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yes, much potential confusion with this exploring of and with language
Posted July 4th, 2009 by Ambo Suno
In Reference to:
Healing the False Self Through PsychotherapyHi - I found this helpful. I liked the reminder of the original words of Freud and the Winnicottian object relations, a theoretical later generation decendent of Freud, words of true and false selves.
I'm often curious when a particular talk was given, in that it bears on how I imagine Ken or someone else might speak more currently - I'm wondering about this talk.
There was a lot here and I was left a little confused even after that presentation of Freud's meaning as it relates to English and to the integral phrases regarding developmental transformation that are saying that the subject of one level becomes the object (of the subject) of the next level.
Some of the confusion seems to have to do with language - let me see if I can articulate it. "Freud apparently said (translated), "Where it was, there I shall be." We generally talk about "I" as subject and "me" as object - is that correct? Out of the developing discernment of I comes the Me, which has become more of an it. So in English we say "I see me", for example, in the mirror; I see it, my reflection now separate from I. The subject verbs the object. Is this correct so far? Do I misunderstand the uses of "I" and "me"?
If not, and if we follow Freud's presented words, "where 'it' was, there shall 'I' be", it seems to logically be saying, "where object was, there shall subject be". This sounds a little like making object, subject - not the visa versa as we usually hear it from Kegan and Ken, where subject was there shall be object at the higher level.
Is my logic off, here, as I simply plug in the word as we understand them? Maybe once I post this, I'll see that I got something wrong.
I think there is something, some verbal clarification, which is missing since I do believe that Ken is probably correct on this link up between he and Kegan and Freud. What did I miss? Or if my logic is sound what needs to be clarified?
Good stuff. ambo
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Might I also add...
Posted July 5th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to I follow your logic...what a miracle the differentiation of a subject from the objects it is undifferentiated from really is!! If there is literally seamless identification with those objects what really happens when the subject somehow spontaneously can separate from its object or "me" as you were saying? I personally think this is really miraculous and it is no wonder to me why we don't know how to make people grow and can only do our best to provide the most suitable conditions for that to happen. It seems some sort of subjectivity from above has to "pull" our subjectivity free in order for such a thing to happen. As we continue to evolve, will humans begin to discover these abilities within themselves? I have no idea how to answer that excpet that theoretically it makes sense to me...
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good go at it - thanks
Posted July 5th, 2009 by Ambo Suno in response to I follow your logicBrendan, this is a nice way to try to explain this, that Freud is looking more down and back at shadow and Kegan is looking at the dynamics of transcending. Thanks for looking at this with me. ambo
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right!
Posted July 7th, 2009 by Brent Simpson in response to good go at it - thanksBoth of your phenomenological accounts are very beautiful. I was reading this thinking wouldn't it have been great if along side maths and science in high school we would have had classes on the 1st person awareness. I know as a high-schooler it may seem this stuff would be as Kegan put it in the title of his book literally "(in) over our heads" but... I at least wonder if this is one of the real keys for tremendous growth. The simple act of studying these kinds of notions from a young age could have such a transformative effect.
Brenden, in your final discussion about that upward pull to grow... does it seem to you from your first hand experience that you've come to a place where you can literally choose to continue upward growth or not? And this choice comes with the direct awareness (or partially direct awareness) that there will necessarily be huge sacrifices from a personal perspective to do so... but because you also see at least partially a more cosmic scope that there is you and a in a metaphoric sense a background which you are also... you still sometimes still go for that (more painful) interior experience to go beyond what you where before that you can do better than what you did yesterday... no matter if what you did yesterday already came at great pains to you as an individuated I. There is a sense (sometimes for me) that this is the right, functionally fitting, more integrity-based move to make. But this also often seems to come with a managable (thus far) crash.
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Phenomenology in School
Posted July 8th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to right!Hey Brent,
I totally agree that it would be cool to have a class like that earlier in education. Certainly it would have to be tailored to different stages and age content ranges but upper left experience happens all the way up and down the spectrum so there is no reason there couldn't be something more suitable in schools.
I should clarify that in my second post when I was talking about the idea that maybe a higher subjectivty is required to pull a subject at one level loose from the objects that this is just one possibility among many I think but it happened to be the one that came to my mind at the time. Anyways, when I was asking whether humans would ever have this potential, what I was referring to was would (or do) human subjects at higher developmental levels than their peers develop or discover the ability to touch the subject in another human and help pull them free from the objects they themselves can not see or is this really something each person has to go through on their own? I suppose I would imagine it is somewhere in between both those extremes but anyways, I am digressing.
Regarding my own experience of where I am at now, I will do my best to give you a clear answer though I am pretty unclear about a lot of this myself. But I do feel like I have reached a place where at least part of the growth process, or maybe the rate of growth, depends on myself consciously choosing to continue upward or not. Certainly that choice for me comes with the recognition that it will cause personal sacrifices, some of which I quite frankly have not been willing to take on yet. But yeah the description you are providing of the path upward matches my experience pretty well. I definitely feel similar to you about the sort of constant push forward no matter what growth has already taken place yesterday.
The really difficult things for me right now is deciding what directions I want to devote my energy to and really how to motivate myself to grow in some areas that I have thus far been uncomfortabe with. Also, I should add that while I can sort of feel my way in the dark in some directions to speak metaphorically, I still think there is an element of the growth process that is impossible to really predict or understand. The best solution to this I have found is just to imagine what it would be like to be a being with absoultely no hidden strings attached to any manifestation (obviously altered state experiences are really helpful here). That still comes with its problems though because the rational ego seems to find a way of subtly conceptualizing things and convincing me of what to look for and therefore blinding me and limiting my ability to truly move forward in some sense. I don't know if I explained that well but I guess what I am dealing with right now is how to further differentiate the rational mind with the transrational capacities within myself. The rational mind seems infinitely capable of finding a way to seep its way into some transrational experiences and have me convinced that something rational is transrational. This is a hard thing to explain so I hope I am being clear. In the midst of a truly profound state experience, as I'm sure you know, there is initially no mistaking it for what it is but at some point as I start to slip back into my current center of gravity I guess you would say, the rational mind blurs the line between itself and the transrational, partly because that line is blurred I suppose. The problem for me is that it gets me stuck in little narcissistic god-complex type games if that makes sense. The hard thing about all this is because I am really trying to learn to stabalize certain subtle state capacities I guess you would say and I seem to be just caught in between a rock and a hard place (is that how the saying goes lol?). So this is all really changing the dynamics of my own personal experience of the growth process because I have to find other motivations and things than I am used to. There is a certain part of myself that is eager to just pursue growth for growth's sake and that has been the biggest driver for me up to this point. But I am having to find a bigger role for other motivational voices. I have been motivating myself more and more to grow because of the benefits it will bring to certain relationships I am in. This comes with its own difficulties that are now playing a bigger role for me because while there is a certain aspect to this motivation that wants to grow, there is another that really powerfully wants to stay the same in many ways in order to preserve the beauty of the shared space with the other's I am in relation to.
I don't know, I guess those are some of the bigger issues I personally am facing in the growth process but I think they are related to the bigger issue that I really think I am at a point where a community of people also looking to grow like this is really what I need to help support me but life conditions just don't currently allow that other than on the internet. I guess I will just keep stumbling forward because while it is difficult, I do still experience significant progress.
What about you? I don't know if my response even relates to what you were trying to get after and I started rambling on at some point there but I will just go ahead and toss this to you and see what you think. How have you been able to deal with that thrust forward that seems to so often be followed by a crash? I know that is another issue for me as well and I would be interested to hear what you have to say. It just feels like this whole process keeps going faster and faster and it is certainly having consequences for life and the people around me and I just hope that most of those are good in the long run. Sometimes it just makes me feel like exploding and dying but I much prefer this feeling to the existential depression and emptiness of purpose that I was stuck in for a while a few years back.
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personal/others growth
Posted July 8th, 2009 by Brent Simpson in response to Phenomenology in SchoolThanks for the wonderful response. It was great reading... you bring to the table much insight. As an aside, I think you got the saying right "between a rock and a hard place" (classic).
Regarding my own experience... Well I think I was developing quite rapidly until about 24 or so. Luckily I had gotten in Wilbers work about three years prior and thus had already really started some serious horizontal work... getting healthy at the level I was at. I think I had as a youngster a tendency to focus on the vertical and leave out the horizontal... and thus the when my vertical growth slowed around 24 I wasn't hit hard with much of a depressing undercurrent (which I think I would of had I not started really getting down and dirty with my shadow a few years earlier). I have I think been moving chugging forward these last few years... although, as you bring up and I mentioned in the previous post. When I make a big(ish) move forward because I feel I have a lot of balls in the air... their is the occasional dropping of the balls which can make for a bit of a scene beit strictly something I mental (that no one else would really know about)... or actually doing something that actually makes me look/feel publicly silly.
But this might in part have to do with my only intermittent meditative practice (although, I still have a pretty good yogic practice). I digress. I think I might have somewhat of an idea of what you mean about the blurring of the rational/transrational. Psychologically, I have had a few experiences where I am mentally a part of or including many more perspectives and it dissolves after waking or getting jostled out of the state. And you have a recognition that your so much more, but now your taking that state with you so... yeah, that bloody god-complex is the last thing we already overly narcissistic Westerners need huh? lol. But, I think I too have had that... although again my work in and with the subtle state is still really primitive.
A lot of the work I have been doing lately has been physiological (I think it would be defined traditionally more as the feminine method of spiritual development. I have noticed energetic experiences regarding others consciousness I find that if I can energetically resonant with another... I can have a much bigger effect on their psychological state. (but this method can very easily be misused... & I catch myself on occasion using it not immorally, but at times I do have to think through my motivations.
Sorry it's a bit late... I don't know if I made sense at all. Anyway thanks for your post.
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Curious
Posted July 8th, 2009 by Brendan LaChance in response to personal/others growthFirst of all, I should mention that I am not being very clear with my terminology, partially because I am not quite sure myself when I am talking about the blurred line between rational and transrational self. I might be using the wrong words as this may really be more about a horizontal growth issue. (The confusion for me is because of how at the upper end of the vertical ladder, i.e 2nd tier, the horizontal states start to become the vertical stages you know, terminology becomes difficult to keep straight...) Anyways, what I guess I am talking about by rational mind is really the gross waking self. When I access other states, this normal waking state ego has the tendency to rationalize all of the other states I am getting in as a part of its own self though the "self" of those states is clearly something much greater than Brendan, though the perceived separation we have of ego self from subtle and causal "self" is also resolved by non-duality, this is what I mean that the line really is hard to tell from the perspective of my ego self...I hope that is a little more clear? Wow the wording I am using is pathetic but I am hoping you are following me on this.
Anyways, the reason I wanted to respond to you again is because I am really curious about your energetic experiences with others. I think I remember reading something before you had written about this happening on the bus or something? I am wondering how you find that happening for you, like do you undergo some process when you are doing this? I feel like I may have an idea of what you are talking about but I am not sure if I am thinking of the same phenomenon as you. For me, I find myself at times really being able to resonate with someone energetically which I am able to do by spending a lot of time closely listening to them and inviting them to open up their "energy," which is a rough way of putting it for me. But yeah, if this is the same kind of thing, I too struggle with the ethics of it as (and maybe this is a narcissistic mis-perception of myself but I'll put it out there anyways) I feel very charming in that state and that I can really become very influential if I let myself. Because I am conscious of this, when I find myself in a situation like that, I really try to hold back and watch what I am doing. It is a very hard line to balance because part of that balance is what both people are looking for I think and there is a lot of potential when that happens. I guess one of the ways I try to balance that is by letting myself be transformed by the other person if I find myself in that state and try to let them guide what comes out of me. This stuff is so hard to talk about but I think it is worth it so if I am not making sense please let me know. Is that similar to what you are describing? Do you feel like that energetic resonance is sort of transformative in and of itself on some level?
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Hi Brendan
Posted July 18th, 2009 by Brent Simpson in response to CuriousFirst off, apologies for my totally unforgivable delayed response. Thanks for your thoughts! --I think I understand the distinctions you are making... In particular, when you get into altered states and come out of them... your waking state (rational mind) tends to reframe things on its terms and not in the more expanded states versions (namely, subtle or causal).
Regarding my experiences... Yes, A few month back... I did post something about my experiences on buses. Any public place really physically effects my energetic levels. About three years ago, I was doing yoga & I felt a big energetic shift (that has stayed with me)... It is like I constantly feel heat energy coming from my body (or maybe the felt-sense experience seems to start really just beyond my body. When I really focus on this, I can play it seems a big role on the moods of the people around me. But this can be very draining. (and yes energy is about the best word I can think of that makes sense of this). It's almost like I feel the inner feeling-states of other people & when focused can seemingly alter them subtly or drastically. It also seems that the creativity I used to experience although not having completely gone (it is more focused) has greatly diminished. This ability seems to have become more precise in the last year or so... but I have still been doing quite extensive bodywork and think there is a connection there. I remember David Daida saying something along these lines being a very yogic type ability and it is different from the recognition of the ever-present oneness: satori ect. My experience as this deepens is my fears have radically dropped off and I do feel much more transparent literally. Anyway, thats enough for my strange rant.
Be well, B
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I follow your logic
Posted July 5th, 2009 by Brendan LaChanceI think I follow you on this but as I understand it, the Kegan phrase and the Freud phase are addressing different aspects of the "growth" process. I think the two phrases are still compatible but I think it is also helpful to breakdown the Kegan phrase and then look at your breakdown of the Fread phrase and they become pretty complimentary.
If Freud is looking down the ladder at the shadow, then Kegan's phrase is addressing more of what happens as we move up the ladder. If we only use Freud's phrase then once you reclaimed all "its" the growth process would be complete and maybe in a sense that is true but because certain objects only come on board (into awareness) as we develop the Freud phrase is insufficient.
So to take a closer look at the Kegan phrase: The subject of one level can not view itself as an object because there is no differentiation from the subject and the objects that subject identifies as. In order to grow to a new level, the subject at the current level has to differentiate itself from the object it currently is identified so closely with, it can not see it is there as an object. Freed from the objects it once identified, those same objects that were invisible due to being so completely immeresed in the identity of the subject can now be looked at as objects free from one's own subjectivity. So there is now a new subject looking "down" at objects that once were undifferentiated from itself.
The differentiating of object and subject at one level it the "transcend" half of the transcend and include phrase. But then Freud's phrase comes into play to fulfill the "include" half. Those objects that have been transcended must once again be included as part of one's identity. Looking back on one's old self as an "it" can only happen because that identity has been transcended but that identity still remains as a part of your whole identity, though I think that is a rough way to say that.
I think Freud's phrase would be sufficient as "Godhead" or something like that. The ultimate subject, if such a thing exists, looks out at all "its" and says that those are a part of me. I think this may be how "non-dual" can tie in here. Of course our own individual subjectivity doesn't start out so purely transcendent as "Godhead" so we go through the process Kegan's phrase describes attempting to climb closer and closer to this pure subjectivty that is free of all objects and then can fully include all those its as part of oneself. If that process were really complete than there would theoretically be no "objects" one is not seeing though I don't know if that really exists. There may be a point at the top of the ladder where the top becomes the bottom but if the "tetra-arise" concept is accurate than how can there ever be a subject that is completely seeing all objects as new objects would arise each time a subject moves up and it would not be able to see those objects as something separate from itself.
I don't know if any of that makes sense and I certainly don't know if it is right but that is my take on this...if you have any thoughts or corrections I would love to hear them!