Article by Doug Esse
The following offering is a patchwork of my responses I gave during several email exchanges with an amazing spiritual teacher. May what is written below be a loving and intriguing catalyst for your own digging into the depth of things.
I often say that the “transpersonal” level is not beyond the personal but rather more intimately relational and therefore hyperpersonal, if the word, “person,” is understood as it was first used in Greek theater (“to sound through”). Every thing is a singular event–a personal event–through which the universal “sounds through.” [The Law of One material says this too:
- 53.9 We may note that in a universe of unending unity the concept of a “close encounter” is humorous, for are not all encounters of a nature of self with self? Therefore, how can any encounter be less than very, very close?
- 1.7 You are every thing, every being, every emotion, every event, every situation. You are unity. You are infinity. You are love/light, light/love. You are. This is the Law of One.
- 30.5 We call it mind/body complex recognizing always that in the simplest iota of this complex exists in its entirety the One Infinite Creator
There is nothing “up there” that is not right here; the path to ascension is not up and out, but rather to incarnate more fully down and in; the veil of forgetting is gorgeous and allows for Reality to experience Itself in, through, and as us (and all of creation throughout the universe); love is and also does– and the “doing” of love as serving others is also the nature of love. Love is. Love does. Love complexifies. Love diversifies. Love unites.
The heart of the Christian way to think about compassion kindness, and the preciousness of inter-connection are the driving forces of unity is captured by the ideas of kenosis and perichoresis. Perichoresis means “circle dance” and kenosis means “self-emptying.”
Taken together, the ontology of love is a movement (dance) between three modes characterized by endless gestures of self-giving and other-receiving. This is interesting because from this dynamism, the ontology of love is the praxis of love. Being and Doing are one and the same. Moreover, what kenosis insinuates through the giving of self is the pattern of dying or losing in order that rising or renewal can emerge.
What are the three modes? The dynamic of Love which gives of itself fully through kenosis; the dynamic of Love which fully receives the gift of self; and the gift, itself, which is shared between the Giver and the Receiver.
In short: Love Given, Love Received, and Love Shared. Since I had known this through my studies of Christian Trinitarian mysticism (Richard Rohr, Teilhard de Chardin, Cynthia Bourgeault, etc), I was able to engage the Law of One material with a lot more trust given that tucked way back in the latter sessions, the channeled source says this about the symbol of the ankh:
Law of One, session 93.24
- “We may indicate that the crux ansata [ankh] is a part of the concept complexes of the archetypical mind, the circle indicating the magic of the spirit, the cross indicating that nature of manifestation which may only be valued by the losing. Thus the crux ansata is intended to be seen as an image of the eternal in and through manifestation and beyond manifestation through the sacrifice and transformation of that which is manifest.”
And this:
Law of One, session 94.26
- “The cross formed […] signifies that which is the nature of mind/body/spirit complexes in manifestation within your illusion. There is no experience which is not purchased by effort of some kind, no act of service to self or others which does not bear a price, to the entity manifesting, commensurate with its purity. All things in manifestation may be seen in one way or another to be offering themselves in order that transformations may take place upon the level appropriate to the action.”
Isn’t that beautiful?
Being is the action of the divine heart expressing Love outward, outward, outward (Law of One calls this the “Original Thought”), and then draws inward, inward, inward (“Original Desire”) until all coalescing into a new complexity-event resulting in a plural-singularity. Then once again, Love is overcome by the fires of urgent longings to thrust outward and experience the sheer delight of self-gnosis through the eternal process of becoming.
How can the formless know itself without form, because without form, there is no experience, no hue, no love since love is only love if it is shared? Right?
“Condensated dynamism” is a term that I came up with and it may not be the best term to use, but I am trying to express something about what is happening at the beginning of the next cosmogenesis. I probably could use “contracted and compounded.” Admittedly, my own biases and blind spots keep me focused on what my mind can handle. I understand metaphysics by following what (little) I understand in the physical world. The evolution of consciousness follows what we see in physical evolution. Therefore, my own understanding of metaphysics follows that there is an architecture to the Creator’s process of gnosis. This very architecture is the “product” of the lessons learned in the Creator’s previous experiences (82.10). The architecture is like an energetic blueprint which evolution of consciousness follows in its own unscrolling. Love explodes out, complexifies, and draws in because there are always two principles at work in evolution: The Primal Thought (outward, outward, outward) and the Primal Desire (that all entities seek and become one).
There are seven discrete stages of the evolution of consciousness. As evolution evolves, the seeking to self-express (outward movement) and the desire to unify (inward movement) increases at a rate which becomes exponential, following the Law of Doubling (10.13, 10.14). An example would be the nascent noosphere (refer to the work of Teilhard de Chardin) that emerges in the third density with human consciousness is activated in the fourth density with the arising of the social memory complex.
The fourth density is characterized by the natural development of evolution whereby planetary human(oids) join together in a numinous web of minds and hearts. As an analogy, the human body contains trillions of cells, and even if the cells work symbiotically together, they don’t possess individuated consciousness to choose to be in union within one body. But by the fourth stage, humans enjoy the gnosis that they are cells in a larger body and intentionally choose to meld hearts to form a singular complex of love, even as they maintain individuated selfhood. The spiritual gravity that calls beings together, as I said above, increases exponentially.
By the end of the 7th stage, the love given, received, and shared between individuated members of a united society is so profound, dynamic, unified, and the spiritual gravity is thus so immense that a kind of contraction occurs much like how a neutron star is formed. The dynamism is the tension between the consciousnesses of billions of beings responding to the overwhelming desire to so become completely become one that any individuation is obliterated while at the same time equally responding to the exquisite divine pull to maintain and protect said individuation.
Neither divine force of total unity (without diversity) or total diversity (without unity) gives into the other; the tension just exponentially excites and draws into a crescendo. The delight, joy, and pressure of this cosmic act of love-making finally becomes so intense and condensed that all entities surrender into a kind of plural-singularity. The One as Alpha becomes the Many, becomes the One as Omega. And then this Omega, Who retains all of the lessons learned from all of the preceding cycles of divine procession, becomes a new Alpha and explodes into Manyness again. But in no way were any of the individuated consciousnesses of the billions of beings which became the plural-singularity ever compromised even as their union with each other increased to the point of creating a kind of spiritual black hole.
So… all of that was to say that the term, “dynamism,” bespeaks of the love given, received, and shared; and “condensated” refers to how the rate of giving, receiving, sharing increases exponentially where the gravity-well of love pulls all into it.
I understand “One” not as uniformity (where all melds into an undifferentiated singularity), but rather as unity (which is diversity maintained and protected by Love). It’s relationality all the way through and the very nature of this grand Reality is relationship Itself. Love is a relational concept and for it to exist at all, there has to be a kind of triune nature to reality (subject to subject and the relationship that binds). I love how mystic and teacher, Raimon Panikkar (paraphrasing):
“There is a kind of ‘not one, not two, but both one and two’ nature to reality.”
Solidarity
In any case, these are my thoughts at this point in my life. I already know I’m wrong, but I hope that my way of thinking and living is clearer than when I was younger. The payoff for me is that I’ve come to see how my life-long anxieties and experiences of depression (both existential and situational) are actually true gifts not to be eradicated by rather honored as part of my human experience. Through them I gain the empathic seeing that helps me help others.
And this happens through rooted solidarity rather than teaching something about waking up and out of human suffering. Solidarity heals and provides hope because it can only happen within some kind of chosen communion—within relationality, which as I say above, is the nature of reality. Only then, when I do not fear being afraid or anxious or depressed, do my experiences of fear, anxiety, or depression lessen in both duration and intensity. They keep me grounded and accessible to life where I can also enjoy real joy, humor, love, and peace… down and in, through the layers, and anchored right into the headwaters of how reality experiences itself.
The phrase, “I already know that I’m wrong,” is important to me.
Experientially, it reveals my own process of spiritual seeking–and finding–and seeking again. I realize that even when I’m feeling pretty sure that I am zeroing in on something and feel confident about it, I am led at some point to a new angle at greater depth. I then see how what I thought was clear was murky; nuanced was actually more simplistic; etc. Therefore, for my own integrity, I try to state upfront, even if it’s just for me, some statement of epistemological humility. In short, I don’t know what I don’t know… and what I do know, even if I am confident about the knowing, is really something I know very partially.
This is important for me because it keeps me grounded in the “mystery” of being…. if we understand “mystery” as not something that can never be known, but rather something that can be known through infinite degrees, depths, and angles.
On the other hand, it’s also an admission of the fact that conceptual knowing isn’t really the point. Gnosis of love is. And that lived-experiential knowing is rooted in learning how to incarnate more fully as part of the process of Love’s becoming; of me growing into the Creator, and the Creator existing as me.
Yes. In me and in you, the Alpha and the Omega consummate and become one-becoming. Knowing via this mode seems to be affective (feelings of union and unity, and the joy that comes with that), creative, servicial, and forbearing). What do you think? What are ways that you approach the dynamic of conceptual knowing and gnosis?
Also, in the Law of One material, the source of the channeling states in several places throughout the material that our plane of existence is not a plane of knowing, even subjectively. It’s not supposed to be.
I believe that the most grounded teachers use their difficult incarnational experiences as a kind of cosmic pedagogy to help others see that the struggle is the point… that that is actually the path; to realize that we are fully human and fully divine. I touch on this theme in my interview with Rick Archer (BATGAP):
Epistemic Humility
–-refers to a responsive awareness of the limits of one’s own knowledge as well as a responsive awareness of the limits of one’s ability to independently acquire knowledge.
https://harvardlpr.com/2018/05/17/epistemic-humility-as-a-presidential-virtue/
Lastly, it’s my experience that what is so often lacking in spiritual communities or teachings is the acknowledgment of their own hermeneutics and epistemology. By what lens do they interpret their sacred scriptures or literature? Do they know this? How do they know what they know? By whose authority? In the disclosure communities (those who are pushing the release of hidden knowledge, ie aliens, crimes against humanity by the deep state, etc), and in many New Age-type spiritualities, there seems to be a general lack of humility as to what they know, and how they know it. I’m sure that you see this in the neo advaita communities.
Often, for example, people involved in conspirituality (see below) fall into the common biases without knowing it. And… these biases are common because everyone participates in these to varying degrees… I know I do! These are outlined well by author, Brian McLaren:
Confirmation Bias: We judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in with and confirm the only standard we have: old ideas, old information, and trusted authorities. As a result, our framing story, belief system, or paradigm excludes whatever doesn’t fit.
Complexity Bias: Our brains prefer a simple falsehood to a complex truth.
Community Bias: It’s almost impossible to see what our community doesn’t, can’t, or won’t see.
Complementarity Bias: If you are hostile to my ideas, I’ll be hostile to yours. If you are curious and respectful toward my ideas, I’ll respond in kind.
Competency Bias: We don’t know how much (or little) we know because we don’t know how much (or little) others know. In other words, incompetent people assume that most other people are about as incompetent as they are. As a result, they underestimate their [own] incompetence, and consider themselves at least of average competence.
Consciousness Bias: Some things simply can’t be seen from where I am right now. But if I keep growing, maturing, and developing, someday I will be able to see what is now inaccessible to me.
Comfort or Complacency Bias: I prefer not to have my comfort disturbed.
Conservative/Liberal Bias: I lean toward nurturing fairness and kindness, or towards strictly enforcing purity, loyalty, liberty, and authority, as an expression of my political identity.
Confidence Bias: I am attracted to confidence, even if it is false. I often prefer the bold lie to the hesitant truth.
Catastrophe or Normalcy Bias: I remember dramatic catastrophes but don’t notice gradual decline (or improvement).
Contact Bias: When I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged.
Cash Bias: It’s hard for me to see something when my way of making a living requires me not to see it.
Conspiracy Bias: Under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of malicious conspirators.
Brian McLaren, Why Don’t They Get It? Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself) (Self-published: 2019), e-book.
Growing Up: Old Room, New Room, and Liminal Space
By “room,” I guess I’m trying to evoke an image of a place we inhabit; somewhere we feel comfortable. I could have said “space,” or “box,” but “room” makes sense when we think of how our worldviews become our place to abide for a while. Also, as I say in the audio below (in the blog link), we often leave the old, sometimes by choice, and sometimes we are thrust out, but liminal space is almost always uncomfortable. Most of the time, we freak out and try going back to the old room. We get there and we redecorate the crap out of it, all the while thinking, “why did I ever leave this room? It’s nice here!”
However, as your life’s story shows (and mine, too), there are times when we must leave the old room (ie leaving neo advaita), but we don’t know what the new room will be. We just know we can’t go back. Period. So we make camp in what seems to be dry, painfully desolate, emotional space of liminal space. And if we learn to live liminal space well, with integrity, honesty, vulnerability, courage, etc, we eventually live into the new room of our lives; the transformed or resurrected version. It includes the old room but transcends it so that everything is in better perspective. I speak about this here, if interested:
https://cosmicchrist.net/2022/10/20/the-universal-christ-part-2-the-pattern-of-loss-and-renewal/
Here are three images I used in that presentation that elaborate a bit on this theme. Note that I use the symbol of the cross in liminal space because that is the place of crucifixions in our lives. We are “nailed to the crosses” of our powerlessness and vulnerability. But when we can surrender to this, then we learn how to hold the “glorious both/and,” as Jessica Nathanson says so well.
Nailed hands in 180 degrees fashion is a big, huge hug to reality. And when it’s met with a kind of attitude of “Father, forgive us for we know not what we do to each other,” then we are on our way to living into the new room. The ultimate trick, as I hope to explain in presentation tomorrow, is to learn how to embody the crucifixion and the resurrection at the same time; both brokenness and wholeness; heartbreak and joy, etc.
Furthermore, the new room because a new old room at some point and the cycle continues. It continues upward in a kind of spiral that gets ever greater in scope of seeing.
Notes:
Conspirituality: (full reference on “conspirituality” here–which is defined as this: “It offers a broad politico-spiritual philosophy based on two core convictions, the first traditional to conspiracy theory, the second rooted in the New Age: 1) a secret group covertly controls, or is trying to control, the political and social order, and 2) humanity is undergoing a ‘paradigm shift’ in consciousness. Proponents believe that the best strategy for dealing with the threat of a totalitarian ‘new world order‘ is to act in accordance with an awakened ‘new paradigm‘ worldview.”)
Building 4th Cosmic Christ 
Your words hit home with Solidarity, Epistemic Humility and Growing Up. Your example there about leaving Neo Advaita old room to Liminal Space….to New Room. We’ve thoroughly talked about much of what was written under Epistemic Humility. Solidarity was just a “felt sense”. All of what you wrote about in the beginning was hit or miss with me. Some of it puzzled me, some was a refresher and some no entendia. Many of your postings would make great Tuesday meeting presentations. I am pretty far behind on my Cosmic Christ and Building 4th reading.
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