Memoire Online - The three shifts of the new paradigm

With this picture in mind, 'spiritual practices' can now be studied apart from the meaning-making process they
represent, as the mind-and body training they also are. This is apparent in the expression 'skillful means',

translated from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which expresses that the meditator learns skills of mind, and of body. To a Westerner, it can be viewed as a toolbox contained within the body and mind 'we are given'. Leonard & Murphy (1995) wrote a book about these skills, presenting some practical ways to develop them. This is based on another, thick book (1992), in which he assembled an impressive amount of scientific evidence supporting the idea that our human potential is far greater than our society acknowledges. Some less known areas are worth investigating (Murphy, 1992, pp.604-605): (brain) hemispheric synchrony in EEG records (which can be facilitated using certain types of music), perceptual 'dehabituation' as indicated in EEG records (corresponding to the Natural Awareness). Houston (1982) also offers exercises to develop these skills. Some other skills, particularly useful from the point of view of creativity, envisioning and creation, were also presented by Harman & Rheingold (1984), Tad James (see websites list) and Kahili King (1985).

I have classified in Table 9 some of the essential skills of mind into two types corresponding to the two directions of learning defined earlier. A-skills are skills for creative action. B-skills are skills of being or becoming, of attention. A balance of both seems to be the more potent combination.

Table 9: Toolbox of the mind:
Some of the skills acquired through the two types of 'spiritual practices'

Educating inner perception ('journeying' for example, or 'listening inside')

Active: Creation (higher creativity)

Receptive: Intuition (Direct knowing)

Use of representation: imagination, symbols, analogies, metaphors, etc. (right mind), mental 'figures' (left mind),

Expanding outer perception into de-focused peripheral or all-round awareness

Non-action

'Just being'

Underlying all representation:

Existence of the 'gap between thoughts'

(Chopra, 1989, and EE#²)

multi-dimensional envisioning I suspect: Awareness of 'flash-thoughts' (EE#2)

Building up 'personal powers', from ego dimension of empowerment to Transpersonal Self dimension (shamanictype / siddhis) of intent-driven creation

Calling on the 'unconscious' for

- manifestation of dreams

- direct knowledge (intuition, accelerated learning...)

Surrendering the self, ego or Transpersonal Self, into organic effortless, effective living

Letting the BodyMindSelf

- do its self-healing job

- meet basic needs organically

In both cases of developing A-skills or B-skills, we go through certain mental processes:

Table 10 - Psychological and thought processes underlying 'psycho-spiritual development'

Hunt out cultural assumptions and replace old habits of perception, thought and emotion

Shift our awareness and meanings to resolve paradoxes (oppositions apparent because of dual thinking) Still relying on inter-subjective validation to assess the 'realness' of what we experience (world, or self, which helps becoming self-referential) [opposed to madness, where there is no validation]

Become self-referential and so develop faith or 'trust'

Integrate our personality psychology: with this come humane, ethical values

Become familiar with the lack of Aristotelian certainties and paradoxes

Detachment

Learn to play with our identification of 'self'.

I see both creativity and spirituality as opportunities for learning, and for evolving ourselves. But this learning is often a confused affair. The framework of the two directions defined above permits to picture how we can do our learning, as I show in Figure 16.

Rooted in 5 senses only Authentic self Rooted in empathy, feelings, emotions

Figure 16: The four directions of learning and change, based on the New Paradigm framework:
singular, complex, complex-singular and 'simple'

1.First, is the present state of affair in our society: one fixed, singular self, separated from all others, self-defensive, disempowered, competing, very 'mental' and rationalising -- the 'ego'. But some reflection on oneself soon shows that we change, and our identity grows. We discover that the 'self' is not something fixed, as our mechanistic view has it, but a mental process.

2.The notions of process and of change lead us to the opposite side of the horizontal arrow, to the right. In terms of learning, change, the movement toward complexity leads to community, connection, and collaboration. In the present context, this corresponds to the re-learning of how to use the right-mind, systemic functions based on connectedness and process, but with self-consciousness. This corresponds to the trends and huge

bodies of literature on mythology, archetypes and relationships, such as Hillman (1989), Campbell (1988) and Moore (1992). In philosophy terms, this is the province of post-modernist diversity, accompanied with the 'death' of the

single self. It is also the awareness of the many sub-personalities and roles we play (Assagioli, 1965). In transpersonal psychology, this is the domain of dreamwork (Mindell,1990), higher archetypes, 'past lives', 'inner guides', alternate realities, shamanic 'journeying', etc. The body comes also into the picture, with all types of bodywork. Emotions are central to this realm, which is displayed to exaggerate degrees in many 'spiritual' and New Age circles. Interconnection also plays a major role, as my work with network organisations has shown (Bouchon, 1988d). It appears in the form of learning to relate to others in new ways. This takes the form of 'connectedeness', 'relationship', 'intersubjective validation' (in methodology), 'acknowledgment', 'caring', 'compassion', etc. and is profoundly humane and meaningful. The person, here, is a very complex mosaic with many dimensions of experience.

But behind this complexity is our puzzling and essential humanity and our sense of 'I', our 'core' self, our 'center'. Mahrer's therapeutic methods for example, get a person in touch with that 'core self', which has a ring of truth, of genuineness, of deepest essence, it is the 'real me'. It is often called the 'authentic self' and roughly corresponds to Maslow's self-actualising self ('actualis-ing' because it is a process self, it is never finished actualising).

3.When associated with purpose, with the creative force, it becomes the Higher Self, a self that recognises patterns, purposeful patterns, expressed with spontaneity, through creativity. This represents a synthesis of both sides of the horizontal arrow, left and right, into direction A new skills. It is a unification of personality, in Wiliam James' terms. Assagioli formulates it this way:

"When this center has been experienced - which can come through the application of (an) exercise in self-identification- then it is possible to synthesize the different aspects from which one has dis-identified oneself. In other words, one becomes a self who uses the body, the feeling-apparatus and the mental abilities as tools, instruments." (Assagioli, 1993/(c)1965, p.122)

'Samsara': Is our daily reality something
gone wrong, mad, an 'illusion' to be overcome,

With the model above, it is both. We re-learn to perceive reality as it is, independently from thought, as small children do, but we do it consciously, and learn to use it to express the creative drive in the human being. Such conscious awareness is evolutionary.

Consciousness of self leads to seeing at the same time the whole horizontal spectrum: the complexity of human nature, of localised notions of fixed self that have become functional and context-related, but also the essential 'I', which is not separated as the old ego-self was. The Higher Self is a balance, a synthesis (while the core sense of self is a concept that shifts with whichever mode of being we choose to operate in). One

realises that we actually are lifelong learners. And one becomes a purposeful creator and knower. The separate sense of 'self' appears as a mental construction localised in time and context, that can be managed for the purposes of living.

Becoming conscious of the essential, core 'I', opens the door to the synthesis, and to learning the tools of our 'BodyMindSelf' in order to master the mental constructs, the self-concepts, the 'thought-forms', the dreams, and to learns to 'energise' them with emotions and breath, and to 'embody' and 'manifest' them. This represents one of the two directions mystical schools take, the esoteric and shamanic direction (A) towards redefining ourselves as a 'Higher Self', a 'Creator Self', and towards learning how to 'co-create' reality. It requires self-knowledge and self-mastery, and can take much time in learning. It is a highly individuated, 'complex-singular' Self that thrives on the wonder of creating and knowing/unknowing, of seeing chaos emerge into something brand new according to its conscious will or desire. The 'Creator Self' transcends both the single ego and the multiple identities, into a new, larger identity that is flexible.

4. But one cannot 'create reality' without an understanding of what 'reality' is about, what the 'connection' is. Here come all sorts of questions about the nature of 'reality', of 'dreams' and 'visions' and of the 'mind' that does the envisioning. And about all the tools of the 'BodyMindSelf'. To use these tools to create, the essential 'I', with its new identity as a 'Creator Self' needs to maintain a purposeful 'creative tension', and so needs a clear awareness of 'reality-as-it-is'. All these questions aim to bring this awareness about if it had been lost, as is the case in most Westerners. I am not sure that this rekindling is necessary for all people in all cultures.

One becomes aware that the essential 'I' is a meaning attached to a very basic process of becoming, in constant interaction with a world that is also in becoming and change. Both the I and the world hold a potential that is present in the now-situation, and which may become actual. This 'process' has little to do with an individuated human self, separate or complex, transcending or not, and more to do with animal's or children's way of simple 'being here and now', independently from thoughts, images, explanations or identities, for no other reason than the fact that they are here, now. I related this -- which I found in other people as well-- to my longing for this state when my mind has me transform pain into suffering, has me reproduce old bad habits or has me worry about the future. I am then nostalgic of my happy early childhood days, before I began being afraid of everything, before I began wishing I did not have a mind that asks so many questions. I envy my cat. This is not 'beyond' mind or time, but rather 'beneath' them. In this sense it would be more a 'pre-scendence' than a transcendence of self-concept. A 'pre-personal' state. The arrow of the diagram goes 'down', in the 'B' direction. This is the realm of the 'open state', the 'Natural Awareness', the 'ground of reality'.

Many spiritual practices involving the body are aimed at this perceptual re-sensitisation, or 'de-automation' or 'dehabituation', which has been recognised in mind research as well. If we use both directions, up (A) and down (B) for learning, with a nurturing attitude, we may undergo a reawakening the primitive ways of perceiving 'reality', but this time with an individuated consciousness, a conscious awareness of self as an individual with skill and desire to fulfil a creative purpose. If the attitude is a striving to 'get rid of' self-centredness, the practice

is ascetic and can be punishing. The Anglo-Saxon Westerner tends to choose the nurturing way because creative individuality is valued. The sports facilities of our society could be adapted to facilitate self-awareness rather than ego-centred distraction (music and mirrors in gyms...). Another dimension of education could be developed here for our children as well, that would save them the disconnection from Natural Awareness.

'Educating our mind', therefore, means developing skills of mind and body. Below is a representation of my understanding(s_ept.1998). I consider that each person has the opportunity to grow in the evolutive, integrative direction, but much depends on one's motivations, which themselves rest in the present psychological state and the set of values embraced. Rekindling the Natural Awareness, on the other hand, seems an important step for the whole of humanity if we are to stop destroying the planet and social fabrics that are our habitats.

An Aristotelian, analytical, left-mind schema would be: A right-mind imaginal schema would

	Singular	Complex
Singular	Singular-Singular ='reality as it is' magic	Complex =Right mind Organic, mythic
Complex	Singular	Complex-Complex =HigherSelf Mind (both or/and *at the same time)* *'experiential'* 'Creator Mind'
	=Aritotelian intellect (either/or)

If my framework and understanding find any validation in the future, they can be the basis for a more complete kind of education of mind and body, promoting the ethics that comes from conscious unification of the personality and from an awareness of our systemic nature. Much could be done to improve our general strategies for the education of children as well as adults and promote the 'authentic self'. Much could be done to

provide more understanding of the 'psycho-spiritual' process in terms of education of the BodyMindSelf, to support people who have become 'seekers' and get lost in New Age literature or the plethora of ancient sacred texts. This will constitute a goal of my socially involved socially involved work.

The three shifts of the new paradigm

3.6 SKILLFUL CREATIVE MIND (PART VI)