The Awakened Man - ebook

A SHORT SUMMARY OF THIS
HANDBOOK IN SEVERAL POINT

1. Reality can only be experienced through the core of our being or the Self. But in order to achieve this, first we need to free the core from illusory covers created by the egocentric mind through the speculative, and thus non-empirical interpretations of reality.

2. In order to experience Reality directly, we must approach it with a consciousness that is freed from prejudice and concepts. This is why we need, through meditation and contemplation, to disempower the defense mechanisms of the ego (mechanisms such as projection and transfer, suppressing, control and compensation), and to awaken our true Self.

3. It is important to see that it is precisely the false I or ego that creates social relations, pseudo culture and civilisation, through which it continues to deceive man and to separate him from his true Self. It is for this purpose that the book gives a comparative overview of the Eastern and Western, spiritual and psychological paths to self-knowledge, that is, demasking of the ego and awakening of the Self.

4. Through a comprehensive Hinduist and Buddhist doctrine, the book gives an insight into how the functions of the mind such as projecting (vikshepa) and obscuring (avarana) of the true Being with the cosmic illusion (maya) are functioning at all three levels: cosmological, psychological and ideological.

5. A separate chapter was dedicated to disclosing stereotypical social patterns of the nature of human relations (with partners, family, friends etc.), for which most people do not reliaze that they are unconsciously based on the strategies of „economy of energy“, by means of which ego attracts attention, energy and power in human relations.

6. Consequently, the book shows how society’s system and its institutions (political, ideological, mass-media) manipulate the individual, and how the individual, by becoming a psychological individuum, in the process of becoming an individual can free himself from this deceiving society’s matrix. In the first five thematic units the book therefore shows how to disclose the inner network of psychological self-illusions, and in the following five sections it discloses the nature of society’s manipulations.

7. The text continuously shows how a disciplined cultivation of consciousness through introspection and meditation slowly awakens and frees the seeker from the illusory concepts of the mind. The book concisely illustrates the phases through which the seeker goes on the path of the development of consciousness, and exemplifies them with traditional teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, while bringing them closer to a Western reader through the language of Jungian psychology.FOREWORD

70 triggers for _Awakening_ or a short guide for _demolishing_ lightly adopted dogmas and taboos

_Instead of yet another literary-readymade “déjà vu,” this book is an invitation to a journey on which you will get the chance to reassess all the defense mechanisms and illusions with which your pseudo-I (professionally known as the “ego”) deceives you, preventing you from getting to know your true, transpersonal Nature._

This is not a _politically correct_ book or another self-help manual where you will find comforting messages such as: _You are a magnificent human being who deserves to love and be loved! Everything around you is perfect, you just can’t see it! Life can be fulfilling if you fill it with positive thoughts!_ _Etc., etc_...

Instead of these miraculous formulas for happiness, success and love (without any unnecessary “_how’s_” and “_why’s_”) here you will read some different messages that you’re probably not used to, such as: Why is your beloved “ego” a _son of a bitch_ that first looks to satisfy himself and that uses those around him primarily as a means of fulfilling its own ambitions? How can you release the desires and ambitions that you’ve furiously bitten down into like a mad dog biting into an indigestible bone, unable to let go of it even though it may cost you your life? Who is it that drags your body around like a corpse, not asking you for permission, direction or even the purpose of the mute loitering you’re wasting your life with?

Answers were attempted to be provided for these and similar _politically incorrect_ questions (which we are rarely faced with because the society, culture and system in which we live do everything to mislead us into thinking that we are “privileged” because they exist only for us) in these 70 short and provocative triggers or igniters that serve no other purpose besides _undermining_ all the generally accepted psychological dogmas and social taboos that the system has been deceiving us with since time immemorial for the purpose of its own self-preservation.

Why is this book different from most self-help manuals that you have had the chance to read so far? Because it will clearly and above all practically explain to you why all the teachings and methods based on “affirmative attitudes and thinking” only work short-term, much like a placebo effect, all until we clean the reservoir of our unconscious mind or our psychological _Shadow_ which systematically sabotages all our conscious efforts like a kind of _film negative_ of our consciousness.

For a conscious decision of the mind (Sanskrit: _sankalpa_) to blossom and to bear fruit it must be planted in fertile, cleared and cultivated soil, not in a pestilent swamp or a barren wasteland. In other words, our mind or our psychic entity with all its levels (the conscious, subconscious and unconscious) must be purified and evenly developed in order for our decision and spiritual practice (Sanskrit: _sadhana_) to bear fruit.

All great spiritual traditions (here Vedanta and Yoga as well as Tantra and Zen Buddhism, which are interpreted in the spirit of Jungian analytical psychology, are most often referred to) pay the utmost attention to the process of the purification of the mind, because without that other practices cannot bring lasting progress on the Path to self-knowledge and self-development, no matter how long that Path lasts.

Once we begin this path and start to understand how our psychological mechanism functions, we must necessarily be faced with many painful and abhorrent facts that the system (socio-political, religious or ideological) has hidden from us, precisely in order to protect itself.

Therefore, the first five thematic sections of this book disclose the psychological reasons why an individual deceives himself and constantly postpones being introduced to his original, authentic Self. The next five sections expose the spiritual, evolutionary and civilizational reasons due to which the _chain of self-deception_ _continues_ to weave itself in the large web of _universal illusion_ (Sanskrit: _maya_) in which everyone is inevitably entangled: individuals, collectives, systems...

As was previously mentioned, this book is not another self-help manual that like some sort of _mental face-lifting_ will outwardly help you “polish” your psychological _persona’s_ bumps and curves while inwardly keeping you further unchanged: selfish, self-centered and self-pitying ignorants, who blame others for all your problems.

Instead of yet another literary-readymade “déjà vu,” this book is an invitation to a journey on which you will get the chance to reassess all the defense mechanisms and illusions with which your pseudo-I (professionally known as the “ego”) deceives you, preventing you from getting to know your true, transpersonal Nature.

For this is not possible to see before peeling off all the layers of psychological mimicry that was taught to us by a society that is based on manipulation and by a culture that is based on mimicry.PROLOGUE

Though he carries the Wise man on his shoulders, the fool will ask the blind man for the Way

_Only those who are afraid of life and who want to control it at all costs shackle their lives to principles and rules, whether they be religious, moralistic or ideological. By overlooking the direct experience of reality beyond principles and rules, they deny themselves the opportunity to experience personal insight, which life is really about._

Perhaps the views expressed here may come across as the fruits of the cynical perception of the world and of life. The matter at hand here is not cynicism, rather the immediate realization that the affirmation of life can only be experienced in its entirety from the very _core_ of one’s being. But this is not possible until the _core_ is freed from the many layers of the egocentric cover woven by illusion.

The aim of this book therefore is to point out all the many and varied illusions that we feed with our unconscious habits, prejudices and identifications. Once illusions are identified and released, anyone can find their own way _home._

In this respect, these short and compressed reflections do not require any special schooling; they do, however, require focused attention and are worded in such a way as to open up the problem that is to be considered, to illuminate the shadowed oversights or accentuate the uncritically accepted prejudices which are ready for a deep review.

For the honest seeker will never be satisfied with pre-prepared answers, garnished and served on a kitschy platter, as he knows that the answer that can transform him must come from within. As the classic Taoist Chuang Tzu would say, teachings and praxis are the net with which we catch fish (that is, experience), and once the fish is caught the net can be forgotten. But from personal experience I would add that all fish may not be caught with the same net, and that all fish do not take the same bait.

That is why _true wisdom_ and _true art_, just like _tao_ _and_ _te_, can only be that which we create from our inner being. The external products of this process (in the form of books or other works) are but the sandy tiles of the path on which we pass, fragmented traces along the way, which will one day be shaken off our _Self_ like dust off an outworn shoe.

It is important to understand that these insights’ approach is guided by the principle of _negative path_, as its goal is to bring to consciousness and empower that which we _are not_ in order to awaken that which we _are_. There are two types of travelers, followers and explorers. For the former, the path he identifies with is the _positive path_, all he needs is faith. For the latter, the path that must be re-examined is the _negative path_; research and personal experience is what matters.

Only those who are afraid of life and who want to control it at all costs shackle their lives to principles and rules, whether they be religious, moralistic or ideological. By overlooking the direct experience of _reality_ beyond principles and rules, they deny themselves the opportunity to experience personal insight, which life is really about.

There is no perfect system. If the mind were able to build a perfect system, like light through a black hole, consciousness would not be able to break through the virtual trap, and man would not be able to see through the mind’s illusion; he could not wake up from the _place where his dreams are woven_.

Fortunately, every mind created system has its gap, primarily because the mind is the biggest gap in the system. The man who does not see this blindly follows words the way a believer follows a _revelation_, not realizing that words (terms and concepts) are the threads employed by the mind to weave the net used for catching the naïve.

The egocentric mind can describe and interpret the circles of its own labyrinth, insensibly wandering through it as it creates it, but it cannot get out of this vicious cycle until it sees that it is behaving like a dog frantically chasing its own tail. And while, like a dream, wandering has no beginning nor end, insight is a sudden, current lunge out of a dream, much like an _awakening_. How and why it happens, we can never really know; but we can _awaken_.

That is why a complete philosophical system is not being offered here, but rather fragments of insights that can be used as a launch pad for the jump into freedom over the bar set by the mind. All authentic teachings are but the _pole needed to vault over the heavens_, they are but a means of bridging the illusion. However, the jumper must find his own way to use the pole to jump over the bar which his mind raises as an obstacle before every attempt at clearing the bar.

It should be borne in mind that there are no rigid rules on the Way; only rigid and unadaptable passengers. The great teacher of Chinese Zen Master Lin Chi (9th Century, the Tang Dynasty) would say to his disciples: “Donkeys are tied to posts, and people to rules. Following the rules makes you a donkey, breaking them makes you a person!”

Of course, this is not addressed to potential anarchists but rather to the wise. The wise are those who have escaped the conceptual trap laid by terms and rules. The fact that we rarely encounter them is due to our inability to recognize them; we do not recognize them because we look at the world through the lens of learned concepts and not through the eyes of innocence and because the wise use language out of the context of conformist and cultural conventions, which is the language of uncalculated spontaneity.

That is why every ego is an _arrogant fool_ (although this phrase sounds like a pleonasm as every _conceited ego_ is by definition _a fool_) who carries the _Wise man_ on his shoulders, but keeps asking the _blind man_ for the Way...

To the _Awoken_ – this should be enough.3. FROM DEAD MECHANISM
TO LIVING _SELF_

(...)

3.7 _Who am I_ or the traveler in search
of his _authenticity_

_(the Buddhist and Vedantist Path with
Neuropsychological commentary)_

_Some call this transition from supported consciousness to continuous awakenness_ – _Enlightenment, and others call it a quiet return to our Original Nature which we had never really lost. Having got enmeshed in our imagination and dreams, we had just briefly forgotten it._

No matter how much we listen, read or think about it, no voyage can truly begin until the traveler takes his first step onto the Path. All great spiritual traditions speak of this paradox, of the loom, the tension that prevails between the Path and the passenger, like that between the lyre and the bow.

From ancient Greek sages like Heraclitus and Socrates who said that _knowledge of the self_ is ultimate purpose and meaning of philosophy (Heraclitus said: “All men have a share in self-knowledge and sound thinking”) to Jesus’s messages _in the Gnostic gospels_, such as the following one: “He who knows the all, but fails to know himself, misses everything”; to the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha who teaches his first students these simple and direct words: “Be a light unto yourself!”, to the to modern Vedanta teacher Ramana Maharshi who teaches that all the teachings of the Vedas and Upanishads can be reduced to a single question: “Who am I?”.

However, the answer to this question, when it is not the result of a final spiritual attainment or self-realization, is conditioned by the level of understanding and identification with that _I_ in various spiritual traditions. Almost all traditions distinguish the unconditional or _true I_ from the conditioned or _illusory ego_.

Here we will not deal with the characteristics, similarities and differences of the many different Eastern and Western psychologies, because a serious comparison would require a separate study. Therefore, we will take this opportunity to focus on only two psychological models that demonstrate how the _illusory ego_ is formed as the central cause of all our mistakes and problems, and how we can free ourselves from it.

Here in brief are the teachings of the _Vijnanavada_ school of Mahayana Buddhism (in which _only Consciousness_ is real and all other phenomena are but its modes) whose psychological-meditative model was chosen and exposed in a simplified way here because of its clarity, directness and practicality.

All our impressions (_samskaras_) that we have accumulated over a number of (re)incarnations, and based on them developed personal preferences and desires (_vasanas_) are in a latent state in the so-called treasury of consciousness (_Alaya-Vijnana_). It is important here to note that the Vijnanavada School distinguished between the _relative alaya_ (synonymous to _chitta_ in Vedanta psychology) which is still interdependent on all stored impressions, and _absolute alaya_ (the equivalent of chit in Vedanta psychology) which is a spotless, self-illuminating _pure Consciousness_ that is beyond all phenomena and karmic seeds. Paramartha, the Buddhist teacher from the 6th century who translated the Vijnanavada School’s main texts into Chinese, called this basic unconditioned consciousness _amala vijnana_ and explains it as being identical to our original, transpersonal - or Buddha-nature, which is common to all beings. (According to later interpretations _alaya_ can be understood as the active and dynamic aspect whereas _amala_ is the passive and static aspect of the one and same _basic consciousness_ which is the basis of all manifested phenomena.)

So, in _alaya_ all beings and phenomena unconsciously participate. They emerge out of alaya, through karmic conditions and causes like waves from an ocean, briefly giving the illusion of individual existence, and then their existence again dissolves into its primordial, impersonal nature. When karmic circumstances and causes (the universal network of cause and effect which affects all phenomena and all beings and occurs simultaneously with the manifestation of creation) encourage the manifestation of accumulated impressions and preferences, they rise from _alaya_ in the area of individual, sensory awareness (_mano-vijnana_). But there they cannot come in a clean, unprocessed form because they pass through the filter of discriminatory mind (_manas_) which is like a membrane between the treasury of consciousness and sensory awareness.

Before these mental impulses reach consciousness, our discriminative mind censors them like some sort of _Grand Inquisitor_, giving them attributes (form and name) according to its inherent and educational conditionnedness. Thus, unconscious impressions and preferences, while they cross the path from being unconscious to being conscious, transform from being a clean, neutral energy to being established desires, feelings, thoughts, images, etc.

There is no other way for that _primordial energy_ to reach consciousness without personal interpretation, except _simply_ through a nonadhesive _consciousness_. With such a _consciousness_ (which could be succinctly described as a nonadhesive _neutral presence_) we stop the automatic rotation of the discriminatory center, which with its constant rotating (like the wheel in a well) lifts some impression from the bottom of the unconscious to an area of consciousness, and stores and lowers the others (which it receives through the five senses and the sensory mind) in the bottom of that same well or treasury of consciousness.

This is how alaya, with its constant boiling, manas with its discrimination, and mano-vijnana with its self-capturing for impressions, experiences and desires, crucify and turn us on _samsara’s_ wheel.

The most direct way to reach the freedom of Awakening is by maintaining a nonadhesive consciousness which stops the discriminating mind and the imaginary divide between collective and individual consciousness, and after long and persistent practice suddenly awakens us into the primordial undivided Consciousness as our unconditioned True Nature.

Some call this transition from supported consciousness to continuous awakenness- Enlightenment, and others call it a quiet return to our True Nature which we had never really lost. Having got enmeshed in our imagination and dreams, we had just briefly forgotten it. (And though that “_briefly_” in practice may represent dozens of lives and incarnations, this means nothing to the awakened, for True Nature knows no categories of space and time.)

As we have seen here, a focus on the _basis_ is characteristic of Eastern psychologies (for Buddhists the _fundamental or authentic consciousness_, for Vedantists _the Self_) which on the personal plan is simultaneously seen as the center and the whole of our consciousness. Meanwhile Western psychology is primarily concerned with the central conscious pole of our psychic structure or ego. While Western psychology considers the ego to be the center of the conscious organization of individuality, Eastern psychology considers the ego (ahamkara) or the self-conscious discriminatory center (manas) to be the center of the divide between the _I_ and the _other_, between the inner and the outer, low and sublime, pure and impure, etc.

Consequently, Eastern psychologies, Buddhist and Vedantist for example, claim this would-be (temporary or transitional) _ego-center_ is the key cause of our internal divides, as well as the conflicts and neuroses that result from them. All of Eastern psychology’s efforts, regardless of the number and variety of methods, ultimately boil down to finding a way to decompose this _imaginary_ egocentric mental self, built from unconscious impressions, preferences and ideas about the _ego_, to take away its power over the life of the individual in order to reveal the authentic core of our Being or Self.

The shortest and most direct way to Self-actualization was briefly outlined in the teachings of the famous teacher of _Vedanta_, Ramana Maharshi. Simply, practically and in a way that wasn’t inclined to intellectual theorizing, Sri Ramana explained the functioning of the human psyche to his disciples, comparing it to the projection of a film in a theater. The repository of our impressions (chitta) is coiled like a filmstrip. The mind (manas) is like the cinema projector through which the stored content of our memory is projected on the canvas of our authentic or unconditioned Consciousness (chit). And our illusory or conditioned _ego_ (ahamkara) is the spectator who sits in the cinema and identifies with the film he is watching on the screen, forgetting that everything that he sees actually a projection of the content stored in the unconscious pole of his psyche.

If we accept this interpretation as credible, the following question is inevitably raised: How then can we wake from the self-forgetfulness of identification with the illusory and awaken our True Self? This is where the so-called higher, purified mind or _buddhi_ jumps in (translated from Sanskrit into English _buddhi_ is usually translated as _intellect_, although this is not the best translation) which has the ability, through analogy, to understand this “fallacy” and awaken our True Self through self-inquiry and self-reflection.

In Sanskrit Ramana calls this introspection _vichara_, and it is carried out in such a fashion that the practitioner answers to all affective and adhering manifestations of mind (selfish instincts, feelings, thoughts and desires) with the following counter-claims: “Who are these selfish desires coming to? Where are these egocentric thoughts coming from? Who is clutching to these self-centered feelings?” As the answer to all these questions points to the selfish center of our pseudo-identity or _false ego_, the culmination of this practice boils down to the question: “Who am I?” which is persistently repeated until the Awakening (_turiya_) of our True Being brings us liberation and puts an end to all of the mind’s illusory questions.

But despite its simplicity, _vichara_ is a superior contemplative practice that requires a subtly attentive mind and a sharp intellect in order for it to be properly applied. For lack of a better explanation, let his quote from the teachings of the Ramana Maharshi speak of its directness and efficiency: “Questioning _‘Who am I_?’ within one’s mind, when one reaches the Heart, the individual ‘_I_’ sinks crestfallen, and at once Reality manifests itself as ‘I-I’. Though it reveals itself thus, it is not the egocentric ‘_I_’ but the perfect being, the Self Absolute.”

Interestingly, something similar can be found in the practical lessons of early Christian desert fathers whose contemplative teachings could be reduced to three fundamental principles: “Do not judge anything or anyone! Ask yourself who you are! Surrender everything to God!” But in this case, self-inquiry and Christian contemplative prayer are mutually supported and the result of this practice completely surrenders itself to God’s will.

Well, let us look how modern neuropsychology interpret the complex phenomenon of human perception. From a scientific perspective, every perception requires three basic elements:

a. sensory stimulus (sound, visual, tactile, etc.),

b. sensory organ that receives a specific stimulus (ear, eye, skin),

c. neural circuit in the brain, that senses receive sensory signals from, and organizes them in a determined way, giving them a specific interpretation and meaning.

When the eye perceives a particular subject, it does not recognize it immediately. First the optic nerves - sensory neurons which exist in the eye - detect a specific object in the space. Encouraged by this stimulus, neurons begin to bombard the thalamus, neuronal structure located in the center of the brain, with messages. The thalamus functions as a control panel with switches. It collects and classifies sensory messages, before they are transferred to the other parts of the brain.

In the case of visual perception, when the thalamus has sorted the messages sent by the optic nerves, they are transferred to the limbic system - the part of the brain responsible for processing emotional responses to sensory stimuli, in the form of pleasure or discomfort. At this stage of processing, the human brain brings immediate judgment on the respective visual stimulus, and decide whether the observed object is: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

While the limbic brain processes the received data, they are simultaneously transferred to the neocortex - the youngest part of the human brain, which is responsible for the analytical operations. The group of data, collected by the thalamus and partially processed by the limbic system, in neocortex forms a kind of analytical matrix through which our brain recognizes the perceived object, giving it a standard name and its meaning. Only by virtue of this, the existing matrix, our brain can distinguish, in a split second, a rope from a snake, and bring instanteneous, fateful decision. But this is possible only if the neocortex have already created a wide network of experiential patterns or, to put it simply, a map that helps us to position ourselves in the dynamic world of, only conditionally and not geometrically determined, approximations.

In other words, this summarized neuropsychological model of perception clearly shows us, that we can not directly experience this world, and that this experience is filtered through a layered and dynamic matrix of perception, which is constantly created and recreated by our brain, with all its - sensory, emotional and analytical, conceptual functions. What is the reality - you will rightfully ask - the objective world that we see, or our subjective world of experience and interpretation? The real answer would be: Neither world of objects, nor our subjective world, but a world in which the distinction between object and subject of perception has been transcended. Or, more precisely, the reality in which the perception of the object is not different from the mind which observes the object. But it is an experience that by far surpasses the area of ​​the certainty of the scientific experiment and proof. The experience which directly can testify only - the Awakened.

Having said this, we can easily understand that the Path to Self-Knowledge is long and winding, and that its success, like a sage’s tripod, lies in the balance of three strong-points:

a. the ability to proper understand teachings (doctrines),

b. the ability to properly select and in a balanced manner apply practical disciplines (methods),

c. and finally, the most important thing without which all doctrines and methods are unable to bring the much desired fruit: a deep personal dedication to our original Being (devotion), in which, in the end, we recognize our_selves_, our teacher and God as the one indivisible True Self.

But all these are only _signs along the Path_ that, the deeper we dive into them, the clearer they alert us that we cannot really know anything about the Path until we travel it.A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Asanga Angya (b.1967) philosopher, religiologist and writer, was raised and educated in Europe, where he graduated in Philosophy and Religious Studies. Since 1990 he has been working in print and electronic media and has published numerous essays in the field of philosophy and spirituality, psychology and art.

He is the author of a few spiritual books and scientific screenplays, which were made into films.

For over two decades he has explored traditional Eastern and Western ways of self-knowledge as well as the practice of Vedanta and Zen meditation in comparison with the modern teachings of depth psychology. Some insights and observations from these studies are summarized in this collection of short insights.RECOMMENDED LITERATURE

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