Hi Ari
I wanted to share my thoughts about what you posted, sp. the first part ... :
Awakening is a process that roughly plays out like this:
1. The door opens. "Wow. Nothing is what I thought it was, including me."
2. Beliefs fall away in various degrees. Suffering may intensify. Sense of dying and losing the world may occur. Body may go through dramatic changes via illness and loss of old patterns.
3. The emptiness envelopes and the sense of meaninglessness may increase, along with fear, terror, anxiety and/or indifference. Solipsism may arise, "I am the center around which all the meaninglessness happens." One may stay here for quite some time, mistaking detachment and disassociation for "enlightenment".
It is from this place, "enlightened egos" are born
To me, the above seems a quite accurate possible experience in relation to how the 1st stage spiritual condition can manifest, at the point where the Soul is preparing for direct spiritual experience, ie. experience of union with the Divine. In this patriarchally conditioned times, it is hard for the Soul to endure being at this stage, because of how patriarchy has distorted the natural life of the emotions. This distortion of the natural life of the emotions has produced weak egos, ie. egos which are weak because the Soul has not been nurtured as it needs, and thus, the Soul, and the egos they create, are deeply permeated by a fundamental insecurity. No Soul or ego can feel safe within themselves if they have not experienced natural nurturing and caring, allowing to correctly identify themselves. This fundamental insecurity has created-to one degree or another-, the desire to be powerful, or strong in some way. I assume such types of desires have been created in Souls because of patriarchal conditioning, because, if the Soul had been naturally nurtured and cared for, why should these desires to have power exist?
This desires, in turn, has conditioned the misidentification of the Soul or the ego: thus, the Soul believing or thinking or feeling it is something which it is not, or which is only a small part of what it really is. These weak egos, no matter how strong they can feel, reach this point where they begin to know that they are not what they thought, and that life itself is so much larger than all they have known before. Here the Virgo purging desires begin to operate, in order to purify the prior identity associations, and the desire nature. The purging is necessary because the Soul is preparing to re-identify and re-experience itself in a new way. However, the weak egos are still hungry, so to speak, because the Souls have not been naturally nurtured and cared for, this being the causal factor for the weakness of the egos in first place-or its deluded sense of strength (which blossomed in the 3rd stage individuated condition). Thus, the Soul, while in process of purging and emptying itself from its prior associations and desires, begins to intensely desire the experience of union with the Divine, where it will find the Source of inner security it has lacked for so long (understanding this has been conditioned by the patriarchal ways of emotional relation to itself and others). The intensity of this desire to unite with the Divine is the origin of the ‘hunger’, anxiety, and greed or avidity. At the same time, this desire is not totally pure: it is still mixed or contaminated with the preexisting desire to have power or to be strong, its egocentric will and desires, etc. This is the reason why the Soul is purging, and will continue to purge until its desire nature becomes very pure: just the remaining desire to unite with the Divine, or the Source. At this point in the evolutionary journey, such purity has not been achieved. Such purity can only be achieved progressively, little by little. However, the Soul, despite its impurity, can have a experience of such union with the Divine, and at some point this experience will necessarily begin to manifest. When this occurs, and because this experience is so fulfilling, and so nurturing, the Soul will want ‘more’, and this desire for 'more' will be conditioned by the avity, or hunger (or thirst). Because of this, the Soul can now be presented to, or come to face with, something which shows itself as the Divine, but in reality is not the Divine. Instead, it is a projection of the Soul's own desire nature, including separating desires. And this can present itself as being the Divine, and the Soul will be invited to unite with this, to enter in this spiritually deluded experience of wholeness. The need is to discriminate (Virgo) between God and evil, in that which is being presented to the Soul as Divine. In some cases this can be quite difficult, and it may be easier to discriminate between the nature of the Souls desires and the different emotional states and emotional attitudes with are being combined within, in face of this ‘temptation’, a temptation which may also include a ‘temptation of not being tempted’. If the Soul, because of its separating desires, accepts to unite with this projected wholeness or mix of inner states and desires, it will gain a deluded sense of power, where its separating desires are indiscernible from the true Divine. Thus, the Soul will experience itself as Divine, including the Soul’s own separating desires, becoming spiritually ‘intoxicated’ with its own separating desires. This experience can manifest as being invited to enter back into Pardes, or Paradise, ie. a state of consciousness pre-existing to duality, and the distinction between good and evil. And, of course, such state of consciousness exists, and the Soul is destined to ‘return’ to such state of consciousness. However, if the Soul does not honor its own inner created duality, which translates in discernment between good and evil as it manifests from within itself, it will become intoxicated. Why? Because such inner duality and inner distinction between good and evil-no matter how wrong or partial it may be- is a reflection of the Soul’s separating desires, which needs to be consciously purged, step by step. Thus, the Virgo/Mercury need to create an order within the inner experience, and discriminate between the different emotional states and desires, thus discerning what is pure, and what is not pure (ie. paradoxically creating duality in order to purge duality). Only thus can the true ‘Paradise’ can be entered into and known, progressively. If the Soul fails to continue with this ongoing purging of its desire nature, it will be identifying the Divine with a projection of itself, thus feeling full of an egocentric power of some kind.
I hope this makes sense, and please keep in mind it is nothing but what I personally feel this is about, or one way it can manifest.
God Bless,
Gonzalo
