is the mystical journey, or communion with the divine, an inward movement?
to look at one's own conscience and deal with the inner whisperings and mumblings; especially those of the extreme polarization?
did jesus allude to this with the idea of "Behold I AM with you always"? that there is something about self that can be discovered by looking within the cloud like thoughts?
or with the idea that the Kingdom of God is within you luke 17:21?
if we are made in the image, shouldn't we reflect in that image?
www.manjummelprovince.in
The human brain has two centers of consciousness; inner self and the ego. The mystical journey is about reconnecting the ego to the inner self. The inner self is older than the ego and is connected to our human DNA and the evolution of human consciousness from animal consciousness. The inner self is like the center of the brain's natural consciousness firmware, that defines our natural human propensities and is common to all humans. It is what consciously defines us as the human species. The ego is much newer on the evolutionary scale, and it is more connected to learned external knowledge and is moe cultural. The ego is the center of the conscious mind and personal unconscious; unique. While the inner self is the center of the collective unconscious common to all.
All animals have an inner self. This has all the instinctive programs needed to define that animal's behavior and propensities for its species. We can tell a lion or a bear by the behavioral patterns coming from its inner self. It is very natural and super human. The secondary center or ego is only common to humans. Other animals do not have an ego. This is why they remain natural. The human ego appears to have evolved somewhere between 6-10K years ago, went through an unstable period, and finally consolidated with the rise of civilization. The ego is what put civilization over the top.
Adam, in a symbolic sense, by being defined as the first human, is about the appearance of the ego. This secondary center was different from animal nature, causing a change from the more natural DNA based pre-humans with only an inner self. In the biblical sense, the first humans, with will and choice, were the ones who got the first egos. This ego or secondary center, could willfully make choices apart from the natural programs of the inner self. This caused the loss of paradise; inner self's natural instinct. This was replaced by ego-centric or learned knowledge and cultural education and indoctrination. That deeper connection to nature and God was lost. It is still within our DNA and inner self, but it has been repressed, and even sealed, so the ego does not tamper with the natural DNA firmware; add bugs.
The mystical journey is the process of reconnecting to the inner self. The kingdom of God is within you; inner self. It has the potential to restore you to like before the fall from nature and paradise. The Mystical Journey is often full of challenges such a finding the Holy Grail; inner self, Or fighting the Dragon to steal his treasure; inner self. Some religions call this path and the goal, enlightenment. Since the inner self is common to all humans, these difference of expression are due to cultural differences and the ego; outer man. But all inward roads lead to Rome; inner self. The inner self is what helps you find the path inward, which does not dissolve the ego, but help reprograms the ego; born-again, so it can coexist and in turn have access to its higher human potential. The inner self can use the main frame parts of the brain due to its pinnacle DNA nature.
In my own mystical journey, I first learned about the inner self from the late Psychologist Carl Jung. Jung was the star student of Freud and Freud was his mentor. Jung expanded upon Freud's concept of the Id. To Jung the Id was what he called the shadow, and was just the entrance to even deeper layers of the unconscious; collective unconscious and the archetypes; programs of the inner self.
I learned and accepted the logic and proof of his thesis and decided to expand his work by seeing if I could witness the inner self and try to develop an interactive rapport. My Mystical Journey was not seen as such, but was seen more like doing pioneer science of the mind. This began with simply recording and learning to analyze my dreams. I kept a dream journal and would try to analyze as best I could. The more you record and analyze, the more conscious you become in dreams and the more detail you witness. One can even learn to be conscious in some dreams and have some control over the dream scape and action. It is quite the trip. The dream symbols also start to change from personal to collective symbols; girl down the street to the White Queen. This is when the mystical journey really begins; collective human symbols.
In my case, the differentiation of all symbols, by my ego, over two years, from dream analysis and active imagination, led to a dissociation of my mind. Many of these things are usually not conscious, and making all them conscious to observe and analyze cause dissociation. There was a cross roads, where I was not sure how to put all the piece back together. I stopped the analysis phase and began an integration phase. Luckily, through synchronicity, I was reading the most challenging work of Jung. This was a book called
Mysterium Coniunctionis or the Mystical Union. This book was about symbols of transformation. This allowed me to understand nature healing process from the inner self when it appeared in a dream. The Alchemists called it the 1000-fold distillation, which was an inner self driven process that not only put me back together but rewired me so I had an interactive rapport with the inner self.
The Mystical Journey can be rewarding but it can be dangerous, difficult and very long; life quest to gain your life.
