Archetypal Model Revisited

In January of this year, I posted Archetypal Model on this site. In it, I presented a well-known Eastern model of the subtle body. At the time of my kundalini rising in late 2005, this model was instrumental in providing me with a framework for understanding the kundalini process, allowing me to integrate these changes into a life that was experiencing a major renovation and restoration.  

This model can be reviewed in detail by re-reading the original post, but a summary is provided here.

The invisible subtle body lies beyond all that represents our solid physical bodies, but is interconnected with it. It is made up of three diaphanous sheaths:

1. Energy sheath is partially made up of energy channels that intersect six major chakras. These chakras can be associated with the physical body’s nerve plexuses and glandular system.
2. Mental sheath consists of the conscious and unconscious mind broken down into three aspects: chitta, or the unconscious storehouse of past impressions and imprints; manas, or the sensory motor mind which carries out and responds to bodily functions, impulses etc.; and the ahankara, or ego which creates all our boundaries, self-definitions, and self-concepts, our sense of I-ness.
3. Discernment sheath, our reflective consciousness or higher mind often referred to as the voice of reason.

This archetypal model provided a visual representation that helped me understand and integrate the phenomenon of Kundalini as it carried out its life changing agenda over a period of many months turning into years.

The purpose of this post is to complete the portion of the Archetypal Model not covered in the previous post by extending it to include the Causal Body.

Just as the Physical Body ends with the skin and then the Subtle Body begins, the Subtle Body ends with the discernment sheath and then the Causal Body begins.

What is this Causal Body? Other terms that could be used to describe it are the celestial realm, pure consciousness or pure essential reality. It is the place where one has moved beyond false and limited identification with the transitory world of illusion, beyond space and time, beyond phenomena, beyond dualism.

The first three sheaths described in Archetypal Model can be presented and understood conceptually, as a kind of body/mind/soul paradigm. That’s why, at that time, I chose to end it there.

The three sheaths represent the areas of consciousness where I noticed most of the renovation and restoration process taking place. In the energy sheath, I experienced the opening of the energy channels and chakras and the many physical and psychological symptoms that resulted from their opening. In the mental sheath, I experienced a collapse in my previous world view as kundalini energy influenced and modified chitta with its past imprints and impressions, unresolved issues, drives, parental and church injunctions. As it moved into ahankara, I experienced what seemed like hitting the immovable wall of the ego, and a dismantling of its self-constructs, self-definitions, boundaries and unconscious attachments. In the discernment sheath, I experienced the observer, looking on, surrendering and submitting to all that was happening.

The movement to the Causal Body cannot be as easily explained, but there is a story which illustrates it.

"It is said that the Buddha loved all sentient beings with a love of a father for his children. But the children did not listen to their loving master. Though there was wealth in their own outer house, they did not want it, and instead they went running around outside in confusion. All the master could do was to sew a jewel into each of their garments so that when they were impoverished and starving, they might discover it themselves and be rich in ways they would not otherwise expect. This was the master’s tender compassion and love." 

What is this own outer house? It is our physical bodies, sprung from our parent’s union. It is that place made up of our form, sensitivities, concepts, syntheses and consciousness, born of time and space, with the appearance of permanence, but fleeting, all the same. What is this garment? It is the Causal Body. Inside it is the precious jewel. In Chinese Taoism, they speak of using the false to cultivate the real. Without the outer house, there would be no way to find the real. But this real is an inner secret.

The door to the Causal Body is opened when we recognize the impoverishment and emptiness of all that precedes it. Our physical form, and even our subtle bodies with all of its kundalini activity is constantly changing. There’s nothing permanent about it. The same is true with every aspect of our sensibilities. They provide a window to the world as we see it, but they are empty of any sort of permanence. All of our conceptions of reality are only constructs of what we have inherited or assumed. They are constantly changing as our views change. Even events like birth and death are only moments in time, the beginning when physical form takes shape, and then changes and dissipates. All such syntheses built into our lives are constantly in a state of change. And finally, our consciousness or awareness, our ability to discriminate is constantly changing and therefore empty of permanence.

We use what is false to discover what is real, and the real is the jewel hidden in the garment. And the real cannot be spoken about because it is beyond the comprehension of the intellect; beyond what can be described in words.  

Revelation

No more my heart shall sob or grieve.

My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light.

Above the toil of life my soul

Is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.

I have known the One and His secret Play,

And passed beyond the sea of Ignorance Dream.

In tune with Him, I sport and sing;

I own the golden Eye of the Supreme.

Drunk deep of Immortality,

I am the root and boughs of a teeming vast.

My Form I have known and realized.

The Supreme and I are one; all we outlast.

From "My Flute" by Sri Chinmoy

Getting Rid Of The Silt

I’m cold! How often have you said this, or heard it from someone else? Actually cold is a relative term. It only means an absence of heat. What’s cold for you may not be cold for me because we function quite comfortably at different levels of heat. It’s a term without any substantial substance. The solution to being cold is to turn up the heat.

From a Christian context, sin means “missing the mark.” It’s also a word without any essential substance. Like cold being the absence of heat, sin is the absence of love. By acting out of love’s absence, we do some pretty terrible things to ourselves, to others, and to the world. The purpose of our prison system is to rehabilitate a person so that they may operate in society in a more appropriate manner; or in a more loving manner. It’s a process that takes a long time and often fails to work at all.

But still, the solution to sin is the same as the solution for cold. We must turn up the love.

For most of us, turning up the heat is easy. We adjust the thermostat on the wall. Not so with turning up love.

I'm impressed with a study by Dr. Carl Rogers who speaks about the development of our personalities by moving beyond the responses we have been developed from our past-life experiences. He says that deep down in each of us lies the "innermost self," the core of our personality which is basically healthy, positive, society-oriented and loving. By plunging down into this innermost area in silence, we make contact with an inner healer. But as long as we live superficially on the surface, with its noise and fragmentation, we will not know the wholeness we were meant to enjoy.

Over the last twenty years, I've made a yearly five to seven day retreat. I have the many journals of these times to remind me of the changes that I experienced during these periods of quiet recollection. Upon arriving on a Friday afternoon, my normal underlying feeling is: Do I have time for this now with all I have to do? By Sunday evening, I have slowed down to the point where I am moving at a similar pace with others, and connecting with them in a more purposeful way. Relationships are being formed; openness is developing as defense mechanisms drop and sharing begins at the deeper level of self. As the days go on, windows and doors begin to open to a deeper reality within, and I realize that the old “normal” is gone, and a new more wholesome “normal" has come in its place. The difficulty comes after the conclusion of the retreat when you return to the world that has not changed. Very quickly, the new “normal” disappears, and the old “normal” reasserts itself, often to the point where you even forget the experience of the retreat. So what is happening here?

The time of recollection has caused a settling of the storehouse of past impressions, imprints, the reservoir of memories, injunctions, unresolved issues, repressed habits, drives and concepts of the “Chitta” and “Ahankara” levels of consciousness, but they have not been disbanded. During the time of recollection, we have opened the doors to a new normal, a new reality, the one which I believe we are called to live, but it cannot be sustained as we return to our customary way of life. The waters that had become settled and clear are again stirred and the silt rising from the bottom is again blurring our ability to see.

How can we get rid of the silt? I believe the unexpected rise of Kundalini during an extensive retreat for me facilitated doing just that.

Kundalini is often described as an evolutionary process within the human metabolism, an energy lying at the base of the spine, often associated with sexual energy, which, when released, rehabilitates the subtle body system. It brought about, and continues to bring about, change in a much more efficient manner than conventional psychological approaches. Constructs of conditional thinking, boundaries of indoctrination built-up over a life time dissolved under its influence. Most of these constructs and boundaries existed as impediments to loving properly. They cause us to miss the mark in ways that we may not even be conscious of. I have referred to this process in previous postings as the renovation and restoration process of kundalini as it makes its way through the various layers of the subtle body system, removing and modifying anything in its path that hinders growth and well-being.

It is futile to try to change or cure another to bring them to a heightened sense of love for themselves and others. To provide a loving relationship, which the other may use for their own personal growth, helps them heighten their ability to love (to turn up the love). But to provide such a loving relationship, we ourselves must be free of the silt that exists in our own lives.

Doesn't the rising Kundalini help us to become that instrument of healing for ourselves and others by removing this silt and bringing wholeness?

To describe the indescribable, don't our scriptures — no matter the source — use their own choice of language, symbols, and images to explain the effects and movements of Kundalini as best they can?