The Holographic Play of Consciousness In the Individual – Part 1

“Transformation in the individual

is simultaneous in the universal.”

Master Charles Cannon

Part One: The Actor and The Stage

The individual and the universal … the microcosm and the macrocosm … are mirrored reflections of large-scale and small-scale realities, enabling a play of consciousness for the fun of it. The Play of Consciousness is the eternal play of pretense of the One blissful energy that we all are.

In this play, we take on beliefs and then “act out” that energy according to their resonance with our history. As we release our beliefs, we experience more and more freedom and bliss, which are the nature of true reality wherein we have awakened. So we are inspired to keep blissfully playing, since the primary intention in consciousness is to become more aware of itself as all and everything.

THE ACTOR

As detailed in a previous blog,¹ the Actor in the play is represented by Archetypes and their Shadows. These archetypal patterns in the collective of humanity play out in our individual daily lives, having evolved in ways that are now fairly predictable.

ARCHETYPES AND SHADOWS

An archetype, in Jungian psychology, is a collectively-inherited pattern of thought, images, etc., that is universally present in individual psyches. Here we use these 12 general patterns as the role of the actor in our holographic play of consciousness. Jung also defined the negative polarity of these roles as “shadows” … “part of self, but that part which we deny and project onto others” – in other words, our flaws and misbeliefs about ourselves, slowing our evolution toward more blissful states of being.

The evolutionary process is that of individuation by “making the unconscious conscious.” The best way to journey the SHADOW is to look at the positive, opposite polarity and incorporate that energy for balance. In this list, the Shadows (and its symbols) are given for contemplation, balancing and integration. If you know astrology, you will see similarities.

DUALITY REPRESENTED:  Self and Other:  THE INITIATOR (starter, assertive) … THE PEACEMAKER (diplomatic, polite)

DUALITY REPRESENTED:  Form and Trans-formation:  THE MAINTAINER (practical, reliable) … THE TRANSFORMIST (mysterious, intense)

DUALITY REPRESENTED:  Lower Mind and Higher Mind:  THE COMMUNICATOR (spontaneous, knowledgeable) … THE PHILOSOPHER (optimistic; idealistic)

DUALITY REPRESENTED:  Private life and Public Life:  THE CAREGIVER (nurturing, sensitive) … THE AUTHORITY (responsible, disciplined)

DUALITY REPRESENTED:  Personal and Impersonal:  THE CHARISMATIC (dramatic, noble) … THE HUMANITARIAN (independent; innovative)

DUALITY REPRESENTED:  Mundane and Spiritual:  THE PERFECTIONIST (detailed, practical) … THE VISIONARY (mystical, intuitive)

INTRODUCING THE STAGE …

The terrain of The Stage is defined by “The Hero’s Journey”, a version of the “stages” of Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth”, the common story underlying the one human life we all share. Based on archetypes in the collective unconscious, it is a map showing the progression of journeying an issue (or an entire life-cycle). For some, it is the path to wisdom or journey toward “enlightenment”.

It is so standard a process of the human journey that most movies are based on it, and the biggest blockbuster films often demonstrate it impeccably. Here is a diagram below from Wikipedia². The steps dovetail nicely into Master Charles Cannon’s 5-fold process (Peak, Evolution, Insight, Clearing Process, Integration), along with the demonstration of the value of the Mentor.

FIVE-FOLD PROCESS enfolding The Hero’s Journey

Peak:  the hero’s ordinary world, the mundane daily life of polarized duality with conflict and suffering. Happiness is fleeting and the question keeps creeping in, “isn’t there something MORE to life?”

Evolution:  the call to adventure brings glimpses of a more-satisfying reality but it is at first declined with fear of losing the known. However, the disillusionment with the material world continues and inner conflicts occur again and again. The “comfort zone” is increasingly threatened until the hero is propelled into accepting the call.

Insight: it is here where he meets the mentor and receives guidance which inspires him and brings tools for conquest. And, since the demons to conquer are his own inner stories, only he can make the commitment and cross the threshold.

Clearing Process:  as the hero begins the journey of challenges and temptations, allies and enemies appear to help him approach them and “act out” in the play. They are reflections of parts of the hero that been drawn as self-referential mirrors that reveal his/her illusory, debilitating stories. Ordeals escalate to a final battle, which is a climax in the process that  Master Charles Cannon calls “the sledgehammer effect” (continually hitting ourselves over the head until we see what we’re really doing and stop it). With the story given up, a death experience happens (releasing the known) and stillness and peace descend in a rebirth of some sort.

“With renunciation comes peace.”

Master Charles Cannon

Integration: the ordeal is over and reward comes with an expanded awareness of truthful reality (peace has balanced the noise of the conflict and dilated the space between them for clearer observation of the truth). Gratitude and appreciation for life blossom into a new way of living that compels the hero to return to his roots and share his balancing, sometimes enlightening, experience. He re-appears in the old, familiar environment with a sense of resurrection. He’s not the same, he has found “the elixir”, the “holy grail”, the truth of life, and it’s time to live it in a new, extraordinary way.

“The extraordinary is the ordinary … for those who are awake.”

 Master Charles Cannon

His new wakefulness reveals more and more opportunities for confronting old beliefs with renunciation and silence, bringing an ever-increasing  integrative wholeness, fulfillment and bliss.

For more detail listing the 12 stages, see an earlier blog, “The Hero’s Journey and Modern Spirituality” ³ on the Synchronicity website or as it appeared in an online journal, “Conscious Life Journal” (see links below).

THIS CONCLUDES this blog, bringing together previous blogs on The Actor and The Stage and now we’ve “set the stage” (pun intended) for the third and final component of the play — THE SCRIPT. The next blog will begin to delineate the creation of our stories, how they play out in our lives, and the ways to balance them and release the conflicts they create.

REFERENCES

1) See the previous blog at https://circleofone.one/reflections-on-your-holiday-mirrors-how-to-stay-in-the-heart-for-a-truthful-and-blissful-holiday-season/

2) From Wkipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

3) See the previous blog on The Hero’s Journey, https://synchronicity.org/blog/item/the-hero-s-journey-and-modern-spirituality AND  https://myconsciouslifejournal.com/articles/heros-journey-modern-spirituality/.