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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - Some Problems of Psychology
Humanity provides a cultural field for all types, i. e. far those who are today expressions of past integrations, and those who are in process of becoming thinking human beings. The two earliest integrations, between the vital body and the physical form, and between these two and the desire nature, are no longer represented. They are universal and lie below the threshold of conscious activity and far behind in racial history. The only field in which they can be studied is in those processes of recapitulatory history of infancy wherein one can see the power to move and respond to the sensory apparatus, and the power to express desire, most clearly demonstrated. The same thing can also be noticed in infant and savage races. But the third stage of integration, that of gradual mental development, is proceeding apace and can be, and is being, most carefully studied. Today, modern education is occupied almost exclusively with this stage and when educators cease to train the brain cells or to deal with the evocation of memory, and when they cease to regard the brain and the mind as one, but learn to differentiate between the two, then great strides forward will be made. When the child receives training in mind control and when that mind is taught to direct the desire nature and the brain, producing direction of the physical vehicle from the mental level, then we shall see these three integrations carried forward with precision and with rapidity. Attention will then be given to the integration of the personality, so that all three aspects shall function as one unit. We have, therefore: The child state, in which the three first integrations are brought about, and the objective of the educational procedure will be to effect this with the minimum of difficulty. The human state, dealing with the integration of all the [409] aspects into one functioning self-conscious, self-directed personality. The spiritual state, dealing with the integration of the personality and the soul, thus evoking the consciousness of the Whole. When this is accomplished, group consciousness is added to self-consciousness, and this is the second great step on the way to God consciousness. The difficulty today is that we have on every hand people at all different stages in the integrative process; all of them in a "state of crisis" and all of them therefore providing the problems of modern psychology. These problems may be divided more precisely into three major groupings: The Problems of Cleavage. These in their turn are of two kinds: The problems of integration. Those arising out of a sense of duality. This sense of duality, as the result of realized cleavage, ranges all the way from the "split personality" difficulties of so many people to those of the mystic with his emphasis upon the lover and the loved, the seeker and the sought, upon God and His child. The Problems of Integration, which produce many of the difficulties of the more advanced people. The Problems of Stimulation. These arise as the result of an achieved synthesis and integration, producing consequently an inflow of unaccustomed energy. This inflow may express itself as a high voltage ambition, as a sense of power , as desire for personality influence or as true spiritual power and force. In every case, [410] however, comprehension of the resultant phenomena is required, and most careful handling. Arising from these problems we find also Mental Problems. Certain definite complexes occur when the integration of the mind with the three lower aspects has been brought about, and some clear thought about them will be useful. The Diseases of Mystics. These are concerned with those attitudes of mind, those complexities of idea and those "spiritual enterprises" which affect the mystically inclined or those who are aware of the spiritual dualism of which St. Paul wrote in the Epistle to the Romans. He wrote as follows: "For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do what I would not, I consent under the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. [411] O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans VII, 14-24) These difficulties will call for increasing attention as the race proceeds towards personality integration and from thence to soul contact.
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