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Basic Assumptions 17
consciousness moves from stage to stage within the mental dimension in a series of transitions and transformations, expanding and evolving in an ever-widening and broadening sphere, as it wends its way back to the ocean, to finally escape the mind and merge back into the universal whence it came. (In Appendices III and IV, I describe this view of psychological development and compare it with our Western orientation.)
The most critical and difficult of these transformations (of which mainstream Western psychology remains almost totally unaware and with which this book is primarily concerned) is that in which consciousness frees itself from its imprisonment in mind (lower and higher mental consciousness) and expands to appreciate itself as spirit (Universal Consciousness).
This monumental victory over duality marks man’s most heroic triumph. For before this transition can be made, the individual is faced with a challenge demanding herculean effort. First the mind must be mastered. There is no way to avoid the work necessary for the acquisition of mental strength and skill and the development of a good, just and moral character. The character must be purified through the acquisition of a superior morality which, by confronting selfish desires, leads to selflessness, thus weakening the delusion of duality. Only then is the mind ready for the final challenge.
Final transcendence of duality then requires detachment from and renunciation of the mind itself, as well as of the outer world—a hard-won subtle spiritual attitude and approach not to be mistaken for the psychological defense mechanisms of denial or repression. This includes the transcendence of (being unaffected by) pleasures and pains and all the cares, worries, anxieties and failures—as well as all the joys and triumphs—of the outer world. It means giving up attachment to, and need for wine, women, wealth, personal status, reputation and the fruits of our labor as being essential for our sense of self worth and personal identity.
And although this may sound like a desirable state (and is), it means renouncing all that the mind holds as real, including that heightened awareness of our mental self—the ego. The mind sees this as nothing less than a death and recoils from it in terror. So difficult is this transcendence that the final steps can be carried out only through the grace of a divine, infinite, unconditional love.


































































































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