Category: Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit

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creative imagery Essential Spirituality Gods and Goddesses Inner vision Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

Is Spirit a Place of Light of Dark?

Dear Integral Meditators,

When you think of the words “deep spirit”, or “deep consciousness” what sort of ideas and images arise in your mind? This weeks article investigates the encounter with deep spirit and what sort of experience it is.

Yours in the transformation power of deep consciousness,

Toby

Is Spirit a Place of Light or Dark? 

There is often a pre-conceived idea that the deeper dimensions of consciousness are somehow domains of heavenly light and bliss, but what is it really like when we connect to deeper levels of spirit and consciousness through meditation?
The deeper levels of spirit have been experienced by mediators and spiritual practitioners of all traditions and, rather than being a realm of light (as some of the levels of consciousness BEFORE we reach this deeper level are) the deep primal or causal level of spirit is a domain where light and darkness appear to merge and become paradoxically one. As the Christian poet Henry Vaughan said:

“There is, some say, in God a deep but dazzling darkness”

So, rather than being a realm of light per-se, the deepest level of spirit and consciousness (I’m using these words interchangeably in this article) are a place where light and dark come together as one.
Put another way it is a place that is beyond light or darkness, a place that is beyond the polarity of opposites.

If you are a consistent meditator, then the odds are after a few years you will start connecting to this domain of deeper consciousness in your meditations naturally, but we can accelerate the rate at which we connect and stabilize our experience of this domain by using images, here are three, they are very simple but very powerful:

  1. The Eclipse – Visualize a sun in the space in front of you. Imagine a dark sphere comes across and blocks the sun, as the moon does in an eclipse. So you are now staring at a dark sphere surrounded by an aura of dazzling light. Now imagine that you become that dark sphere that contains within its darkness a dazzling light. Be this union of light and darkness.
  2. The Union of Heaven and Earth – Sit on a chair with your feet squarely on the floor. Visualize dark life energy rising up from the earth through your feet. Visualize bright, white universal energy coming down through your crown from the sky. See the light and the dark energy coming together in the centre of your chest. As you observe the light and dark coming together, sometimes the space in the centre of your chest feels like a bright star, other times it feels and looks like a deep black hole. After a while it becomes a dazzling space of dark light. Allow your mind to relax and absorb into this dazzling dark space of primal spirit in the centre of your chest.
  3.  The Starry Pool – See yourself descending a spiral stairway into the earth. Eventually it opens out into a cavern. In front of you there is a deep pool of water. On the wall on the other side of the cavern there is a small alcove where a candle burns in front of an image or statue that for you represents God/Goddess or Deep Spirit. Gaze into the pool. As you do so from within the deep blackness there emerge stars deep within the darkness. Allow your mind to sink into the inky blackness of the pool where there is deep darkness in combination with the bright lights of the stars. Feel the darkness and starlight becoming one and rest in that space. At the end of this meditation return back up the stairway to the earth’s surface, don’t just snap straight out and walk off!

These images are not about philosophy, psychology or metaphysics. They are images that you can use to create a personal, experiential encounter with deep spirit and allow yourself to be changed by this encounter.

© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Enlightened service Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Motivation and scope spiritual intelligence

Is Meditation about Stress Management or About Enlightenment?

Dear *|FNAME|,

What is the reason that we meditate and practice mindfulness? This is the subject of this weeks article, it is one of those questions that it is very useful to be clear on!

The main development at Integral Meditation Asia this week is that  I have created a newshadow coaching service. As many of you know I have been offering shadow meditation workshops for some time now. This coaching service is designed to provide a personalized service for people to really get to grips with their own shadow self, and start enjoying it rather than running away from it!

With all best wishes for your inner wellbeing,

Toby

 

Is Meditation about Stress Management or About Enlightenment? 

Why do we meditate of practise mindfulness? Traditionally and historically it was practised by those who wished to attain a spiritual liberation or enlightenment, but more recently meditation and mindfulness have been touted as methods that can help us deal more effectively with our secular stress, help us relax and improve our work performance. So, is it about enlightenment, or is it about stress relief?
Thinking about this I came up with three basic levels of meditation practice that gives a spectrum of possible uses for meditation practice.

Meditation from the perspective of the ego: Here we are motivated to practice meditation in order to reduce stress and negotiate our life challenges in a more fulfilling and enjoyable manner. In this context meditation is a secular skill which value adds in a measurable way to our quality of life.

Meditation from the perspective of the soul: Here we practise meditation in order to provide the inner stability and strength to live a life of principle and depth, for example to live life according to the principles of goodness, beauty and truth. Meditation in this context contains within it the “ambition” to go beyond our biological and lower human nature, and to start consciously embodying positive principles in the world through our actions.

Meditation from the perspective of spirit: On this third level we practise meditation in order to pursue enlightenment – the realization of the ultimate, formless, timeless dimension of reality and of ourselves. Here we commit not just to doing this in sitting meditation, but also to embody that reality in our daily action; to mediate (not a typo; mediate, conduct, channel) the energy of enlightened awakening into the outer world of illusion. The goal if meditation on this level is to accomplish the same fundamental realizations of your Buddha’s, Christ’s, Krishna’s, Lady Tsogyal’s, St John of the Crosses etc… and to act as forces of enlightenment within the world as they did.

So, there are your three basic levels, it’s up to you where you pitch your own practice. Even if you only think yourself capable of the first, then this is still a wonderful step to take and commit to.
I think the reality is that every time we sit down and meditate we do a little of all three levels; we reduce our stress (ego level), go a little deeper into our inner self (soul level), and awaken even if it is only in the smallest of ways to our true nature (spiritual level).
© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Shadow meditation

Four Types of Mindful Coaching Conversation

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at one basic integral coaching model that I use both in my own coaching work and for my personal inner growth, it is simple by it has a lot of depth and nuance to explore.
The main meditation classes and course for March are the ongoing Shadow Meditation Classes, and the three hour “Mind of Ease” Workshop on the 23rd March, click on links below for the full details!

Yours in the spirit of deep conversation with our inner selves,
Toby

Upcoming Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia in For February and March 2013

Wednesday March 6th – Shadow Meditation Class – Healing Wounds: Working with the dark side of the shadow.
In this class we will be working with specifically the dark side of our shadow self; the parts of ourself that we most deeply reject and fear as well as the parts of us that are most deeply wounded. Many people may find this idea intimidating, but it cannot be emphasized enough how liberating this type of work can be once you get some experience of it!

Saturday  23rd March – 9.30am-12.30pm – Three Hour Workshop: 
Meditation for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention – An Introduction to Contemporary Meditation Practice

Four Types of Mindful Coaching Conversation

When I am in a coaching session with someone, although on one level there is only one conversation going on, on another level there are four basic aspects or dimensions that I try and pay mindful attention to within the conversationthat all give me some information about where the client is coming from and what they might need in terms of advice, guidance and input. It is also a model that I use in terms of my own self care and when looking at what is happening within my own consciousness.

  • The Conscious Self – This is the daily functional self or “persona” of the client. The information that they give me on this levels is basically that which their conscious mind understands to be true with regard to the problem or challenge that they are facing. Generally this information will come through directly and explicitly in the conversation that is being had.
  • The Shadow Self – This is the aspect of the daily self or ego that is hidden to the client as it has been repressed into his/her unconscious mind, and thus is invisible to her. Sometimes I might do an exercise specifically designed to investigate their shadow, but as often as not I’ll get to know the persons shadow implicitly through the nuance of what is said, and the language that is used (or left out) in the conversation, their body language and their response to certain emotional triggers.
  • The Soul – You might think of the soul as the higher or deeper self of the client, and it is from this dimension of their being that they feel the impulse toward establishing deeper meaning and direction in their life, and toward the expression of the principles of goodness, beauty and truth. Quite often the coaching journey that I take with people is in an essential way the journey from a life of “functional meaning” directed by the ego to a life of deeper meaning and orientation based around the souls wish to creatively express goodness, beauty and truth.
  • The Spirit – On one level you might think of the spiritual dimension of the coaching conversation as being that which is concerned with helping the clientconnect to a sense of silence, presence and peace within themselves that helps them negotiate the challenges of their life with less negative stress and a greater sense of creativity and freedom. The spiritual level of the conversation involves the connection to a sense of the deepest levels of both peace and creativity within the client, and helping these to start playing a tangible part in both the conversation as we are having it, and also in their life as a whole.

Four mindful and integral self-coaching questions:
Based around the above model, here are four questions that you might like to ask yourself when presented with a challenge or opportunity in your life:

  1. What is my conscious understanding of the problem or challenge as I understand it?
  2. What hidden emotions, psychological discomfort and agendas do I sense within me that lie beneath my conscious perception of what is happening?
  3. What is my soul demanding of me in this situation in terms of the expression of meaning, goodness, beauty and truth? What opportunities does my soul see here?
  4. Viewed from the perspective of transcendent stillness and peace what is my freest and most creative response to what is happening?

© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

What Does it Mean to Meditate on Non-Doing?

Dear Integral Meditators,

In last week’s article I talked about balancing the development of the ego and the spirit, in this week’s article I take a practical look at non-doing, a powerful practice for developing your spiritual being that also has many benefits on the other levels of your being. It comes under the category of practices that are sometimes described as “effortless effort” or “the pathless path”. So, if making progress with no effort sounds like a good deal to you, read on 😉
I have to say in the history of my own life and practice, in my times of deepest discomfort and unhappiness in have found that this practice has offered me a perennially effective path out, or I suppose I should say it has offered me a perennial “non-path” out.

Yours in the spirit of non-doing,

Toby

What Does it Mean to Meditate on Non-Doing? (And why We should be interested in doing It)

Non-Doing: The What and the Why?
The practice of “non-doing” as a meditative “training” (or “non-training”) is most often overtly found in the paths of the Tao and of Zen, but if you look closely you can find analogous practices in all the major wisdom traditions of the world, and in particular those that are consciously teaching and embodying a non-dual path.
To practice non-doing means essentially to practice doing nothing, or no-thing on the physical and mental level and with gentle alertness rest our mind in our own primary awareness. That is to say the awareness that acts as the basis of our daily experience of doing and being, but is normally “hidden by the noise” so to speak. Originally the practice of non-doing was taught as a spiritual practice, that is a method for discovering our own True Nature or Spiritual Self, but the benefits of the practice actually extend to many levels of our being.

The Benefits and Purpose of Non-Doing:

Biological/Body level: On the body/biological level non-doing allows our body to relax deeply and regenerate its energy, as well as encouraging our internal organs and nervous system to come back into balance and harmony. It also sharpens our connection to our physical senses, as well as creating space for us to become more aware of our inner senses (subtle touch, sight, hearing  etc…) and how they function. Of course there is always a certain section of the population who are interested in the development of their “psychic senses” or abilities. One essential ingredient to developing this aspect of inner consciousness development is to spend quality time watching and listening to each moment that arises whilst otherwise doing nothing.

Ego level: On an ego level the practice of non-doing enables us to regularly detach from the goals and activities of our daily life, and reconnect to ourselves as a human-being rather than a human-doing. It gives us the space to assess what is important and what is not, what needs to be held onto and what can be dropped, and creates the inner awareness to make these kinds of decisions consciously and non-compulsively. It also creates time for feeling deeply and allowing our psychological being to “catch up with itself” so to speak, and process whatever baggage we have been carrying around.

Soul Level: Non-doing creates an inner space where we can listen closely and become more aware of the deeper motivations of our soul and callings of our inner heart. It creates space for us to connect to our higher mind and the trans-rational and psychic faculties that go with it. It creates a space where our true depth of being and character can emerge.

Spiritual level: Non-doing is a practice that by explicitly cutting out all of our “doing” and activities encourages us to move into a direct communication the timeless, formless “always already” dimension of or being that was never born, that never dies, that is liberated from suffering and is our “true home”. Non-doing is a “non-exercise” that repeatedly creates an environment for us to recognize that our enlightened nature is, was and always will be something inseparable from our everyday daily awareness. Spiritual enlightenment is not something that we become, it is something that we recognize we are already, but had forgotten.

How to Practice the Meditation on Non-Doing

Step 1: Set aside a period of time, from 3minutes to an hour (whatever you have, and whatever feels appropriate). Short, regular periods of non-doing, say 3-5minutes 3-5 times a day can be really very effective. You can do it as a formal sitting meditation, or just sitting on the couch, having a cup of tea/coffee. Even slow activities like washing up or walking can be a space to practice non-doing. Even though literally  you may in fact be doing the something the activity is simple enough to combine with non-doing practice.

Step 2: Within the time you have allotted yourself here are the “rules”:

  • Be no-one: Forget about who you are, drop your “story”, let go of the continuous ego-conversation in your head about yourself. Don’t worry, it will pick itself up again just fine once you have finished.
  • Do no-thing: Keep your physical and mental activities to a bare minimum. Empty your mind as fully as possible and don’t hold onto any objects that pass through your mental awareness. Physically sit still, or if you are engaging in a simple activity such as walking or doing the washing up, do the activity relatively slowly and with full awareness.
  • Go no-where: Temporarily drop your worldly aspirations, your struggles, dilemmas, anxieties and conundrums. Drop also the things that you normally enjoy and or are attached to filling your mind with. Just be here and pay attention to that.

Relax, be and pay attention to that experience fully.

Step 3:Taking the experience of non-doing into the rest of your life.
As we engage repeatedly in the above two steps, one of the things we start to realize that the person who does not “do” in our life but always “is” can be present in our awareness all of the time, even when we are fully engaged in the busy-ness of our daily life. This awareness can become a rock around which we can build deep inner security, which paradoxically we may find enables us to take greater appropriate “risks” or make big changes in other areas of our life.
The nicest thing about it from a purely energetic point of view is that the practice of non-doing does not require a huge amount of effort, as by its very nature it is all about putting stuff down and doing less! But I guess that is the challenge for many of us; are we prepared to really commit to developing the wisdom of non-doing and make it a priority in our life?
Apart from the benefits mentioned above, one thing I find is that the clarity that comes from non-doing often saves time in the sense that we find more efficient ways of doing what needs to be done and less time chasing our own tail.

© Toby Ouvry 2012, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Awareness and insight Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope

Balancing the Development of Your Ego and Spirit

Hi Everyone,

The concerns of our ego and the concerns of spirit are often set up as being mutually antagonistic to each other, but is this really the case? This weeks article looks at ways that we can begin to synchronize our ego and our spiritual selves in to a complementary unity, where they are mutually supporting each other.

Yours in the spirit or harmonization,

Toby

 

Balancing the Development of  Your Ego and Spirit

Within the traditional spiritual worldview the ego is often set up as the opponent or enemy of spiritual life. Similarly in traditional psychoanalytic circles, spiritual experiences are reduced to merely pre-rational fantasy, or at best treated with deep scepticism.
An integral perspective to self-development attempts to bring together egoic and spiritual development into a complementary, mutually supporting unity, even though our ego-self and our spiritual-self are two very different levels and modes of being.

For the purposes of this article what I mean by ego is as follows:
The ego refers to the different psychological structures that combine together to create our functional personality or “psychological- self” that exists in the day to day world of conventional time and space.

What I mean by spirit is as follows:
Our spiritual self is the timeless, formless dimension of our being that is liberated from all suffering, and that experiences itself as being in union and communion with all life and the Universe as a whole.

These two dimensions of our being as I say are very much contrasting, almost “opposite ends of the spectrum of self” so to speak. In this article I am going to present developing the health of the ego as having three facets or aspects:

  • Going somewhere
  • Doing something
  • Being someone

Conversely, I am going to suggest that cultivating a healthy connection to our Spiritual self has three aspects:

  • Relaxing deeply and going nowhere
  • Doing no-thing, or practicing non-doing
  • Being no-one.

To develop our ego and spirit in a complementary manner, we need to be able to do develop our skill in BOTH of the above sets of activities.

Going Somewhere/Going Nowhere

To develop and maintain a healthy ego you need to have goals in life and strategies that give you a way of moving toward the achievement of those goals. Without such goals and strategies the ego loses motivation and becomes vulnerable to many forms of psychological ill health.
Developing one’s connection to spirit involves regularly creating and entering into spaces where you consciously drop all your goals, forget about “direction” and focus all your awareness in being absolutely and fully where you ARE without any idea of going anywhere else!

Doing Something/Doing No-Thing

Healthy ego growth requires that one fills one’s time with healthy and appropriate activities in ones personal, work and relationship life that keep our personality and “everyday self” (ie: our ego) engaged, happy and learning.
Connecting to our  spiritual self  involves deliberately entering periods of doing no-thing in order to cultivate our awareness and connection to what lies beyond the world of things, and to decrease our attachment and over identification with “what we do” and mistaking it for “who we are.

Being Someone/Being No-one

A sound ego-self is a self that has a clear sense of positive identity, an “I” that is resilient, realistically optimistic, has self-worth and self-compassion, that sees itself positively in relation to other people it is in relationship to, and to the world in which it finds itself.
To create a relationship to and identification with our spiritual self involves regularly dropping all of the ideas and images that our ego has about who we are, and temporarily becoming a nobody, or a no-one. This is because it is only when we drop our fixed idea of who we are as an individual that we can start to experientially identify with the “self that we are” on the metta, universal or spiritual level.

Doing Both/And

The main point here is that in order to develop our ego and our spirit in complementary tandem we need to get comfortable with the doing both of the above sets of practices:

  • We need to be going somewhere as an ego, whilst regularly creating spaces for “going nowhere” in our life, within which we can cultivate awareness of our ever present spiritual being.
  • Be doing something as an ego in the sense of keeping our self constructively occupied and learning whilst also getting comfortable with spiritually doing no-thing, that is to say cultivating absolute contentment and comfort with your“being-ness” rather than staying stuck in your “doing-ness”.
  • Be someone as an ego in the sense of developing a healthy self-identity whilst simultaneously being no-one in the sense of learning not to over identify with our ego-self and embrace the larger sense of self that lies beyond the world of form.

A Challenging Balance

Negotiating the balance between ego development and spiritual development can be quite a challenge, but once we start to get a feel for it and start to really synchronize our ego and spirit together in harmony the results in our life in terms of the deep health of our being are indeed profound.
© Toby Ouvry 2012, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope spiritual intelligence

Cultivating the Beauty, Truth and Goodness of the Soul

Dear Integral Meditators,

Last weeks article on the Fulfillment of the Ego, Soul and Spirit looked in general at these three fundamental levels of our being and how we can go about evolving and developing them together. This weeks article focuses on the Soul level of development, and offers a specific practical technique for developing the qualities of our Soul on a daily basis. I hope you enjoy it!

Yours in the spirit of truth, beauty and goodness,

Toby

Cultivating the Beauty, Truth and Goodness of the Soul

We can measure our development as human beings in three ways:

  • In Egoic terms we can measure our development in terms of temporal achievements; competency in the tasks and work we do, ability to build successful and happy relationships, fulfilling our responsibilities, balancing work, rest and play, and so on.
  • In terms of our Soul (or Deeper Self), development arises from the cultivation of the principles of goodness, beauty and truth within our inner being. This is also often related to our outer activities, but fundamentally it involves cultivation of inner virtues, of which there are many, but all of which can be included under these umbrella terms of the good, the beautiful and the true. These three concepts used as a unit (goodness, beauty, truth) can be traced back to Plato, but they have currently been widely adopted in the Contemporary Integral Consciousness Movement. Essentially our development as a soul can be measured according to the degree that we possess and express these qualities of inner beauty, goodness and truth.
  • In terms of the development of our Spiritual Self our evolution can be measured in terms of our ability to recognize and rest within our true nature, or eternal being, that which is already awakened, perfect and unified within us.

In this article I am going to be focusing on a practical method for developing ourself on the soul level on a daily basis. As you can see from the above definition, the soul development is really quite an extensive task that we engage in over a whole lifetime (and, from a certain perspective multiple lifetimes), but we can ground this long-term soul development in a quite simple daily exercise, taking only 10minutes or less, as follows:

Step 1: Ask yourself the question “What have I done over the last 24 hours to improve my experience and embodiment of beauty, goodness and truth?” Then write down three short answers to this, one for beauty, one for goodness, one for truth. Once you have written them down, take a moment to appreciate these actions and the contribution they have made to your inner soul development

Step 2: Ask yourself the question which of my daily actions today were discordant with either goodness, beauty or truth, and how can I change in the future to avoid such unhelpful activities, and/or transform them? Again, write down your answers.

Some Examples of Responses to Step 1 From my Own Journal:
Below are some simple examples from my own daily journal. I think you will see that many of the things are quite “everyday” type activities (that anyone can do) and that you do too each day, but nonetheless, they are entirely valid as vehicles for our Souls development.

Beauty:

  • I stopped to appreciate the wind blowing through a Bodhi tree growing from the sidewalk for a couple of minutes on the way to catch the bus.
  • I spent an hour enjoying painting with my daughter
  • I read 20minutes of “To a Mountain in Tibet” by Colin Thubron, a beautiful piece of travel writing

Goodness:

  • I made the effort to avoid judging miserable looking people at the super market, and generate consideration and compassion for them instead.
  • I recycled my spare cans, bottles and waste paper today.
  • I spent a couple of hours coaching people today, helping them to develop and integrate the three levels of their inner being (ego, soul, spirit).

Truth:

  • I admitted to myself that I am angry about certain aspects of my relationship to a close friend; I resolved not to let it ruin our relationship, but instead try and take the higher, more patient and openly communicative road.
  • Reading the book “Evolutionaries” by Carter Phipps I realized that the choice we are often presented with in the mainstream media between either the reductionist scientific idea of evolution or the absolute belief in a mythic God who created the world in 7 days is a complete illusion. Neither of these opposing poles gets close to the great work that is being done in the fields of evolutionary spirituality, which happily (and I think successfully) merges evolution and religion.

An Example of Step 2 From my Own Journal:
(This is a kind of funny one, but I also hope it makes the point!)

  • I have noticed that I have become mildly obsessed with choosing a new squash racket, and have tended to spend too much time surfing the web looking at all sorts of brands and obsessing away, when really I could be spending less time on this and using the time to do some meaningful work for Integral Meditation Asia! The battle plan to change this is simple; draw a line under the search for a squash racket, and, when I sit down at the computer focus on the important and meaningful tasks first!

The Goal and Result of Consistent Soul Development
The goal and result of consistent Soul level development could be described in the following way: “Depth of Presence”. When we make the effort every day to develop out inner goodness, beauty and truth over time we become a deep and resonant human being with enough inner joy and wisdom to provide not only for ourself, but to act as a source of joy and wisdom for other people.
Sometimes we meet a person who seems very impressive, but over time as we get to know them we realize that the impressiveness is actually rather shallow. Other people we get to know may not interest us so much at first, but over time we become more and more aware of their depth, substance and quality as a human being. The latter type of person is one who has the “depth of presence” that comes from Soul development, or the commitment to developing their  inner goodness, beauty and truth.

© Toby Ouvry 2012, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

 
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Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques spiritual intelligence Uncategorized

Fulfillment of the Ego, Fulfillment of the Soul, Fulfillment of Spirit

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope this message finds you well, this weeks article compares and contrasts the needs and desires of the ego, the soul and the spirit within us, and how we can begin satisfying their different desires for happiness and fulfillment together, rather than have them competing against each other…

When I was in my early twenties I sacrifices a lot of the needs and desires of my soul and ego in order to fulfill the wishes of my spiritual self. Although it was worth it in the sense that I got what I wanted (in terms of spiritual realization), in reality my soul and ego paid quite a price for my spiritual ambition and unwavering willpower. Over the last decade of my life I have come to realize that actually a person can accomplish spiritual realization without having to sacrifice the needs and desires of the soul and ego in quite such a drastic way as I did, and what I try and explain in my teaching practice at Integral Meditation Asia is how to balance the needs and wishes of the ego, the soul and the spirit, enabling them all to grow and develop together in harmony with each other, in such a way that they mutually support each others needs and goals!

Yours in the spirit of integral growth and development,

Toby

Fulfillment of the Ego, Fulfillment of the Soul, Fulfillment of Spirit

What might an integrated fulfilment of our happiness look like? One way of considering this question is to look at three levels of  our being, and how each one of them exerts a different set of demands upon us in terms of what they are seeking, and what will enable them to find satisfaction and happiness.

The three levels of being working with I am calling the ego-self, the soul-self and the spiritual self or true self. All of them are important to our overall level of happiness and fulfillment in life.

The ego-self , personality or “frontal self” seeks happiness primarily through appropriate and satisfying work, relationships and a healthy self-image. The sort of work and relationships that give the ego happiness are generally ones that will give it a sense of worth within the context of the society in which the person lives. The consensus idea of what satisfying work and relationships are, as well as a self-image that “fits in” with the norm of what society thinks of as a happy, successful person are likely to be satisfactory for a person who is only active on the ego level, and largely dormant on the soul and the spiritual level.

The soul or deeper self seeks happiness through the practice of virtue or, put another way through actions that is some way express what is good, and/or what is beautiful, and/or what is true. The soul-self seeks to find and express that which is unique about itself, and to find the sorts of activities and relationships that “makes the soul sing” so to speak.
Often as not the soul will seek these experiences of deeper satisfaction and virtue through a deeper enquiry into what type of work and what type of relationships really give rise to happiness, and how work and relationships can become an expression of deeper meaning and connectivity to life.
This process of enquiry may take the person away from the “societal norms” of what a good job is, or what a happy, meaningful relationship is and move them toward a less conventional way of working, being and relating that is considered somewhat eccentric by others, but which provides a much deeper level of happiness and satisfaction to the individual soul.

The Spiritual Self, or the True Self is the aspect of self that is always and already perfect, complete, fulfilled and satisfied as it is. You cannot satisfy this self by going somewhere or becoming something, you can only find happiness in this self by recognizing it, awakening to it and being it.
One of the primary ways in which you awaken to the spiritual self is through meditation, where you learn to rest in the present moment “as it is” without looking to go anywhere or do anything. The spiritual self is outside the world of time and form. there is nothing that needs to be “done” for us to find it or for it to give us happiness. The happiness of the true self or spiritual self is found simply by recognizing it and resting in it. This is incredibly simply on one level, but our ego (and often our soul also) finds it very difficult to do, as it involves letting go of everything we think we are, temporarily “dying to ourself” so to speak.

“So What Does All This Mean?”

Well, the search for integrated happiness on the ego, soul and spiritual level might then look like this:

  • On the ego level we would find happiness and satisfaction by leading a well organized life where we seek fulfilling work and relationships.
  • On the soul level, within the context of the above well organized life we would make room for a deeper sense of enquiry into the meaning and purpose of our life. We would be prepared also to make changes and accept challenges in our life that would make accommodate the needs and desires of our soul to find deeper meaning and purpose in our life, to make our life an expression of deep goodness, beauty and truth.
  • On the spiritual level we would spend time each day resting in the present moment, recognizing that there is nothing we can do and nowhere we can go to find ultimate fulfillment, as that ultimate fulfillment is here already, and we have never been separate from it.

Is it Easy to Do?

Many of the people that I coach seek out coaching because they are trying to deal with the tensions that come from awakening to a new level of their being. For example if a person has basically been functioning on the ego or personality level, and then awakens to the soul level, then suddenly many of the activities and relationships that they previously engaged in no longer appear satisfactory. They find themselves with new desires that they find difficult to understand. They experience anxiety because they feel as if they are becoming a new person without all of the old securities of the “old self” that they were. As such it is my job to discern the stage that people are at in their development, and help them make choices and engage in practices that will help them negotiate this transformative stage in their life successfully and securely, without avoiding or running away from the genuine challenges involved.

As such trying to balance out the demands of all three of these levels can be a challenge indeed, but the nice thing about engaging in the process of trying is that there are really an infinite number of levels and qualities of happiness and fulfillment that can be found in our life.

A Short Practice:

Once you are basically familiar with the three levels of self outlined above you can try asking yourself these three questions each day:

  • “What does my ego need to help it find happiness and fulfillment today?”
  • “What does my soul need to help it find happiness and fulfillment today?”
  • “What can I do to connect to connect to the happiness and fulfillment that is already present within my spiritual being and true self?”

Listen to the answers that come back from these three questions, and act upon them.


© Toby Ouvry 2012, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

 
Categories
Enlightened love and loving Inner vision Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation and Psychology spiritual intelligence

From desire and attraction to spiritual passion – The journey from conventional romance to post-conventional or transpersonal romance

www.tobyouvry.com/soulportraits

Conventional romantic love is temporary and transient, based around stimulation from an external object. Post-conventional romantic love is a lasting and deep seated experience of passion and ecstasy that arises from a deep connection to the infinite love and the reality of spiritual union that we find within ourself.

  • Conventional romantic love is thus a temporary high that arises from the pleasurable stimulation that we get from something or someone outside of ourself.
  • Post-conventional or transpersonal (meaning a sense of romance beyond the ordinary boundaries of our ego) romantic love is a type of happiness that comes from a sense of connection to the universe that we find inside ourself.

Conventional ideas of romantic love really centre around the ideas of desire and attraction in the sense that I have outlined in my previous article on these two qualities.

Our initial desire and attraction to a person or a pursuit causes us to temporarily connect to a sense of transcendence where all our problems seem to fall away and we experience joy, pleasure and feel great. The problem is that this only lasts as long as the novelty lasts. As soon as we start to get used to the person that we are in love with, or the work that we have fallen in love with starts to get tough, our old ego re-emerges and we crash back down to earth and all of our old problems find us again (and perhaps a few more that we did not think that we had before!).

The post-conventional or transpersonal view of romantic love is that the initial high that we experience when we fall in love is in fact real, but we mistake the person with whom we have fallen in love with the state of mind that our contact with them evokes.

It is indeed possible to experience a lasting romantic passion in our life (in any one of the Five types of romantic relationship that we may have) and for our life. However, in order for this to take place we need to shift that basis of our search for romantic love

  • From an external person or object that gives us pleasure
  • To an internal object (love and spirit) that gives rise to lasting, sustainable happiness and passion as an internal state of mind within ourselves.

Happiness arises always primarily from an inner source, pleasure comes mostly from an external stimuli. Knowing the difference between these two is a big part in negotiating our way to peace of mind.

Other observations about transpersonal or post-conventional romantic love:

  • It can hold paradox. This means for example that you can be at once passionate and ecstatic, and at the same time be in touch with deep centeredness and peace
  • It recognizes the external person or thing that initially stimulated our love as a doorway to the spiritual experience of romance. It does not confuse the state of mind with the object
  • Our sense of love may be inspire by a person, place or type of work, but we can transfer that sense of love and see all things and events in our life through loving eyes
  • Our life becomes characterized by creativity, flow and a sense of effortlessness (Or perhaps I should say here an awareness of the creativity, flow and effortlessness in our lif that was there all the time, but that we could not access)

How do you get to this post-conventional experience of romantic love?

Through the doorway of relationship, the second stage of romantic love as we are looking at it in these articles. It is through the challenges that we face with the people and things that we love that we are able to identify and clear all the aspects of our ego that are blocking our love. If we understand this then we will welcome the challenges that come into our romances, as we recognize that we can use them to travel toward longer term states of romantic passion and ecstasy.

What happens if I have not yet met my romantic “Soul mate”, or the person/spouse I am in a relationship does not want to use our problems as a way to deepen our love, but just wants to stay stuck in ego?

The journey to transpersonal romance often involves a level of patience and fortitude that most people did not think themselves capable of, so you need these qualities.

But, even if you never meet someone, or have to put up with a limited experience of love in your relationship with your principal human partner, remember there are five types of romantic love, and thus five different doorways through which you can experience romance in your life. If the human aspect has not come together, then you can still enjoy the other four and be deeply fulfilled in this way!

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you MUST seek Toby’s permission first!

UPCOMNG EVENTS:

2nd November:  Meditation class with Toby  “Building passion as the central fulcrum of creative love in your life and relationships”

14th November:  Workshop “How to use stress to your advantage”