not merely about amplifying energy, but purifying and preparing the mental and emotional channels first, so the deeper forces can safely develop.

 

To purify the emotional and mental currents tangled by personal history, they must be witnessed and brought into greater flow. They are the first terrain of inner work, and through methods such as shadow work, dream exploration, deep feeling and understanding etc, their dysfunctions can be gradually resolved. Only then can the deeper unconscious forces, the Shiva and Shakti layers, find their ground. Importantly, it is the Shiva aspect that must awaken the Shakti aspect, otherwise containment will not occur, and the Shiva aspect in its turn has to first be activated by the flowing current of the emotional and mental currents. 

 

Recently, my dreams have begun to show me that when these two deep unconscious instinctual layers find each other and start to mature in their interaction, something new emerges. In symbolic terms, this is represented as a smaller, independent vehicle that will one day travel on its own. This resonates with images from Daoist Neidan (inner alchemy) where an alchemical child is born - an autonomous subtle body that eventually can separate from the main system. This smaller independent vehicle or child is the fruit of a long interplay between mature containment (Shiva) and vitality (Shakti).

 

But the picture does not end here. Overseeing all of this is the witness self, the faculty of clear seeing that stands apart from the energies it observes. This witness is the part that learns to trust that the humble, instinctual containment field is capable of guiding the system more wisely than the anxious grasping of the conscious mind. It slowly informs the conscious mind, which may then serve as the executive agent, ruling not by force but by insight.

 

In the end, I see the conscious mind, gently taught by the witness, becoming the wise steward of the system - allowing these deeper layers to do their work, neither interfering unnecessarily nor abandoning responsibility. Thus the entire architecture of psyche - subconscious, unconscious, witness, and conscious mind - becomes integrated. Each layer performs its unique role, culminating in a new life, an independent vitality born of the interplay between our deepest instinctual forces.

 

                   A compact visual map

 

                        (Divine / Mother/ Highest Source)

                                                    ↓

                                          Witness Self

                        (objective seeing, clear awareness)

                                                     ↓

                                  Conscious Mind (steward)

                 (makes decisions based on witness insight)

                                                     ↓

                             -----------------------------------------------

                                    |                                    |

                   Emotional Stream          Mental Stream      
                      (Subconscious patterns & biases)

                                                      ↓

                   ----------------------------------------------------------------

                            |                                                 |

          Dynamic Vital Force               Containment Field

          (Shakti aspects)                         (Shiva aspects)

      - wildfire, fish, cat, fear               - fireplace, fishbowl,

                                                                  dog, protector

                                                       ↓

                                    Interplay gives rise to:

                               Smaller independent vehicle

           (new independent ‘entity’ directed by the conscious mind)

 

 

 

Edited July 15 by Bindi

[Lairg]

In the Castaneda writings Don Juan refers to the mind as "a foreign installation".   That statement needs some context

 

It is useful to distinguish the elemental substances of the mental space from the intelligences that coordinate those substances into usable organs.   Still other intelligences may provide external purpose to the usable organs.

 

Don Juan's statement refers to an external intelligence that commandeers the personal frequencies of the mental structure.  It takes a lot of work for the human spirit to establish functional ownership of the personal and transpersonal mental structures - but that is the most obvious precondition for first stage enlightenment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bindi]

The God Particle Within

 

There is an idea in the spiritual traditions of the world that the divine is not separate, not distant, not a figure above, but a presence within. But what if this inner divinity is not only real, but also functional? What if it is not merely a state of mind, or emptiness, or spaciousness, or holiness, but part of our subtle architecture, a refined, intelligent essence working ceaselessly to restore wholeness?

This deeper understanding shifts everything. It reframes the divine not as an object of worship, but as a mechanism of transformation, actively embedded in the very fabric of our inner being. Not metaphor. Not abstraction. But an actual medium: subtle, dynamic, and purifying.

 

In this vision, the self is not merely a vessel for thought and experience. It is a structured field, layered, responsive, and capable of immense refinement. At the core of this field lies something subtle yet profoundly intelligent: a filtering presence that tries to  separate what is real from what is reactive, what is timeless from what is temporary. It does not force, yet it governs. It does not shout, yet it clarifies. It acts like a crystalline thread, a current of luminous essence that brings truth wherever it flows.

 

This essence is not born of effort. It cannot be constructed by the mind. It is never absent, merely covered over, almost silenced. But it can be uncovered, found beneath the sediment of old impressions. It is not ours to create, but ours to discover, when the more assertive aspects of the self begin to fall quiet and the deeper, subconscious forces awaken. What becomes clear is that this essence is not a static stillness or blank awareness. It is a responsive intelligence, one that gently and systematically purifies distortion. Like a clear stream flowing through a clouded vessel, it enacts transformation not through struggle, but through contact. Its very nature reveals and dissolves what is false. Its flow is the return to sanity.

 

The mind may attempt to name this essence, to contain it within ideas. But I propose it is not an idea. It is a subtle reality, not merely an inner event or a shift, but the unveiling of what may be called the essence of God: a presence so innately pure and intelligent that its activation realigns the entire system of self around what is most real. It is the final key that unlocks the final process.

For many, the longing for truth begins with a sense of absence, of something missing. But the God particle within is not technically missing. It is hidden. And it waits, not passively, but quietly, until the self becomes transparent enough to allow contact. What is required is not belief, not even faith, but recognition. The subtle pathways of the self must open, not to ideas, but to actual subtle function, until this ultimate presence is revealed and restored to its rightful place: to cleanse consciously, to filter, to complete the subtle body.

 

In this view, the divine is not separate from the structure of self. It is its deepest layer, its most essential root. And it is useful, not because it offers escape, but because it offers ultimate purification and clarity. It does not require worship, only space. It does not demand sacrifice, only honesty. And it does not ask for distance, but intimacy. This is the inner essence that makes liberation possible, not as a singular event, but as a steady unfolding of what has always been within - not potential or emptiness but a specific causal essence, a liquid diamond consciousness, the God particle within. 

 

 

Edited Monday at 07:43 AM by Bindi

[Lairg]

17 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

 the divine is not separate from the structure of self.

 

Agreed.  But the concept of divine is rather limited - being derived from a word meaning shining.  That means there were eye witnesses to the divine entity

 

"god, divinity, good spirit" in Hindu religion, 1819, from Sanskrit deva "a god" (as opposed to asuras "wicked spirits"), etymologically "a shining one," from *div- "to shine," thus cognate with Greek dios "divine" and Zeus, and Latin deus "god" (Old Latin deivos), from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine," in derivatives "sky, heaven, god."   Fem. form devi is used for "goddess," also (with capital D-) for the mother god

 

Edited Monday at 07:06 AM by Lairg

[Bindi]

What I referred to as the god particle in my previous post, might perhaps be better referred to as ‘the elixir’ - 

 

“Golden Elixir is another name for one’s fundamental nature. There is no other Golden Elixir outside one's fundamental nature. All human beings have this Golden Elixir complete in themselves: it is entirely realized in everybody. It is neither more in a sage, nor less in an ordinary person. It is the seed of the Immortals and the Buddhas, the root of the worthies and the sages.”

Liu Yiming (1734-1821)

[Lairg]

21 hours ago, Bindi said:

the elixir

 

In my observation there is a vertical stream of white-gold light that passes  through the head and anchors in the heart.

 

In mystical Christianity the anchoring is represented by a flaming heart.

 

The stream of light anchors life force and spiritual purpose in the heart and anchors the flame of consciousness in the head.

 

Most humans suffer some degree of interference with the flow and with the anchoring

 

 

[Mark Foote]

On 7/27/2025 at 11:48 PM, Bindi said:

The God Particle Within

 

There is an idea in the spiritual traditions of the world that the divine is not separate, not distant, not a figure above, but a presence within. But what if this inner divinity is not only real, but also functional? What if it is not merely a state of mind, or emptiness, or spaciousness, or holiness, but part of our subtle architecture, a refined, intelligent essence working ceaselessly to restore wholeness?

This deeper understanding shifts everything. It reframes the divine not as an object of worship, but as a mechanism of transformation, actively embedded in the very fabric of our inner being. Not metaphor. Not abstraction. But an actual medium: subtle, dynamic, and purifying.

 

... In this view, the divine is not separate from the structure of self. It is its deepest layer, its most essential root. And it is useful, not because it offers escape, but because it offers ultimate purification and clarity. It does not require worship, only space. It does not demand sacrifice, only honesty. And it does not ask for distance, but intimacy. This is the inner essence that makes liberation possible, not as a singular event, but as a steady unfolding of what has always been within - not potential or emptiness but a specific causal essence, a liquid diamond consciousness, the God particle within. 

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of parallels, although your language is poetic and mine is based on neuroscience!   

 

 

 

In one of Dogen’s most famous essays, called “Genjo Koan”, he wrote:

 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

 

(“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Kazuaki Tanahashi)

 

 

Dogen said nothing here about sitting up straight or paying close attention to the breath. Instead, he asserted that “practice occurs” as a natural consequence of finding “your place where you are”. Dogen went on to say that the activity effected by practice is precisely “actualizing the fundamental point”, even though he never explained what the “fundamental point” was.

 

Neuroscientists describe “your place where you are” as your “embodied self-location”:

 

A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one’s bodily borders (embodied self-location).

 

(Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214)

 

 

Dogen’s “Genjo Koan” can be paraphrased in terms of “self-location”:

 

When you find the “specific position in space” where you feel your bodily self to be, activity in the body begins to coordinate by virtue of that place.  A relationship between the place of “embodied self-location” and activity in the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, practice occurs.  Through such practice, the point that is the “specific position in space” of embodied self-location is manifested in activity.

 

... Here’s Gautama’s description of the initial concentration:

 

Herein… 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 directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.

 

(SN 48.10, tr. Pali Text Society vol V p 174; parentheticals paraphrase original)

 

The feelings of “zest” and “ease” are to be extended as a part of that 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)

 

 

Words like “steeps” and “drenches” convey that a sense of gravity accompanies the feelings of zest and ease as they are suffused throughout the body.

 

In Gautama’s description of the first concentration, concentration begins when a person lays hold of “one-pointedness”, something Gautama also referred to as “one-pointedness of mind”. Translated into the language of the neurobiologists, concentration begins when consciousness is retained at the “specific position in space” of “embodied self-location”.

 

The zest and ease of the initial concentration are a result of the effortlessness of the automatic activity initiated by gravity where one-pointedness of mind takes place. To drench the entire body with the feelings of zest and ease such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” ensures that the consciousness retained with “embodied self-location” can remain “one-pointed”, even as the “specific position” of “embodied self-location” shifts and moves.

 

There can come a moment when the experience of consciousness retained with “embodied self-location” becomes the experience of “embodied self-location” retained with consciousness. Dogen continued his “Genjo Koan”:

 

When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point…

 

(“Genjo Koan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point]”, tr. Kazuaki Tanahashi)

 

 

To paraphrase:

 

“When you find your way at this moment”, a relationship between the freedom of consciousness and the automatic activity of the body comes forward, and as that relationship comes forward, practice occurs. Through such practice, the place of occurrence of consciousness in the moment is manifested as the activity of the body.

 

 

“When you find your way at this moment”, the activity of the body in posture and in the movement of breath becomes solely by virtue of the singular location of consciousness.

 

(“The Place Where You Stop and Rest”)