The Way of Transpersonal Being: The True Resolution of the Blues

Introduction

There are only two basic ways to deal with the blues (i.e., any painful psychological state or uncomfortable emotional feeling). One is for our conscious awareness to penetrate beyond distancing, presumptive, speculative, conceptual interpretations into direct, deeper, contact with the experiential truth of the emotional feelings or experiential contents that are actually arising within oneself, in the here and now present moment, which is termed, the way of Being; whereas the other approach is termed, the way of becoming, and reflects, basically, the attempt to escape from the full, direct/unmediated experiential contact or full conscious awareness of the blues by superimposing some more positive, idealized, self-consoling, distracting, interpretation, self-definition, self-conceptualization, or pleasurable compensatory feeling or sensation upon it, which may be referred to as the pinks, for purposes of clarifying this discussion. The pinks represent a kind of “rose-colored” conceptualized, distortedly exaggerated, idealized, proficient view of your own individual being and emotional feelings, or experiential life; whereas the blues represent a deficient view of your individual being as though viewing your actual emotional feelings and related experiential states “through a glass darkly,” or “a poor reflection” (I Corinthians 13:12), i.e., through the equally distorting bias or opaque filter of a self-conceptualized, presumptively interpreted, sense of deficiency, distanced from direct contact with your actual emotional feelings and related experiential states. When the self- conceptualized sense of identity, with which one identifies, is relative (i.e., a sense of relative powerlessness, helplessness, or impotence of will, relative worthlessness, relative contradiction within your conceptual sense of identity), it is referred to as the blues. So the pinks are a compensatory extension of the blues; and the blues are a conceptualized extension of what may be referred to as the black, i.e., the sense of being an absolute inner nothingness, emptiness, meaninglessness, void of real inner Life energy substance. Before our individual being developed an individual consciousness, it was totally absorbed within the unconscious infinite Transpersonal Life energy substance. After our individual consciousness developed, and became identified with as our individual sense of identity, it conceptualized, or interpreted, our individual being, i.e., our individual transpersonal real being, our innate, native, inherent, natural, unconditioned, or unacquired, pure Life energy substance, abiding at the unconscious level of our energy-being, as being an inner nothingness, emptiness, or void. Our individual consciousness is like a ray of light which develops or matures out of the pure or formless unconscious Transpersonal (unmodified, boundless, undefinable, non-interpreted) Life energy, and by contrast comes to regard that undefinable, limitless, unconscious Transpersonal Life energy substance, which fills and animates our individual body mind heart forms or containers, as an inner emptiness, paucity, deficiency, or an infinite, unknowable, dark abyss. Thus, our individual real being comes to be conceptualized, or interpreted, as a presumed inner void, which constantly shadows our conscious sense of individuality and threatens it with psychological extinction, non-being, or re-absorption into the infinite unconscious energies that precede the development of our individual consciousness and a distinctive, particularized, sense of individual identity. Thus, our individual consciousness, at its core, conceptualizes or interprets itself as an inner nothingness, which becomes a subconscious presumption of intrinsic and absolute deficiency. The presumption of intrinsic deficiency, or fear of being an insubstantial being or inner void, may be referred to as the Universal Pathology, because almost all human beings share it in common. It is from the subconscious presumption of this intrinsic, absolute, primary or basic sense of deficiency that all later particular conceptualized relative or secondary deficiencies arise. It is also the root of various kinds of psychological motivation, need, desire, want, hope, aspiration, seeking or becoming, in whatever form it takes, as self-consoling compensation for that subconscious presumption of intrinsic deficiency. For example, one hopes, desires, or needs to attain, achieve, or validate, a compensatory sense of worth because one first feels relatively worthless, or experiences deficiency in a sense of worth, and subconsciously fears a sense of absolute worthlessness as suggesting that one is nothing at all as a psychological entity, or as a self-defined sense of identity. Thus, the relative feelings of deficiency are essentially rooted in, and are subconsciously equated with, a deeper, underlying sense of absolute deficiency or presumed inner emptiness or nothingness, as an undefinable, unknowable, energy-being. However, such forms of hope are hopeless or ineffectual in ridding consciousness of the blues, because they represent a contradiction or conflict within oneself between what is actually experientially arising within ourselves, and what we conceptually or ideally presume that we should be feeling and validating as a sense of identity. That inner contradiction between our actual rejected experiential states, and some kind of idealized self-definition that we pursue or seek to achieve and validate, is an intrinsically painful process of self-rejection and self-conflict between our actual experiential being and a more positively valued, desired, idealized, sense of self/identity and feelings that we are seeking to become, achieve, or validate about ourselves. So, at a deep level of one’s being, one is always in psychological pain. The blues, or some kind of psychological suffering, arises consciously when some temporary distracting escape from feelings of deficiency and anxiety proves to be ineffective or unavailable, or when some compensatory psychological need has been frustrated, which then exposes the underlying feeling of deficiency to our conscious awareness. Thus, at the deepest or unconscious level of one’s conceptually defined, presumptive personal (or modified, acquired) individual being abides one’s unmodified, undefinable, inherent Being, which is a Transpersonal Being. It is a real life energy substance, in contrast to the egoistic conceptualized or self-defined, presumptively interpreted sense of inner life, expressed as personal feelings or sensations, generated out of thoughts, or ideas about ourselves, which are not inherent to our actual life energy-being. The Transpersonal or Universal Life energy substance is infinite, boundless, unmodified, undistorted, or perfectly pure, and therefore cannot be truly known, defined, or known through concepts, definitions and interpretations. It can only be felt, realized, or directly experienced as self when there are no longer any concepts, with which we identify, that stand between our pure conscious awareness, which is at the very surface of our being, and unconscious, pure Life energy Substance at the deepest core of our being. This absence of conceptual self-definition enables our individual pure consciousness and infinite unconscious, vibratory, pure energy being to unify as pure IAM, the real Self. Our consciousness, which is the surface, individual form level or aspect of our individual being, is analogous to the surface form of a wave of water abiding within a vast ocean, whereas the Transpersonal Life energy Substance is analogous to the ocean water substance abiding within, and actually comprising, the wave, and which is also one or intrinsically united with the entire unbounded ocean, representing the universal level of life-energy that unites or relationally connects all individual life forms to one another. Thus, one’s true Self is an Infinite Individuality, an unbounded Center of conscious Life energy without a limited circumference, as restrictive self-definitions, or exclusive self-interpretations. However, one’s personal identity, or ego, is not a real identity, but is only a presumptivesense of identity generated out of concepts, or speculative ideas about ourselves, which produces a limited, contracted, or restrictive sense of consciousness and life energy. The ego, as a defined sense of individual identity, contracts or recoils our conscious awareness into a continuous stream of narcissistic self-interpretations, which impedes optimal contact or non-dualistic communion with the actual experiential life-energy presence of one selves and other individuals to whom we relate, and that impaired contact with the actual experiential reality of ourselves and other people is psychologically unhealthy, particularly because it instigates unrealistic, distorted, ways of viewing self and others, and also produces inappropriate responses to misinterpreted situations and circumstances that may arise in our individual life and relational encounters with others. (I, Max Hammer, refer to that continuous process of narcissistic mind chatter as the “personal life story daydream”). In contrast to what many people believe, the ego-sense is a necessary phase in the overall maturational development of the individual consciousness. The individual consciousness cannot achieve full maturation without an earlier phase of conceptual self-consciousness, which is what fundamentally creates the ego-sense, or the sense of identifying with conceptual self-definitions. Those distinctive conceptual self-definitions also enable us to distinguish ourselves from other individuals who are given different conceptually defined identities by society, us, and/or themselves. A fully developed or matured consciousness of our particular individuality is the means by which the Transpersonal Life energy substance or our unconscious Being develops a reflecting mirror, or a mature individualized consciousness, through which it can gain its own full conscious Self-Realization of its Being, or its unconscious Transpersonal energy presence, from the perspective of our developed individual consciousness. The consciousness of one’s sense of individuality cannot maturely develop unless it can be, at first, self- conscious, and it cannot be self-conscious without conceptually interpreting or defining itself, and identifying with those self-concepts. That egoistic process of conceptual self-definition is the means by which our individual consciousness experiences or feels an absolute separation and autonomy from the Infinite or Universal Life (with which our individual being and consciousness is inherently always essentially, united), and our conceptual self-definitions also enable us to feel different, distinct, or separated from other individuals, or other individual forms of conscious life energy substance. That conceptually derived sense of separate self-awareness is basically what constitutes the ego-sense. Without the development of the ego-sense, which is an exaggerated sense of individuality as absolute psychological separation or experiential disconnection from other individuals and from the Universal or Transpersonal ground of being as unconscious life energy substance, our consciousness subconsciously fears that its sense of individuality would be reabsorbed back into the undifferentiated unconscious void, and, thereby, be lost if it dropped its own separate, conceptually defined, presumptively interpreted, self-consciousness in order to be conscious of, and in full union with, that unconscious Being. Therefore, Transpersonal Self-Realization is not possible until a conscious sense of one’s own individuality has fully maturely developed. Thus, identification with the ego-sense, or the exaggerated sense of separate self- awareness, and the concomitant sense of experiential disconnection from other individuals and from the infinite or universal, connective, relational energy, or Transpersonal Being, is the guarantee that our individual consciousness will not regress back to union with the undifferentiated Womb of unconscious Transpersonal Life energy before it has fully developed or matured, so that it will continue its maturational journey toward the fullexperiential awakening (or full Self-Realization) of our individual form of the Transpersonal Self or unconscious, unmodified, pure energy-being. However, no matter how necessary it may be for us to develop and identify with an ego-sense, until our sense of individual particularity or distinctiveness is well- established, our consciousness must not stay enduringly fixatedin the egoistic subject-object sense of duality, but must continue to mature and eventually transcend all conceptual identifications in order to gain experiential realization of its, more essentially real, Transpersonal Being. When our individual consciousness is fully maturely developed, it will feel itself to be firmly established, and in no fear of being reabsorbed into the undifferentiated, unconscious void from which it arose. Then our consciousness is able to outgrow or sacrifice its egoistic conceptualized awareness of its sense of individuality, and thereby be in full conscious awareness of, and union with, its non-conceptualized or more essential Transpersonal Life energy Substance, in fully developed conscious experiential Self-Realization as it. When an immaturely developed consciousness subconsciously interprets pure being as an absolute deficiency, void, or nothingness, its sense of being a personal being or a conceptually defined sense of identity begins. Hence, the ego-sense, or conceptualized sense of being an absolutely independent or separate consciousness, life, will, or identity, begins with the Transpersonal Being’s first subconscious self- interpretation as an absolute nothingness. That is its first personal feeling, and the ego becomes identified with that most basic personal feeling of inner nothingness at the subconscious level, and seeks to compensate for it by trying to affirm itself as being an absolute, exclusive, or conclusively/definitively validated, conceptual something, or sense of proficiency. Because all concepts are only relative in nature to their opposite, and, therefore, can never be absolute, or conclusively validated, the sense of being a conceptual something and a nothing arise simultaneously as a joint phenomenon. Hence, as soon as the ego identifies itself as being a particular conceptual something, at the same time, it also reinforces the subconscious fear of being an inner nothing, which shadows that sense of conceptual somethingness. As soon as self-conceptualization takes place, one is no longer centered, or focused, at the unconscious level, within the unmodified Transpersonal Being, but is now identified as a conceptually defined personal being (i.e., a modified, egoistic, or narcissistic sense of identity) at the subconscious level. The feeling of being an inner nothingness is, thus, a conceptual modification and distortion of one’s pure being. In view of the fact that every personal feeling is a conceptual extension of the nothingness feeling, it means that every personal feeling is, at its substantial foundation, nothing other than pure being, and represents a conceptually defined and interpreted distortion of that pure being or pure Life energy substance. Every personal feeling, in order to be created, must borrow that unconscious pure Life energy substance, upon which it adds a self-conceptualization of deficiency with which that pure being then identifies. Hence, every personal feeling arises out of self- conceptualized deficiency, and has, at its root, a sense of absolute nothingness, and beyond that, a more essential foundation in pure being, one’s undefinable, non- conceptualized, unmodified, or unconditioned Life energy Substance. The fact that conscious realization of one’s pure being is Ecstasy-Realization means that every personal feeling is ultimately grounded in Ecstasy, which is realized when that personal feeling is completely resolved, by being made fully conscious, or fully experienced, without identifying with it. The ecstatic experience therefore represents the basic criterion of therapeutic effect, as growth to a greater level of psychological maturational development, or the true and full resolution of the personal feeling, which the field of psychotherapy has, for so long, been sorely lacking. To illustrate further, as has been suggested, every uncomfortable personal feeling, or the blues, arises from, or is woven around, a thought or message of a self- conceptualized sense of deficiency with which one identifies, and that personal feeling exists at three basic levels or dimensions of consciousness simultaneously, each of which is a conceptual extension of its more basic or essential level. At the most surface level of the feeling, or what may be called the preconscious level, abides that aspect of the feeling that requires relatively little focusing by our conscious awareness in order to make it fully conscious because there is no great threat in its becoming conscious; in fact, it is designed to be made relatively conscious because it serves the purpose of defense and distraction against the full conscious awareness of the more threatening feeling of deficiency which underlies it. At this level, the perceived experience of feelings is greatly influenced by the label or conceptual interpretation applied to them, e.g., depression, anxiety, hostility, loneliness. These may be referred to as pseudo feelings because they are not true feelings in their own right, but are only distracting, defensive, covers that prevent one from being fully conscious of, and thus in full conscious identification or full experiential unification with, the actual feeling of deficiency. Various emotionally painful feelings of deficiency are rooted in an even deeper subconscious anxiety arising from fearing to fall into a boundless inner void, emptiness, or abyss, as an absolute sense of deficiency or non-being. For example, as soon as consciousness drops the label of emotional depression and is in Being, communion, or subject-object non-duality, with the experiential condition beneath that label of depression, one finds that the depression immediately falls away, and then our conscious awareness penetrates into its next deeper level, where one typically finds a rejected or ego-dystonic feeling of anger. As consciousness continues to remain in non-duality, but now with the spontaneously arising angry feeling, it penetrates to the next level, where it discovers that the anger serves, basically, as a defensive, compensatory, sense of power or potency of will, in order to compensate for an underlying, more subconscious, feeling of deficiency, such as, impotence of will, helplessness, insecurity, weakness, or vulnerability. These are all just different labels representing the same underlying psychological process reflecting that one’s being feels deficient in a sense of power, potency of will, or the capacity to influence others to gratify the ego’s basic needs for a sense of security, worth, and identity. If the feeling of impotence of will is unconditionally accepted and non-dualistically communed with, then our consciousness will penetrate through that extension into its more deeply subconscious fear of being a sense of absolute impotence, i.e., being no psychological agent or potent (effective) will at all, and thus affirmed as being a psychological nullity or nothingness. If consciousness also lets-be that self-conceptualized message of being an absolute deficiency, and lets it speak for itself to conclusion, without speaking for, or interpreting, the feeling from the outside, and without any volitional censorship or control over the feeling, then our consciousness will also transcend or resolve that most subconscious level of the personal feeling, and the entire feeling of deficiency will then be fully resolved. At that point, our consciousness will have penetrated beyond all of the personal dimensions of conceptually defined modifications of our being, into the unmodified, unconscious dimension of Transpersonal Being, which underlies all of the various personal feelings and thoughts superimposed upon it. That absence of conceptual self- interpretation and judgmental self-evaluation, or conditional self-approval and self-disapproval, brings with it an ecstatic sense of liberation from all forms of psychological distress and tension, rooted in narcissistically contracted or recoiled conscious attention. If the depression is itself ego-dystonic, and synonymous with stagnation or paralysis of one’s being, and therefore equated with ego-death, as it is in some persons, then one will find an additional defensive cover and conceptual extension of the feeling of deficiency at the more conscious level in the form of some pink. This will often take the form of some distracting compensatory artificial euphoric (e.g., alcohol), pleasurable sensation or mood (e.g., manic-like elation), or affirmation of some positive self-concept arising out of temporary gratification of one of the ego’s basic needs for a sense of conceptual security, worth or identity, in this example, some feeling equated with a sense of potency or denial of impotence. This type of pink functions as the most surface conscious-distracting escape from the blues, or the feeling of deficiency in potency, which exists at a deeper level of one’s being. What is represented as the blues, the pinks, and the black are all conceptual colorings of personal feelings reflecting the dimensions of one’s personality, or egoistic personal being, or presumptive self-interpretations and self-definitions, which are basically nothing other than words, ideas, thoughts, or conceptual clothing covering one’s pure, or Transpersonal, Being, and with which it is illusorily identified. The psychological process of growth or maturation basically involves the progressive undoing of the identifications with all conceptual personal colorings or value judgments of conditional self-approval and self-disapproval, both positive and negative, conscious and subconscious, until the perfect purity of one’s real Being is fully consciously Self-Realized. Thus, although there may be many possible solutions to the blues, e.g., flights into fantasy, vacations, booze, nature, music, sexual affairs, divorce, there is only one means of achieving a true resolution or transcendence of the blues. Anything that produces a sense of “high” or distracts our conscious awareness away from the blues or the painful experiential truth of its own being can function as the distracting pink. But no pink can produce a true resolution of your blues; at best it only serves to put a more positively tinged covering of conceptual clothing upon the blues so that they cannot be fully consciously detected. This is a form of self-deceit or childish make- believe in which you are trying to make yourself believe that what was once blue is now pink, or pretending that feelings of deficiency or self-disapproval can be eliminated simply by covering them over with more positive, proficient, self-evaluations of self-approval. Your consciousness is trying to make itself believe that what was once its experiential fact is now a fiction and that the fiction is really the experiential fact of its being. The pinks are not a true, or radical, transformation of your being, which involves a true resolution of the blues. Resolution involves the undoing or outgrowing of your fixated identification with a self-conceptualized sense of deficiency, which transforms your being into a greater level of psychological maturity. The pinks represent only a superficial alteration in your experience, but not a substantial transformation of your being, and is therefore just a modified continuity of your same basic immaturely fixated sense of deficiency. As forms of distracting escape from the blues, which sets up a state of duality, self- division, or distancing from the full and direct conscious experience of the blues, the pinks represent greater self- conflict, and thus an even greater sense of psychological pain at the subconscious level. Resolution of the blues is brought about only through the Way of Being, but never through any form of becoming. In the Way of Being, consciousness is fully open to, non-dualistically one with, and unconditionally (i.e., non-judgmentally, non-volitionally, or choicelessly) accepting of the blues, or one’s emotionally painful experiential truth this moment, as an experiential fact. In the state of becoming, our consciousness rejects the experiential fact of its own being, holds itself to be some more positive, dualistic, or additional psychological entity separate from that painful being, and attempts to escape from those blues by creating pinks in the form of conceptual fictions, ideals, or “shoulds” that it superimposes on the blues. If you hide from the fact of your actual experiential being, this here and now moment (e.g., a sense of impotence), then it is not available to your conscious awareness, so how will you be able to transform it? If you remain consciously ignorant of that experiential fact, because of the distraction of some pink or conceptual fiction, then it continues to remain the fact, truth, or actuality of your experiential life. The pretense, for example, at creating a conceptual sense of potency is a fiction which is only a make-believe cover-up of that fact.

Ultimately escape results in one becoming less conscious one’s actual experiential being, which is antithetical to genuine psychological growth, or developing greater psychological maturity, as well as becoming a slave to the positive self-evaluation or pleasurable sensation into which one habitually escapes. Thus, in the Way of Being, there is no attempt to escape from the experiential fact of one’s being. Instead, our consciousness is fully contented to be one with its spontaneously arising moment to moment experiential truth, which is what it means to be real, or genuine, as an individual being. Consciousness, abiding in Being, or subject-object unity, is standing inside its being, as direct, non-evasive, conscious contact with the actual experiential feeling of its being, in a given moment, which enables the subconscious message of self-conceptualized deficiency to speak for itself to conclusion. This completely drains the feeling, and eliminates it from one’s being. A feeling of the blues arose in the first place because of the subconscious message of self- conceptualized deficiency, and that unspoken message represents the life of the feeling. As long as that message is not unified with by full conscious awareness, its life energy, and, thus, the feeling itself, persists. When the message is completely heard, fully embraced, unconditionally accepted, made fully conscious, and thereby drained, then the life energy of the feeling is fully spent, and the feeling is completely resolved. Thus, the essential psychological therapeutic growth or healing process involves consciousness in non-duality, union, or unimpeded full and direct contact with its momentary experiential being or personal feelings. This puts an end to the basic psychopathology-producing state of duality, in which one stands as being two selves, in conflict with each other. In duality, consciousness stands as a psychological entity that is separate from its experiential being. Consciousness stands as the acceptable self, or the approved/desired positive self- concept, thereby rejecting its actual painful experiential being, i.e., its unacceptable self or negative self-concept. Thus, in duality, the ego as subject, sense of “I”, or the experiencer-entity, stands separate from the ego as object, sense of “me”, or experienced feeling, and acts as its distancing censor or value judger. No psychological healing effect can begin to take effect until that illusory sense of duality is converted into non-duality, and it is only then that the subconscious message within the feeling of deficiency can be spontaneously released into full conscious awareness, leading to the creative (genuine, undistorted, uncensored, uncontrolled, nonselective) self- understanding that yields psychological growth, the liberation from the feeling, and the liberation from fixated identification with the message of deficiency within the feeling. In order for the state of non-duality to arise, consciousness, on the surface level of our psyche or being, has to be totally at rest, i.e., without desires, goals, ideals, escapist distractions, or predetermined movement of any kind, and thereby permit the unconscious creative Life energy to spontaneously, effortlessly, non-volitionally, non-selectively, bring or impel creative understanding to itself. No conscious will, volition or effort to produce understanding must be involved or else the state of duality is perpetuated. To be in non-duality, consciousness must respond to its experiential states with unconditional acceptance, i.e., non-judgmentally, choicelessly (non-volitionally). Then consciousness will be perfectly pure, empty, wordless, without re-active thought, and thus, one with its being or experiential life energy flow, standing as being nothing other than that momentary experiential truth. All reactive thought, on the surface of consciousness, reflects conceptual interpretation and value-judgment applied to the active thought or message of self- conceptualized deficiency within the spontaneously arising painful experiential state of one’s being. All reactive thought within consciousness distracts our pure conscious awareness away from the thought active within the repressed subconscious personal feeling of deficiency, making it impossible to be fully conscious of it so that it can be fully heard and understood, and, thereby, fully drained and dissolved. When our consciousness is abiding in a natural state or process of Being, or non-duality with its actual experiential being, it then becomes possible for the Transpersonal, unconscious creative Life energy to spontaneously, effortless, push the message within the painful feeling into our full conscious awareness. This is done in the service of ultimately liberating our unconscious Transpersonal Being from its false identification with positively or negatively value judged personal (egoistic, conceptualized) feelings, as distorted, partial, modifications of our unmodified, holistic, Transpersonal Being. Our unconscious Transpersonal Being is seeking to make our egoistic personal feelings fully conscious so that they can be fully drained, fully dissolved, liberating our unconscious Transpersonal Being to be fully uncovered, as a fully unblocked free flowing pure life energy, so that it can fully unifywith our conscious awareness, enabling us to be in full conscious Self-Realization of being its inherent Wholeness, Wellness, Fulfillment, and Ecstasy. As long as one is still identified with the subconscious feelings of deficiency (as well as the more conscious, compensatory, relative opposite conceptual feelings of proficiency) which are superimposed upon one’s deeper, unconscious, unmodified, undefined, pure or real Being, preventing true Self-Realization, the unconscious, Transpersonal, creative Life energy must continue to urge those repressed, subconscious, feelings of deficiency to flow into our full conscious awareness, so that they can be fully drained and dissolved, and, thereby, no longer block our unconscious life energy from flowing into or fully unifying with our maturely developed consciousness, producing fully conscious experiential Self-Realization of our Transpersonal, Divine, or Spiritual, Being, and its inherent ecstatic, sublime, grandeur. As soon as the feeling of deficiency is fully drained, and no longer identified with, then identification with its conceptual relative opposite pinkish feeling of proficiency also drops away. For example, if one no longer feels powerless, the compensatory pursuit of a sense potency, and identification with it, is no longer necessary. Thus, consciousness persisting in non-dualistic Being with its here and now conceptualized relative personal being, or relative pleasant and unpleasant feelings and experiential states, leads ultimately to the full conscious Self-Realization of one’s ever-Present, Here-Now, absolute, Transpersonal Being. That is the essential path of psychological growth. Real psychological growth is essentially the growth of conscious awareness, as it first becomes fully aware of its actual personal experiential being, and ultimately, its Transpersonal or most real Being. It should be clear, then, that the more essential unconscious Transpersonal Being cannot be released into full conscious awareness until the more surface subconscious repressed or rejected personal being, sitting on top of it, or covering it, so to speak, is first released, fully drained, or fully dissolved. Therefore, the basic impulse for psychological growth is the impulse for consciousness to be released from all sense of contraction or limitation, created as the result of its identification with a conceptual personal being, instead of its real Transpersonal Being, so that the Transpersonal Being can be fully consciously Self-Realized. Hence, it is this urge by the unconscious Transpersonal Life energy for full conscious Self-Realization, and its inclination to push all repressed and rejected experiential states back into full conscious awareness, that accounts for the natural self-growth and self-healing property of the mind. This natural urge for growth, maturation, fulfillment, ecstasy, becomes blocked and distorted only when consciousness, functioning in a process of becoming, or attempting to become something other than what we are actually feeling, experiencing, or being, in a given moment, creates a state of duality or division within the mind between our actual experiential-energy-being and our attempt to achieve, validate, or become some kind of ideal that we presume to be “better” than our actual being. Then the only growth that can occur is of pathology, arising from incessant conflict between what we are actually being and something else that we are striving to become. If the therapist does not understand this distinction, between consciousness in Being and in becoming, then it is likely that he has never really healed himself of any actual psychological pain or inner conflict, but has only found some kind of consoling activity, predetermined system of thought, or idealized philosophy into which he has buried his conscious awareness, as a distracting escape from his actual psychological pain. Obviously, if the therapist has not really healed himself, or come to understand the process of psychological growth, then he can offer the client little more than the gimmicks that he, himself, uses as the means of consoling himself and escaping from the painful experiential truths of himself. This puts the entire field of psychotherapy in jeopardy in terms of its effectiveness and thus, its continued survival. Genuinely effective psychotherapy cannot be the result of a predetermined method or technique because all such reflect contrived commitments by conscious awareness. This is in opposition to real, creative, effective treatment, which can arise only from a consciousness that is free to flow non-dualistically, non-evasively, non-selectively, and non-resistively with the moment to moment spontaneously arising actual experiential truth of one’s being. Dealing with what is, requires no prescribed technique, whereas with what ideally, presumptively “should be” requires a method of some kind as a means of trying to fulfill some kind of predetermined goal. As soon as a personal feeling has completely, freely, spoken for itself, to our full conscious awareness, revealing its self-conceptualized sense of deficiency, including its relationship to a sense of absolute nothingness, then the essential foundation of the personal feeling, which is the Transpersonal Being, is free to flow into union with our full conscious awareness, and brings with it an experience of Ecstasy, which is the Self- Realization, experiential appreciation, or joyful celebration of one’s real Being. The Ecstatic experience is, therefore, the only real, natural, substantial, or non-conceptual “high” that is possible (available) for our consciousness. The Ecstatic Experience may reflect itself in varying degrees of intensity, depending on the number of subconscious feelings of deficiency with which one is still identified. The ecstatic experience often manifests itself as an inner glow or warm feeling in the pit of the stomach; a deep sense of release from tension as though some inner knot had been untied; a deep caring or compassionate love-feeling; a profound sense of joy and peace; a heightened energy or aliveness feeling; a feeling of intrinsic worth or inner beauty; a feeling of being inwardly more real or substantial; or just an overall sense of well-being. The term “Ecstasy” is derived from the Greek “ex- stasis”, meaning that consciousness is standing outside of itself, outside the bounds of its own limited conceptual personal being, and is therefore released fully into union with its real, infinite, Transpersonal Being. Ecstasy is the unitary term used to signify the realization of the non- conceptualize-able qualities of the Transpersonal Being, but which may be pointed to with terms such as absolute Life-Love-Power (creative Energy)-Joy-Peace-Beauty-Freedom-Reality (Truth)- Fulfillment, all combined into one as Ecstasy, like all colors of the spectrumare all inherent in pure clear light. As each repressed, subconscious, feeling is liberated of its identified with message of deficiency, the ecstatic experience grows deeper and stays longer until all such feelings are drained and resolved, or dissolved. Consciousness, free of its identification with any self- concepts or personal feelings, can then serve as a clear reflecting mirror for, or be in non-dualistic union with, our unconscious Transpersonal Being, as Transpersonal/Divine/Spiritual Self-Realization. Then Ecstasy is fully substantial because it is no longer just an experience that arises and departs in time, but is now realized as being not something that one has, but what one is, most essentially, inherently, permanently, and unconditionally. No deep and enduring happiness is possible for consciousness as long as it is shadowed by fear of the void, and, therefore, dominated by the presumption of intrinsic deficiency. Then there is always constant underlying, disease or anxiety beneath all of one’s momentary states of experience. Thus, Ecstatic Self- Realization is the only real happiness, peace, love, or fulfillment that our consciousness will ever find. Only then is the false presumption of intrinsic deficiency fully resolved and transcended. That is the only true and full resolution of the blues, of whatever nature. Then no matter where your body happens to be, your consciousness will always be “on vacation”, or at ease. Genuine psychological and Spiritual growth (or Transpersonal Self-Realization) can be achieved only if psychotherapists urge their clients to acknowledge and fully consciously experience their painful or uncomfortable emotional feelings (the blues), rather than encouraging clients to escape from actual unpleasant experiential truths or uncomfortable emotional feelings by superimposing distracting positive thoughts, affirmations, and pleasurable sensations, which could be described as covering over the blues by superimposing the pinks. However, superimposing more pleasant thoughts, affirmations, and sensations only covers over deeper troubled emotional feelings and unpleasant experiential states, but does not truly resolve, heal, or transcend them. The only effective way to truly resolve, heal, or transcend unpleasant emotional feelings and experiential states is by letting them arise to our full conscious awareness, without any kind of control, censorship, interference, distracting escapes, or distancing speculative interpretations of the unpleasant feelings, speaking for the feelings from a stance dualistically outside of the feelings, instead of letting the feelings speak for themselves from a perspective of non- dualistic full and direct (non-evasive) conscious unification with one’s actual uncomfortable feelings or experiential states. Only fully unifying with, welcoming, or nonjudgmentally embracing, the actual momentary experiential truth of oneself can enable one’s consciousness to penetrate into deeper and deeper levels of one’s energy-being, ultimately leading to full conscious experiential realization or awakening of the permanent Transpersonal, Spiritual, Divine, or sublime core of one’s being. Distancing oneself from one’s actual emotional feelings and experiential states also typically produces estrangement from one’s natural individual creative capabilities, talents, inner resources, or one’s basic archetypal “soul blueprint”, one’s innate individual imago, whereas fully consciously unifying with the actual experiential truth of oneself releases or melts energies formerly trapped, stuck, or frozen in false, egoistic, self- interpretations, and that liberated energy naturally produces greater insightful, genuine self-understanding and fulfilling, productive individual self-development. Just as the shell of a seed must first disintegrate in the ground (representing direct, unimpeded, contact with the actual experiential truth of ourselves) before the seed can sprout and grow to full fruition, as the achievement of its purposive imago or innate plan of development, similarly, letting go of the obstructing shell or false façade of egoistic coverings is what enables our deeper life force, our energy-being, to release and unfold its seed-like potentials, natural inclinations, or inner resources. Being devoted to helping clients achieve that kind of genuine psychological growth is the basic criteria that distinguishes true therapists from those who are actually therapists in name only. Therapists who help and encourage clients to escape from their actual unpleasant emotional feelings and experiential states by superimposing or substituting more positive or idealized self-interpretations, controlled “therapeutic” techniques, and/or more pleasant sensations are actually reinforcing an intrinsically psychologically unhealthy process of self- escape, self-deceit, self-conflict, and self-estrangement in their clients. Therapists who try to help their clients “feel better” by moving away from the actual experiential truth of themselves into idealized self-interpretations, controlled practices, predetermined goals, and distracting pleasant sensations are typically motivated (not necessarily at a fully conscious level) by the attempt to gratify the therapist’s own psychological deficiency needs, such as the therapist trying to generate a greater sense of self-esteem, self-approval, or attempting to feel better himself by helping the client to feel better in an inauthentic manner. A basic criterion that distinguishes true psychotherapists from those who are therapists in name only, is encouraging and helping clients to fulfill the basic purposive intention of their being or life energy, to grow more conscious of the actual experiential truth of itself, ultimately leading to fully conscious Transpersonal Self-Realization as true permanent reality of our being that is the culmination of the encounter with our actual momentary experiential states. “Therapists in name only” who encourage their clients to distort or regress their consciousness of the momentary and permanent experiential truth of themselves are basically fostering greater pathology and impaired functioning or psychological disablement in clients, as well as thwarting life’s or being’s basic purposive intention to grow progressively more conscious of itself, in contrast to true therapists, who are genuinely devoted to fulfilling that basic purposive intention and helping their clients to progress rather than regress into greater insightful awareness or undistorted consciousness of the momentary experiential truth of themselves and the permanent Transpersonal Reality of their being or life energy presence. The experience of psychological pain often grows more intense, at first, when we permit ourselves to be fully conscious of uncomfortable emotional feelings and unpleasant experiential states, because we may still be identified with that painful feeling, or blues. When we become more conscious of the painful feeling, it seems to affirm our identification as being that painful feeling of deficiency. However, as our consciousness maturely develops by growing more aware of our actual experiential states, and the life energy or being that comprises them, then we come to realize that we are not identical to the self-conceptualized message of deficiency in the painful feeling, because when that message fully speaks for itself to conclusion, it drains out and completely disappears, which liberates the energy in the message and the related painful feeling to be released back into the naturally ecstatically free flowing wellness and wholeness of our being. We find that when we permit the (often previously unrecognized, subconscious, subliminal) message of our feeling to become fully conscious, or to reveal itself fully, by letting it speak for itself to conclusion, without exerting any kind of controlling volitional interference upon it, then it drains out or is liberated back into unmodified, undisturbed, pure life energy, and completely disappears. When the painful feeling disappears after its underlying essential message becomes fully conscious, we find that we still remain as the conscious awareness, or the more subjective knower, of that feeling, and of its disappearance, and so we transcend our identification with that feeling and its painful inner message of self- conceptualized deficiency, because we find that our pure life energy being endures even after the painful feeling disappears. First we have to drop our identification with the fictional pink, the false superficial façade or covering of positive self-interpretation and distracting escapes into pleasurable sensations, which we have superimposed upon deeper unpleasant feelings of deficiency, disturbance, emotional insecurity, or negativity, so that we can then become fully conscious of that blues-black experiential negativity, and ultimately dis-identify from those also. Then we will intuitively recognize that we are the “white”, clear, or colorless perfect Purity of unconscious Life Energy Substance, which is our unmodified, undisturbed, naturally ecstatically free flowing, pure Being, our individual form of the infinite, limitless, spiritual, or Divine, Transpersonal Self. Only when the pinks, blues, and blacks are first made fully conscious, and, thereby, fully dissolved can we then see and be the “white”, clear, or colorless, Light of unmodified conscious/unconscious unified life energy, as a perfect purity and natural undivided wholeness of being. That undivided, unmodified, wholeness of being is natural, inherent, inner peace and happiness. The inherent purity of our being is abiding within, underneath, above, or beyond the false coverings or modified self-interpretations of our black-blue-pink personal feelings, and that underlying purity and wholeness cannot be fully, deeply, and enduringly accessed as long as we remain identified with the partial, modified, coverings or distorted self-definitions that are superimposed upon it. Thus, there is no way to circumvent your egoistic personality, and directly go to your Pure Being or your Transpersonal Self, abiding beyond the egoistic coverings superimposed upon it. That is why a psychological process of openness to fully consciously contacting our egoistic personal feelings and related actual experiential states is absolutely necessary for ego-transcendence and Transpersonal Self-Realization to occur, or become possible. A religious process alone, if it does not lead to penetration through and transcendence of the egoistic black-blue-pink personal feelings, will never lead to true Self-Realization, but will instead produce only some modified, distorted, pink form of it, as false positivity that only mimics but is not actually identical to the true grandeur of our unmodified pure energy-being, our Transpersonal Self. Therefore, the field of psychology must lay claim to the discipline of psychological growth, ultimately leading to experiential Realization of our unmodified pure energy-being, our Transpersonal Self. That should involve demonstrating that there really can be a process of psychological growth, a veritable psychological ladder, by which means consciousness first descends into its subconscious actual experiential being, or its momentary psychological hell, before it can descend more deeply (or ascend more highly) into its unconscious permanent Transpersonal Being, which is the ultimate arising to “Paradise”, as the experiential realization of the inherent grandeur, ecstasy, peace, wholeness, and wellness of our unmodified pure energy-being. True therapy involves facilitating the process of psycho-spiritual growth or maturational development in ascending that ladder. Consoling yourself, or the escapist process of seeking to distract yourself away from unpleasant, or painful, emotional feelings and experiential states, via superimposing pleasant sensations, positive affirmations, favorable/flattering self-evaluations, and/or idealized self-interpretations, is basically a quick fix gimmick, but removes your consciousness further from the ultimate goal of growth, which is outgrowth of egoistic personal feelings and self-interpretations, and Transpersonal Self- Realization, as growth of consciousness of our momentary true experiential states and the experiential realization of the true reality nature of our permanent being. That fixation or blockage of your consciousness and life energy in false psychological masks, or unreal self- interpretations, must eventually bring you greater and greater psychological pain until you continue to grow again toward Transpersonal Self-Realization, fully consciously, as a process of outgrowth of what is basically unreal, painful, and psychological unhealthy, and growth of awareness of what is genuinely real, truly alive, and inherently fulfilling in yourself. True psychotherapy does not involve helping clients “feel better” in a false way by providing any kind of consoling distracting escape from the actual experiential truth of themselves. The basic goal of genuine psychotherapy is to truly resolve or heal psychological pain by making it fully conscious, rather than disguising it in any way. Thus, for example, do not try to make yourself feel a conditionally acquired sense of worth or self-esteem (in contrast to the nonjudgmental unconditional self- acceptance and self-appreciation that is inherent to our unmodified pure being), via the controlled, selective pursuit of idealized positive thoughts and pleasant sensations that generate such a conditionally acquired sense of self-approval, and a false, distorted, conditional, sense of security and wellness. Instead, let be the deeper feeling of relative worthlessness, which is the blue, and trace it to the even deeper “black” feeling of absolute deficiency, or the fear that you are absolutely worthless, and thus, an inner nothingness. Let all of those egoistic deficiency feelings (as well as the “pink” or “rose colored” proficiency feelings/ideation superimposed upon them) speak for themselves without interference, and without speaking for them from the outside, as a distancing process, so that they can become fully conscious, fully unified with our consciousness, and, thereby, fully drain out. Once the worthless feeling is dissolved and eliminated by permitting it to speak for itself to conclusion, then you are no longer identified with it, and so it is no longer necessary to prove that you are worthy, as your egoistic sense of identity. Both relative opposites, of relative proficiency and relative deficiency, drop out together, when we let be our actual emotional feelings or experiential states, rather than using any kind of distracting escapes or idealized “shoulds” to cover them over.

A more detailed discussion of principles of healthy individual psychological development and psychologically healthy interpersonal relationships is presented in the following books: – 1. Psychological Healing Through Creative Self- Understanding and Self-Transformation. (ISBN: 978-1- 62857-075-5) and 2. Deepening Your Personal Relationships: Developing Emotional Intimacy and Good Communication. (ISBN: 978-1-61897-590-4). The primary author of these books is Dr. Max Hammer, with contributions from secondary authors Dr. Barry J. Hammer and Dr. Alan C. Butler. These books can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or our author/publisher website, http://sbprabooks.com/MaxHammer. The latter website describes the books and authors, also posts other articles/blogs by Dr. Barry Hammer (which incorporate many psychotherapeutically, spiritually, and interpersonally valuable insights from his late father, Dr. Max Hammer).