On the Way: Growth and Transcendence of Personal Consciousness

John K. Landré

Description

Personal growth is a slow process, so slow that most people are unaware of the fact that, fundamentally, we do change several times during our lives. On the Way is about these personal transformations. It describes how growth of consciousness happens and how we can measure where we are in our individual growth, what comes next for us, and why. It illustrates how, at all levels of development, we can learn to guide our own growth.

Individual consciousness grows through five distinct phases. The first is the consciousness of young children and of primitive adults. Here people trust their instincts more than their feelings or their rational objectivity. In the second phase of consciousness, typical of the teenager, feelings take precedence over instincts and objectivity. This changes in the third phase when instincts and emotions become less than trustworthy, and objectivity and rationality take over as the most reliable sources of awareness. Yet there is a fourth phase of consciousness where even objective, rational thinking no longer appears trustworthy. Then intuition becomes the most reliable form of information. This is the consciousness of the spiritual seeker. To very few a sudden flash of insight happens resulting in a final, fifth phase of consciousness: Enlightenment.

The book consists of three parts. The first is about how consciousness grows through the first three phases. The second deals with the various paths of spiritual seekers. And the third focuses on which spiritual practice can be expected to be most effective for whom.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Metaphysics
• Psychology
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Developmental
• Lifespan Development

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 14 août 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456609009
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

What somebody else said about On the Way :
 
“I LEARNED A LOT ABOUT MYSELF”
Stevi Rarick, Editor
 


 
 
On the Way
Growth and Transcendence of Personal Consciousness
 
by
John K. Landré
 


Copyright 2012 John K. Landré,
All rights reserved.
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0900-9
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in review.
 


 
For Daniel, Ivo, and certainly Louis, whose birth contributed so much to my own growth
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
About three decades ago, while I was learning Brian P. Hall’s Value Theory, both Barbara Ledig and Beth Clark were extremely helpful teachers. To this day I very much appreciate the depth of comprehension they instilled in me.
I am immensely indebted to two spiritual teachers: Ramesh Balsekar and Wayne Liquorman, who contributed immeasurably to my grasp of the Unthinkable.
I would like to thank Hal Bennett for his encouragement during the time when I still doubted if publishing this book was worthwhile. For the highly useful tips Frank van Zwieten gave me on structuring the book, I remain very grateful. And thank you, Barbara Dunlevie, and Kayleen and Fred Miller, for reading the manuscript of the earlier version of this book, for critiquing the usefulness of the various methods for personal growth and for making suggestions about how to improve the book. In this latter category I am very thankful for Stevi Rarick’s proofreading and editing. Her many suggestions have made the book much easier to read.
But most of all, thank you, Drizz, for working so hard to bring to our marriage the harmony necessary for a contemplative life.
 
INTRODUCTION
This book is about growth in consciousness. Over a lifetime everybody’s consciousness grows, yet very few are aware of it. Rarer is the understanding of how this growth in consciousness develops. I address myself here to those who consider personal growth important and who would like to understand the process.
The mechanism for personal growth consists of honing skills around needs. At all times during our lives we have values, needs, priorities. In daily living we constantly cater to those needs. By doing so we acquire skills. When skill levels have grown sufficiently, specific needs become routinely fulfilled. Then new needs come to the fore and our consciousness increases.
Consciousness grows through five distinct phases. Different people grow in different ways. The path is different from person to person. Yet the resulting five levels of consciousness are the same for everybody.
For a very few fortunate ones among us this growth of consciousness culminates in a flash of insight that results in the disappearance of all needs. This fifth phase is a state of pure, desireless consciousness and is known as Enlightenment, Awakening, Self-Realization, Moksha, Satori. I will sometimes call it Self-Realization but mostly adopt a term for it that Balsekar uses in his many publications: the Ultimate Understanding. Reaching this state is extremely rare and not something we can achieve ourselves. If it comes about, the event occurs of its own accord. Yet by growing through the first four phases of consciousness we all prepare for it.
***
This book serves three purposes. First, I will try to convince you that higher levels of consciousness than your present one do indeed exist. Second, I will describe how to determine at what level of consciousness you now function. And third, because some may find it worthwhile to actively develop their consciousness further, I will deal with what people typically do to that end.
The book is meant for people who search for meaning. Most of us have a more or less stable worldview and are happy with that. Then the existence of levels of consciousness higher than the present one can be unbelievable, even unacceptable. Personal growth is nonetheless real. It usually slowly increases in importance and may culminate in a fourth, contemplative phase of consciousness: a yearning for experiences that are transcendental in nature.
Some of us have experienced a transcendental event. There are many kinds of such experiences. Yet they all have one thing in common: We realize afterwards that our free will did not cause the event. Then a question may arise. If we did not bring on this event, who or what did? This is known as entering the contemplative phase of consciousness and is called “becoming a spiritual seeker”.
Becoming a seeker can also happen through natural growth in consciousness. To some the realization of having entered the fourth phase of consciousness happens when meeting a spiritual teacher. Continued growth in consciousness is then usually guided by the newfound teacher. For others becoming a seeker may remain somewhat bewildering. If it is not immediately clear who a possible teacher could be, the question of where to turn may be problematic. This book makes suggestions to those who find themselves without an acceptable teacher and who wonder what the transcendental terrain looks like. It describes various methods people use for searching for transcendental knowledge.
There are three parts to the book. The first part deals with how to fulfill needs. The fourth growth phase in consciousness consists of slowly becoming free of desires. As long as strong desires are still with us, a spiritual search is difficult. Fulfilling needs we consider important has to come first. Part I of the book discusses how to measure what desires we still have and how to fulfill them.
The second part of the book describes how the mind interprets transcendental experiences. Interpretations can be very different from person to person. How the meaning of a transcendental event is experienced depends on where we are in our personal growth at the moment it happens.
The third part of the book talks about the methods contemplative seekers use. It deals with why different people—people of different types—prefer different disciplines.
Most of my knowledge about consciousness I learned from others. There are not many novel theories in this book. Certain combinations of thoughts may be expressed here for the first time, but I am sure most of my experiences are not unique. Although my thoughts were new to me when they first occurred, I am not trying to describe original discoveries. I will often repeat what others have said, sometimes simplifying their language somewhat, and always from my own understanding of what the implications are. And I will share certain tools I have found useful for growing in consciousness. Some of these tools are not well known. All of them have played a role in my own growth.
I have always gained much clarity from making methodical maps. So I will give overviews of the existing literature on personal and transcendental growth in systematic formats, as road maps. Those maps are then combined with things we do, that is, with methods for continued growth. Here and there I will give examples of my own experiences as illustrations.
An example of such a revealing personal experience occurred when I first started considering writing this book. I had a small “aha” feeling that at first seemed insignificant but that grew in importance afterwards. It happened after one of our weekly evenings of tennis. Eight of us, all in our sixties at the time, play mixed doubles for a couple of hours each Tuesday night. Afterwards we usually went out for a pizza and a beer together. During one of those dinners the conversation drifted toward our physical health. Not unusual, of course, for a group of our age. “Larry, how is your shoulder?” and “Kayleen, is your elbow getting any better yet?” are normal subjects. Then Barbara said something like: “No fun that when growing older, our bodies start to disintegrate.” I countered with: “Yes but there is so much that compensates for that.” “Oh yes? Name one!” said Barbara.
We discussed this for a while and concluded that, when aging, most of us slowly become a little wiser. And acquiring a little wisdom seemed somehow connected to the fact that, when growing older, we become more relaxed. There is less anxiety than at an earlier age. We worry less. It is as if the things that once bothered us, are now not as important anymore. For instance, when getting close to retirement money problems have usually gone away. Material needs are now taken care of, and even if they are not, they seem to matter less than before.
We felt that the same holds for what other people think of us. How we look in the eyes of others seems to carry less weight when growing older. And it now even feels unnecessary to improve ourselves an awful lot. We have become acceptable in our own eyes as well. The world, ourselves included, has become more or less all right as is.
I just sat there listening to this conversation, when I suddenly realized that what we were discussing was exactly what I wanted to write about. What a coincidence! Obviously I will go in much more detail than we did that night at the dinner table. But basically what I am going to do here is the same: discuss how to become a little wiser by overcoming worries about security and about who we are as a person. During much of our lives that is precisely what personal growth is about.
When preoccupied with physical needs or when not yet comfortable with who we are as a person, the desire for transcendental experiences tends to take second seat. Apparently we need to learn to alleviate more earthly concerns before developing our transcendental side in earnest. This preparation for transcending the mind by taking care of more primary needs first is every bit as important as actual spiritual practice itself. Growth of transcendental awaren