The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening
320
The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening
320eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781608684489 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New World Library |
| Publication date: | 02/14/2017 |
| Series: | An Eckhart Tolle Edition |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 922 KB |
About the Author
Steve Taylor, PhD, is the author of several books on spirituality and psychology, including The Fall and Waking from Sleep. He has also published two books of poetic spiritual reflections, including The Calm Center. He is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom. Since 2011, he has appeared annually in Mind, Body, Spirit magazine’s list of the world’s “100 most spiritually influential living people.”
Read an Excerpt
The Leap
The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening
By Steve Taylor
New World Library
Copyright © 2017 Steve TaylorAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60868-448-9
CHAPTER 1
Falling Asleep, Longing to Awaken
When we use terms such as wakefulness and awakening it's important to understand what we're waking up from. In other words, it's important to understand the "normal" state of being that we transcend when we wake up.
As my terminology suggests, what we wake up from is essentially a state of sleep — a state of constricted, limited awareness, and of discord and suffering. This state is so familiar to us that we assume it's natural and normal, and we take it for granted. But, in fact, this state is aberrational, even pathological. It's a kind of madness that we confuse with sanity simply because we experience real sanity so rarely.
Here I'll discuss the main characteristics of this state of sleep. I won't go into extensive detail, as this is an area I've already covered in my previous books. For the sake of clarification, I'll divide the characteristics into four different categories. Inchapters 12 and 13 I'll look at the characteristics of wakefulness using the same categories.
Bear in mind that there are variations in these characteristics. There are different degrees of sleep, just as there are different degrees of wakefulness. Some people are more asleep than others, just as some people are more awake than others.
Affective Characteristics of Sleep
The affective characteristics refer to the inner experience of being asleep, how it feels to live in a sleep state. The main aspect of this experience is our sense of separation and disconnection.
Separation and Disconnection
As I suggest in The Fall and Waking from Sleep, prehistoric humans — and later, the people who became known to us as indigenous peoples — experienced the world in a very different way than most of us in the modern world. One of the main differences is that they appear to have had very little sense of separation from the world. They felt closely connected to nature, to their land, and to the whole of the earth, to the extent that they didn't see themselves as individuals in the same way that we do. Their sense of identity extended into their land and their whole community. This is part of the reason why indigenous peoples have been so horrified by European people's rapacious attitude toward nature, their treatment of it as nothing more than a supply of riches and resources to be ransacked. Indigenous peoples feel a strong empathic connection to nature, that it's part of their own being, and so recoil from hurting the earth in the same way they recoil from harming themselves.
The collective psychological shift that our ancestors underwent thousands of years ago — the point when human beings began to "fall" asleep — occurred when they lost this sense of connection. A new, highly individualized sense of self developed. People began to experience themselves as egos enclosed within their own mental space, looking out at the world. For the first time, they experienced themselves as separate from the natural world — not beings who were living in nature, as a part of it, but beings who were somehow outside nature.
This new separate self brought a sense of ego-isolation, of apartness and aloneness. There was a new duality; our ancestors were "in here" with the rest of reality "out there." There was also a fragmentedness, as if human beings were fragments broken off the whole, with a feeling of loss and incompleteness. Other people were also "out there." As human beings, we became less connected to one another, with a weakened sense of empathy and community. Our own needs and desires as individuals began to take precedence over the welfare of the whole group.
This sense of separateness even extended to the body. Rather than see the body as an integrated part of our being, we saw the self — our own ego — as an entity trapped inside a body that was somehow other to us; the body was a vehicle that was carrying us but wasn't actually part of us. At the same time, we became disconnected from our own being — from our essence or spirit. Our sense of identity became constricted to a very narrow focus — our own ego. In the same way that a city can become so large and prominent that it seems to be a separate entity from the rest of the land that it's a part of — and in the same way that the inhabitants of the city can lose touch with the rest of the land and see themselves just as city dwellers — we lost contact with the expansive radiance and spaciousness of our whole being.
Thought-Chatter
One of the strangest characteristics of our sleep state is the associational chatter — the endless stream of images, memories, anticipations, reflections, and snippets of information — that usually runs through our minds when we don't occupy our attention with external things. Again, we largely take this for granted, so it's difficult for us to understand how bizarre it really is. Why should we experience this random and involuntary thought-chatter whenever we turn our attention into our own minds? It seems to be a quirk of our strongly developed sense of ego, perhaps one that occurs when our ability to self-reflect combines with our abilities to recollect the past, anticipate the future, and imagine different scenarios. It seems also to be related to our sense of ego-isolation and the constrictedness of our sense of self, almost as if our thoughts become restless and agitated in response to the atmosphere of anxiety and lack of space.
Abstraction
Because of our ego-isolation and the thought-chatter that almost constantly runs through our minds, we spend much of our time in a state of abstraction. Rather than live in the world, we live in our minds. We perceive the world dimly, through the mist of our thought-chatter and filters of preexisting concepts. Rather than live in a state of mindfulness, genuinely experiencing the reality of our sensations and perceptions, we live in a state of elsewhereness (as I refer to it in my book Back to Sanity).
In Back to Sanity I suggest that there are three different modes of attention that we experience as we live our lives: abstraction, absorption, and awareness (the "three As"). Abstraction is when we immerse our attention in our thoughts. Absorption is when we immerse our attention in external objects such as activities or entertainment. Awareness is when we give our attention fully to our experience, our surroundings, and the perceptions and sensations we're having in the present moment.
When I teach courses and workshops (either at my university or independently), I often ask participants to estimate how much time they spend in each of these modes in a typical day. People tell me, almost without fail, that they spend the least amount of time in a state of awareness. Typically, people estimate that they spend most time in a state of absorption (an average of around 60 percent), with their attention immersed in tasks, chores, hobbies, or distractions. They spend the second greatest amount of time in a state of abstraction (around 30 percent), and only around 10 percent of the time in a state of awareness.
Anxiety and Discontent
The internal mental atmosphere of the sleep state is a negative one. It's a dark, dank, and oppressive place, the mental equivalent of a small room with no windows and hardly any light.
The constant chatter of our minds creates a sense of disturbance and restlessness inside us, and the frequently negative tone of our thought-chatter generates negative emotions and an overall negative mood. Meanwhile, our ego-separateness creates a sense of lack, of "something missing," as well as a sense of isolation. Finally, there's a sense of narrowness, with our sense of self confined to the tiny space of our own ego, disconnected from the wide-open space of our whole being and its quality of radiance.
In our sleep state there's also a sense of fear. Our separateness creates a sense of vulnerability and insecurity, of being threatened by the world and by other people. This insecurity is exacerbated by our chattering thoughts, which anticipate the future and create fear-based scenarios that we imagine repeatedly. There's also usually an underlying fear of death, which we may not even be conscious of. Death threatens us by seeming to represent the end of everything we are, and everything we achieve or accumulate. It generates a sense of absurdity and meaninglessness, and so we do our best not to think about our own mortality.
A Perceptual Characteristic: Deintensified Perception
Another major characteristic of prehistoric and indigenous peoples' experience of the world was their intense perception of their surroundings. They seem to have had a sense that natural things were alive and sentient, and pervaded with a spiritual force. Different peoples with no connection to each other had different names for this spiritual force. In the Americas, the Hopi called it maasauu, the Lakota called it wakan-tanka, and the Pawnee called it tirawa. The Ainu of Japan called it ramut (translated as "spirit-energy"), while indigenous peoples in parts of New Guinea called it imunu (translated as "universal soul"). In Africa, the Nuer called it kwoth and the Mbuti called it pepo. These concepts are strikingly similar to the universal spirit-force that spiritual and mystical traditions speak of — for example, the concept of brahman in the Indian Upanishads. This spiritual force was also part of the reason for indigenous peoples' respectful attitude toward nature and their dismay at European peoples' exploitative attitude toward it. In addition to feeling a sense of kinship with the natural world, they felt it was spiritually alive and therefore sacred. How did we lose this intense perception of nature and this awareness of a spirit-force in the world? How did the natural world become less real to us, more mundane and less sacred and beautiful?
This is partly because we live so much inside ourselves, in a state of abstraction. Our experience of the world is therefore less direct and immediate. But this loss of vividness is also related to energy. Our powerful sense of ego — and our constant thought-chatter — uses up a massive amount of energy, and as a result there's little energy available for us to use through perception. It may even be that, when the Fall occurred, our perception became automatized as a kind of energy-conserving measure so that the powerful new ego could have more energy at its disposal. Our attention was switched off to the world around us so that we didn't have to "waste" any energy in perceiving it.
As a result, the world became an inanimate place to us. We no longer sensed the aliveness of rivers, rocks, and the earth itself. We no longer sensed the sentience of trees and other plants, nor the consciousness of insects and other animals. The world became full of objects, which we were free to use and abuse for our own devices. We lost the awareness of a spirit-force pervading the world and all the things in it.
Rather than see all things as infused with this force and therefore all interconnected, we began to perceive separateness. The world became made up of distinct material objects with empty space stretching between them. As a result, we also lost the meaning and harmony that many indigenous peoples perceive in the world, and the sense of being at home in it. For us, the world became a neutral and even hostile place, and life became an empty space between birth and death for us to try to fill with enjoyment and any sense of meaning we could create through our own efforts.
Conceptual Characteristics
The sleep state is characterized not only by a certain kind of perception but also by a type of conception — that is, a certain outlook on the world, and sense of our identity and our place within it.
Egocentric Outlook
In conceptual terms, one of the main characteristics of sleep is a narrowness of outlook. In sleep, people tend to be immersed in a narrow personal world of problems and concerns. They aren't particularly interested in other people's problems, or in social or global issues. Environmental problems, for instance, are too abstract and vague for them to make sense of. They aren't particularly concerned about global inequality or poverty, or even about inequality or poverty (or oppression or exploitation) within their own countries. Generally, because of their narrow vision, they only become concerned about these issues when they have a direct effect on them — for example, once disruption to weather systems brings regular floods in their towns or when they (or members of their family) are exploited or oppressed. Otherwise, these issues are too wide for them to comprehend, and their personal needs and desires usually take precedence over them.
Group Identity
In sleep, people have a strong need for identity and belonging. They feel a powerful impulse to belong to groups and to identify themselves as members of those groups in terms of religion, ethnicity, nationality, and any other label they can find. They like to define themselves as Christians or Muslims, Croats or Serbs, English or Scottish or Welsh, Republicans or Democrats or Socialists — even Manchester United or Los Angeles Lakers fans. Accordingly, they see themselves as distinct and different from those who belong to other groups, and are liable to fall into conflict with those groups whose interests may conflict with theirs. They feel the urge to help expand the power and influence of their group — for example, to convert people to their religion — and feel a sense of pride when their group prospers, such as when their nation expands its territory or when their sports team wins a trophy.
This need for identity and belonging is largely because of the sense of vulnerability and fragility generated by our separateness. We feel alone within our own mental space, with an overwhelmingly vast and complex world "out there," on the other side. We feel threatened and so need some support, to feel part of something bigger than ourselves, to provide shelter and protection.
As we'll see later, in wakefulness there's a completely different perspective. Awakened individuals have little or no sense of group identity. They see distinctions of religion or ethnicity or nationality as superficial and meaningless. They see themselves purely as human beings, without any external identities, who are no different from anyone else. As a result, they don't put members of their own group before others, but rather treat all people equally. They don't feel any pride in their nationality or ethnicity; they feel just as connected to "foreigners" as they do to their own "people."
Behavioral Characteristics
Because the sleep state brings so much discord and discontent, the effort to escape from their psychological suffering dominates many people's lives.
There are two major ways that people try to alleviate their unease. First, they try to simply divert themselves from their inner discord by immersing their attention in external things. This partly explains the massive popularity of television over the past half century or so — it's a simple and effective way to direct our attention outside ourselves and so escape our inner discord. Second, people try to overcome their basic sense of separateness and lack by adding things to themselves. They try to make themselves more significant by accumulating possessions and wealth, collecting achievements, or increasing their success, status, or power.
The sense of vulnerability and fragility I mentioned above also has a major impact on our behavior. Along with creating the need to join groups and take on different identities, it creates a strong need for acceptance. It makes us keen to fit in, to do what we feel is expected of us rather than follow our deeper impulses. As a result, we're in danger of living inauthentically, of suppressing our true selves for the sake of acceptance.
This sense of vulnerability also generates a strong sensitivity to slights or insults. Because we feel fundamentally insecure, it's easy for us to feel disrespected, to feel wounded by other people's behavior toward us, even if they don't intend to offend us. These emotional wounds often fester inside us for a long time, giving rise to resentment, creating grudges, and often leading to conflict between individuals and groups.
* * *
So this is our normal state of sleep: a state of separation and discord, in which we feel trapped inside our own mental space and subjected to the random chatter of thoughts and associations, and in which we're preoccupied with our personal concerns and dominated by a desire to escape our discord through diversion and accumulation.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Leap by Steve Taylor. Copyright © 2017 Steve Taylor. Excerpted by permission of New World Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Eckhart Tolle,Introduction,
1 Falling Asleep, Longing to Awaken,
2 Wakefulness in Different Cultures,
3 Natural Wakefulness: Awakened Artists,
4 Natural Wakefulness: Confusion and Integration,
5 Gradual Awakening in Spiritual Traditions,
6 Gradual Awakening outside Spiritual Traditions,
7 Sudden Awakening: Transformation through Turmoil,
8 Sudden Awakening: Kundalini and Energetic Awakening,
9 Other Types of Sudden Awakening: Is It Possible to Awaken through Psychedelics or Technology?,
10 The Aftermath of Awakening: Spiritual Crisis,
11 After the Storm: Lingering Traits and Questionable Teachers,
12 What It Means to Be Awake: A New World and a New Self,
13 What It Means to Be Awake: A New Mind and a New Life,
14 The Natural Wakefulness of Children,
15 Demythologizing Wakefulness,
16 The Evolutionary Leap: A Collective Awakening,
The Human Race Will Rise Again,
Acknowledgments,
Appendix: An Inventory of Spiritual/Secular Wakefulness,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Resources,
Index,
About the Author,