Is what you’re doing superstitious nonsense or enlightened practice?
How do you know? After all, even the great Sigmund Freud relegated all
mystical experience to the category of “regressions to the womb.”
There is sufficient cause to doubt in today’s world, for every so
often the latest guru of glitz falls from his or her pedestal, the
latest cult is exposed as such, or some New Age technique is proven to
be worthless. So: how do you know if you’re being taken for a ride
or if you have actually found the real rollercoaster of spiritual
development?
The
philosopher Ken Wilber frames this question as the pre-trans fallacy.
When you mistake pre-rational (ages 0 to about 7) for trans-rational
(adult seeking wisdom), you’ve fallen into a logical fallacy.
Scientific materialists degrade the trans to the pre. The free spirits
among us tend to upgrade the pre to the trans. The question,
therefore, is how do we keep ourselves from the folly of this fallacy?
I’ve
reviewed this question before; it’s an important question, however,
to keep asking. I’m answering it today from the angle of role
pathology.
In the
development of the ego, we pass through a series of ‘ego’ states
or self-identifications: body-ego (infant), narcissistic ego (terrible
twos), mental-ego (the 4-year-old), and role-ego (grade school). With
the onset of early rational thinking, the role-ego can make sense of
the rules of society and construct a series of roles to fit into
society. If you ask a child between the ages of 6 and 10, “Who are
you?” he or she will answer with a series of roles: son, daughter,
student, soccer player, musician, dancer, and so on. If you ask the
child about spiritual matters, you get a similarly concrete answer:
God is in Heaven keeping score, the Devil is in Hell lying to capture
souls. Similarly, the holy books are true historical accounts,
somehow, of long ago events when magic lived and God and angels walked
with humans.
Roles come
with a checklist—a job description defining the role. If you want to
be a cheerleader, a college professor, a priest, or any role, you must
meet the minimum requirements. So, too, if you aspire to becoming a
true believer (it is a role like any other), you must meet the minimum
qualifications. The Nicene Creed spells it out for Catholics. The five
practices define it for Muslims. A fundamentalist Christian needs to
accept Jesus as his or her personal Savior and believe the Bible to be
literally true. The point, of course, is that if you’re assuming a
role, or fulfilling a role—and that’s all you’re doing—then
you’re operating at a pre-rational or early rational (concrete
operational) level. While this is natural, good and necessary as a
developmental stage, it’s also a place people can get stuck. Why?
Because to progress or evolve both cognitively and spiritually, you
must leave behind the comfort, predictability, and the black-and-white
certainty of this stage to achieve any higher stage.
One could say
that fully rational thinking has to do with exploring possibilities.
It’s the dance between dreams made real and fantasies exposed as
such. The religion of rationality is ‘scientific materialism,’ and
many scientists, businessmen and intelligentsia subscribe to its
agenda.
Now, how to go
beyond that? How do we get to the trans-rational world? The answer,
simply said: we must develop an Observer Self.
We get outside
the rational world by observing it. Or more precisely, by observing it
within our own mind, we transcend simple rationality (and our own mind
in the process). So, when you observe the self-reflexive ego (the ego
coming after the role-ego), you get to transcend the ego and climb
into the spiritual sand-box.
I know: the
above paragraph is a bit of a circular argument. There’s a Hindu
saying synopsizing this dilemma: It
takes the mind to slay the mind; how do you avoid confusion?
A whole lot of
our spiritual training is spent dealing with that confusion. Still,
there are many ways we may accomplish this self-observation: sports
training, yoga, meditation, even (perhaps especially) psychotherapy.
Over time, what happens is we begin to dis-identify with the ego.
‘Who am I’ becomes a more complex question, and our curiosity
leads us on an adventure of self-discovery into realms without roles,
nor empirical data, nor dogma. Notice that we use the vehicle of the
Observer Self to explore this place. We have to check our ego at the
door. And, in doing so, we may begin to enter the mystical realms.
It is here
that I want to be very precise: by ‘mystical’ I mean those realms
beyond simple rational thought. By ‘magical’ I mean those realms
preceding rational thought. We know the mystical realms because they
transcend and include rationality—whereas, magical thinking is
irrational.
For example,
let’s examine prayer. A magical prayer is typically, “God help me
out and I’ll be a good boy/girl from now on.” It assumes God is
open to bargaining. It assumes God can be bought. The problem is
finding the right leverage on God.
By deep
contrast, a mystical prayer is a function of intention. I pray that I
may have the strength to do the right thing in an upcoming ordeal.
Then I have faith that the Universe will support me in the way that
best serves my Higher Purpose. Or, to put it more succinctly,
intercessory prayer is one of the things we leave behind as we mature
spiritually. We begin to adopt an overall attitude of gratitude. Our
prayers become rejoicing about our many blessings: the wind, the rain,
the forests, the animals, this bright new day, our friends, our
family, even our enemies.
So,
while it’s true we operate under an entitlement (ask and you will
receive), the paradox is we must be thankful in order to get it.
Bruce
Bibee
is a licensed professional counselor in private practice and a Kung-fu
instructor. His one published book is The
Deep Healing Process, Infinity Publishing.
