While this initial insight (sometimes called stream entry) brings only a flavour of this ground of being, when it has been fully established, this unifying base, being timeless, operates in terms of aeons, encompassing the various periods of time throughout all of existence, human and non human, all within a momentary instant. In the ceasing of time, the activities of time beyond the current physical form are revealed. It seems entirely plausible to say “I am all things at all times in every place”. However, the ‘I Am’ in that sentence does not make any reference to any personal essence or identity whatsoever. So, to simply say, “all things are” might fit the situation better, but not accurately, as there is no qualifier for it itself. One might even say, “the environment/world/universe is doing itself”. But I only use those terms as figures of speech - they don’t actually refer to a thing called the environment, world or universe. This is not to say those things are not there, but it doesn’t say they are there, either.

While inclusive, all sense of locality (spatial reality) also contains the macro field - the voluminous and the miniscule both in and of itself. For example, I'm looking at the walls in my room, but I understand - not cognitively - that the entire universe occupies the heart of hearts. My mind does not expand out beyond the boundaries of my head and the room to create an internal conception of the universe; no!. The universe is not 'out there'. Just like when time ceases, all time periods are revealed in the eternal now. In the same way, when the three dimensions of space cease, (length, breadth and width) all phenomena appear within the same field, which is neither here, there or in between the two. Life here is lived without a center.

The subject that is me, is the subject that is the room, is the subject that is the universe. In this physical world, the subject that relates to the object is simply the sum total of the mere effort it takes to interface with that subjectivity. It is a relationship that comes into being becouse of the very effort it takes to prize apart the inner subjective world, and the outer objective reality — also an internal conception. It’s a strain that exists entirey in the mind. The byproduct of that dualistic strain (which can often look like a war) spawns the idea of an individual with its various positions: victim, perpetrator, rescuer being just a few.

Therefore, the objective observer becomes a reality in and of itself – a conceptually fragmented extension of the greater primordial subject, which makes it the subject unknowingly appearing to look at its own abundance, its own creativity, but from a very limited perspective - and by extension, innocently fools itself into believing it is solely the subjective agent, and consequently that objects are separate (over there and out there), and time-bound (the experience of past and future). Being so small and defnsiless introduces an strong element of fear, and thus a need to protect oneselfe.

The fragmented objective observer, when confronted with a deadlock of opposing forces, is like a single actor on a vast stage, so engrossed in their individual role and the props in their immediate vicinity, that they forget they are part of a much larger play – essentially observing a tiny fraction of a production that is, in essence, their own greater being. Or, it’s like looking through the peephole in a door, believing that what you see constitutes the entirety of reality.

Some people might use the term ‘Self’ with a capital 'S', which refers to this primordial ground, that which exists before the definitions applied by langauge. This could be confusing if you have developed a practice centered around no self. Self with a small 's' is the subjective observer, lost and separated from its all encompassing Self - it's true Self. When a Buddhist refers to no self, they simply mean that the small self should take a back seat, so that the big Self can take center stage again. 

Many traditions have various methods that they say are designed to help you acheive what I’m talking about here. The truth is, nobody knows what will get you that inital insight. There ar emany ideas, like suffering, loss of finances, death of a loved one, but nobody really knows. Perhaps it’s a total act of grace, and unearned offering. There’s no scheme for who gets that initial insight or not. You can embark on a arduous spiritual journey and not get a single sniff; or, having never been spiritually inclined, you can be in the supermarket searching for some quilted tiolet paper, then BAM! - there it is: Satori!

Some of the technologies, methods and groups (meditation, chanting and so on) can cause a person to deny even their own totality, the big Self, and fall into various unconscious forces where they develop strange ideologies coupled with odd behaviours and beliefs – nihilism and solipsism being just a few of them, alongside the collective obiligation to be of service, as a means to enlightenement — doing service as a transactional prerequisite for becoming enlightmened.

Even worse, through unguided and sustained practice, they can wind up in an extreme region of the mind far removed from the relativistic world; a sort of fabricated emptiness where the ego sits in the corner denying that the world exists or cherry picking the nice parts, (very common in Buddhsim) or even more dire, engaging in egocentric rightous persuits (another Buddhist favourite).

In my own experience, I used to attend a Buddhist group (Triratna) fairly sporadically and without much commitment. While I was there, I was often accosted by unknown, unconscious forces, some pleasant, some disturbing, and some rather amusing. Because I identified them as me, they would appear to make me say and do spiritual things, like shuffle to the altar, and light an incense stick while feeling a sense of spiritual arrogance, awe, and generally very special.

It was clear to me that I was being taken over by these unconscious forces, but they were powerful, and often pulled in back in. In other words, I wasn’t integrating them in a healthy way. In fact, there were a few times I very nearly became an ordained member of the group, which, in terms of my growth, I consider to be a very close call. The spiritual environment offered a convoluted enclave of ‘mob mentallity’ that priortiised, favoured and idealised these states. This was very uncharactiristic of me, and I saw myself losing my autonomy to a collective group who where fundemantally struggling with thier own reconciliation of these unconscious forces.

After my first awakening, while I was aware of my own personal struggles and the surfacing of my own inner turmoil and personal issues, I later learned a lot about the collective energy of that particular group, which answered many controversial side questions for me.

Critically, at that phase, the situation wasn’t necessarily the issue, but rather part of a solution for me: I learned to objectify these strange states by looking directly at the thoughts, textures, and perspectives, thus recognizing they were not part of me. This took a few years but was hugely transformative, and brought into focus the unspeakable totality. From there on, I contacted a fetter guide, and finally broke free.

Although it was short-lived, I was very pleased to have shaken off the spirituality/religous phase, as I was sounding rather like a wise old man, consumed by words of wisdom. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the background energy was embued with arrogence. I was plagued with images of huge walls of spiritual text, and peculair arcyetypal forces.

So, the spiritual plain is a dimension that one might pass through as a stop-gap to direct, immediate reality, but many people will become stuck here, because what it offers is extremely appealing to an egoic mind - especially when you identify with powerful unconscious forces. Unfortunately, the group consensus has their own existential limitations, which are unconsciously and collectively lived-out within the confines of the group. They create a safe and comforting atmosphere for the development of spiritualized identities.

There’s a whole interesting psychology around groups and awakening that, on one hand, can bring great insight, but on the other hand, paradoxically hinders the growth of the individual to actually break through once and for all. One reason for this is: to actually break through would mean the end of how the person relates to the group, the end of the chase, and throws into question the goal of the group itself, (the end of spirituality) and for many, that is absolutely terrifying.

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, the French anthropologist (and later Carl Jung added more to this phenomena) describes a psychological state where individuals experience a merging of their consciousness with a a group, leading to a feeling of partial identity or non-differentiation, (Oneness with the group) and this state can be misinterpreted as spiritual insight. In this state, one looses their autonomy, which opens their suggestivity, and invites unwholesome group dynamincs to contaminante their minds. That’s a long-standing theme in spiriuatal groups, where self-destructive impulses within the group's collective are rationalized, romanticized and reframed into things like loyalty, collective wisdom and those such things.

This participation mystique phenomnena can also apply within a one-to-one setting, as I’ve seen in my sessions, where the seeker takes on the content of the person who speaks from the totality. When I point towards the totaility, my words and energy can act as a catalyst, which triggers thier own inner direction. They become captured, not just by my personality, but by the resonance this creates within their own personal experience. In this state, they can beocome arrogent and condescneding spewing Zen-like riddles and terms, but the self-drive is still runing the show - and its clear. The inverse can happen where they raise me higher than themsleves, which I nip in the bud very quickily. Sometimes people can become very submissive, and feel a tremendous need to get onto the floor in some worshipping posture. With the right person, navigating these states can be a very positive experience, but with he wrong person, these states can be misinterpreted, abused, and unnecessarily prolonged.

Here, framing ‘participation mystique’ as a positive inlfuance is not just about a regressive, unconscious mind merging into a mobbed-out, spirutual movement, or worshipping a single person, but about a powerful, positive resonance that wants the seeker to stand totallty as an individual in their version of totality. This means not succumbing to those powerfull collective forces found in large groups and in one-to-one settings, but it doesn’t mean resististing them either.

For these reasons, while many people in these groups can seem like they are on the path, dress for the occasion, and speak the lingo, to lose the collective Buddhist identity - any spiritual identity - is just too unbearable, and actually extremely frightening, so there is an unconscious scheme to keep things ticking over, collectively as a group, even if it’s very unhealthy; there’s an unconscious scheme to ignore the bigger picture, and there can be an unconscious scheme to sabotage any real progress, both for themselves and others — this is what I term the inverse growth paradox, where the initial introduction to spirituality/religion later becomes the blockade, a regression and sometimes a distruction —but not the good kind.

I spoke to an order member recently who confided that they had formed a pact within their small chapter (a small group within the larger Triratna movement) The conditions of the pact were simply this: if one of us goes down the wrong route, we will all go down that wrong route. As you can imagine, this immediately flagged my attention and promted me to have a word with them — to no avail. In another interaction with a Buddhist (another Triratna member, incidently) they had confided that they had been menatlly and emotionally abused, and that they found it unbearable to leave. They felt embarresed, trapped, and deflated.

But hey - I’m not repsonsible for what other people chose to do. The pact mentioned is simply a defense against some imagined intolerable lonliness, that, extrordinarily, goes against the sensible nature of rational thought. Regardless, this collective suggestiblity is a common psychological danger and is an extreme example of the participation mystique phenemomna mentioned ealier, where there is a collective agreement towards a shared potential distruction hidden within the guise of “we’re working towards wholeness” or hidden in morality practices or sophistacted meditation techniques.

In fact, it can hide in just about any type of spiritual agenda, appearing as the epitome of good-hearted and moral ideals. this type of collective agreement promotes a distruction of the individual into a kind of mutual fate, which, for the worst, is determined by the least conscious or most disturbed member. Sometimes it can even be the group leader, the guru figure, to which there are plenty of real-world examples.

So powerful are these unconscious forces, they can hide inside a crevice as small as a flea's nostril, but have an impact as huge as a collective movement (that’s how the collective energy of larges societies work). There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, if that’s what the people chose. The existential nature of where this points is truly remarkable, but to see that, every fragment of identity needs to be ferreted out, even if their brochure, attire, and their environment looks moral, nice, pretty, compassionate, meditative, quiet, still, wise, decorative, and so on.

On that note, while well-meaning, even the very notion of how a person subscribes to the consensus of the group should be questioned, as it can later form part of an identity. This identity can morph into a bull-headed and arrogant spiritualized identity, which is very difficult to shake off. This spiritualized identity can then turn perverse simply because they identify with unknown unconscious forces, much of which is perosnal unconsious and unresolved baggage and much of which are collective group contaminants.

The traditions generally lean towards pleasant forces (another Buddhist favourite) beouse they ‘feel good’ as a collective unit, but this — forced —outlook exists in diametric polarized realities. For example, you might meditate upon an image of Avalokitesvara, the buddha of compassion, and even embody that ideal in everyday life, only for this idealolised persona to flip over into cold-heartedness, shocking, and even demonic impulses. The message being: if you spawn one extreme, be prepared to face its opposite!

Regardless of what dualistic idea you entertain, or what unexpected trouble you might conjure, the key is to hold both ends of those dualistic strains without succumbing to their individual or collective impulses, and in the modern society, the ordained members have little to no experiential knowledge on how to guide another person through that trecherous terrain. Although it can look quite sophisticated on the surface, the collective fear of the group is just too strong.

To stand totally in and of your-Self is a big deal — too big a deal for most people - but it is possible!

Now, do I enjoy being in groups? Selective groups, yes, of course - but I can see them very differently these days. I can intuit a multitude of energies like the waves of the sea ebbing and flowing between people, small groups, families, comminiuties, societies, countries and beyond. Its the dance of opposing forces, sometimes the waves are small and sometimes they’re huge. For the most of humanity, those dulaistic waves are solidified within a monolyth of words, symbals, feelings, concpets and strong beliefs, making them seem more real than they actually are.

Although I do find myself in groups, I don’t particapte in the same way, but this isn't a simple 'yes' to one pull or 'no' to the other, nor is it a logical middle ground. It’s a very unexpected and non-rational position that transcends logical reasoning… and that is becouse I broke out of the inverse growth paradox and probably why you should, too.

Spirituality, Religion, & Non-Dual Traditions — The Inverse Growth Paradox

Mark Shaw - 27-05-2025

The unconscious mind contains things that are arcane to the mundane daily routines of the conscious mind. They are largely obscured by the urgency of self-centred striving. In the world of the sense organs where the superficiality of daily life locks you into a conceptual word, one might mindlessly ruminate over some choice words you received from a friend, relative or stranger last week, or grumble about the price of potatoes, or the incessant YouTube ads. Hence, it’s an endless game of strenuous intrigue followed by discontent.

Yet when one has undergone a merging of the conscious and the unconscious by sifting through their shadows, and learned to manage the careful balance of the collective forces upon which humanity's blueprint is based, one is then able to have direct encounters with the very peculiar, undefined regions of the collective mind, and even beyond those realms, where non-specific irrational forces are at play.

Merging both the conscious and the unconscious requires a steadfast strength, humility and the ability to discern what you are and what you are not. Therefore, in order to progress, you must first find the fundamental ground where the strains of duality can be held - that is critical. Traversing the various layers of experience (fetters) is what unearths this all encompassing, fundamental ground.

Without first finding that part of your mind – that all encompassing unifying basis – one cannot hold the strains of duality. In the Theravada tradition, this initial awakening is called stream entry, where one breaks through the first three fetters. There are other terms for this remarkable landmark: in the Zen tradition, they call it Kensho – seeing one’s true nature. This initial breakthrough is what gives you access to an equanimous poise, where one can counterpoise the strains of dualistic living, both externally and internally.