Working on the Soul

Whenever we do any work on ourselves, or engage in any way in the inner journey, we are invariably working with our soul. - A.H. Almaas

Mostly the path leading us to make the decision to "work" on ourselves is littered with frustration, heartbreak and suffering. Many will say the motivation lies in more altruistic spheres, but observation will show that happy, content minds and personalities are not that motivated to change. What the personality wants is to maximize pleasure while minimizing its involvement with pain or suffering.

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The soul is a curious manifestation of reality. Being its nature is what satisfies the soul. Joy is intrinsic to the soul's experience of True Nature - it's nature.

A.H. Almaas' quote reflects his understanding that there is really no separation between the psychological and spiritual dimensions of personal development. The soul is the medium of consciousness itself - the mind, the body, the personality, the emotions - all aspects of experience occur within the medium of the soul. There is no other medium of experience. Fundamentally, that is what the soul is.

Dialectic Inquiry & Feedback

"...in perfecting feedback and the means of rapid data manipulation, the science of cybernetics was gaining a deeper understanding of life itself as being, at its core, the processing of information." Theodore Roszak, The Cult of Information

"We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us." - Marshall McLuhan

In every feedback loop, as the name suggests, Information about the result of a transformation or an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form of input data. If these new data facilitate and accelerate the transformation in the same direction as the preceding results, they are positive feedback - their effects are cumulative. If the new data produce a result in the opposite direction to previous results, they are negative feedback - their effects stabilize the system. In the first case there is exponential growth or decline; in the second there is maintenance of the equilibrium.

Dialectic Inquiry is a powerful means of deepening one's evolution of consciousness, personal process, and relationships. In dialectic inquiry the poles of inquiry which could be two or more units of consciousness involve themselves in a feedback loop that establishes a field effect of consciousness. This field optimizes the process of each unit and the field itself toward greater awareness and freedom.

Image by Peter Sharpe

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