4.
THE QUICKENING:
The “Quickening” is one of the most wondrous and painful experiences
that an individual can undergo. Once it really starts, it takes
twenty-one years to complete its unfolding transformations. The more
deeply and intensely the individual has recognized the Spirit-Self as
their true identity and made the commitment to realize themselves as the
Spirit-Self, the more deep and intense the “Quickening” will be. The
more the individual realizes themselves as Spirit-Self, the more attuned
to cosmic Spiritual Law do they become.
The esoteric tradition uses the metaphor of the “Bridge” (Antahkarana)
to describe and discuss the path from ordinary consciousness to the full
realization of the Spirit-Self. It is the “bridge across forever" It
spans the instants in time of personal self-image undergoing
transformation to the state of “at-one-ment” with the All and every one
of the states of being and experience in between forming the Bridge
itself.
The psycho-spiritual stages involved in the crossing of the bridge have
always formed an integral part of the teachings of the esoteric
tradition. It is this esoteric tradition which has informed and inspired
Transpersonal Psychology. Ken Wilbur’s book, “the Atman Project", gives
a picture of the Bridge from a psychological point of view. The
Antahkarana bridge, in Wilbur’s terms, spans the evolutionary passage
from the “pre-personal”, that is, the “personal” or individuated,
intellectual separate self, to transcendence into the “transpersonal”
Self, that is, the higher mind to Spirit-Self.
The Bridge represents the journey from the particular to the Universal,
which all new cultures make at their birth into historical time. A new
culture, in this sense, is the result of many individuals awakening to
the Living Spirit at the same time. At the beginning of all truly new
stages in the evolution of humanity, a remembering of the Whole lights
up in many individuals simultaneously.
In order to go forward, we must remember the beginning, and the
beginning of the Spiritual Paradigm is the esoteric doctrine. The
“Quickening” also brings about a positive and fierce discontent with
cultural forms and ideas which have become rigid and worthless obstacles
to true progress. The “Quickening” can cause extreme soul and mental
suffering, not only at a personal level, but also progressively at
social, cultural and planetary levels of experience.
The whole bio-magnetic organism (etheric) and astral souls are quickened
into a life so intense that only those who have experienced this state
can fully comprehend its catalyzing power and the array of profound and
subtle experiences that go with it. It shatters the individual’s
previous body image. The autobiographical content of the soul and mind
is thrown into turmoil. The self-image is at hazard at every turn. It is
a profound crisis in consciousness in which everything latent and hidden
within the depths of self, the good and the bad, erupts into the light
of Self-Awareness and into the individual’s world. It becomes impossible
to conceal any part of the content and tendencies of the self. One of
the tenets of the Spiritual Law is that when the individual makes a real
and sincere bid to evolve into a more advanced stage of being,
everything which stands in the way of this realization, or can help it,
turns instantly into “ripe karma” and must be faced, transformed and
integrated on a higher level. There is absolutely no way that this
reality can be avoided on the Spiritual Path. Anyone who thinks that
they are enlightened, or even on the spiritual path, and have not
undergone, or are not going through, this experience is quite simply
deluded.
If something like the “Quickening” is induced prematurely in a person
with a weak grasp of their inner self-identity and/or who also lacks
real spiritual education (which in practice comes to the same thing) and
the ability to meditate deeply, then a pathological condition such as
paranoid schizophrenia can be the result. Premature quickening can occur
for a variety of reasons to people who have not yet attained a strongly
rooted sense of individuation. It can also appear spontaneously and
appropriately in individuals who have prepared for it in a previous
lifetime of spiritual effort. The use of psychotropic mind and
reality-altering drugs by pre-individualized and, therefore, immature
persons (from a spiritual point of view) can easily induce a caricature
of the “Quickening”, sometimes with disastrous results. The aid of an
enlightened guide who is accustomed to handling extreme crises within
consciousness would prove invaluable to those undergoing premature
quickening.
Biochemical and biomagnetic imbalance can also induce this problematic
condition, as can prolonged sleep-deprivation, severe shock, religious
obsession, involvement in the “forbidden arts” in this or a previous
lifetime and a number of other causes. In actuality, it is relatively
easy to bring about a state of altered consciousness, regardless of how
well prepared a “seeker” may be for it. Many charlatans and
self-appointed psychic guides, both embodied and discarnate, encourage
methods which can lead unsuspecting persons into a crisis of this kind.
Premature quickening is also called “pathological initiation", and its
causes, effects and understanding would require a large book in itself.
The individual must enter into the most scrupulous examination of their
own motives for wanting to enter the arena of direct spiritual
experience. If there is the slightest trace of selfishness or
power-mongering involved, then no good will come of it.
While the effects of the “Quickening” are no less complex and difficult
for the prepared and educated individual, he/she is more able to
experience the wonder, joy and blessedness of a Higher Life in the
making. This Higher Life is a homecoming into states which are new and
extraordinary and also deeply familiar. He/She is full of awareness that
the Self has always known these states, but he/she simply did not know
that it knew them. In karmically-appropriate “Quickening”, there is a
deep experience of inner calm and strength and a courage that comes from
the experience of reaching and abiding in the “awakened We-awareness
space”, and, even though this experience is often forgotten during the
trials and challenges of life, it is there to surface naturally as soon
as the Self regains the inner calm that comes from meditation.
It soon becomes clear that a large part of the challenge presented by
the quickened state is to stabilize the Self on a deeper level.
Spiritual education and sound guidance are required to accomplish this,
and the intense transformations of every level of the Self will, as
mentioned above, continue for twenty-one years.
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