Opposites

Opposites are a study in contrast, but they could not exist without one another. Without dark there would be no light, without empty there would be no full. Each requires the other as a reference point to its given qualities. Opposites fill our world.

Consciousness is the same. For consciousness to exist, it must be thought of in terms of its opposite, unconsciousness. The world relies on the dynamic interplay of opposites. The difference between the two creates a charge, a polarity that generates energy. We don't know exactly how this works, but opposites are indeed attracted to one another. Scientists have tried to be technical by defining this phenomenon with terms and illustrations, but the best possible explanation might just be that things naturally seek wholeness.

The greatest test of this phenomenon lies in the individual. Here there seems to be some flaw, some difficulty that is only overcome with the greatest of efforts.

It seems that nature has established its flow, its rhythm, its wholeness - it corresponds to the circle of life. But humans seem to have a more difficult task.

When we look at the Earth from afar - from space - it certainly appears whole. The entirety of life is moving like a river - all things make sense, conform, fit together. Even humans, to the extent that we can "see" them from this view, seem to correspond with the patterns of nature. Look at them: They trust, they believe, they seek, they find, they quarrel, they love... It is beautiful watching it all play out.

But down here it is not all that pretty. For some reason we cannot abide by the order that seems so clear from the upper levels of the atmosphere. The distinction is this: when people are unconscious, their wholeness is lost on them. When consciousness is allowed to flourish, wholeness moves from its potential state to its actualized state.

When one does something unconsciously, he does not know what he is doing. One might say that he is not "present" to his state of mind. The more unconscious we are, the more we forget about the view of the Earth from outer space.

Consciousness and unconsciousness, then, are the set of opposites by which all that is perceivable is measured and defined. The former amplifies; the latter diffuses.

... But what is the disinction between the two? What on Earth could possibly set them apart? Ahhh, well... we shouldn't play dumb. We all know it, intuitively. Consciousness is light; unconsciousness is dark.

I am not speaking metaphorically. I am speaking very materially. The consciousness that we speak of has its basis in matter, but a different kind of matter than we are used to thinking. This kind of matter is called ether, subtle energy, and other such flimsy names, but it is no less real than the matter we put our hands on; perhaps moreso.

What I am talking about is the substance of thoughts, the experience of emotions, the images that arrive in our minds. This stuff is stuff. We just have to broaden our definition of stuff. Everything that has ever been created by humans began as this stuff, so we might as well give it its due, eh?

This "stuff" determines, to a substantial degree, the contents of man's mind. Certainly man has the capacity to transcend it from time to time, but he is never completely free. He is always defined, to some degree, by the act of "receiving." Even if we take up the position that dreams are random brain firings, this incidentally proves that not everything that comes into man's mind is the result of conscoius intent. There is something out there that he cannot control.

So here we have the idea of the unconscious. One's personal views about what is in the unconscious - what it contains - are of little importance; all we are concerned with is that there is something outside of our awareness. For this matter, we can think of the unconscious as ideas that have yet to have been had, events which have yet to happen - even people who have yet to have been born. Another way of thinking about the unconscious is potential. But not some wind-blown, weightless potential - rather, a full, substantive, quality-laden entity. I mean, if we are to take credit for our imagination, we must give credit to the energy behind it.

Connections

I'm back. Thanks for being patient.


The psyche is a network. From the earliest studies of it, this was apparent. Take, for example, Jung's studies in word association, and Freud's concept of "free association." The basic premise of these experiments was that psychic contents (in the form of words, thoughts, feelings, images) are not just haphazardly placed about, but in fact are connected to each other. And what's more, they are connected meaningfully. An image from a dream may remind you of something you said yesterday, and, on closer inspection, the two will show some sort of relationship, frequently in the form of a feeling-tone.

At first this may seem an insignificant observation. One could easily dismiss it at face value and say "Well of course! The one reminded me of the other because they are similar!" But if we are interested in describing the psyche, then perhaps it does us some good to pay some attention to this phenomenon. What this means is that there is some connective "tissue" in the psyche.

Now by "tissue" I do not mean anything resembling the Matter we experience in the physical world. Clearly, matter separates itself with its aspect of tangibility. We cannot touch the psyche. But we can, for certain, see the effects of its connectedness. When you think of the word "home," what image comes to your mind? There is one pretty clearly defined picture. Other pictures, maybe thoughts, certainly follow it, but they were undoubtedly preceded by a primary "home" image.

Thus, could we say that the word "home," and the vibrations it produces in your psyche, strike a chord with the vibrations of your "home" image? Could they perhaps be in the same octave(?!), or at least "harmonious" with one another?

As you can see, I've brought in a new element. Some neuroscientists would say that the word "home" excites an electrical impulse in the brain which in turn generates an image. And they would be right, but they would not be complete. Certainly this is the physical correllate for the process, but it does not account for a psychic network that exists apart from the laws of conventional materialism.

The unconscious psyche is a dynamic, forceful presence whose effects cannot be accounted for if our investigation only includes a discussion of conscious intent. This fact leaves the door wide open to allow in the hypothesis that the psyche does not correspond identically with the body. As long as it has some measure of autonomy, we must allow for some extra-corporeal force into our discussion.

In this case, the psyche may well use material processes to express itself in the world, but it is not the material processes themselves. Nor does it exist in time, because time only exists in human consciousness. The psyche expresses itself in time, but it is not formally connected to time. This is a difficult concept to understand, but it has its roots in the idea that there is something invisible at work when we try to describe humans. The following example may help illustrate my point.

Take love. There is no proving that love exists between two people. Molecular biologists might point, with good reason, to the rush of activity that occurs physiologically when the two are in the heat of passion, the buzzing neurotransmitters, the secretion of hormones, etc. But nothing attests to the connection - the quite literal connection - between the two people. What of the instances when they are apart from each other? Imagine a birds' eye view of two people in love 500 miles away from one another. Nothing seems to be connecting them. The excitement of being together is gone - perhaps they are even preoccupied with their respective business at the moment. Has their love gone away? Of course not. It continues to exist in the two lovers' psyches.

(I should say here that I am not saying that love "only" exists in the psyche... I am using the term "psyche" in the broadest possible way - the way that closely resembles the definition of "soul.")

The example of the lovers attests to the fact that humans' psyches can be in a state of connection or disconnection. This "connection" should not be taken lightly. Human history is full of countless examples of one lover enduring extreme physical deprivation or even torture, and surviving only because of the knowledge that they were being loved. So, clearly, even when the loving partner is not present, the connection has some effect on the loved.

But where can we account for this "effect" of love? In the electrical impulses of neurons flashing thoughts and images of the lover? In the binding of warmth-generating peptides to cells? Probably not. In the instance of love, there is a collection of wavelengths that, as a result of being shone upon by the psychic "light," have become activated - conscious- giving the feeler access to an increased capacity for endurance, or whatever the task at hand is. It sounds like science fiction, but it's true!

There is actually some illuminating entity in the psyche which accounts for the difference between conscious and unconscious contents. What is it illuminating? Wavelengths! In fact, the light is the very thing that gives the psyche form. Without it, there is just a mess of unconsciousness, of unmet connections, of scrambled meaninglessness. Meaning, in fact, is actually probably just a rhythm, a beat in the psychic fabric that absorbs all the other abberant beats and tones in our lives.

Essentially, I am comparing love, and psyche, to music. So for all those romantics out there who were disillusioned by my seemingly reductionist view of love, I am only reductionist insofar as music can be reduced. And for anyone whose heartstrings have ever been pulled by that sweet song that evokes the feeling of a first love, the notion of reducing music should hopefully seem ridiculous.