Insights talk series artwork

Insights

Modular Mysticism - Dress For Power

Insights - Modular Mysticism - Dress For Power

There are two primary aspects of your being.

This is in the framework, of course, of mysticism. We use different languages to discuss self-discovery; it's important not to become stuck in a particular language. To learn to be fluent in many languages is the best, or to know one very, very well. Either will do, it depends upon one's personal needs. But in the language of mysticism, we say that there are two sides to a person's being, the supraconscious and the conscious. These have reverberations in the popular works of Carlos Castaneda, in the don Juan terminology of the tonal and the nagual.

You have to, in other words, realize that the way you dress determines the way that people treat you.

One's progression along the spiritual path is a very, very intricate matter. This evening I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the structure of your being and how this process actually works, with specific recommendations as to what you can do to radically alter your current state of knowledge and awareness. In essence, then, this is a technique-oriented presentation, but I'd like to begin with a consideration of the dynamics of this process.

To begin with, the process of self-discovery normally involves, in mysticism, a teacher and a student. In some forms of mysticism, there are two teachers for a student. One is referred to as the teacher, one is the benefactor. The idea is that the teacher prepares the tonal being, the conscious being, whereas the benefactor prepares the supraconscious side of one's being, or the nagual. In your case, you have one teacher who does both. There are teachers who teach both sides. Some only teach one.

The job of the teacher is to first, in some way demonstrate to the individual the eternality of reality. This is normally done in the first encounter, occasionally before, through dreaming. If it's before, the teacher will reach out in his dreaming body and appear to the student and give the student information, a particular experience in dreaming. The student may or may not remember these encounters. Very often the student won't remember that the teacher came in the body of dreaming for many, many years. After a student has studied with a teacher for many years, suddenly he or she may remember that years before, even before they had physically met, the teacher came in the body of dreaming. But whether it was in the body of dreaming, or in the first or subsequent encounters, the teacher does two things: One, the teacher has to demonstrate to the awareness of the individual that they're dealing with something which is outside of their normal description of reality; and two, the teacher is looking for a specific sign as to whether or not they should work with an individual on a close level.

Naturally, there are many different types of students. Some teachers have a small group of students, in mysticism, maybe ten or 12 or 15, whom they work with very closely, or perhaps 100. The teacher may have no more students. Other teachers have hundreds of students, of which there's a smaller group they work closely with, and a larger group they work with as a pool. They're trying to constantly bring the members of the pool closer so they can be one of the students whom they work with more closely, but they're not ready yet, otherwise they'd be working closely with them. So on the one hand, they're doing a type of basic education where they're trying to raise the consciousness of many people so they can work more closely, and at the same time they're working with their graduate students at a closer level.

There is no exclusion for size. It's not as if there's a certain number of people whom the teacher will work with on a close basis. The teacher will work with as many as are ready, the more the better. But for the closer students, a teacher has to look for an indication, a sign, an omen. The supraconscious will point out to the teacher that this person should be in their field of attention on a closer basis.

Rama smiling with his arms crossed wearing a designer suit
Seeing is the ability to tell what really is.

The works of Rama – Dr. Frederick Lenz are reprinted or included here with permission from

The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism.