Existential Consultation in the Context of Archetypal Psychology and Archetypal Cosmology
By: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D., Existential Psychologist and
Peter Bauer Archetypal Astrologer
The Unconsciousness as Multidimensional
Carl Jung describes how the human unconscious is the hidden cosmological archetypal dimension of our being in the world. There is the personal unconscious that reflects personal history and experience either forgotten or foreclosed. There is another unconscious that is more primary, pre-reflective and cosmological in origin. In the language of the ancient Phenomenological Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, this existential dimension of archetypal manifestation is called the Sambogakaya realm of experience. This is the subtle realm of lucid forms of light and energy and vortices. These forms of light and energy field configurations become everything and anything. The Sambogakaya dimension manifests the Nirmanakaya dimension. The Nirmanakaya dimension is the actual experience of our self in contextual situations, unfolding through time and space as well as our unfolding of our personal psychological experience. Nirmanakaya is the dimension of our ordinary life world. Nirmanakaya is our being in the world.
There is one more dimension. This dimension is the primordial foundational ground of everything and anything. In the ancient tradition of Dzogchen this is named as the Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya is the existential dimension of pure potentiality, pure creativity from which everything and anything manifests. Dharmakaya manifests the Sambogakaya. Dharmakaya is ground awareness, the ground of being. Dharmakaya is Being. Being is not a being but Being manifesting being as infinite numbers of numerous beings. All beings are the manifestation of Being. Dharmakaya is not an entity but manifests infinite numbers of entities.
This archetypal cosmological view whether expressed in eastern tantric philosophy, western continental philosophy or in western archetypal psychology allows us to understand that the manifestation of all phenomena is the manifestation of primordial awareness, primordial potentiality, primordial foundational reality, primordial Being.
The unfolding of Being manifests the archetypal Sambogakaya which is experienced as the cosmological energies becoming luminous archetypal forms and luminous actions. These luminous archetypal forms and actions manifest ordinary reality becoming us, our world and our circumstances in life. The Sambogakaya dimension is intrinsically immanent and through the manifestation of archetypal immanence, transcendental experience becomes open. The Sambogakaya is often experienced phenomenologically as the apparitional symbolic dimension of our existential experience.
Ontic Ontological Intertwined
Although the archetypal dimension can be experienced as apparitional imagery and visionary imagery within our inner experience, these archetypal realities are not simply personal psychology or personal fantasy or expressions of our collective unconscious, but are ontological and cosmological. To use Heideggerian language the archetypal dimension is ontological as well as ontic. Jung himself was preoccupied with this question as to the nature of archetypal reality. He initially thought that archetypal dimension was only psychological, only mental and imaginative. However, as Jung’s understanding developed over time he came to the understanding that the archetypal is not only psychological but rather the archetypal is the Being dimension of our existence. Archetypal reality is ontological and cosmological in origin.
Existential Task
Within this phenomenological archetypal view, our emphasis is on our existential experiential life task of enowning our archetypal energies and their field configurations, in order to experience freedom and self-liberation within our life circumstances and within our mind.
Existential freedom is experienced by relating to, entering into these cosmological spheres of energies. Self- liberation takes place within us, by our being freed from experiential containment. This containment exists within our circumstances and within our own mind. Both circumstance and mind are correlated with archetypal configurations, and are manifestations of the archetypal dimension. This archetypal dimension is in turn the manifestation of primordial awareness, the ground of Being. The symbol of this freedom is often symbolized by the Lotus in Phenomenological Dzogchen.
Phenomenological Embodiment of the Archetypal
There is no one way to enter into a conscious experiential relationship with the often unconscious archetypal energies, and luminous archetypal fields which manifest in the experience of ordinary existence of our being.
One way among many ways of entering into relationship within our own cosmology, is to enter into a relationship with a person who has knowledge of the archetypal cosmology and the necessary skill of facilitating guidance by assisting us to enter phenomenologically, the archetypal field configurations as they become experientially evident and explicit. The archetypal dimension is a phenomenological presence, often concealed and obscured, yet revealing itself through our phenomenological experience and subtle liminal appearances.
Our own innate experiential and innermost awareness is our instrument to experience the archetypal source of our personal and existential circumstance. When we are not in mind alone, the archetypal dimension of experience manifests within us. When we are located in our experience of awareness of our own awareness, then the opening for the experiential revelation of the archetypal dimension takes place. Our mind which is phenomenologically distinct from our awareness, and at times is even dissociated from our innermost awareness, must become integrated within our phenomenological field of awareness for this self-empowerment to take place.
This experiential mind-awareness union brings forth the field of direct knowing-ness. Jung would call this union the mysterious conjunctio. Because of this union of mind and awareness, our mind can know information, and our awareness allows this information to become experiential and directly perceived.
There is a difference between our mind knowing about the archetypal forms intellectually as information, and the direct experiential knowing through the union of our mind-awareness continuum. This knowing is the direct experiential knowing of the phenomenological manifestations of the archetypal energies and luminous field configurations which are so vast and wondrous. This is the direct knowing of the field of Being in its elemental luminous forms of light and energy. This direct experiential knowing is form of gnosis or jnana.
Two Ways of Knowing: Mind and Awareness
Our mind knows forms and our mind knows through thinking, through feeling, sensation, memory, and through imagination. Our mind knows beings and things. Our mind knows dualistically and our mind knows difference. Our mind knows you and me, this and that, our mind knows details and our minds knows duality. Our mind knows subject and our mind knows object. Our mind knows things and entities. For our mind everything can become a thing. Even Being can seem to be a thing for our mind. Actually Being is no thing-ness and yet manifests everything and anything.
Our awareness knows Being and our awareness knows the field of Being within beings. Our awareness knows Being. Our awareness knows Being in beings. Our awareness knows Being is not a thing. And our awareness knows human beings are a combination of a being as thing and as Being no- thing simultaneously. Being’s knowing-ness is awareness. So awareness knows Being and the Being of beings. Our awareness knows non-duality and our awareness knows indivisibleness.
Union of the Two Ways of Knowing
Our union of mind within awareness knows duality within non-duality and non-duality within duality. Through a being we can know Being itself. Through our own being we can know Being. And within our sense of Being we can know beings and a singular being. Our awareness knows Being and our awareness knows Being in its different dimensions. Being manifests the different dimensions of existing-ness.
Integration of Mind within Awareness
This integration of mind within awareness allows us to know Being within beings and Being within things. We can know the field of Being within beings. We can also know directly, the archetypal dimension of the field of Being within beings. We can know duality of phenomena within the non- duality of Being. And we can know the non-duality of Being within duality of beings. Through our own being we can know Being itself. Through the being of another we can know Being itself. Through duality of beings we can experience non-duality of Being in its ordinary manifestation, and we can know Being in its archetypal cosmological appearance. Through awareness we can know Being in its potentiality. We can know Pure Being as Dharmakaya. This is wonderful and completely natural knowledge.
Awareness as Transitional Space and Relatedness
This field of awareness is transitional in its nature. Donald Winnicott the great English psychoanalyst introduced his understanding of transitional awareness and relatedness to the world of psychology and psychoanalysis some years ago. His wonderful work opens the door of Being and Being-ness in the realm of psychoanalytic understanding of self “as ongoing continuity of Being.”
Transitional space means our awareness is not located in mind alone, awareness is not contained by the confines of mind. Transitional space is the intermediate area of experience wherein we are not located in mind alone or in a singular function of mind. We are not located in thoughts alone. We are not located in affects alone. We are not located in memory alone or in fantasy alone.
We are located within awareness, open unbound spacious awareness. We are located in the space of awareness and can still utilize the functions of our mind. Within this distinction between mind and awareness, the realm of awareness arises as potential space. This space is the intermediate area, in between mind functions. This space is primordial openness. This transitional space is the Dasein that Heidegger describes so completely. This transitional space of awareness can open us to the deeper dimensions of our innermost experience of our self and our embodiment. This transitional space can open us to experience the different dimensions of our existence. This transitional awareness can open us to experience the archetypal realm of our existing-ness. This archetypal realm can at times be personally experienced as apparitions or visions. This archetypal realm can also be known experientially through our phenomenological felt sense of the archetypal phenomena.
The transitional space of awareness is the space of openness for the experience of manifestation. Transitional awareness, in its vast openness, can manifest during our awakened experience, in dream states and as well as in our meditative awareness. These manifestations of visionary archetypal experience also self-manifest at times in saturated states of mind and experience. Saturation of mind can paradoxically open into transitional awareness, the space of awareness.
Apparitional Visionary Experience and Hallucination Experience
The apparitional visionary experience of archetypal realms are very different then hallucinations and hallucinogenic experience. Hallucinations arises from distorted mind states, distorted mental states, distorted psychological states of mind alone. Apparitional visionary archetypal manifestations arises out of the innate field of awareness, the field of Being. The felt sense of these two distinct manifestations of visionary experience are a very different. The field phenomena of the apparitional and visionary is vast and there is a sense of coherence and ineffability in the felt sense of the experiential field. The experiential field is filled with refined energy, light, and luminous spaciousness. There is a sense of coherence and beauty even when the visions and apparitions may be troubling and disturbing.
The hallucination experience may often feel driven, primitive, and is experienced as having a minimal sense of field phenomena. There is minimal energy and light and resonance. The experiential field may be minimal or even non-existent. The sense of the openness of the spaciousness of apparitional experience is different than the sense of void which often arises in hallucinogenic experience. Through the terrifying experience of the disintegration of mind and the fragmentation of embodiment, hallucinogenic experience may spontaneously intrude into the field of awareness, obscuring the awareness field.
Three Dimensions of Existence
There are three different dimensions of human awareness and human existence. Each dimension is a medium of experience and realm of perception. When the person is located in mind alone, the medium is mental. As the person becomes aware of the mind, the medium of mind becomes more open. The person becomes mindful and enters the medium of mindfulness. Here the person becomes aware of their mind and begins to experience the distinction between their awareness and their mind.
The Field
As a person makes the shift from being aware of their mind alone and becomes aware of their awareness, the medium of awareness becomes fully open as field phenomena. The characteristics of this field of awareness are spaciousness, energy, light and vast resonance. The field is infinite in its horizons and multidimensional.
The Field as Nirmanakaya
As the field unfolds, as the Nirmanakaya dimension of ordinary experience opens, the awareness field becomes the medium of luminous experience. The lucidity of awareness experiences the lucidity of phenomena. The lucidity of awareness experiences the lucidity within phenomena; and experiences phenomena as lucidity. The experience of the lucidity of our own awareness has the capacity to experience the lucidity inherent in all appearance and within all phenomena. The light meets the light within the duality of appearance and within the indivisibleness between the knower and known. The radiant light manifests non-dualistically within our awareness and within the lucidity of the phenomena. There is a singular phenomenon that is being experienced within the light, as light.
Sambogakaya as Archetypal Dimension
In time this dimension of the Nirmanakaya or the dimension of ordinary reality opens into the archetypal Sambogakaya dimension of reality. The archetypal field configurations are experienced through the Sambogakaya medium of trans-lucidity. The trans-lucidity of awareness and the lucidity of archetypal phenomena opens so that the luminous forms can be experienced translucently. In this medium of translucent perception various archetypal forms of experience may manifest translucently and be experienced in the transpersonal field of light.
Dharmakaya as Pure Potentiality
In time the opening of the foundational Dharmakaya or ground awareness realm of pure potentiality takes place. This pure existential base is primordial Being awareness becoming time, and through time becoming everything and anything. This is the space of timeless awareness.
Compassion and Timeless Awareness
This pure experiential base as timeless awareness manifests time. There are four times, the past, the present, and the future. The fourth time is timeless awareness. From timeless awareness time manifests. And wonderfully, an ordinary person can be both in timeless awareness and time simultaneously. The great Dzogchen master Yang Thang Rinpoche describes how a person in timeless awareness, may extend their field of awareness into a person’s present moment, and into a person’s past moment, and into a person’s future moment of time. This is the great compassion. This compassion is the capacity of extending the light of awareness into a person or even into a complex situation. This is the action of the great compassion. This is our human capacity to extend the light into time from within our place of timeless awareness. As Bodidharma, the 6th century master would say “Beyond words and letters there is a transmission that does not belong to any tradition, and this is
nature of human awareness, and this awareness is The Buddha.”
Language Metaphors
People and cultures utilize different language metaphors to articulate their experience of the archetypal dimension. There are many different kinds of language metaphors. One such metaphorical language is the ancient metaphors of the planetary energies astrologically interpreted and phenomenologically understood. A person enters into the archetypal dimension through their experience of the linguistic symbols of the planetary energies. These planetary energies become the metaphorical coding of a person’s symbolic understanding of their phenomenological experience of planetary energies relationship to themselves and their life circumstances.
Astrological Mythology
Planetary language is the mythic metaphor of astrology. Astrology is a hermeneutic method of envisioning the unfolding of our experience in the light of streaming fields of luminous cosmological energies that manifest our life experience and existential circumstances. As the planetary energetic fields unfold and intertwine, so do the archetypal fields unfold in time and space bringing forth the existential configuration of luminous events and psychological experience. Astrology, both in western formulations and in eastern formulations, considers the symbolic language of astrology to be the expression of the elementals of luminous energies becoming forces of creation. Astrology is one mythic expression of the many archetypal cosmological realities.
Mythology of Deities
Another hermeneutical archetypal language is the symbolic realm of the ancient spiritual traditions .This is the language metaphor and symbolic realm of the deities. Within this symbolic realm we may experience the dakinis and devas, gods and goddesses, angelic forms, demonic forms, forms of heroes and monsters. Spiritual and cultural traditions articulate their archetypal experience using mythological narratives. Greek mythology, Hindu mythology, Alchemical mythology, Christian mythology, Chinese mythology, Buddhist mythology, Gnostic mythology, Islamic mythology, Jewish mythology and Shamanistic mythology are some of these imaginative languages that express and reflect archetypal symbolic dimension of human existence. W’\ e may consider these languages as cultural codes of archetypal realms of human experience. These twilight languages are in resonance with archetypal experience. These twilight language metaphors are forms of the various phenomenology reflecting our archetypal nature.
Metaphorical Symbolization
These metaphorical symbolizations and symbolic personifications are iconic doorways to enter experientially into cosmological dimension of human awareness. The symbolic realm is an ontological dimension of philosophical and religious traditions. The deities and goddess are unfolding ontological manifestations of luminous energy forms manifesting dimensions of human existence. Human existence is mystical in origin.
Mythological narratives are expressed in sacred text. When the texts are read or chanted there may be the unfolding experience of the symbolic realm and a person entering into the dramatic realm, becoming infused with the experience of the illuminating narrative. These text are methods of the invocation of the archetypal realm and bringing the archetypal realm into our ordinary life world. The experience may be the mysterious blending of Sambogakaya within the Nirmanakaya dimension. This blending empowers our personal experience within Nirmanakaya dimension. Dzogchen supports the blending of the Sambogakaya realm within the Nirmanakaya world.
Dreams as Personal and Archetypal.
A most ordinary way of entering into both the personal unconscious as well as the archetypal unconscious dimension of human experience is through dreams and dreaming. The archetypal realm of the dream is the realm of imaginal knowing which is not synonymous with constructed fantasy. The dream language often uses hidden metaphors that bring our awareness into the direct experience of the archetypal cosmological powers and luminous energies.
Transpersonal Psychology and Phenomenology
Contemporary transpersonal psychology and continental phenomenology present a vast range of contemporary experiential language metaphors that directly open us into the different dimensions of human awareness and archetypal consciousness. The archetypal psychology of the Jung, Hillman, Tarnas lineage and the various traditions within transpersonal psychology present symbolic metaphors that open the depth of both personal and archetypal consciousness. The experience is an intertwining of the personal and archetypal consciousness. Through the phenomenology of these images, the experience of the archetypal realm can be directly and experientially known. These archetypal images are contemporary iconic doorways into the archetypal field of experience.
Existential Phenomenology as expressed in continental phenomenology brings forth an experiential language that opens the different existential dimensions of the field of Being. In eastern phenomenological tradition of Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism there is a pathway to direct experience of the luminous dimension of ordinary phenomena as well as the luminous archetypal dimension that attunes us to the radiance of foundational reality of awareness, ground awareness. Both western continental phenomenology and eastern phenomenological Dzogchen provide views and experiential doorways into the luminous light of the archetypal dimension of existing-ness.
Existential Experiential Phenomenological Methods
These archetypal energies are manifested within us as us, and our circumstances. The archetypal phenomenological dimension is a medium of experiencing and perceiving the archetypal phenomena opening within us as the trans-lucid experience of archetypal forms of experience.
The experiential phenomenological method of becoming the dream and enacting the dream experience and the various dimensions of the dream experience are ways of experiencing and embodying the archetypal dream manifestation. These experiential dramatic enactments both open for us the meaning of the archetypal field configuration as well embodying the energetic luminous energies. An archetypal dream field configuration conveys both meaning and luminous energetic experience.
Enactment
The experiential methods of enactment are of use in gaining the experiential understanding of the archetypal apparitional manifestations that take place within meditative awareness and contemplative praxis. The experiential methods of dramatic enactment and personal dialogue are ways of embodying of the power of the archetypal field dynamic. These existential methods are useful with dreams and contemplative practice and also useful with astrological cosmologies, spiritual mythologies, and apparitional manifestations of our unfolding embodiment process.
Experiential Felt Sense of Phenomena
The phenomenological method of focusing on the experiential felt sense of phenomena is a phenomenological method of open focusing on the immediate, experiential felt sense of the archetypal manifestations. This skill of open focus is direct, existential, experiential and imaginal. We can experience the felt sense of the archetypal configuration and the energies of the configuration that are being manifested. The experiential felt sense of the archetypal manifestations opens the field of Being as archetypal. The felt sense opens both the experience and the energetic dimension of the archetypal manifestations. The felt sense opens us up to direct knowingness through the experiential sensation of the field. This felt sense brings forth the process of embodiment. The sustaining of the felt sense also brings forth the metabolizing of the archetypal field’s configurations. Through the metabolism of the experience, the embodiment of the archetypal sphere takes place. The embodiment of the archetypal is a true self- empowerment. A person can embody and become the archetypal field. In this drama of becoming the archetypal field, there is a meeting and joining of the Sambogakaya dimension within the Nirmanakaya dimension. This joining of these two existential dimensions is one of the aspirations of Phenomenological Dzogchen.
The Phenomenological Epoch and Reduction
The phenomenological methods of the epoch and reduction are a skillful means that open for us to the direct experience of the archetypal realm of meaning and luminous energy fields.
Here in this context the phenomenological epoch is the suspension of our mind, and this suspension is then followed by the reduction into awareness of awareness. In this reduction into awareness, the awareness is no longer focusing on the mind alone, and is no longer located in the mind alone. This awareness now becomes aware of awareness itself. In becoming aware of awareness itself, the field of Being self-manifests. We begin to experience the field of Being which is beyond language and which is so infinite in its horizons and vast and multidimensional.
Unfolding of Experience of Knowingness
As we remain within this knowingness of the awareness field, amazingly the different dimensions of knowingness begin to manifest over time and in time. The Nirmanakaya dimension manifests as the non-duality of lucidity within phenomena and the lucidity within one’s self as the knower of lucidity. We experience lucidity within our own awareness and simultaneously we experience the lucidity within phenomena. In this space we experience the duality of phenomena within the non-duality of awareness as light, the non-duality of lucidity.
Then the Sambogakaya dimension begins to manifest and we experience our non-duality within the archetypal dimension of existence. We experience our indivisibleness with the archetypal forms and archetypal fields of energy and light. We also experience this archetypal dimension in the oneness of trans-lucidity. The sense and experience of trans-lucidness is pervasive. We experience trans-lucidity within the awareness field and we experience trans-lucidity within our experience of the apparitional forms.
As the Dharmakaya opens, formlessness is experienced as pervasive pure indeterminate potentiality. Knowingness self-manifests directly and existentially. There is no knower only knowingness. Knowingness is pervasively indeterminate, non-conceptual and pervasively pure potentiality.
Metabolism and Embodiment
Our intense and sustained phenomenological focus can be most useful in the metabolizing or experiential digesting of the archetypal energies and archetypal meaning of the archetypal spheres of experience. The power of the metabolizing process by and within the awareness field is the capacity to metabolize experience and to digest archetypal meaning and archetypal luminous energy. This light filled metabolism process is necessary to bring forth and complete process of embodiment. The archetypal will manifest both at ordinary level of the duality of experience as well as the luminous non-dualistic level of the experience. Through duality one meets archetypal non-duality, and within archetypal non-duality one experiences duality of self and otherness. The felt sense of the appearance of archetypal phenomena is the door way of opening of phenomena so that the archetypal forms and spheres of light can be understood and directly experienced non-dualistically within duality of self and other.
Essence and Appearance are Indivisible: Phenomenologically
In contemporary phenomenology, the phenomena (appearance) and the ‘noumenon’ (the thing in itself or the essence of the phenomena) are indivisible. In early Jungian psychoanalysis because of the influence of Kantian idealism, there was gap between phenomena and the ‘noumenon.’ There is a similar gap of disconnection between appearance and essence in forms of Tibetan Buddhism. This gap between appearance and essence creates a falsification of experience and a falsification of phenomena. This gap of knowing creates an unknowable essence and as a consequence there is sense of ‘as if ness’ about the existence of appearance and the validity of phenomenological experience.
Phenomenological experience becomes deluded-ness. This gap is a gap of self- imposed dissociation. In this way phenomena or appearance is felt not to be real and appearance is not actual and lacks experiential validity. Phenomena is considered deluded-ness. Appearance is considered deluded-ness. And so of course everything seems to be unreal including the sense of self and even the world. This unhappy and gloomy way of thinking and understanding persists in Tibetan Buddhism and among other forms of Buddhism. This distorted epistemological view invalidates human experience and personhood. This view is the basis of many forms monastic life and spirituality.
Appearance and Essence are Indivisible: Phenomenologically
In contemporary phenomenology and contemporary archetypal psychology there is no gap between the phenomenology of the thing, and the thing in and of itself. There is no gap between appearance and essence. Appearance is the manifestation of essence. Appearance is the manifestation of primordial awareness. Phenomena and appearance are the self- manifestation of primordial awareness. Phenomena or appearance is manifesting as this person or that person, as this form and this event. This being and that being is the manifestation of Being itself. There is continuity through manifestation. Primordial ground awareness is self- manifesting as you and as me. I am writing and you are reading. Primordial ground awareness is manifesting as me writing and as you reading. Within this non-duality there is singularity of duality. There is absolute oneness and absolute difference.
Manifestation
The appearance of the thing is the manifestation of the thing. The thing is the self-manifestation of primordial awareness. The different dimensions of existing-ness are indivisible. The different dimensions of the kayas are both different and simultaneously exactly the same. They are in oneness and difference simultaneously. They are of the same essence. The same essence is manifested as the different dimensions of existing-ness. And they are also singularly different. There is only One Awareness embodied.
This phenomenological view is not the distorted idealism of Descartes or the endless subtle dissociative distortions of Indian philosophy whether Indian Buddhism or Indian Hinduism. Archetypal essence and the archetypal forms are phenomenologically one event manifesting in time and space. The Dharmakaya dimension, the Sambogakaya dimension and the Nirmanakaya dimension are the essence of same unfolding awareness. The Dharmakaya, Sambogakaya and Nirmanakaya are same essence and the same essence is self-manifesting as the different dimensions of primordial or ground awareness. This understanding is that the luminosity is pantheistic.
Understanding Archetypal Existence: from Transcendental to Immanence
The shift in view is the shift from a transcendental archetypal realm dissociated from human experience, to the profound experience of the immanence of reality, and the immanence of the archetypal realm. The archetypal is immanently within us and within everything. The Dharmakaya is immanence as source within everything. From this immanence the immanence of the Sambogakaya manifests, and from within this immanence of Sambogakaya, the Nirmanakaya manifests. Thus our power of invocation is within us and we invoke and bring forth the archetypal from within us, and within each other, and within our circumstances. Our invocation is from within our own immanence of the archetypal field.
Continuity of Sameness
Within this view of contemporary phenomenological philosophy is the understanding that there is the continuity of sameness, the continuity of indivisibleness between phenomenology of essence and appearance. This is the very same view of Dzogchen. In this way Dzogchen goes beyond the limiting dissociative view of Buddhism.
Beyond Transcendental-ness!
Within contemporary phenomenological understanding and Dzogchen understanding there is the shift from our experiencing the archetypal dimension as a transcendental dimension of human experience. Transcendental means that the ultimate reality of archetypal reality is dissociated beyond humanness. This transcendental reality is dissociative and dissociated from appearance and experience. The archetypal becomes a kind of Divine Other or Holy Other not within humanness but beyond humanness. Transcendent is beyond the immediacy of immanence. Transcendence is intrinsically dualistic. Transcendent is beyond innateness. Transcendence is beyond embodiment.
This is a dramatic cultural turn and this is a most wonderful turn. This philosophical unfolding is dramatic shift from the dissociated forms of transcendental spirituality to the experience of self-embodied immanence of Divinity. The archetypal is immanent within human experience. The archetypal is no longer transcendent of human experience. The archetypal is no longer understood as transcendental.
The archetypal dimension manifests human experience and is foundationally within human circumstance and human experience. The phenomenology of archetypal is a phenomenology of embodiment and a phenomenology of immanence and innateness. Primordial awareness as ground awareness is manifesting everything and anything. Primordial awareness as awareness, manifests archetypal reality and ordinary reality simultaneously. Everything is the manifestation of the oneness of awareness. This understanding opens the profound view of pantheism manifesting non-duality within everyone and everything. This pantheistic view is inherent within Dzogchen and inherent within contemporary phenomenology of Heidegger and Merleau Ponty. As the great non-dual yogi of Kashmir Shavism, Swami Muktananda would so often say “God dwells within you as you.”
Non-Duality and Duality within Archetypal Experience
The archetypal dimension is both dualistic and non-dualistic. The archetypal field is both singular and circumstantial as well as universal and non-dual. The archetypal as appearance is dualistic and differentiated. The archetypal as the luminous energy field of primordial awareness is non- dualistic or indivisible. There is intrinsic indivisibleness between archetypal appearance and archetypal essence. There is also an indivisibleness between our innermost experience of luminous awareness and the luminous archetypal manifestations. The primordial qualities of archetypal existence are non-dual. The purity of the archetypal dimension is non- dual. The spaciousness of the archetypal dimension is non-dual. The lucidity of the archetypal dimension is non-dual. The archetypal is indivisible with ground awareness as Dharmakaya and the archetypal dimension is indivisible within the reality of ordinary human world of Nirmanakaya.
Non-duality of Being within the Duality of beings
Being manifests Being in all beings. We can directly experience Being through a being. A being is the manifestation of Being. Being which is not a being manifest all beings. This self-manifestation is the source of self- liberation. All phenomena, all appearance is the manifestation of Being as appearance, as a phenomena. All being is the manifestation of awareness. All phenomena is the manifestation of ground awareness. Ground awareness is Being. All phenomena is Being’s being appearing. Beings manifestation is being appearing. Being is no thingness becoming everything and anything. Being manifestation is multidimensional. Ground awareness, the ground of Being as Being is manifesting the archetypal dimension, this dimension of luminous energy, in turn is manifesting the Nirmanakaya dimension which is our world and our being in the world.
The Power of Invocation as the Power of Immanence
We all can bring forth, through the power of invocation, the archetypal dimension into the realm of our ordinary life experience. This is amazing and wonderful power. By our being in the field of awareness of awareness, we can invoke the realm of archetypal luminous cosmological energies. We can invoke the archetypal field configurations and bring forth these archetypal complexities into our experience of ordinary life world. We are able to bring forth the energetic complexity of the luminous archetypal field configurations manifesting them both within the realm of our innermost awareness and simultaneously bringing forth the archetypal dimension into our life circumstances. By invoking the Sambogakaya dimension, the archetypal field enters and infuses Nirmanakaya dimension. The archetypal luminous forms can infuse our mind and infuse our life situations. The archetypal realm can be brought forth into the realm of our most ordinary human experience. Archetypal practice can infuse our ordinary human experience for one’s self and for others.
When the archetypal realm is perceived as transcendental, people pray and offer sacrifice to transcendental power. They beg a lot . And as Hegel described in phenomenology of spirit, in the transcendental spirituality, people easily fall into the experience of Lordship and Bondage and theocratic forms of spirituality and patriarchy.
When the archetypal realm is experienced as immanence and intrinsic to our embodiment of primordial awareness then people experience the power of invocation of the divine archetypal dimensions within their own being and circumstances. Actually pantheism is more fun and not so gloomy and there is less need for patriarch and theocratic entourages.
Relentless Ownership!
Patriarchal cultural systems and their corresponding theocratic political domination take possession and ownership of our most natural human capacity. The ability to invoke and bring forth from within our own being the archetypal dimension. The patriarchal possessiveness is clothed in the language of Priesthood, or Brahmin-hood or Lama-hood, or Shaman- hood. These spiritual hierarchy caste systems are authoritarian in origin and mystify our natural capacity of invocation and our innate nature to bring forth the innate archetypal field into the field of ordinary reality. Patriarchal and theocratic hierarchy is asymmetrical and lacks equality consciousness intrinsically. Theocratic is the union of royalty and spirituality. This intrinsic asymmetrical-ness and lack of mutuality as Hegel points out in his Phenomenology of Spirit easily brings forth the Lordship-Bondage relationship. This asymmetrical-ness which reflects the intrinsic lack of mutuality is the drama of Lordship and Bondage and is not equality consciousness.
In these patriarchal and theocratic traditions, the power of invocation is limited and contained to the hierarchy. You will find this confining limitation in Christian tradition, Buddhist traditions, Islamic traditions and Hindu traditions.
In the astrological view of the cosmological archetypal configurations we are explicitly working within the field of the various planetary energies and their influence. We are invoking the planetary archetypal energies for our own purpose of reshaping our experience both within our mind and within our circumstance.
Timeless Awareness and Invocation
In the praxis of invocation the experience of the 4th time of timeless awareness is most important. As an ordinary person can experience both timeless awareness and time simultaneously and so the person will be capable of invoking the archetypal light and energy into their present moment, or even the past moment or even the future moment of a person or an event. The practice of meditative awareness becoming aware of awareness, facilitates the self-arising of the experience of timeless awareness in time. When we are in timeless awareness, and in time, simultaneously we have the most power of invoking the archetypal realm for the purpose of reshaping experience for one’s self and others. This is the power of the great compassion.
Reshaping experience
Within this field of the archetypal Sambogakaya dimension, we can bring forth specific archetypal energies to deepen our experience of these powerful archetypal energies and bring them forth in our life circumstances of place and time. We can reshape our experience of our life context but bring forth within the dimension of ordinary life the luminous archetypal realm. We can bring forth specific archetypal fields that are useful and supportive to our life experience and the life experience of others.
Bringing Forth the Archetypal Energy Field
This important praxis of invocation brings forth the archetypal energies field within our field of personal awareness .The archetypal energies can be in resonance and supportive of our personal life and life of others. In exercising the power of invocation of the archetypal field into our life experience we are bringing forth an archetypal balance within the archetypal dimensions of our being, and the Being of beings who constitute our world. Through the power of invocation there is a meeting, joining and blending of the Sambogakaya and Nirmanakaya realm. There is a meeting and joining between the realm of ordinary experience and the integration of the archetypal Sambogakaya dimension of the field of
energy, light and compassion.
Gnosis as Direct Knowingness
To enter into the archetypal dimension of our experience we must cultivate within the innate innermost field of our awareness our sense of direct knowingness. Gnosis or Jnana. Wherein our sense of knowingness supports and holds and integrates the energies of the archetypal into our embodied awareness, and through which we metabolize and assimilate these forces both within our awareness and through our awareness. The light of awareness infuses our mind, infuses our feelings, infuses our thoughts, infuses our conflicts and infuses our circumstances.
The very archetypes that compel us, organize us and drive us offer the very resource to free ourselves, and give agency to our aspirations and actions. This is the alchemical secret of archetypal existential nearness to the potentiality of pure awareness. This dimension of pure awareness and pure potentiality is known as Dharmakaya. The Sambogakaya is the intermediate dimension between Nirmanakaya and Dharmakaya. Sambogakaya dimension has more degrees of freedom in which and through to manifest within the ordinary realm of our existence which is Nirmanakaya.
The Doorway of Awareness
This amazing doorway opens by our becoming aware of our own awareness. We experience this place of awareness as spaciousness as innermost openness. Once we are established in our sense of self in this place of awareness, we can experience in a participatory way, the experience of the manifestation of the archetypal dimension within and as our embodied self, and as our experience of unfolding existential circumstances. Within this context we can become free of our mind’s dense solipsistic located-ness and become freer of the hyper organization of our experience by circumstantial energies and circumstantial archetypal configurations.
Our Own Person as Instrument
As one’s own self becomes skilled in archetypal cosmology and the metaphorical understanding of archetypal energies we can gain freedom within our relationship to the luminous archetypal manifestations. For some the doorway will be dreams, for some spontaneous apparitions and visionary manifestations, for some the experiential interpretation of astrological planetary text, for some the phenomenological understanding of cultural and spiritual mythologies that directly reflect the archetypal realm. So a person can give expression and articulation to this powerful archetypal dimension of their existence. A person can make the implicit explicit. We can also go further and develop the power of the invocation of archetypal field configurations so that the we have the power of invoking the archetypal to enter into our ordinary life circumstances.
Brentano, Psyche and Material Experience
The archetypal realm is cosmological, ontological as well as psychological. Descartes simplistic distinction between mind and material is what the philosopher Brentano challenged and spoke to many years ago when Freud and Husserl were in his class in Vienna. Psyche is invisible and this invisibleness does not mean that psyche does not exist. Psyche is not material and yet psyche is not in any way in opposition to the body as Descartes would have us think. Buddha also thought the body was in opposition to psyche.
Psyche is neither material and nor physical. Psyche is invisible yet present and pervasive. Psyche is also profoundly indivisible. There is a concretization of mind that thinks, really thinks that only material exist. They think that only things that have extension are real. They think the non- material does not actually exist. This materialistic view distorts the multidimensionality of human existence. As Longchenpa warned in the 14thcentury, the concrete mind cannot grasp the subtle non- material aspects of knowingness of human existence. This is serious limitation.
As Brentano suggested the experience of inner awareness is not a material experience and there are no material or physical indicators of the presence of inner most awareness. Moreover Brentano also challenged Descartes understanding that mind and material do not interact. Brentano went on to describe how knowingness is embodied within the human body. This understanding freed both Freud and Husserl to pursue their life work of understanding and elaborating how psyche incarnates as flesh.
Buddhist Tradition and Descartes
Nonetheless, the Buddhist tradition seems to be consistently surprised that in focusing within in exercises to find the mind, nothing material can be found. This does not mean the mind is not present or does not exist but psyche is non- material and is invisible. Psyche is invisible but real. Spirituality is non- material but real. Psyche is embodied. Spirit is embodied.
What Descartes called “res extensia” does not reflect the nature of psyche. Unhappily some confuse invisibleness with not existing. Descartes was distorted in his understanding that thought and body were in opposition. Descartes thought that the mind is naturally dissociated from embodiment. Actually his observation reflects his own schizoid like experience of dissociation of his psyche from his embodiment. A dissociated psyche is truly lost in dualistic isolation. Descartes’ psychological solipsism was elaborated as a philosophical reality by Descartes and his followers. Perhaps the same is true about Buddha’s gloomy elaborations about non- self, non- world, non- desire, and non-attachment, non-existence and no fun. Buddha and Descartes do not seem to have a joyful view of life.
Primordial Awareness as Timeless Awareness
We can become subtly attuned and in resonance with the primordial openness. The archetypal realm is ultimately being manifested though and by the Dharmakaya of pure primordial awareness. Having attuned our indivisible connection within primordial awareness we will experience timeless awareness in time. And we will experience time within timeless awareness. This is the power of human awareness and its innate intrinsic multidimensionality. This power belongs to everyone, no tradition or religion has singular ownership. This power does not belong to any tradition, this power is the very nature of human awareness. Our own awareness is this multidimensional range, this multidimensional oneness of indivisibleness. This is the range of timelessness becoming time and time being experienced within timeless awareness. The power of invocation arises out of timeless awareness.
To the degree that we can enter into timeless awareness to that degree the power of invocation becomes our own. Invocation is not simply mental intention. Invocation is a function of desire, self-arising from within the dimensions of our own being,
Trans-lucidity of Archetypal Experience
Our knowingness within the archetypal realm is translucent. This trans-lucidity of knowingness and trans-lucidity of experience is focal and central in our understanding of invocation of archetypal reality. The lucidity of our knowing varies within the different levels of dimension of existing-ness. At the level of mind alone there is only knowingness of mind and this manifests though the mind functions of thinking, feeling, sensation, memory and fantasy. This is a relatively realistic and limited view with minimal lucidness of phenomena.
As our mind is in union within our awareness, one gazes into ordinary phenomena as Nirmanakaya. The lucidity of our awareness experiences the lucidity within phenomena. This is the arising of the trans-lucidity of illumination of both self and trans-lucidity of appearance. As it is said in the text of Dzogchen, the Yeshe Lama, there is the inner light of awareness meeting the light of phenomena.
As awareness shifts into the archetypal dimension then the trans-lucidity of Sambogakaya luminous awareness and archetypal luminous appearance illuminates forms. The final dimension of pure awareness of pure potentiality, pure undetermined radiance of potentiality as Dharmakaya.
As our attunement to this pure radiant dimension becomes translucent and luminous, we become one with the clear light of translucent awareness.
Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, A.B.P.P. Washington Center for Consciousness Studies and Washington Center for Phenomenological and Existential Psychotherapy Studies
Peter Bauer Astrologer, Laurel Canyon Center for Consciousness Studies, and the Washington Center for Consciousness Studies