Living with soul-awareness

 

I often feel my individual historical socially constructed self as a web of contractions in my body and a tight system of fixated beliefs and ruminating thoughts in my mind, trapped within itself, running on stress hormones and a nervous-system in fight and flight, constantly judging reality and myself as not good enough. This self is functioning in the world and it is adjusted to the social context, but it feels limited.

I also often feel the larger self I know I am, the spacious open awareness, connected to layers of timelessness and wholeness. This larger self is embracing reality as it is, everchanging and always new, and connecting with it is like experiencing (symbolically speaking) the grace of God, being given manna from the sky, drinking from the water of life – it is deeply nourishing and meaningful. This self speaks through archetypal images, often as we know them from myths and spiritual traditions.

I will always be both of these selves. Carl Jung describes a similar experience of himself in his autobiography Memories, dreams, reflections. He says he feels like two persons, personality 1 and personality 2:

Somewhere deep in the background I always knew that I was two persons. One was the son of my parents, who went to school and was less intelligent, attentive, hard-working, decent, and clean than many other boys. The other was grown up -- old, in fact -- skeptical, mistrustful, remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures, and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever "God" worked directly in him...Beside [No. 1's] world there existed another realm, like a temple in which anyone who entered was transformed and suddenly overpowered by a vision of the whole cosmos, so that he could only marvel and admire, forgetful of himself.

Personality 2 is described as a temple, conveying a vision of the whole cosmos, and as deeply connected to meaning and wholeness: No. 2 had no definable character at all; he was a vita peracta, born, living, dead, everything in one; a total vision of life....Here was meaning and historical continuity, in strong contrast to the incoherent fortuitousness of No. 1's life, which had no real points of contact with its environment.

An important point is that to Jung, everybody have these two dimensions within themselves: The play and counterplay between personalities No. 1 and No. 2, which has run through my whole life, has nothing to do with a "split" or dissociation in the ordinary medical sense. On the contrary, it is played out in every individual. In my life No. 2 has been of prime importance, and I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.

We are all living as personality 1 in the everyday world with its social roles and expectations, but we also need to know our identity as personality 2 with its connection to deep meaning, creativity and wholeness. Maybe that knowing can be described as living our lives with soul-awareness. One way of expressing soul-awareness is to me to have a conscious relationship with the mythical level of my life. 

Which mythical image from personality 2 is important to me now, at this point in my life, and how can I keep a living relationship with that image in my busy everyday life, filled with tasks and responsibilities? Instead of being absorbed in the everyday life I can look at the image and stick to it, let it speak to me beyond logic and linear thinking, allow it to guide me and point to unknown possibilities.