5: Observing Impressions
The Mirror of Venus by Edward Burne-Jones
More than all that you guard, guard your mind, for it is the source of life.
– Proverbs 4:23
Observe your experience. Self-observe the activity of the intellect, emotion, instinct, sex, and motor movements. Intellect, emotion, and physical body activity are almost always present. Sexual impulses are highly related to instinct. There are times when they are more quiescent, but when instinct and sex become activated, they can easily dominate the mind.
The aspirant combines self-remembering with self-observation. It is necessary to the see the world as it is, as best possible, without artifice, presumption, or projection. By making such an effort, the projections, presumptions, biases will start to become clearer.
Our experience of life is a series of impressions. Everything is an impression. Our life is a continuous flow of impressions.
Each moment is an impression of life. Each moment, a new impression.
Things happen, but what we experience is an impression of that event.
The impressions of life strike the mind (and therefore consciousness), and the mind reacts.
The mind reacts unconsciously because it is conditioned to do so.
A hammer strikes the forged metal and sparks fly. The metallurgist hits the metal, and the sparks fly when impurities are found.
Likewise, each mechanical mental exertion indicates an impurity, or little ego, acting in accordance with ignorant volition (desire). Each mental compulsion, each impulse to think, to express, to feel, is like a spark flying off when an impression struck the mind. Impressions strike the mind and we respond automatically.
Let us take an example. You notice a person is behaving in some way, and you already have a reaction to it (apparently you do not approve of their behavior). The impression is the experience of the other person behaving, and the reaction is an exertion of mind. The consciousness experiences, but the action (or reaction) is not conscious, it is conditioned. The reaction occurs before you can ‘see’ it. There is emotion, thought, action, without complete cognizance.
The impressions strike upon the mind. Thoughts, emotions, impulses are suddenly cascading across the mental continuum. Speech, action, and expression in the world continuously flow from the person. Where amongst all of this is consciousness?
The consciousness, the true and pure agent of all action, perception, and experience, is bonded under rule of the mental conditioning factors. The psychological aggregates have split the consciousness into pieces, each with different subjective ‘self-wills.’
Thus, every impression catalyzes one or another ‘self-will,’ a little ego, which thinks, feels, and behaves in some preprogrammed or conditioned way. This is like Moses, real human agency, under the rule of the Pharaoh. This is like Sophia, potential wisdom, is under the rule of Yaldabaoth.
Let us remember that Sophia creates Yaldabaoth. She mistook the meaning of her mystery. Then, she is dominated and enslaved by her own miscreation. The ego is a miscreation.
Sophia must sing Thirteen Repentances to discover the true meaning of her mystery. Then she rejoices in the mystery of the light.
Obviously, David must defeat Goliath. Jason must defeat the sleepless dragon. Perseus must behead Medusa. Odysseus must kill all 108 suitors of Penelope.
The consciousness is the hero of all victories. But how?
According to materialistic psychology, there is no ability to ‘do’ anything other than what you actually end up doing. Strictly speaking, a reduction of consciousness to brain leads to the reduction of the brain to chemistry, and chemistry is likewise reduced to physics. In physics, there is no allowance for things to have choice or agency. This means that those who are logically consistent with materialism must conclude that freewill is illusory.
We find this type of reductionism the ultimate “cart before horse.” Consciousness is the agent of action. In us, it is conditioned in many ways, yet, it still has some ability to ‘do’.
In us, we must start by becoming aware of our experience.
To experience, and to be attentive of such experience, are different experiences.
We find the capacities of auto-reflection and auto-attention of consciousness something inexplicable. Moreover, the spontaneity of agency of consciousness is entirely non-rational, perhaps better stated, supra-rational.
These former statements must be self-discovered now, consciously.
Lacking self-discovery of the spontaneity of attention and agency leaves one predicatively impoverished for the efforts of conscious transformation.
In other words, you must know why it is possible to change, if you are looking to achieve the greatest change.
Consciously experiencing that one, as consciousness, is able to choose, leaves one with something more than the idea of choice.
Consciously experiencing that one, as consciousness, is able to pay attention to one thing in distinction to another, leaves one enriched with a ‘conscious quality’ unobtainable through mere intellectual refinement.
The idea of being alive and conscious produces a false notion of ‘being conscious of’ said fact. This is like the dreamer, ostensibly knowledgeable of dreaming, while remaining unconscious of the fact that he is currently dreaming.
Few people remember their dreams, and if they do, they were not conscious of the fact that they were dreaming when it occurred.
In the same way we must awaken from our dreams at night, we must awaken now. It is necessary to begin ‘paying attention’ now, waking up now, becoming aware now.
It is necessary to be observant of thoughts, feelings, and actions as they manifest within experience, from moment-to-moment. This is called self-observation.
Self-observation can be done in a seemingly unconscious manner. Therefore, it must be combined with inner self-remembering.
The act of being conscious transforms experience. The impressions of life can and must be transformed.
Technically, all energy is constantly being transformed, and the impressions of life are no different. What is meant by ‘transforming impressions’ is a conscious transformation.
If the impressions are not transformed consciously, what type of transformation occurs?
The impressions of life strike the mind and the mind reacts. The quality of the reaction is based primarily upon two interdependent factors:
The present conditioned aspects of the mind. The mind repeats patterns of conditioning.
Consciousness lacking wisdom. Connate naiveté.
The first factor reproduces and strengthens patterns of the mind in forms of thought, emotion, and action. Each repetition that occurs strengthens the pattern.
The second factor is the root cause of the creation of patterns in the first place. If consciousness were innately wise it would have never acted in a way to create the ego.
If Sophia did not misapprehend the nature of her experience, she would not have created Yaldabaoth.
Paradoxically, she finds her ultimate salvation within her misapprehension, because through the process of eliminating her mistake, she gains ultimate exaltation in the Thirteenth Aeon. She acquires the Treasury of the Light.
Any pattern is a form of organization and structure. We could not exist, as we are today, without structure. It protects us from the chaos.
Another name for chaos is potential. That which is ordered, structured, and known is also limiting and confining.
Happy are those who find order within the ultimate potential of chaos. ‘They’ have the happiness of ‘Non-Being’. Those who cannot find order within the ‘negative light’ of infinite potential, of the chaos, only see the darkness of ignorance.
The consciousness is the dialectical force between ultimate order and ultimate potential. These are concepts well beyond good and evil.
When the impressions of life are received without any consciousness active, the mind responds according to the following formula: New Mental State = Instantaneous Impression of Life + Ignorance + Activated Mental Conditioning.
At each moment, some aggregation of mind becomes activated. This is like a tuning fork resonating with an environmental frequency. We become activated because we have heaps of mind, within our mental continuum, which resonate with the type of impressions that are striking the mental continuum.
For example, seeing a very wealthy person may incite jealousy, because the ‘resonance’ of the energy of that impression causes the aggregate called ‘jealousy’ to activate. Different qualities of mental aggregates are activated by different qualities of impressions.
Ultimately, it is the consciousness that does all the action. Consciousness can act completely spontaneously, without any external event, yet, when conditioned by the ego, it only activates in programmed ways.
Acting in conditioned or programmed ways means the action is never truly a response to the actual nature of the moment. Only when we are conscious, can we realize that we are acting in unconscious ways.
One aspect or ‘part’ of the consciousness can see that another part is incited to act mechanically. When this is observed, it is possible to transform the impressions of life.
This conscious activity changes the equation. It allows for the impressions of life to liberate consciousness in wisdom, instead of further enslaving it.
The student can become aware of different aggregates as they appear with the intellect, emotion, and instinct.
The experience of anger is one thing.
The experience of the experience of anger is something else.
We must experience our experience. In other words, we must be conscious. We can experience the experience of anger taking hold of the three brains. We can experience the processes of all the three brains, and the different ways they are impelled to act mechanically.
A horse is controlled using reins. We must rein in the unwieldy and mechanical programmed responses constantly occurring in our mind. The biological reins are related to the adrenal glands above the kidneys. When the ego is unleashed all the chemicals related to fear, stress, and hostility gallop into the bloodstream. Obviously, this creates sickness.
Simply reining in our response, however, is insufficient. A transformation is required, and this is never done in accordance with strict rules or conditioned responses, but through an instantaneous spontaneity.
Whenever we are compelled towards thinking, feeling, and acting in ways which are beyond our comprehension, we must consider ourselves like a mountaineer about plummet off a precipice. Usually we are already lost, fallen into our ego. However, we must make the effort to become aware.
Pull yourself up, a thousand times a day, if needed. There is no other way. This way you will become an expert.
Whenever we are sensing anger, boredom, frustration, fear, envy, jealously, dullness, lust, pride, hatred, incoherent fantasies, etc., we are like a ship overtaken by pirates. Where is the captain (consciousness) and where exactly is the ship now going?
The qualities of consciousness are related to joy, contentment, fluidity, strength, awe, sincerity, levity, serenity, bliss, wisdom, etc. Whenever you are missing these qualities you should immediately inquire as to what aggregates have taken over your consciousness.
It is much easier to see the aggregates which cause anguish than the aggregates which cause arrogance. Many in captivity become enchanted by their captors. People love themselves too much.
The same conditioning which produces unpleasantness today may produce pleasantness tomorrow. You must see both sides of the conditioning.
Authentic love is only a quality of consciousness. You cannot know this if you are always stuck in the mind and conditioning factors of the mind. Without in depth meditation, one never can distinguish between the mental continuum and consciousness. Without discernment between the mental continuum and consciousness, the degree of psychological change possible is minimal.
