Soul Fragmentation Series
1. Soul Fragmentation Explained
2. Three Rules Governing Soul Fragmentation
3. Englightenment, Salvation and the Rejection of Power
4. Soul Fragmentation, Neg Interference and the Paranormal
5. The Law of Attraction and the Mobile Soul
6. Adding a New Dimension to Your Perception
7. Hints for Smoother Integration
Enlightenment and salvation are not all they’re cracked up to be, although the truth of the matter will crack you up. Literally. Let’s start putting it all together (and knocking it off with the crappy puns), shall we?
The various Shamanic traditions, and some mystery schools, are the only well established traditions I’ve yet seen that focus specifically on the full reintegration of the Self. For anyone who has seen the Simpsons movie, the scene where Homer has his “vision quest,” is pulled apart and reassembled with a new understanding, is surprisingly true to the theme that pops up across cultures worldwide. What is not very surprising, is the lengths that the major world religions have gone to in persecuting these traditions.
The goals of the most prominent religions, in contrast, are great at pulling you apart, but leave it at that, stopping far short of putting you back together again. At every turn we’re encouraged to hand away our natural power, and either discouraged or actively prevented from using what we’ve got left, while that too is regulated and eventually stripped from us.
The Stagnation of Salvation
The ideal of the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is to gain divine favor, which is accomplished largely by following a set of rules. Even in versions of Christianity that are adamantly “faith-based” (as opposed to “works-based”) you still have to believe in the correct checklist of approved doctrines in order to be part of the club, thus the rule-following requirement simply becomes more mental than physical. Judaism and Islam go much further in being overtly rule-based, with religious laws to govern nearly every aspect of one’s daily life.
In all cases, the goal is to relinquish one’s individual will to the divine, and strip the Self of all its “sinful” aspects until you’re left with something capable of following the rules. You get to keep your identity as an individual, but your identity is required to conform to a specific set of criteria that a given sect’s interpretation of its holy book of choice, indicates that its version of God will approve of. Large parts of a human being in a state of wholeness are not well suited to following rules, and so when those parts naturally rebel against being repressed and regulated, we’re told that we are somehow defective and in need of redemption and divine mercy. We’re encouraged to engage in extensive self-betrayal in order to gain God’s approval — ejecting fragments of ourselves all along the way in the process.
In many cases the Abrahamic religions not only require that we reject large parts of ourselves, but also that we impose functions on other parts that they are not designed for. When I began exploring the function of my heart chakra (and thus love) for instance, I found that most religious definitions of love have very little to do with what the heart chakra actually does, and imposing any rules on its processes blocks its ability to properly function. I have already written of how, when I began working with my heart chakra, I found it encased in the energetic equivalent to a large superfortress that had it shut down almost entirely. In hindsight it is easy to see how adhering to the religious definition of love that I grew up with played a large part in forming this structure. It should also be pointed out that I grew up in a relatively moderate version of Christianity, and the beliefs and patterns that contributed to shutting down my heart chakra were not really all that extreme or unusual, relatively speaking.
The mainline strains of the Abrahamic religions have always had an uneasy relationship with their mystics – i.e. those who are more interested in experiencing the divine directly, than reading about it in books or coloring entirely inside the lines as they’ve been established. Historically, in order to remain breathing, mystics have been made to conform their experiences to a pre-existing paradigm that was established for reasons that were largely political, ensuring that much of the benefit of such experiences would, by definition, be lost. For everyone else, metaphysical pursuits have usually been discouraged with fear tactics, likely leading to widespread fragmentation and loss of genuine connections to the divine, and 3rd eye abilities among the faithful.
The most self-destructive feature of the Abrahamic religions may well be their repressive attitudes toward sex. It seems highly likely that the heavy regulation (and in many cases, elimination) of the natural human desire for sex is a massive source of fragmentation — and that’s even when they’re not literally amputating pieces of the male and female sexual anatomy, which would fit the bill for trauma-based fragmentation on top of the physical loss of function. Indeed, there is evidence to support this in the prominent literature on nonphysical exploration.
In Far Journeys
Monroe seems to speculate in the direction of a similar understanding to what’s reflected here, though he does not expand much before moving on.
“…Another emotion washed through me – intense compassion for those trapped in the undulating mass, so focused and intent on seeking sexual satisfaction they were unaware of any other existence – anger at a system that could so inhibit, repress and distort as to create the situation in front of me. Were these the castoffs of the human process, to remain so throughout eternity?” (p. 50)
I strongly suspect that the pile of bodies Monroe encountered were not “lost souls,” but rather, repressed sex drives. It stands to reason that trying to talk to a disembodied sex drive, or tell it to do something other than have sex, is indeed futile, because that’s what one’s sexual component does. Apart from the aspects of the Self responsible for communication, or indeed, anything other than having sex – that’s all it can do until it is reclaimed by the parts of itself that can balance it with the other traits and functions that make for a more dynamic and varied experience. To repress, regulate or distort the sex drive in any way other than that which is voluntarily chosen by the whole Self for its own reasons, as religion would have us do, is to remove an entire dynamic from the human experience – and possibly condemn that aspect of ourselves to engage in a futile and mindless quest for satisfaction until it is reclaimed. Given that the same energy that goes into literal sexual activities, is also a component in many other, non-sexual areas of the human experience, the damage to humanity’s overall capacity to live, experience and create, cannot be overstated.
The Inertia of Enlightenment
Buddhism, and popular Western proponents of its ideals such as Eckhart Tolle, take the fragmentation of the Self to its end. Enlightenment, or “Nirvana,” the Pali term, means “blowing out” – i.e., the extinguishing of one’s individual, divine spark. Through a process of relinquishing all of its parts, one experiences the Self as nonexistent, and this is claimed to be the highest state to which one can attain.
Buddha observed that everything in the physical world is subject to impermanence and entropy, and artificially imposed this entropy on the Self in the attempt to dissolve it, therefore “ending suffering.” Through a process of relinquishing everything – thought, will, desire, love – all is stripped away to the point that there ceases to be any awareness of one’s Self as an autonomous, sovereign individual personality.
Achieving enlightenment is a bit like dismantling your car, throwing all its parts aside, in the search for the “True Car” within. Eventually you’ll find that there is no car, but that doesn’t mean the car has ceased to exist. It’s simply in pieces, scattered all over the general vicinity.
So it is with enlightenment. One removes everything that can be removed, leaving the physical body and conscious mind. You’ve got peace – but it’s the peace of death; entropy that has reached zero-point. You’ve got detachment – the literal detachment of all one’s parts from their centralized location in the 3D world. Scattered around your physical body at various points on the nonphysical spectrum are all your parts, who may care a bit more about what’s happening, but can’t do a damn thing about it. Desire-based aspects that either can’t fulfill themselves, or can do nothing but. Mobility with no direction. A navigator that can’t go anywhere. An interpreter and assigner of value that exists in a state of sensory deprivation. Passion without an object. And, more than likely, a Higher Self going “well, crap… lost another one to that whole ‘enlightenment’ fad.” One does indeed rid themselves of the part that is capable of suffering (and joy!) but that part simply continues to suffer, cut off from a mind that no longer has the capacity to notice or care.
I’m a bit more wary of Buddhism and all its derivatives than the Abrahamic religions, for a few reasons. The cultivation of siddhis, i.e. nonphysical sensing and metaphysical abilities, is strongly discouraged and viewed as a distraction on the path to enlightenment. Anything that might be seen or heard in meditation is dismissed as illusory and inconsequential. Read: all the skills and perceptive abilities you need to notice that all your ejected parts continue to exist just beyond your awareness, are ignored until the parts of you that make those perceptions possible are, themselves, relinquished.
Secondly, at least with the Abrahamic religions, once you decide to stop believing in them, you can change course and choose a different direction (assuming you don’t live in a place where doing so is still hazardous to your physical health). Your mind may be heavily conditioned, but it’s still largely intact. Your will may have been submitted, but you can pick it back up again. Your identity may have been conformed to an arbitrary ideal that has little to do with the expression of your authentic Self, but it’s still yours if you want it. Your sexual capacity may require extensive retrievals and emergency services to get it back into a healthy and functional state, but at least there’s enough of you left to make it happen.
As one gets closer to “enlightenment,” they get further and further away from a position where they could reintegrate their parts and attain wholeness, without great difficulty. In all my experience with reintegration – even unconscious reintegration – at the very least, there needs to be a desire to move in a direction that encourages one’s fragments to return. To achieve conscious reintegration, especially of parts unwilling or unable to return on their own, requires some combination of “siddhis,” mind, will, heart, desire and passion – all things that one who aspires to enlightenment aims to extinguish. In its quest to “get off the wheel,” Buddhism and its derivatives actually make a literal mess of the Self that may take many, many more incarnations to clean up. Even restarting that process may have to wait until enough fragments somehow find their way back to each other, to make for an at least semi-functional physical incarnation.
Good Cop, Bad Cop
It happens in many cases that people come to reject whichever Western religion they grew up in, only to embrace Buddhism, or some popular strain of New Age thought that has helped to propagate many of its precepts in the West. After all the striving to please a God for whom nothing ever quite measures up, Buddhism and its derivatives do seem like a much needed rest. Considering the effects that all those traditions actually have upon an individual soul however, it becomes apparent that for those in this position, they’re leaving behind the more overtly authoritarian face of one religion for another, seemingly more benign facade… which will effectively finish the job of destroying everything that makes us human before they’ve ever had a chance to fully experience themselves. While they will eventually get that chance, it will likely require traveling a long, hard road back to spiritual health and wholeness. Even if one stops and changes course somewhere along these paths of self-annihilation, there will still be heavy losses to one’s personal power and natural functions. Throw in the amnesia of a new incarnation that has returned to find its scattered parts, but has to go through the process of figuring out what it’s there for (which it may or may not!)… it becomes evident that we may be doing this for quite a while.
The Separation of Oneness
Due to its current popularity and the likelihood that most of my readers will have had at least some experience with it, the New Age doctrine of oneness deserves a mention. While striving to increase one’s ability to live in harmony is a worthy goal, this is not what actually happens in practice. Most people who emphasize the goal of “oneness with the cosmos,” are not one within themselves — and their methods for achieving the former ensures that the latter won’t happen. Rather than a collection of individuals who are able to express themselves, each in their own authentic way, in harmony and wholeness similar to the cells of a healthy body, most who value “oneness” try to get there by rejecting the “inconvenient” or otherwise not so nice parts of themselves in much the same way many religions would have us do. Personal boundaries are relinquished, causing one to embrace things as part of the Self that didn’t originate there, reject other parts that did, and still others simply drift away due to a lack of a consistent, well defined center that would provide a sense of inner cohesion. The most common conception of “oneness” is not a state of harmony within and without, but rather a sort of top-down, spiritual totalitarianism with a pleasant shiny veneer, where one’s value is recognized only in terms of contribution to a collective, and authentic individuality is discouraged to foster a false sense of civility. Same effect, slightly different packaging. More on the folly of many of the most popular New Age ideas can be found in my recent article on why I’m not a lightworker.
Given how much of the world population is and has historically professed membership in the religions that are the source of so much fragmentation, it is probably safe to say that anybody who’s incarnated a few times has spent some time in one or more of them, and thus may well have at least a few pieces missing. A future post will outline some of the ways for achieving spiritual rehabilitation and moving toward wholeness, in light of this. Now that we’ve seen some of the effects that the most common spiritual ideals have on the Self from a physical word perspective though, the next post in the series will shift our attention to the fragments themselves, and the well known paranormal and metaphysical phenomena that their existence may help to explain.
–Palehorse
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“that doesn’t mean the car has ceased to exist. It’s simply in pieces, scattered all over the general vicinity.”
Then it isn’t a car, is it? If the car is taken apart, there is no car. If you think there is a car, it is because you cling to an idea of car. In other words, the pieces are a “car” only because you choose to perceive it as “car,” but in fact, there is no intrinsic “car nature” that lived inside those parts and which still exists, somewhere, detatched from car form and function. And someone else might look at the pieces and not see “car” at all, just a pile of parts.
“You’ve got detachment – the literal detachment of all one’s parts from their centralized location in the 3D world.”
This is a gross misunderstanding of Buddhist teaching, but I don’t blame you too much because this is a common gross misunderstanding. You might get a little closer to Buddhist teaching if you crossed out “detatchment” and substituted “grasping” or “clinging.” In Buddhist meditation practice one does not “detatch” from one’s parts. One meditates to dissolve the self-other dichotomy, and in realizing that this dichotomy is an illusory idea — something like your idea that “car” still exists after the car is taken apart — it is realized there is no separate, intrinsic “self” that inhabits the body any more than there is an intrinsic “car” that inhabits unassembled parts.
In Zen, we say that the practice is “no separation.” In order for there to be clinging, you need two things — a person to cling, and something to cling to. When nothing is really separate, then clinging itself is understood to be an illusion.
Your metaphor of cracking or fragmenting has no relevance in Buddhist experience. It’s more of a practice of absolute integration. But in order for there to be absolute integration, you have to realize that you are not what you think you are.
Some of what you say shows some insight, but your understanding of shunyata is flawed. It is not what you imagine it to be.
Hi Barbara,
Actually I would be willing to argue that there is such thing as “inherentness,” although it also seems like the physical world is in the process of waking up to that understanding. That’s why the car analogy only goes so far — physical materials are basically interchangeable, but that appears to be a property of this world and those entities who are bound to it, that doesn’t hold up if you go a little way past the physical part of the spectrum. Some sources (which I resonate with) though, would say that the physical materials, the auto-maker, the archetype and the driver, all wanted that car to come into physical form on some level, and so to use those particular materials for anything else would be against their “nature.” There’s a lot more to that discussion that I’d like to elaborate on in the future, though of course this is an area where everyone needs to come to their own understanding.
The analogy breaks down at the point where you *can* use car parts for other things, but it seems you can’t use Self-parts interchangeably in the same way. I say this after past experiences of trying to integrate things that clearly didn’t “click” into place in the same way soul fragments do upon return, and probably confusing the hell out of some poor entity in the process.
I agree that to integrate we have to realize we’re not what we think we are, but in my case my understanding of “I” has gotten both more expansive and more clearly well defined over time. I assume most who resonate with what I have to say on the subject are probably on a path similar to mine, or somewhere in the ballpark at least, and this post was intended to point out parts of Buddhism and other common belief systems that can be a major diversion from said path.
The part about “detachment” wasn’t necessarily meant to be a representation of what Buddhists believe or teach — it was meant as a statement about the effects of those and other teachings. Most specifically, prolonged silence and solitude, which is the MO of the archetypal monk, produces a literal detachment between the throat chakra and the others, which in turn produces many of the subjective effects associated with enlightenment. More broadly, after holding the beliefs of no-self, no-separation, etc. for a while, and observing the effects they were having on various parts of myself, and then likewise observing the effects of my current direction, this is my current understanding. The beliefs we hold cause the etheric body to respond, but in this case, these particular beliefs tend to anchor one’s focus somewhere around the crown chakra, while everything lower atrophies, release parts, connections detach and so forth. The inner voice(s) that Buddhism seeks to silence arises from subconscious self-aspects in my experience, and while observing them gives the observer aspect a lot of exercise, it doesn’t actually address the concerns of the other parts, which may well give up and go their own way to find satisfaction elsewhere. Eventually there’s nothing left to raise concerns, and the mind goes silent. So you’re right, it’s not fragmentation in the “violent, cracking” sense, but the effect is roughly the same. There are other experiences usually dubbed “awakening” that do come a lot closer to the image of being violently shattered, which aren’t overtly Buddhism-related. UG Krishnamurti comes to mind as someone who seems to have experienced a violent Kundalini awakening that sent all his parts flying, and he ended up with the perception of himself as a (very nihilistic) body, and not much else. All these examples will produce the experience of non-duality and nonexistence of the “I”, but is not something I recommend for the above reasons.
Thanks for the reply.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your perception of reality. Your perceptions are your peceptions. I’m just saying that your arguments don’t apply to Buddhism. Your understanding of Buddhism is superficial, for reasons that would take vast amounts of time to explain. I can see you’ve read a bit about it, but the experience of deep meditation and the realization of shunyata is very, very different from what you imagine. It is not nihilistic. Nothing is forcibly “silenced.” It is not a negation of existence. There is existence, but existence isn’t what you think it is.
Your car analogy makes me think of yogacara, which you might want to look up someday. But essentially what’s confusing you is that you conflate “identity” with “existence.” They aren’t the same thing. Identity is not existence; it’s an idea of existence.
If Krishnamurti had had proper guidance from traditional Buddhist meditation masters his experience probably would have been very different. The Theosophists meant well, but there was a lot they missed.
The extent of my knowledge of Buddhism is not reflected in this article, because that would be beyond its intended scope. Not saying I’m an expert; just that this was never meant to be a discourse on the finer points.
My question is — if I disagree with the basic fundamentals, starting with the Four Noble Truths onward, and recognize that many of the basics would have derailed myself (and by extension, others who resonate with my direction) had I continued working with them… how far would you say I actually need to go, to be qualified to say “hey, heads up, this very prevalent set of ideas will prove destructive if your aim is to develop along similar lines as myself”?
I didn’t say Buddhists were necessarily nihilistic; I said UGK was, and I realize he wasn’t a Buddhist. I have read that Siddhartha aimed to instill compassion and other values in his followers before their awakening, because post-awakening this would not be possible. This is consistent with a subconscious mind which has become the whole person, minus an ego that could decide to evaluate, accept and incorporate some ideas and reject others.
I also didn’t say anything about Buddhism being “forcible.” I realize that when it’s done right relative to Buddhist ideals, it’s a very smooth process. This does not, however, make me any less wary of said process.
I’m pretty clear on the distinction between existence and identity. Oddly enough I actually started out embracing the idea that there was nothing inherent to identity, and I had no particular preference as far as existence was concerned, heh. I never called myself a Buddhist, but at one time I was pretty receptive to the basic premises, even if I took liberties in what I actually did with them. Assuming there was nothing inherent about “me” I figured I’d just toss out what was left of my ego and create an identity as I saw fit, taking it for granted that it was nothing permanent; just something to have fun with while it lasted and not take too seriously. Then I started poking around the spacetime continuum, and found that what I thought I “created” was part of a recognizable, continuous thread that spans every lifetime I’ve yet managed to connect with, all the way up to the Higher Self level. I didn’t tell him to keep existing and being me, I swear! Heh… but given that my penchant for sarcasm is part of said thread, if I were to have told him/me/them to stop so as to prove myself and Buddha correct about this whole “nature of reality” thing, he’d probably just tell me to stop being an ass.
Not meaning any disrespect, but this is something I’ve seen a lot in discussions involving Buddhism, whether I was involved or not. It’s something along the lines of “if you disagree with Buddhism, then what you’re disagreeing with isn’t Buddhism.” It’s a few steps up from “if you disagree with X religion, a swift beheading will straighten you right out,” I’ll give ya that… but I still have yet to see any sort of straight explanation of why this is not the case, especially considering that Siddhartha’s original teachings, before things evolved into sects and sub-sects and etc, don’t really seem all that complex.
“My question is — if I disagree with the basic fundamentals, starting with the Four Noble Truths onward, and recognize that many of the basics would have derailed myself (and by extension, others who resonate with my direction) had I continued working with them… how far would you say I actually need to go, to be qualified to say ‘hey, heads up, this very prevalent set of ideas will prove destructive if your aim is to develop along similar lines as myself’?”
I want to be clear that I am not interested in arguing about who is right or wrong here. I respect your perspective and do not wish to “convert” you. I’m just saying you are misrepresenting Buddhism. You can disagree with it all you like, but what you’ve done is set up a straw man version of Buddhism to knock down.
Further, I don’t especially care whether you agree with Buddhism, or even whether you understand it. However, it bothers me that you claim it is dangerous, since your claims are based on gross misunderstanding. If you don’t like it, just leave it alone.
Your essential misunderstanding seems to come from looking at Buddhism as a collection of “ideas” or “beliefs.” Ultimately, all ideas and beliefs are wrong, or at least imperfect, including Buddhist ones. Buddhism is more of a discipline than a belief system; the doctrines exist not to be “believed” in, but to set some parameters for the practice. And the practice enables one to realize oneself and existence and reality in a way that goes way beyond the merely intellectual or cognitive.
What is realized is not blankness, but the illusional nature of intrinsic self. The word “intrinsic” is critical. “Intrinsic self” is not existence, and to realize that intrinsic self is an illusion is not to shut down to total blankness, but to open up to a larger understanding of existence and self.
The way you explain enlightenment is, frankly, weird, and tells me that perhaps you have played with meditation or other Buddhist practice but never worked formally with a dharma teacher. This is a bit like trying to learn to swim without getting into water. However, this is not for everybody, and if it doesn’t interest you, that’s fine with me.
You say, “this very prevalent set of ideas will prove destructive if your aim is to develop along similar lines as myself.” Yes, no doubt that is true. I suggest you focus on writing about your own perspectives and development for those who wish to develop along similar lines as yourself and leave things you don’t understand alone.
FYI, I did a take on your post on my own blog, here:
http://buddhism.about.com/b/2009/08/22/same-old-idea.htm
Heh… “first rule of Fight Club… err, Buddhism is you do not talk about Buddhism unless you support Buddhism!”
One thing I have to point out is that on this site, a large volume of our visitors come looking for information on dealing with various forms of severe negative interference, and when I’m writing articles, I have to keep in mind that this is a large part of the demographic I’m addressing. I have had much success in raising my own quality of life on this front, and by considering and making use of the ideas and methods presented here, so have our visitors. I myself have little use for beliefs, which are unproven ideas by definition — I’m interested in results, and I get them. Likewise, I advise people in a similar position not to take my word for it — do what works, by your own definition, whether you find it here or anywhere else.
One of my biggest breakthroughs there has been in rejecting the ideas that there is no intrinsic Self, that the ego is inconsequential, that desires and cravings are inherently a source of suffering, and going with my own observations on the subject. I can tell you from experience that if something wants into your space, then convincing you that the distinction between it and yourself is an illusion, is one of the most common tactics to look for. Buddhism may not be “dangerous” for its practitioners, who may not have had these problems to begin with, and value the goals Buddhism aims for — but for those I’m writing for, there are times when you need all the resistance and self/other distinction you can get.
When one of the largest religions on earth presents all these ideas in one package, yes I’m going to name names, and no I’m not going to censor myself for the benefit of its members. I’m not writing for the religiously devout; I’m writing in large part for those, like myself, who found the abandonment of religion in all forms to be a necessary leap forward. Keeping in mind how seeing something stated bluntly in print can help a lot in dislodging any remaining vestige of an already consciously rejected idea that is still operating and influencing one’s experience, unseen, from the subconscious mind, that’s another factor that influences my writing style and the subject matter I’ll cover. Whether Buddhism is based on beliefs, practices or both is inconsequential, as either or both will influence the subconscious mind and energy body, taking one on a ride that may not be easily reversible once they find out where it’s actually going. If the basic premises don’t hold up to scrutiny, one doesn’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) take up the practices that are based on them, qualified teacher or not.
Your suggestion is duly noted. However, since “if you don’t like it, leave it alone” is another idea I’ve recognized as a source of much suffering, I’ll stick to calling ‘em as I see ‘em, as I wish someone had done for me years ago. Dismissing those who point out the flaws as if they must have been “playing with things they don’t understand” is the other cliche that usually comes up when Buddhism is critically scrutinized. You have been given ample opportunity to get across what it is you believe I’m misrepresenting, and I will leave this discussion and your link so others can decide for themselves. However, considering that this has, predictably, devolved into ad hominem and red herrings, I’ll close by saying “case in point” and continue on with the series.
Awesome post. Much appreciated.
Wow. The post was awesome and then I read the little banter back and forth between you and Ms. O’Brien… You’re my hero lol. I agree with everything you had to say and highly commend you on clarifying your point without taking the bait to get into an argument. Very awesome.