This is my translation of J. Bzoma`s text on his website: https://snienieprogresywne.pl/jeszcze-slow-kilka-o-duszy-i-jej-sposobie-istnienia-czyli-koniecznosci/
A few more words about Soul and its mode of being: The Necessity
Night world is a lining of the day world and gravitates toward the Underworld, used to say James Hillman. (A very loose translation of mine as well as all of the quotations in the text below with the exception of Heraclitus` quote)
Death seen in our dreams should not be taken literally; it is information from the Non-manifestation 8-12 which is a resting place of the biologically dead God who is also the Source Consciousness. Yes, I can hear Nietzsche snickering from his grave right now. Scenes of death in our dreams are only messengers of the Soul that wishes to inform us of where our fate or our individuation is going. What it is heading for is the death of our (sustained by life) separateness. Hillman said that: “This unknown target is the only absolute certainty of human existence. The Underworld is invisible yet absolutely present.” The essence of working with dreams is recalling them and strengthening the connection to the images they bring. Hillman suggests clinging to such an image rather than performing hermeneutical rituals on it and through these rituals transforming it into notions or intellectual interpretations. Regarding Freud and Jung, Hillman says: They used to make a certain move which we do not want to duplicate any more – they used to change images into crystallised symbolic meanings. This means that whatever they encountered was not left by them in its original form, rather they transformed it into “this or that”.
What it means is that psychoanalytic approach to dreams extracted dream fragments from the whole and thus it reduced all of it to this one, single plane imposed by the detailed interpretation. “It allowed the image to say only one word.” The wholeness of the dream was abandoned and what became its focus was a particular trend, a continuation of a trapped in an interpretation symbol that only just lost its connection as vital element to a whole image of dream that used to be alive. Such an approach leaves the Soul inanimate. “Those images do not have a life of their own. They are transformed into meanings. But let`s leave the meaning behind – let`s leave behind searching for the meaning and sense of life.”
Hillman is right. Those who begin dreaming progressively usually ask about the sense of their life, about the right life choices or about values held dear to their hearts. But the dream image is not so much what one sees but how one sees it. It is the how we see the dream visions and their meanings that change as we progress in the dream practice and not what the visions themselves are; the dreams are full of unfathomable content. Our interpretation is thus always limited by our current level of understanding. This is why we have to restrain ourselves from interpretations and instead allow the dreams act within us. It is worthwhile to send our intentions towards them and even let them present their own free narration. It is desirable to have some knowledge about the main symbols, colours, or characters that often appear at different levels; this allows us understand the language of dreams better. It must be emphasised it is not about literal translations like in psychoanalysis but about grasping roots of their perceptions even at the Nothingness 8/2 level where incredible relationships between geometrical shapes can be observed; these can only be encountered and familiarised with in a dream state as after waking they escape any attempts of verbalisation just like mystic union experiences.
“Initially, an individual believes that the images are only hallucinations (this that is visible), next it is acknowledged as subjective imaginations and finally it occurs to one that these images are independent of subjectivity or even of imagination itself as a form of mental activity. The images come and go as they please according to their own wishes and rhythm. […] The ultimate recognition means that it is rather the mind that is submerged in imagination than imagination in the mind. The image is trans-historic, deep, fertile, highly intentional and clear.” Building bonds with the Soul, which I would term as regaining and cleansing of the connection, according to Hillman relies on establishing contact with the dream images and bringing them to life, as well as keeping with them incessant and careful relationship. It is to allow them for their full expression within the psyche area. The so called strong ego that is the target of most therapeutic trends is not only a fictitious, artificial creation that blocks the images` creativity, but also a factor responsible for the mental disintegration phenomena.
Hillman used to write a lot about human psyche being pathologised by the Soul. This is in line with what progressive dreaming presents regarding the matter; it is portrayed as Soul`s seepage and attempts of fixing the seepage by beings seemingly exterior to the dreamer. It is worthwhile noting that this seepage of the Soul 7 Consciousness into our consciousness is not related to pleasant feelings only.
“The Soul (6-8; JB) does not desire escape from despair – it desires to experience despair, it desires to experience deeply various dark nights, dwell on its own mortality and finitude, lament on the, inherent to all, disintegration and transience. The Spirit (8-12; JB) stands in opposition to this approach and as it traverses the summits, it leads to transcendence, eternity, absolute, unity of contradictions, integration, harmony, pure consciousness, unity … transgression of all conditions.”
Hillman used to say: “I don’t like feeling too well. I need more depression. It is the attempt of getting out of depression or pushing away the deep experience of tragedy of life that is the real danger.”
“In depression we enter into the depth, and in this depth we find the Soul. Depression is the key experience of the tragic dimension of life. It brings the escape, the limitation, the focus, the seriousness, the burden and the humiliating helplessness. It reminds one of death. Real revolution can only take root in someone who is ready to honestly experience one`s own depression. It is not about getting out of it – such an action would leave us within the closed circle of hope and despair; it is not about waiting for it to pass either – it is about discovering the consciousness and depth that depression demands. That’s how revolution in the name of the Soul begins.”
Hillman avoids defining what the Soul is. For him it is the basic metaphor of the psychology of the depth; its best description might be just in the Heraclitus words: ‘Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going; so deep is its measure.’
That is why in dreams the Soul appears as a transparent contour of your own silhouette that you stand in front of, sometimes it allows both heads to meld , sometimes it appears as a blue tender hand and sometimes all it is, is just a mist in which we can only feel Its presence. What I mean is a broadly understood ecumen of the Soul encompassing levels 6 to 8.
Logos is of course the most primary Vibration – Word/Image that creates Manifestation. It appears as we approach 8/9 Border which is all the more nasty, scary, predatory the less we are ready to cross it. What`s significant, it is not always heard, sometimes it is seen as an IMAGE, depending on how we are predisposed to receive our senses` spiritual perception. The voice of dreaming and dream images are but a distant echo of the creating Logos: the vibration which through its “knots” and “agglutination” creates self-aware beings. In the knots that are lower in consciousness this creates the “feeling” of fear/tremors of the expansive and barely individualised Logos.
In The History of Classical Hindu Philosophy, prof. Balcerowicz makes a remark that leads to an interesting observation: first, gods appear in the manifestation; then beings created by agglutination follow, and finally what emerges are beings that have individualised consciousness just like individual Souls and their individualised aspects entangled by karma and incarnation. I call this process creasing of the Field/Mirror of Consciousness; agglutination in spite of its contemporary sound relays accurately the nature of primary levels of Consciousness.
But what if we resist the seepage/peeking of the Soul 7 into our inner life? Would it ever get lost? It will seep into our deluded space, the space that we are convinced is outside of us; it will seep into the deluded reality of our surroundings and will attack us as events chosen from the multitude of reasons and causes at level 5; it will do so to force us to action to look for the stream of Necessity. Whether we are getting kicks or stokes depends on the nature of the deluded world we have created with our mind outside of us. You can tread lightly, reaching summits of mountains or you can be brutally pushed to meander through dirt roads of life. However, life in the current of Necessity does not mean lack of action (!) as followers of free will (the doom of our times) would like to see it; instead it means incessant looking for the current of Necessity in one`s life which designates the shortest possible route between the beginning and the end. These routes are not straight lines! Straight lines might mean the longest routes. Besides they do not exist in nature. The mind through its logical dialecticality is a source of illusion of purposefulness of actions it has chosen for itself: thinking likes generalisation, diagrams, and simplifications. The mind looks for patterns of repeatability to decrease its energy expenditures. That straight line route leads us astray, and the effort that we must put in to cover the distance of this seemingly straight road grows exponentially.
On the path of Necessity we might encounter extreme forms of its achievement: in Ajivika philosophy we have extreme ascetic ritual where the ascetics would strive for quiescence and self-starvation (pr.nivatti; s.nirvrtii) which culminates in them being accompanied by their whole community in their last days of life. In Europe a similar ritual called endura (fasting leading to death) was practiced by medieval Cathars. These are extreme challenges which are taken by very few followers of determinism after deep spiritual insight and analysis their own situation, in collaboration with and with the blessing of their superiors in faith. Such rituals leading to death are not acts of suicide committed as an act of depression or in affect but they are an expression of deep spiritual transformation and their willingness to abandon life as a cause limiting the spiritual freedom of the ascetic. The process typically is a lengthy one and the stages of weakening the body are synchronised precisely with spiritual exercises.
How to realise when to get off the beaten path? That’s where the progressive dreaming comes in. We all develop ourselves according to various spiritual practices of our choice but very few realise where they are on the path and most cannot realise that they are walking in circles seduced by the illusion of their own certainty of their progress. There are few devoted and competent teachers. Dreaming, however, gives us the option to continually monitor and self-correct the progress. We become our own teachers. Following the dream`s teachings we begin to be able to move “our” vintage point from the position of the mind to the Observer-Soul 7 level. But how can we achieve the connection with Soul 7 from the level of physical reality? It is as simple as inducing in one the feeling of gratitude. It is not, however, the gratitude towards anyone for anything they have done. It is about achieving this level of Consciousness even impersonally. One can use their loved ones, their dog, their chair or even themselves for training. It might come as a surprise to learn that gratitude just like love or euphoria are not emotions from level 3 or small karma 1-5 (treated as a whole) but they are levels of Consciousness from Soul 6-8 space which we, the low conscious beings, interpret as higher feelings due to our lack of any other point of reference than the one known to us as biological life, the feeling of comfort, safety of lack thereof.