Gaining a Practical Understanding of the Principles Involved for Our Soul to Transcend the Material Plane
This idea can be difficult to fully grasp in practical terms because it’s very esoteric in the sense that it requires a true shift in awareness in order to be able to employ intentionally. It requires an in-depth understanding of the Universal Laws involved along with a realization of the true nature of the very reality we’re looking to transcend. It’s not about looking around at all the ideas that are out there regarding the idea of ascending, but rather gaining a comprehensive understanding of the laws involved to the point where you can come up with your own ideas and processes for intelligently developing your consciousness in an individual manner. All growth and development only comes by way of intentional action, disciplined effort, and constant striving. There’s no such thing as an easy path to higher domains, and all true creation requires deliberate use of choice and will in creating ourselves as an individual rather than buying into the group mind of always looking for someone else’s ideas that we can accept and use as our own.
The most fundamental difference of what we think of as higher and lower consciousness comes through the realization of what it actually means to either be a product of what you’ve been taught by others and therefore not consciously utilizing your ability to reason and make your own decisions as the means for forming your actions, which is what serves to demonstrate your actual level of consciousness. In the lower plane of an animal existence, which is primarily unconscious in nature, we buy into the group mind of consensus and regulations, where opinion is mistaken for fact, and we lack autonomy and a sovereign will. All the knowledge and instructions necessary for creating comes as a thorough understanding of laws and the practice necessary for applying them in your daily life as the means of creating yourself.
We only ascend or descend and move between planes of existence through Universal Laws as the consciousness we employ and develop within a given plane. There are many planes that are dynamically interlaced and work together to form what we perceive as a single plane that has higher and lower regions as levels of consciousness that naturally exists as an inherent part of that plane. Many people fail to comprehend that what we call the material plane is produced and maintained by our consciousness which is an aspect of the Universal Consciousness and does not exist independent of us.
The Singularity
The entire material plane that we appear to be sharing in common with others is produced as a projection of our own individual mind that’s a part of a larger group mind, and every element of our reality is the embodiment and expression of an aspect of ourselves. This idea follows the same principle as our nightly dreams which are produced solely by our unconscious mind as fully embellished sensory realities. Our nightly dreams are composed of many different people as characters that are all playing a role in creating a coherent idea as a reality and experience of the idea. Just as we can interpret the meaning of our dreams by embodying and becoming each person or object within the dream being used to illustrate it, we can also see each person or thing in our waking reality the same way, because they’re all aspects of ourselves necessary to play out a greater story as the means of producing an experience of hidden or unconscious aspects of ourselves.
What we perceive as the outer reality is produced by our mind in the same way the reality of our night dreams are. Both the inner and outer reality exist as what we can call dream states that express and reveal to us the full content of our mind and soul as both conscious(aware) and unconscious (unaware) aspects. All dreams and visions as a certain type of reality are formed out of different mental states. All of what we perceive as being out there, disguised as someone or something else (separate from us), is a symbolic or metaphorical representation of unknown or hidden aspects of ourselves that are necessary in order to act out an idea, providing us with the means for gaining self-awareness from it. Just as we contrast and conflict with other people, we have internal aspects of ourselves that also act to oppose each other causing internal conflict and struggle as a form of ongoing argument and debate with ourselves.
What we call aspects of ourselves (notice this is always plural)exist as attributes and qualities that form unique characteristics as a form of personality, or what we can think of as a sub-personality. Each sub-personality as aspects of our Self has its own unique perspective, motives, and purposes that are projected outward (meaning we perceive through them), forming our perception of others as being of the same nature as we are. We form outer experiences of the same type of things that exist within us. The same conflicts we experience internally are acted out by others externally. What we perceive as the inner and outer are both a part of the same space-time continuum as different mental states that make up what we call a plane of existence that’s cohesive and consistent in nature.
We have two primary aspects of our mind that makeup what we call the material mind, one of which is unconscious and experienced as our inner or body-oriented mind, and the other one is self-conscious and experienced as our outer awareness. These two aspects of the same mind exist in polarity to each other, and when one is active the other one is passive in terms of awareness. We remain largely unaware of our night dreams because they’re created by our unconscious mind while our self-aware mind is sleeping. Once we wake-up and our self-conscious mind becomes active and dominant, we enter into a different type of dream state that’s based on an outer dream. Yet both the inner and outer reality is produced by the same mind while in different states(Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta, and Gamma), also referred to as brain-waves. As we move from one state to another, we shift dimensions (from inner to outer) and forget the reality of the previous state. This is why we forget our night dreams and visions we have while meditating as soon as we come into an alert Beta state.
All debates over controversial ideas that we enter into with others, are really the outward extension and enactment of an equivalent inner debate we’re having with ourselves, as a conflict between known and unknown parts of ourselves. This is what creates the false illusion of duality as the inner reality being separate from the outer reality, both of which are produced by the same mind. This idea is expressed through sayings like “judge not lest ye be judged”, and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, and the idea that whatever we put out we get back, and that all outer perception is a fundamental form of self-perception. These ideas offer us insight into the true nature of reality that if we contemplate with an empty and silent mind, putting all beliefs and existing ideas aside, reveals the laws that make-up the true nature of reality.
As long as we form a belief around the general idea being played out as mass reality that appears to be separate from us, we unconsciously participate in co-creating it as what seems like a joint-experience. Once created as what seems like an outer reality, we then fully cooperate in maintaining it out of an unconscious state. We then use the projections of our own mind as a detached reality as the means of creating ourselves out of it. Whatever plane we’re a cohesive part of in terms of self-awareness, acts to bond us energetically to that plane of existence. In the lower plane of material reality we act on ourselves to create ourselves out of a primarily unconscious state, and become identified with an illusion of our own making. In order to ascend this plane, so to speak, we have to bring what’s operating in our life at an unconscious level into conscious awareness where we become fully conscious as our normal state.
Our material reality and everything in it is not the end goal or objective of the soul (who’s creating it as an illusion of itself) and only provides the means as a kind of stage for the Soul to play out the reality naturally produced by its mind as the means of expressing in order to gain self-realization, and use that knowledge as the basis for fashioning itself to be of a certain nature. There’s no such thing as believing one thing and doing another, no matter how we justify it to ourselves. All of our actions are the demonstration of our true level of consciousness, and serve to define us in the most practical sense. The idea that we can somehow love another without first loving ourselves is absurd in the most basic sense of the idea, because ultimately they’re both the same thing. If we love another it means we love that same aspect as qualities and type of person in ourselves. What we perceive as another, like the characters in our nightly dreams, are merely aspects of ourselves playing apart in a much larger drama.
Self-Reflection as the means of Self-Realization
What we experience as the outer reality is created at the fundamental level by both conscious and unconscious aspects of ourselves. Whatever seems normal and doesn’t cause a reaction in us as a form of judgment of some kind, are the aspects that we’re aware of and fully accept and embrace as being a part of us. In a like manner, whatever we don’t recognize as being us, causes an emotional reaction as a form of judgment. Because we’re unaware of it, we don’t realize we’re the one creating it, and we imagine that it’s someone or something that taking place outside of us and has nothing to do with us. We then create the illusion of entering into relationship with unknown aspects of ourselves in order to act out dramas together that form a continuation of internal dramas of the same nature and kind.
This is what’s meant by the idea that you’re already whole and don’t need someone or something that exists outside of you in order to complete you. What we look for in another already exists within us, we just don’t realize it because we haven’t become aware of that part of ourselves, and instead perceive it as being missing. This idea is illustrated in the most primary law represented by the Monad where the self and the outer world as a sphere of consciousness are an expansion and extension of the same mind and idea; and in the Law of the Dyad or Vesica Pisces (called the womb of reality), which is produced as the regeneration and projection of the Monad to create the illusion of the Self as another. These two primary laws reveal the true nature of reality where the outer world is created as corresponding reflection and projection of the inner world. Where we’re always entering into relationship with ourselves (same consciousness) in everything around us, and creating a joint reality as an experience of our self in another. The illusion of separation from our self is necessary in order to create an experience our self.
The Illusion of Duality and the Birth of the Ego and Shadow
The Soul creates the outer, material world by dividing itself into both conscious (masculine) and unconscious (feminine)aspects or parts. This occurs naturally in childhood when we’re taught to judge ourselves in the same way we were judged by others. As we judge ourselves to be good or bad, a division takes place where we reject, repress all the parts of our nature that we deem bad or wrong. As we judge and reject parts of ourselves, we deny having them (even to ourselves) and refuse to express them, and suppress them instead, eventually losing memory of them because we don’t create memories where we’re being that way. As we condemn and deny some parts, we simultaneously compare and contrast them with what we’ve also judged as being good aspects of an opposing nature, that are the opposite of the bad ones, and we accept and embrace them by expressing them, and as a result, build an image of ourselves out of only acceptable parts.
Through the process of self-judgment we form two aspects of our nature that exist in direct opposition to each other. We birth what we call our shadow and ego through opposing ends of the same act. Our shadow we deny having and ultimately forget about, and our ego is formed out of only the good and desirable parts of us that we openly and freely express outwardly to create our experiences of ourselves as being good, right, desired, loved, admired, and so on. Yet all of the denied and forgotten aspects still exist and are alive within us in an active and creative state, and form an inherent part of our outer environment and our perception of others and the world in general. Because we forgot we had them, we don’t recognize them as being a part of us (our mind), and we judge others who are outwardly expressing those traits in the same way we judged ourselves, and we make them out to be bad people in some way.
As we create a false image of ourselves that’s only fashioned out of acceptable parts, we stay locked into an illusion of our own making. While we say that the ego is created by building an image of ourselves out of only material ideas, we can state it more accurately by saying that we create an idea of ourselves out of only part of our nature, and exist in a fragmented (separated) state as a result. We act to maintain only a partial awareness of our true nature, and build our identity out of an illusion we’ve created of ourselves instead. Our material reality, in the ultimate sense, is an illusion created by our whole mind of both conscious and unconscious material, and provides us with the means for recognizing unconscious aspects of ourselves being projected onto others. Once we realize this we can become aware that the outer world and others are merely reflecting back to us unknown aspects of our self, and anytime we’re judging and reacting to someone or something, we can turn inward and self-reflect instead, and gain new forms of self-awareness.
Because the shadow and ego oppose each other, meaning one can’t exist without the other, by becoming aware of our shadow nature, and integrating it into acceptable aspects of ourselves we act to simultaneously undermine and transform our ego through the conscious incorporation of rejected parts. This results in what we experience as a form of death (of our false image), and therefore causes the ego to retaliate and defend itself by working consciously to maintain the shadow, and thereby sustaining the illusion its created of itself as being a certain type of person.
This is why all true healing is centered on dissolving judgment and forgiving others who we’ve imagined were hurting or harming us in some way. This is the basis for the true reality of the fact that all judgment of others is really a judgment we hold against ourselves. That what we perceive as being done to us by another is actually something we’re doing to ourselves and comes by way of projecting unconscious aspects of ourselves onto others. We judge others in the same way we judge ourselves, and once we understand this, we can see it for the psychological tool it offers as the means for recognizing aspects of ourselves that remain hidden from us.
By recognizing the laws involved for producing reality, we can realize that anytime we’re having an adverse reaction as a strong judgment against another that it’s really providing us with a mirror into our own unconscious content. With deep self-reflection we can gain awareness and insight around how we acted on ourselves to fragment and divide ourselves in order to produce an illusion based on partial aspects that serve to create a false illusion as our perception of ourselves. Because what we call higher planes are whole and unified in nature, we can only ascend into them once freed from the body of illusion, by acting on ourselves to heal and return ourselves to a whole state of Being that no longer creates itself out of an illusion. Even though we deny parts of ourselves and lack awareness of them, they’re still an inherent and active part of our nature and continue creating our reality. In order to partake in the reality of higher planes we have to fully utilize our ability to create ourselves and our life from a fully conscious state.
Personal Transformation and a Return to Wholeness
For this reason, the whole basis of ascension to higher, unified realms of existence is based on the practice of Alchemy as Personal Transformation from a partial state to a whole state. This is the Law as realization that we possess the higher powers of self-awareness that enables us to act on ourselves to transform ourselves back into a whole, and therefore pure state. The most natural way we heal, restore balance, and transform is by bringing what’s creating our reality in an unconscious manner into conscious awareness, where by owning and embracing it, we integrate it back into our Self and our identity. Once we realize the judgments we’ve placed on ourselves that kept us unconscious and living in the shadow of our own life, and integrate them to form a new whole, we’re capable of ascending to a higher state where wholeness and unity is the very foundation out of which reality is created as a natural expression and projection of a fully conscious and self-aware state.
Once we heal all the fragmented and broken parts of our Self, bringing them back into a whole and harmonious state, and no longer pass judgment on our Self in others, our experience of outer reality changes accordingly. We can only ascend to a unified state by creating it while in the lower material plane of duality. As long as we continue to perceive ourselves out of a partial awareness of our own nature, we will remain in this plane, which is providing us with the means to recognize our true nature and fully embrace it in a congruent way. The material world simply provides us with the means of creating as a form of self-expression that shows us the content of our whole mind, giving us the tools as Laws for perfecting ourselves by healing unconscious aspects of our own inner nature that’s acting to produce our perception of what appears to be an outer world that’s separate from our own mind.
Waking up and becoming Self-Aware within the Dream
The idea of waking up in your own life is the full realization that you’re actually the one creating it. All of it. In the ultimate sense there is no duality and nothing exists apart from our perception of it. Things are only the way they are because we make them out to be that way by how we create our experiences of them. Things only mean what we make them mean. As we perceive and judge another, we’re perceiving and judging ourselves in and through them. What we imagine to be outside of us is the expression and projection of what’s inside of us. Whatever we’re doing to another, we’re actually doing to ourselves. We’re always on both the giving and receiving end of the same judgments and illusions. This forms the basis for the eternal and Absolute Law of Karma. We always suffer the consequences of our own actions, because in fact, there’s only one of us.
We’re given the Laws that reveal the true nature of reality as a product of our mind in what’s represented as Sacred Geometry as the Tetrad, and in Spiritual (Esoteric) Sciences as the Tetragrammaton as the “four letter name of God” known as IHVH (or YHVH). The Tetrad is formed out of the Monad as the Self and outer reality of the Mind, that regenerates itself by separating and projecting itself to create the illusion of another (Dyad), then enters into relationship with itself as another, forming an inner reality in the imagination (Triad) that’s then reflected downward and outward, forming the basis for the outer material world, represented by the Tetrad. What we perceive as a series or group of Laws, are actually produced by the One primal Law of the Mind (mentation). Both the inner (triad) and outer (mirror image of the Triad) are produced by the same mind as its constitution, represented by a square or cube. The Mind (5th Element) acts to organize and structure the Four Elements of the material plane into a reality that’s actually imaginary in nature and can be altered or transformed by first altering and transforming the Mind that’s producing it as a perception of Itself.
What we refer to as the Ten Primary Laws of Creation, or Seven Principles of Hermetic Sciences are the fundamental Laws of the Mind that act to produce what we experience as the reality of the material plane. These Laws provide us with not only a description of the true Nature of reality, but also instructions for how to use our own mind in order to create reality, and simultaneously create our Self by way of that reality. Laws are the creative and operative forces that govern all reality as the creative processes of the Mind and provide us with the means for self-realization and the means for acting on ourselves to transform ourselves. We know when our inner world has been transformed by how it changes our perception of the outer world and how we experience it, because they’re a direct and opposite reflection of each other. Once we truly relinquish judgment of ourselves in others, we’re able to experience compassion where we can become one with another and see life from their perspective without judging them as being good or bad, or right and wrong, and simultaneously return our Soul back to a state of wholeness and purity.
Dr. Linda Gadbois