A talk given by David Truman in 1983.
TRANSCRIPT:
David Truman: Most people of intelligence have been putting a lot of thought into becoming happy people. And there are so many movements dedicated to helping people become happy people and so forth, which includes the entire psychological human potential movement and the entire spiritual evolution movement.
The thing that I want to say about those things is we are just on the edge of a new dawn in which what is considered spiritual, or has been considered spiritual in the past, and what has been considered social or psychological these days, can be brought together into one whole thing. What I want to do on this tape is describe the way in which the expansion of consciousness — which has basically been a term used by spiritual groups, spiritual evolution in terms of the expansion of consciousness — is basically compatible with and identical with the goals of the human potential movement, which have a lot to do with getting it together with other people, human relationships.
In this sophisticated age, I am sure a lot of people are absolutely in a position to appreciate the fact that the basic requirement of human relationships is to be freely available in the here and now, in terms of your attention, your ability to participate, your ability to be conscious and aware of your surroundings, and stuff like that. So the spiritual movement and the human potential movement ultimately have come together.
The basic fact of human life that all of these movements agree upon is that there is a tendency for the person, an ordinary human being like ourselves, to be what they call “contracted,” in a contracted condition of awareness, which is to say unaware, introverted or involuted, in-turned, and not available outwardly. In psychological terms, a person is neurotic when they are not fundamentally aware of what is really out there, and they are concentrating on thoughts and fantasies and illusions about what’s going on in their own minds, separate and distinct from what’s really going on. That, essentially, is what I call introversion. It’s the turning in of consciousness away from the world and towards this imagined center, which includes the mind.
The self that people are thinking about and acting on the basis of when they are being introverted, or not available consciously in the here and now, is what the spiritual people call the “ego,” which is different than the psychological term “ego.” But the spiritual definition of this ego is that there is an assumption or a sense of a self separated from all other beings that captures one’s own attention and becomes the basis for all one’s projects and schemes, the basis for all kinds of reactions — many of which are negative — to experience.
It’s a sort of a separated, isolated being — the ego — that is what is called the “self” in spiritual terminology, and when they describe that self they’re using a little “s” self. Then there is the Self, capital “S,” which they are describing, which is this universal principle, which is this unlimited awareness, this perfect extroverted condition of endless awareness which is not focused in this little contraction or inward problem that we all know.
That Big Self is the same thing that people like Werner Earhardt have come in touch with through these psychological processes of being in the here and now without referring to their tape-loops. That inward game of always referring to past notions, past experience, limited and paranoid assumptions about the way things are and stuff, that whole thing is the obstacle that the psychological people are trying to overcome, and very precisely is the same obstacle that is known as the ego in spiritual tradition.
Consciousness or awareness is something that can be directed either inwardly or outwardly, or can be realized, I should say, inwardly or outwardly. And when we talk about evolving, we’re talking about the expansion of consciousness, no matter what school we’re coming from. The expansion of consciousness, awareness, being in a state of expanded awareness, is the whole key to the fulfillment of life. And it has to do with recognizing the limitations of the contracted condition of awareness, the introverted, self-serving, self-meditative condition.
Like you’re walking down the street and you’re thinking all about all this old stuff that’s come up. You can’t really see the houses on the street. You’re not aware of the way the wind is blowing. You’re not aware of all the physical and subtle realities around yourself. You’re just thinking about, “I should have told him, I should have told him that blankety-blank.” “I’m really worried about trying to get over blankety-blank,” and so forth. And just sort of meditating on this stuff. And when we get into a room of people, we’re going, “I wonder if they’ll like me, I wonder if they’ll think I’m swell.” “You know, I don’t really like him, but I like her.” And thinking all these thoughts actually deprives us of the experience of being in the here and now. It’s an attitude of inward attention, even though in that particular situation we’re actually trying to deal with other people.
So we want to break out of that kind of thing, and become available to live freely and happily in a real world with real other people in it besides just ourselves and little things we think about ourselves.
And the most immediate thing that confronts us is what we call the relational condition, which means that condition which we are facing in which there are other people, other people trying to relate to us. That is the relational condition.
And the first and most obvious way in which people expand their consciousness is to expand away from that introverted tendency into being able to talk freely and openly with other people, to have real communication and not be buried in thinking private thoughts and stuff like that, which tends to be a very alienated experience.
We’re trying to learn how to turn out from that contracted condition of awareness into a larger awareness. And the more the attention is freed from this inner program and all these tape-loops, the more available attention there is for all these other people. And there is a release from the sense of alienation that exists in the body.
In psychological and spiritual terms, people are aware of the fact that there is a kind of a knot or tension in the body that results from being introverted, although most people don’t necessarily recognize that cause and effect. The tendency to contract produces, sometimes, when it’s most extreme, a sense of a cramp in the gut, or in the heart, or in the throat. That is the force of contracted awareness, brought down to a knot somewhere in the physical being. And those knots are always with us more or less intensely in the contracted condition, and are undone when we become freely aware and not introverted. And so the spiritual traditions have to do with the undoing of these knots in the body, and so do the psychological conditions.
And the first way is through this communication, this getting it out, this being real with other people. That’s step one in the path of evolution — not to consider oneself a private being, separated from all other people, who cannot communicate, who dares not communicate. We must be free, totally free in the end, to express our wonderful selves at all times, or even when we feel screwy. Even when we feel not so good, we’ve got to be able to express constantly what’s happening with us. That is extroversion on that level. And at the same time, we must be able to get to a point where we are constantly aware of the state of things around us. We are not introverted and unaware. We are sensitive to other people, because we are paying attention to other people. We have free attention because our attention isn’t all on our own case and what everything means to this little self, but we are aware of this larger Self which includes, actually includes these other beings.
It’s a universal kind of self-knowing in which we recognize our identity with other people, we have sympathy, compassion for all these other people, and we experience something of us in them, and something of them in us. And it gets a little hazy, because we recognize that there is a unity there.
That is the essential goal of all spiritual and psychological processes, whether they know it or not, because not all psychology has gotten to the point of awareness of that, although the vanguard cutting edge of psychology has. All beings are moving in this direction of becoming more and more aware, more and more free, more and more released from worrying about themselves, ultimately, as egos. And more into worrying about the whole world, somehow, worrying about all the beings, the relational condition, all the beings that present themselves to ourselves and so forth.
That is the beginning level of getting free, and it involves all these processes of communication, involvement, participation, active being-a-part-of everything and becoming sensitive to the tendency in ourselves to withdraw and to want to exclude ourselves from other people, to not want to be involved, to want to go think about everything, and so forth, like someone at a dance who doesn’t want to dance — that kind of relationship to the outer world.
When we become aware on that level, we become aware that, generally speaking, when we try to go someplace and think about it and think things over and so forth, we usually end up more isolated and alienated for having done so, and not a lot clearer. We begin to realize that we actually get more clear through relating to other people than we do through withdrawing from other people and thinking about it personally and privately. When a person reaches that understanding, they are beginning to realize what expanded consciousness really involves. It really involves being out there a lot, and basically, ultimately, being out there almost all the time. What we’re trying to say is ultimately, when you get out there and become willing to live an essentially relational, communicative, loving lifestyle with other people and work through all your stuff with other people, then you have solved the problem of feeling stuck and feeling alienated and feeling unloved, and have learned how to love and accept love from other people, and all of those things are involved in that.
And you are also, at that point, at the threshold of what traditionally has been called spiritual life, which is the birth of this awareness of the unity of all things and a subtle, but very real, consciousness of something beyond just the objects that appear in front of one. As that consciousness expands, as your awareness becomes more and more free, you will become aware that you yourself are expanded beyond your own body, and even beyond the other bodies that you see in front of you. That expanding awareness does not necessarily stop at your friends, any more than it had to stop at your own thoughts and introverted notions.
First we were stuck focusing on our own introverted notions. Then we get to where we’re focusing on other people and we get all hyped about that, and it also becomes a kind of an obstruction that is realized at this next level of progress. And then the consciousness becomes freed of all things that appear and moves into this universal dimension, which goes through the floor, through the ceiling, through the people, through the walls, out into space. And you begin to recognize that consciousness which you begin to feel very palpably in the stillness of your awareness, is you, capital “Y” You. Capital “S” Self, that big self, that capital “Y” You, is Consciousness, capital “C.” It’s one thing; it’s the field of being. It’s this incredible limitless space that is, in fact, the essence of free attention.
That is what you become identified with when your problems are nothing to you, when you have stopped worrying about petty little psychological problems and stopped worrying about yourself all the time unnecessarily.
Francine: Does that awareness occur all at once or do you become aware of it gradually, the one that goes beyond the people?
David Truman: It could do it either way, but it doesn’t matter. It matters that it happens absolutely. And it happens through all the processes through which a being gradually gives itself, surrenders into the relational condition, and it takes up the process of being freely aware, freely attentive and freely communicative.
The fact is that the psychological world is only becoming aware of what communication really is. And although a lot has been said for communication, what is really happening with communication is gradually the barriers between beings are being broken down profoundly, and that is where the spiritual process really begins — when those barriers to relationship, to love are broken through, and there becomes a higher consciousness, a larger, more expanded, genuinely expanded consciousness of things.
That process of expanding awareness happens gradually throughout all evolution in general, and much more rapidly once the problem of the contracted life has really been seen and the person gets willing to embrace other people really openly, and to share this subtle experience of spiritual evolution with other people, which is relatively esoteric, beyond the average self-help movement, only in as much as it continues what’s been begun by pointing out how we need to be free from tape-loops and things like that. That is where it’s at.
There is a relatively little-known extension of this process, because most people don’t get that into it. They plateau out in any given time period at a relatively comfortable awareness, but not the real profound pleasure that lies beyond even the aims of most of the self-help movement. That is where the relatively esoteric spiritual process — which is rare, and it isn’t usually done in the average spiritual group — that’s where that begins and takes up.
The average or conventional spirituality is mainly a consoling device by which people like to feel that they’re in contact with God, either by going to church, by being blessed in some way, or by chanting some mantra or other, trying to get out of the world, trying to get away from the problems of human life, including the problems of loving.
But the true spiritual process is totally integral and represents the possibility of being beyond the world while being in it and expanding the consciousness beyond and through all things. And that expanded consciousness, that real attention and awareness, is love. And it has every bit as much social and real implications as it does spiritual implications. And it is a complete integration of the body into one gesture, which is not only socially manifested as love but spiritually manifested as transcendental awareness of this larger self of which all beings are a part.
That happiness is the result of the true spiritual process. That being beyond being a screwed up person is the whole point, and it really goes on when there is a being or more than one being who has realized this in themselves and is in a position to teach, show by example and by their own experience, what that is. It cannot be done where it has not been learned. What has not been learned cannot be shared. And that’s why this experience of being able to get that free is rare, because there are precious few beings who have experienced it themselves and can share it with other people as a result. That is why there are limitations in the self-help movement, and there are limitations in psychology for the most part, and there are limitations in the spiritual movement for the most part, because there are few beings who know how to live this process, and therefore have it to share with other beings.
But throughout history, and until the end of time, this process will always be going on somewhere. And if you’re lucky enough, and if you have the motivation and the understanding to perceive it, to intuit it, to become aware that some individual has it, then if you can associate in that community, in that situation, with the process that’s going on, then you yourself will inevitably realize it, for yourself. And reach beyond the extent of the offerings of most conventional evolutive organizations.
It’s the birthright of everybody to experience this. It is the birthright of everybody to realize love and spirituality all at once, in every place, at all times, with no dilemma, no sense that, “Boy, this love is a weird thing, my social relationships are an obstruction to my spirituality,” or, “My spirituality is an obstruction to my social relationships,” and so forth. That dilemma is completely resolved in the being who understands life and who understands the process of evolution truly as it really is, and not just a piecemeal understanding which is had by most people who try to teach their piecemeal understanding. There is a perfect integration, there is a perfect harmony which is the birthright of everybody, and they will experience it, if they insist.