DIS-EASE AND THE APPREHENSION OF SELF

- Greg Hitter, PhD

The Dissatisfied Self

Difficulty and ‘dis-ease’ are an expression of the Self’s dissatisfaction. At bottom this dissatisfaction lies with the Self’s lack of unity, and its desire to be un-fragmented, self-realized, whole. Pain and symptoms of dis-ease are the calling cards by which the Self introduces us to its dissatisfied state. If we’re unable to listen and respond in a true and real manner, then the Self will create greater and greater drama and trauma to gain our attention (as if to say, “Hear me now?!”).

Treating symptoms of di-ease does not usually address the Self directly enough to satisfy the Self’s need for unity. This is not to say that symptoms of dis-ease in our energy, mind, body, and life should be ignored. Yet, in giving them their due attention, why would we ignore the deepest underlying cause, that of consciousness? Wouldn’t it be best to address the issue at this deepest causal level of our conscious being, in addition to addressing the symptoms that our divided and disturbed awareness creates? In so doing we would address a critical element for true and lasting change.

In the West, a focus on the material and its mechanics has taught us to ignore consciousness as the creator of our circumstance. Our medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and religion reflect a left-brained, rational, mechanistic materialism and have us chasing our tails in a quest for health, wealth, holiness, and identity. All of which depend on wholeness, but this connection has been lost today.

Because our quests for Self take place in the shadow of our Newtonian (rational, mechanistic, yang, masculine-principled) world, and thus are materially focused, they lack the essential element needed to accomplish what can only be truly attained through oneness of individual conscious being. And so an imbalance occurs in the Tao, the yin/yang, the merkaba of life, reflecting an absence of wholeness of Self and self-awareness needed to balance the expression of these great generative polarities.

The Intimation of a Path

The essential element missing from most activity in life is the Self, in its wholeness. It has been said that “the passion of the Western mind has always been to know its own being” (Richard Tarnas). And yet by a singularly-unimaginative, half-brained approach, modern science, religion, and Western culture have greatly limited their search for wholeness by limiting it to a left-brained materialism.

Interestingly, the words “wealth, health, holiness, and wellness,” describing admirable life qualities and goals, derive from the same root word ‘whole.’ At some point in the development of the English language, the connection between being whole and these goals was obvious. And yet the implication and knowing that to solidly achieve these goals requires wholeness of conscious being has been lost.The required ‘wholeness’ is not some vague, unapproachable mystery, but simply the unity of ones awareness, what Jung called “Self” with a capital ‘S’.

Our external world and the state of our body-mind, entirely reflect the state of our conscious being, fragmented or whole. The perennial wisdom of the ages notes this. However, in the West we tend to give more attention to the fundaments of our philosophical materialism, even preferring our “spiritual” activities to be determined by ingesting or otherwise using material things. This singular, left-brained activity includes exercising our rational intellect dogmatically, rather than having any real experience of our Self. Rather than having a true experience of One Self.

In fairness it ought to be acknowledged that some Western traditions, like High Magick, historically aimed at true experiences, expansion, and wholeness of Self. From this tradition a fine framework with which to understand consciousness and its power is offered in the Tree of Life, a cosmology that long predates the Jewish mysticism often associated with it. But too often the path of High Magick has become perverted by the allure of power and the material, resulting in “Daath” (death, entropy, dark magic, fragmented self, a shortfall from pure whole conscious being) rather than experiences of ones Christed or God Self (in High Magick called “Knowledge and Conversation With the Holy Guardian Angel” and “Ippissimus,” respectively).

Having had both these experiences at a young age, 19 and 21 - in reverse order and without benefit of either High Magick or knowledge of the Tree of Life - and having returned from these experiences with full memory of them, this author can speak to the fact that being connected with ones heartfelt Self is more important than the power of ritual or any tradition of knowing, or any power that comes with it. This is the essence of what one comes to realize (and hopefully hold to) when they’ve experienced the “Ground of their Being” (Eckhardt), accomplished the aims of High Magick, “met God face to face,” and thus experienced the Self and full God Consciousness. “For what profit a man if he should gain the world and loose his soul?”

For many, there is a more direct way to the Self – one less fraught with the pitfalls of magick or the mind-spells of metaphysics. Living a good life, with caring others around, is its own reward. To “follow your bliss” as Joseph Campbell encouraged us, leads to wisdom. It places one in the heart and creates naturally from there. All is accomplished with ease and flows with the Tao. And we grow like the “lilies of the field” that Christ bade us to “consider” with our material concerns and plans. 

A Farther Path

A path, intimated by the perennial wisdom of the ages, born of a synergy of postmodern science and the ancient wisdom of the East and West, offers a rapprochement of realities heretofore divided and unfulfilled. A great Buddhist teacher once said, regarding a path to unity and our fragmented Self’s natural tendency to chase desire and be driven by fear, “we should be less like the dogs that go for every bone thrown, and more like the lion that goes for the thrower.” Fragmented awareness seeks fulfillment through fear-laden desire. When we instead seek and uncover these unconscious “throwers” and “go for” them, thus reclaiming our lost Self, then we are the lion – royal,radiant, naturally powerful, willful, free, dependent on no one – devouring what is truly hungered for, OneSelf.

The Self is an awareness aware of its own being – self-aware, ‘sentient,’ and thus godlike. But this resilient yet vulnerable Self has a tendency in difficult times to split off part of its consciousness in fear, and to place this fragment of fearful self-awareness in the unconscious. There it remains in the perpetual motion of unconscious activity designed to control – trapped and separate from the conscious self that freely radiates in the body-mind-energy system in the present – structured and expressing itself according to its un-wholeness, causing dis-ease. Since the state of our conscious being (whole or fragmented) determines our external expression, in this way the fragmented Self structures dis-ease into our “morphogenic” (form shaping) fields of energy – and from that energetic structure creates an un-whole state in our body, mind (thoughts, imagery, emotions) and life.

 

The Structure of Disease

Dis-ease is therefore structured – an implosion of consciousness trapped and formed by fear. Like a black hole in space, where the gravity is so great that it sucks light into it, fragmented consciousness also implodes due to the gravity of life situations – separating from the external, attracting and drawing to its grave depths all it comes in contact with. On the other hand, well being is a freely radiating consciousness, shining the wholeness of OneSelf, like the Sun (Son).

We often find the use of the Sun or yellow-gold-white to symbolize wholeness (holiness) in religious and alchemical artifacts, rituals, art, and writing. Use of this Sun symbol also lies behind the origin of similarly-derived words, like the word ‘Son’ to reflect this radiant state of conscious being in embodied Self-realized beings like Christ (see Shakespeare’s Sonnet 33) – or the “double-headed lion or sun” that describes the father-son god relationship between Ra and Horus – or the Sun Dance and the Path of the Sun of the American Indian, etc. The use of disks, circles, spheres, and other Sun-like symbols, especially those colored yellow-gold or white – symbolizing holiness – are common in Eastern and Western religions alike. These uses include the Christian use of the ‘halo’ to indicate a ‘hallowed’sentient being, which words themselves also derive from the root word, whole. A unified, freely radiating consciousness is whole, unstructured, free, without entropy and dis-ease – instead manifesting wealth, health, holiness, and general well being.

Carl Jung used the term ‘Self’ to refer to the unity of ones conscious being. He felt that we swam in a constant stream of archetypes toward the Self in a process he called ‘individuation.’ Jung’s term synchronicity refers to the causal interconnection between ones psyche (Self) and the outer world – the interplay of ones consciousness as it is reflected in all aspects of ones outer life – manifesting outwardly to mirror what resonates with the state of the Self, whole or fragmented, fearful or free. Thus we externally manifest and attract that which resonates with the state of our conscious being.

Uniting Consciousness from the Karmic Storm

Since issues and problems reflect the state of ones conscious being (fragmented), it’s possible through them to reconnect with thosefragments of awareness that have split from the Self in fear. This is accomplished with the SelfQuesting Approach™ to wholing states of consciousness by placing the client’s attention on an issue. Through a dialogue between the SelfQuesting™ facilitator and the client’s conscious Self, a communication with the fragment of Self that is trapped in the unconscious and contributing to the issue can be created. Through this inner dialogue the client becomes aware of the part, and the part becomes aware of the client, and thus their reconnection on the level of awareness begins. When enough awareness is gained by the conscious and unconscious part(s) of the Self for each other and their condition, then the fragment can release from its separate structure of dis-ease and reunite with the conscious Self.

At this point an integration process begins. The individual’s energy, mind, body, and outer life shift in their structure and functioning toward whole being in order to match this new oneness of awareness and Self. Now the use of vibrational tools such as Young Living Essential Oils®, the Power Tap™, the Chi Machine®, Holosync®, Bikram Yoga®, and other supports can greatly aid the integration of the SelfQuesting™ work with speed, ease, and strength of integration, without the usual difficulties associated with profound systemic change. In this way all levels of ones being are supported to integrate the new wholeness and come to reflect that whole being, as wellness.

As more fragments are released in subsequent sessions, whole being is furthered. The body and brain move permanently toward a natural state of whole-brain functioning and structure. A balancing is seen in the autonomic nervous system that formerly was skewed in its sympathetic (active, fight or flight, yang) and parasympathetic (relaxation, restorative, yin) components under the structured stress of a fragmented Self. The hormonal (endocrine) system also balances and adjusts to lowered levels of internal and external stress and moves toward a natural, healthful expression. The mind’s emotions and thoughts – no longer being driven by a consciousness trapped in fear and fear-based activity – return to a calm, joyous expression of well being. Obsessive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors – previously driven by fear-based fragments of Self – dissolve and disappear as well-worn, pathological neural pathways shift, and new neural nets are created in support of healthy, optimal, whole-brain functioning. A similar balancing will be seen in the immune system and other systems of the body/mind. As one collects OneSelf, a sense of belonging in the universe replaces the former fragmented state of lack, misfit, and struggle. One is free to pursue life as it was meant to be, according to ones birthright of wholeness, without the painful repetition previously dictated by ones trapped and lost awareness. The fragmented Self, which once sought release and unity through the unconscious and repetitive working through that some call ‘karma’, now finds satisfaction in just being and in simple life expressions. The fragmented Self, that formed the saddle of their karmic destiny and thus carried one to ride the karmic storm, no longer holds one.

Thus, freeing one from the unconscious Wheel of Life becomes a matter of freeing the Self from its fragmented, disconnected, unconscious state. “You suffer from yourselves. None else compels. None other holds you, but that you live and die and whirl upon the Wheel and kiss and hug its spokes of agony” (The Light of Asia, Edwin Arnold).

SelfQuesting™ clients have noted that questing Self is not as much a search for Truth as it is for Beauty, the Beauty of ones being in its wholeness. SelfQuesting™ is not so much a way of knowing, as it is an approach to a new way of being – being whole and OneSelf –and then, from that whole being, it is a way of knowing, as ecstasy. SelfQuesting™ is “an apprehension of Beauty” within the apprehension of the Self.

The SelfQuesting Approach™

It has taken a long time to arrive where one is in life. One can’t expect to change overnight. Still it’s truly amazing how quickly, easily, and powerfully one can shift longstanding issues toward wholeness, wellness, success, and happiness when one has a framework with which to understand on a deep causal level, and from that understanding to undertake a method affecting deep change. SelfQuesting™ offers both a postmodern, consciousness-based worldview of deep insight into the true workings of the cosmos, as well as a powerful approach to wholing states of consciousness and coming to One Self. 

The availability of such a process like the SelfQuesting Approach™ – that directly addresses consciousness at it’s own level, rather than reducing consciousness to mere energy, mind, body, or the external – is quite empowering and freeing. Such a method can effect profound change at the causal level because, instead of being lost in “treating” symptoms with methods that are more a part of the problem than a solution, SelfQuesting™ gets directly at the trapped awareness that is the cause behind the superficial manifestation. Once the consciousness holding the problem is released, then using vibrational tools such as Young Living Essential Oils®, the Power Tap™, the Chi Machine®, Holosync®, Bikram Yoga®, a rawfood diet, proper exercise, and other supports can powerfully work in synergy with the flow, the natural ‘Will’ of ones whole and conscious being. Once ones consciousness is unified then these vibrational tools can work with consciousness rather than against it as before when the fragmented Self had divided, fear-based aims that forced it to avoid its freedom, power, and unity. A whole Self will show profound creativity, resourcefulness, and synchronicity in discovering and manifesting what it needs for its well being.

It helps to understand that fragmented consciousness holds fragmented goals. On its deepest level, the Self desires unity and isinexorably drawn to it. On more superficial levels the splintered Self cowers in fear and pain. Yet even in the way the fragmented Self avoids wholeness, it calls and moves toward its destiny to be seen and made whole. In the world (Duality, in body) our spirit tends toward a dual nature (to be fragmented). Yet somewhere beyond time and space the Self is whole – already a Christed soul, watching and waiting to be realized. This actuality of our Self in its wholeness – already existing beyond space and time, and throughout all space and time – is thus not limited by space and time. Therefore the Self acts at all times as an imprint on us, drawing us to wholeness, like a magnet pulling metal. The Self constantly calls us to our destiny to be whole.

The Apprehension of Beauty

The Self is a miracle, a living miracle in every sense of the word. When fully felt, the Self is experienced in every moment and over all time as the eternal, all-encompassing miracle it is. Within this state of wholeness life is also experienced as the miracle it is. Yet inworld where singularly unimaginative, fear-based, unenlightened, left-brained minds are compelled to explain everything – thus reducing miracles and life to meaninglessness – how does one find the clarity to open to the supra-rational miracle one Is, and realize the wonder of ones godhood?

In the mundane existence of the fragmented Self, an Apprehension of Beauty, Love, and Oneness, and its limitless power, lies buried like a seed within life, and within every sentient being. This birthright, profoundly imprinted on our beingness, drives us to fulfill ourdestiny and become our Self – to know our Being in its wholeness. To this end the SelfQuesting Approach™ consciously facilitates a return to whole being in a personal quest for OneSelf.

Call the SelfQuesting Center for whole Being™ for your free initial phone consultation today. Experience the power of this process undertaken with an air of respectful guidance and awe. Experience a coming home, to One Self.

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