6: Impressions & Ego States
The Torment of Saint Anthony by Michelangelo Buonarroti
We can divide the transformation of impressions into four areas:
Historical impressions: the transformation of past impressions which arrived through a sensory, psychological, or spiritual channels at some point in the past. These are related to our memories.
Sensory impressions: the transformation of external impressions as they occur in daily life.
Psychological impressions: the transformation of the impressions which originated within the mental continuum opposed to external impressions.
Spiritual impressions: the transformation of impressions which originate from the consciousness (beyond the mind), which are then received by the mental continuum.
Without any conscious transformation, the impressions produce these ego states:
Historical impressions produce archaeopsychic ego states.
Sensory impressions produce exteropsychic ego states.
Psychological impressions produce neopsychic ego states.
Spiritual impressions produce neopsychic ego states.
Through retrospective reflection, historical impressions can be transformed. This is done using meditation. While it is true that some number of historical impressions can be transformed by ‘talking it out,’ the overall effect of this is small compared to meditation. Without transformation, the ego is then impelled into an archaeopsychic state, ruminating about the past mechanically.
Impressions of a sensory type are transformed through self-observation and self-remembering in daily life. If they are not transformed as they occur, they are stored in the mind and produce more ego. Later, they must be worked with as historical impressions. The phrase ‘transformation of sensory impressions’ is somewhat misleading because the raw sensory information is not actually transformed. It is just sensory information, which has nothing good or bad about it. What does occur is an immediate psychological impression borne from the raw sensory input. Thus, sensory impressions are just a simple way of denoting the aspect of psychological impressions that manifested directly through the contact with sensory information.
Psychological impressions also need to be understood with a lot of care. Psychological impressions are a moment within the mind. What produces any moment in the mind? Many factors. Fundamentally, psychological impressions are permutations of historical impressions mixed with present sensory impressions. Without any transformation, psychological impressions produce neopsychic ego states. Each neopsychic state is a new permutation and new growth of the ego. They are not utterly new, but rather derivations of past impressions with alterations.
Spiritual impressions are related to perceptions of unconditioned consciousness which are later elaborated in the mind. Mystical experiences which are not properly transformed by the mind can cause a type of mental formation in which the ego believes it is god (mythomania). It is then stored as a historical impression that must be transformed.
In this scheme, there are only two true origins data which produce all impressions: sensory and spiritual. This relates to the continuums of the experience noted in the prior chapter: electromagnetic continuum for sensory impressions, and the continuum of consciousness for spiritual impressions. The mental or psychological continuum is in the middle: it generates no new data but instead combines the data from the other two.
The historical category is simply a mental re-occurrence of a psychological impression that was stored in memory.
The psychological impressions require the most attention. This is because they are almost always a creation within the mind, based upon a mixture of sensory and historical impressions.
The usual stages are thus:
External sensory impression occurs.
Historical impressions (based upon memories) are invoked, related to the similarities of the present sensory impression.
A psychological impression of the current moment manifests through the combination of the sensory and historical impressions.
This outline is, however, overly simplified. There is more to the psychological process because each psychological impression impacts the next. Therefore, the current qualities of the mind at one moment, obviously feed into the next moment.
Thus, each new psychological impression is based on these factors:
An external sensory impression.
A historical impression invoked automatically by the external sensory impression.
The prior psychological impression.
Let us now integrate this into a dynamic process. Instead of speaking about a single instant, it is better to speak of the flow of impressions, like a river flowing into the ocean. This flow can be called a continuum. We can then describe the psychological continuum as an incessant weaving of these streams:
The continuum of external sensory impressions.
The continuum of historical impressions invoked by the continuum of sensory impressions.
The prior instant of the psychological continuum.
We are now approaching something accurate, yet there are still additional aspects to consider.
We have stated historical impressions are invoked through the similarities of the present external impressions, but this is not the only possibility. They can also be invoked by the qualities of the psychological continuum itself.
For illustration of this, take the processing of going to bed. We normally close our eyes and turn off the lights to limit the quantity of external sensory impressions. Yet, even without abundant external sensory impressions, the psychological continuum remains unabated. At first, the content of the psychological continuum may be obviously related to the most recent set of external sensory impressions. However, as the minutes pass, the psychological continuum continues to process itself, and since there are few external impressions, the continuum of historical impressions now becomes the primary influencer of the psychological continuum.
The psychological continuum, in turn, continues to change, which then invokes different historical impressions. We experience this as a chain of mechanical or automatic mental states. This chain of memories pulls us into sleep, and soon fabricates elaborate psychological impressions which may appear to have no relationship with the external events of that day. These are called dreams.
In fact, there is a relationship between incoherent dreams, and our prior mental states of the day. If we possess the ability to review all the states of the psychological continuum in reverse, we will see how everything developed.
For example: the impression of a person spilling a drink reminds us of an embarrassing moment when did something similar in the past. This historical impression then invokes a series of other historical impressions of that time in our life. Perhaps a friend was there that day that is no longer in our life. This then sets the mind off into another series of historical impressions about such person. The process goes on and on.
The same essential process occurs when we daydream. During the day, the external sensory impressions prevent us from going too far off into dreaming. At night, because we limit the external impressions, the process continues without obstruction.
All of this is going on constantly, yet we are basically unaware of it. It is the water the fish swim within. We must become aware of all of it. This is how we begin to unravel the problems of our life. As we become aware of our continuum, we can transform it.
The process of rewinding our mental continuum is called retrospective meditation. We practice retrospective meditation to understand our own mental continuum and awaken from our psychological sleep. The practice simply involves becoming relaxed in a seated or lying position, closing the eyes, and visualizing a set of events in reverse. This usually means to review the day, starting at the present moment, and working backwards, while visualizing it. This method can also be used when one wakes up in the morning, to review dreams.
All this retrospection is a method of transforming the impressions of the past and understanding how they impact our present mental continuum. Instead of letting all the factors which weave the psychological continuum to occur mechanically, we must influence the continuum to benefit our spiritual work.
Each sensory impression tends to automatically invoke a historical impression. That needs to stop. Being reminded of the past is not the problem, the mechanical, unconscious influence of the past is the problem. We need to understand the meaning and content of our historical impressions. When historical impressions are the basis of our present mechanical behaviors (mental, emotional, or physical), we reinforce that historical impression and the mechanical nature of our lives.
Sensory impressions are not transformed, because they are just information. It is the immediate response to it, which is the new psychological impression formed, that must be transformed.
When someone says a rude word to you, the initial impression is sensory (information of the sensory organs). Immediately, this information invokes something from your vast catalogue of historical impressions. A heap of historical impressions leaps out from the muniments of your unconsciousness into activity and blends itself with the psychological continuum. This is done at such a speed and subtlety that it normally remains unnoticed.
The heap (or aggregate) of impressions that lunges into activity, is laying claim to the sensory impression. The heap of historical impressions, activated by the sensory impression, comes into the foreground and mixes with the present mental continuum. This occurring constantly, moment by moment.
Why does some heap of historical impressions lay claim to the present sensory impression? Why is one heap versus some other one laying claim? This is due harmonic resonance.
If two identical tuning forks are placed next to each other, striking of one of them will invoke a sound from both. The one which is struck by a hammer sounds first, sending a sound wave into the environment. The frequency of this sound wave matches the resonant frequency of the second tuning fork. This invokes the second one to vibrate, creating its own identical sound.
Each sensory impression possesses a resonant frequency. The historical impressions which are invoked are precisely those which possess a similar frequency as the present sensory impression. Thus, they are activated.
There is more to the process of activation, however. In fact, it is normal for many different heaps of historical impressions to all be activated by the same sensory impression. This produces layers of psychological conflict within the mental continuum. Different heaps influence the mental continuum concurrently.
Additionally, these heaps are divided into the centers: intellectual, emotional, and motor-instinctive-sexual. One heap may primarily influence intellectual activity, while a different one is emotional.
This results in us being divided, changing our mind, or behaving in contradictory ways.
The historical impressions resonate and thus activate due to the sensory impressions. This is a critical juncture. Normally, a type of instantaneous grasping at this activity causes the consciousness to become transfixed by the resonance of the historical impression. The consciousness is the one grasping. It is as if the consciousness says, “that is me.” We, as consciousness, become identified with the resonance (vibrations) of the impressions. This is called identification, self-grasping, or fascination. It is a mode of sleeping consciousness.
This is a big problem because the consciousness is not the continuum of impressions! The consciousness is the perceiver of the continuum! The consciousness identified with something it is not causes all our suffering.
Erroneous self-grasping is based upon ignorance, which can be broken down into simple and karmic:
Simple ignorance: based on connate naivete.
Karmic ignorance: habitual tendencies created by prior erroneous actions.
Connate naivete is what the consciousness has prior to any experience. It is a type of innocence. Since it does not know anything, it mistakes the appearance of impressions as itself. This grasping is a false action (karma). The false action (karma) creates the second level of ignorance. These two can be understood in the following way:
Simple ignorance is the lack of knowing.
Karmic ignorance is the assertion of something which is false.
To simply not know, is simple ignorance. To assert or affirm something which is false, is karmic ignorance.
Karma is Sanskrit for action. We can see that the second type of ignorance is born out of confused action. In the beginning this confused action is coming from the innocent consciousness. However, this action (karma) then creates something, a false impression of “self” which is storied in the vault of historical impressions.
The naïve consciousness, not knowing its own self-nature, sees the impressions and instantly identifies as the impressions. This is called an untransformed impression. Our ego is just a collection of these untransformed impressions.
The very act of grasping upon something false is a karma, which we call “I”, ego, psychological aggregates, etc. Another word for karmic ignorance is the ego. From the ego, which is ignorance, comes the creation of more ego, more ignorance. Our ego is ignorance atop ignorance, layer after layer, of confusion.
The greater our ego is, the stronger we react mechanically to life. The more we identify with the impressions, to more we strengthen our ego. The more we strengthen our ego, the less ability we have to remain at peace.
When the historical impressions activate, the consciousness which created that false impression becomes transfixed again the way it was originally. Again, being confused, it enmeshes itself with the impression and becomes a slave to the false nature of the impression. Therefore, we say the consciousness is bottled up or sleeping within the ego.
In this way, the consciousness creates something, and then becomes trapped by its own creation. This is Sophia, looking at the false light, and confusing it for the true light. The false light is the false self-grasping, the true light is the spirit. When Sophia enters the false light, she creates Yaldabaoth, which then traps Sophia.
All the immediate, mechanical, automatic reactions must be exchanged for conscious responses to life. We cannot simply stop by brute force, however. We must perceive the process and understand the content of the historical impressions.
The historical impression contains within it a set of ideas, a set of feelings, an attitude, ideas, a set of behaviors, etc. Of which, one or many we may feel impelled to re-enact in the moment to some degree.
The historical heaps of impressions are psychological “I’s.” Each psychological “I” is a heap of historical impressions of the past. Each sensory impression will strengthen our “I” if we allow it. This is how our ego grows, and we become more mechanical.
We possess the ability to understand all these mechanical impulses in an instantaneous fashion, thanks to the awakened consciousness. In this case, all the energy that invoked the historical impression can be transformed into actions which benefit our spiritual work. However, it is often the case that such mechanical impulses are difficult to transform.
The difficulty of transforming mechanical activity is due to our overall ignorance. The effort to always transform the impressions of life is a type of spiritual striving which allows us to develop self-knowledge. Even knowing that an impression was not transformed, is a form of self-knowledge.
We must practice self-observation and self-remembering, so that when the impressions of life churn through our psychology, we have the awareness to guide the energy invoked into the best possible usage.
When we fail to transform the impressions of life, we live like a machine. Yet, because we are consciousness, we are trapped in the machinery of the mind. This is Sophia trapped in bondage by Yaldabaoth.
We can only transform impressions in life to the degree that we comprehend the nature of our experience.
We must look seriously at how our mental states change, and how they change, and what factors are producing the change.
The first thing to accept is our actual state of mind. Many people live in a fantasy, telling themselves they are happy even though they are not.
Secondly, it is necessary to accept that the content and process of the mind is connected to our contentment and suffering.
Third, to accept and know it is possible to change the process of the mind.
Fourth, to see that life is nothing more than the impression of it.
Fifth, to know that it is possible to transform impressions.
Sixth, to comprehend that to transform the impressions of life is to transform life itself.
The person who has complete wisdom innately transforms all the impressions for the benefit of themselves and the world.
