Awakening to your essential self is an idea that has been around since human history began. It can be found in most or all religious and spiritual traditions, as well as modern New Age thinking. Simply put it’s the idea that human birth is a paradoxical experience. On the one hand we grow, mature, and adapt to become part of the human world; on the other, through the indoctrination of conditioning, we forget where we have come from and who or what we really are. So being born is waking into this world, but falling asleep to a deeper reality.

This book is about how we can awaken to our essential self in this lifetime and live to our full capacity and potential as a human being. Human beings are animalistic, compassionate, and divine—infinitely more splendid, amazing, and diverse than we can imagine. Most of us spend our lives in the first band—the animalistic level. Sometimes we rise to the second level and truly love, and feel compassionate. Fewer still make the heart the abiding center of their lives and even rarer is the human being who longs for the truth, for the eternal, and for the divine, and sees human life as a unique and precious opportunity for discovering the divine being that inheres within the psychic body-form.

Human beings mostly live at a fraction of their full potential. Try as we might, money, relationships, possessions, and prestige cannot fill the inner void. Potential and fulfillment, like satisfaction and joy, must be authentic and real. In fact they must be inner. We have a deep integrity about life and a great curiosity. Human beings have been questioning and questing for thousands of years. At the forefront of their field of interest is the search for their true nature, for something that is deathless. Some call it God, or Brahman, Allah, YHWH, or Great Spirit; it is changeless, omnipotent, omniscient, and immanent—more here than we are—and it is our human destiny to awaken to it.

This book charts the course of awakening to your essential self in three stages. The fulfillment of these three stages of human development is our innate capacity, and it is attained through a single, connected process of awakening.

The first stage, The Process of Self-Discovery, describes how we explore, understand, and finally transcend our small sense of self through identifying and shedding restrictive life conditioning, emotional and behavioral patterns, becoming whole, and fulfilling our personal potential.

The second stage, The Transformation into Authenticity, describes how we can reach the state of permanent change and personal authenticity by stabilizing in the personal changes we made in the first stage and empowering ourselves to relate authentically and compassionately to other people and the outer world. This stage is the flowering of personal inner work.

The third stage, The Source of Consciousness, describes the experience of living in the world when we have touched transcendent reality and understand who we really are. Through shedding illusion, living in the present, and re-centering in the True Self we at last live our divine nature.

Each stage includes abundant exercises and practices for your ongoing growth and development. You may simply wish to read Your Essential Self, but you will get far more out of it if you engage with the book as an interactive experience, because above all awakening is an experiential event. In short, you must practice. You cannot think your way to your essence.

Starting at the beginning is advisable, but if you scan the sections of this book and feel a strong impulse to go straight to a certain topic, please do so. I have found as I grow older that when I read books in a chaotic order sometimes they yield a greater wisdom. Having said that, I have arranged the book in sequential order and I have yet to meet anyone who genuinely reaches any one of the three stages before the previous ones.

The introduction is about how we come to inner work and it is important because how you start out is intimately related to the outcome of your inner search. In Chapter 1, I give you the basis for an inner work practice, via a clear model of how to approach inner work for maximum effectiveness and success.

The purpose of this book is to introduce you to an integrated, innovative, practical, and real model of the inner spiritual journey for self-understanding, growth, and healing. Your Essential Self helps you see where you’re at in your personal journey, where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished, and where you’re headed, and to prepare you, in some cases, for what lies ahead. It also helps you to recognize what stages you may have skipped over and how you might remedy that, often through the exercises found at the end of each chapter.

Spiritual inner work is now a crucial activity for the modern world. Your Essential Self clearly connects personality and ego to true nature and enlightenment. It acts as a map for the inner journey and guides you through the stages of the process for inner work, discovering authenticity, and Self-realization.

In addition to teaching stories, ancient and modern, I have used case histories to amplify and illustrate. Because these accounts are real they do not always have “fairy-tale endings” (although sometimes they do). Names, gender, and specific details have been changed or adapted and the stories are sometimes a composite of different experiences in order to make individuals and events completely unrecognizable and preserve privacy and confidentiality.

BLOG entry #165

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Awakening to Your Essential Self’ was first published in 2013.

How the Novena Teachings came into being

The Novena Teachings: Nine Jewels of Sacred Approach with Richard Harvey is a series of online lectures delivered between September 2013 and January 2014. The lecture titles are:

•        Surrender
•        Relationships
•        Anger
•        Now
•        Disenchantment
•        Love
•        Maturity
•        Devotion
•        Awareness

The Meaning of Novena

A novena is nine days of devotional prayer to invoke spiritual grace and sacred favor. The novena implies a sense of urgency and spiritual longing. The practice originated in the Greek and Roman custom in which families performed nine days of mourning after the death of a loved one. This was followed by a feast. In the Roman Catholic faith novenas are associated with the prayers of the apostles and Mother Mary in the upper room prior to the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Feast of the Pentecost.

For this fourth series of online talks I have selected nine topics which came to me spontaneously. Partly I had on my mind some feedback from past lecture participants who, when I had asked what topics they were interested to hear about, had mentioned some of them. But most of all I did what I always do: I closed my eyes and allowed the words to come.

This is my method of composing the lectures too. In my first online talks I simply jotted down some loose themes on a piece of paper and for about an hour I would improvise around the subject and follow the course that revealed itself very much like wandering down some country track you had never walked before.

Spontaneous, Immediate, and Revelatory

At the end of that original handful of online lectures, a new idea arose. I realized that if I wrote the lectures first I could assemble a body of written material that could be used in other ways, for example to create a book.

I was however reluctant to forfeit the spontaneity and immediacy. But I found as I wrote that, much the same as with my other writings, if I simply got out of the way the words would reveal themselves spontaneously. Furthermore, I found that when I read the words out during the lecture that, rather than appearing stilted, they were filled with life. This is at least partly because, as I listen to them while I speak them, I allow the words to become revelatory to me as well.

The Sashti Poorthi Lectures and the Panchavati Discourses have nearly been compiled now into an e-book called Dharma Sky for sale and download from this website (see Dharma Sky). The Silent Thunder Discourses which followed was an intense and wondrous experience for me and, I think, for all who were involved.

Nine Jewels of Sacred Approach

The Novena Teachings’ subtitle is “Nine Jewels of Sacred Approach.” This refers to the need for preparation in the psycho-spiritual endeavor. Spiritual treasures and rewards are most certainly freely given, but if we are not prepared for these sacred gifts we are unable to receive them. This is a concept which may be hard to grasp in the present era of cynicism, materialism, and superficiality.

Since we no longer appreciate the complex dynamics of reciprocity, of personal consequences, of subtle exchanges, and since many doubt the reality of invisible realms, etheric realms, and the astral domain, among many other worlds which have become discredited in the modern era, human beings have forfeited a wealth of irreplaceable treasures.

Both Human and Divine

There is ritual. There is such a thing as inward preparation and there is such a thing as spiritual transmission. You cannot receive anything, for example, from these lectures without the appropriate preparation. These lectures alone necessitate your inward preparation. Ignore the directions for this at your own inner cost! But listen carefully, follow the encouragements and suggestions, and you will learn much here. If you learn a tenth of what I have learnt writing them, I think you will still benefit.

These nine themes have been a joy to contemplate and meditate on. These nine jewels are your offering to the Divine in exchange for All. The Divine gives never less than All, whereas we tend to be spared the absolute in our human lives and our inner preparation. There is no need of course! For we are both human and divine. The Divine will carry perfection for you until you are ready to embrace it and the same is true of Love and Compassion, Bliss and Stillness, Wisdom and Consciousness. You can intend the Divine, but you cannot plot your course and arrive there out of your own planning and volition. Actually preparation is everything. It is all you can do. Later, awareness will lead you into a deep acceptance and for the devotional among us into a great love. There are no compromises in the Divine. So make your spiritual preparation thorough and authentic. Don’t shy away from your resolve, the quality of your commitment, the intensity of your inner loyalty, and the tenderness of your application. Receive these nine jewels of sacred approach in this light.

BLOG entry #164

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Your Offering to the Divine in Exchange for All: How the Novena Teachings Came into Being.’ was first published in 2013.

We have a great hunger. I don't mean obvious hunger—hunger for love, food, nourishment, a warm bed, a partner, a creative happy life. All these are valid hungers, and it is hard to be a human being without experiencing them. But, the hunger to which I am referring is not only greater, but also deeper than any of these. It is the hunger for what is real, for what is true—a hunger for the essence of life.

When you think about it, reality is the only feasible foundation for your life; it underpins absolutely everything. Take the hungers above—just a cursory list—you could have any one of them, but if it is not real, then what good is it?

Real or Not?
Take love. You meet someone who you like. You stay together for a while and the relationship deepens into love. But, a little way down the line, you or your partner becomes attracted to someone else. What has happened to the love? Is it real? Was it ever real? When you are cheated on, betrayed, or jilted, was the love real or not?

Then take food and nourishment. The reality of this today is surely without doubt. Only the most credulous of us are ignorant of real, organic, unprocessed, natural foods and their superiority in all ways over junk food, confectionery, candy, and convenience foods. Real nourishment is healthy, tastes good, and strengthens our immune system.

The Inner Experience of Reality
"Real" is what we want and what we need; instinctively and intuitively we know it. Now, would it surprise you if I said that reality as you experience it (mainly outer reality) relies on your inner experience of reality? When you are real within, the rest will follow. Stay with me if you are not sure.

You and I are born into a world that is not of our own making. It is a challenging world, possibly a hostile one, and one where our needs are almost certain to be ignored or sidelined. There may be many individual reasons for this: incompetence, ignorance, insensitivity, selfishness, busy-ness, but one universal reason is that all children have unrealistic expectations. From the cradle to puberty you expect all sorts of incredible things, perfect things, ideals of perfection. And naturally you are disappointed. How could you not be? You are disappointed, and according to your reaction to this disappointment you begin a lengthy and complex process of building defenses, ways to resist the pain of disappointment, the sadness and cruelty of a world that does not respond to what you need.

Your Essence is Spiritual
You could say that as children we are too close to heaven. Yet, the first seven years of life, at least, are characterized by the ordeal of corporal identity or incarnation.

You are in essence a spiritual being. I know that for some of you this will not be a surprise. But whether it is or not, take it in for a moment. You are a spiritual being in essence. You were born, and you found yourself with this appendage, this gross dependent: a body. You are spirit walking around in a temple that is attached to you, as surely as a crab is joined to its shell. This body defines you and your relationship to the physical, just as your spirit defines and occupies your body. Hence, we say that the eyes are the windows of the soul or we detect physical grace, ease, and flowing movement in the aware or awakened human being.

But before that is possible, we have to grapple with a truth: we have been hindered with a gross duty and responsibility to a body that, far sooner than we think or desire, is in an inevitable process of deterioration that ends in physical death. A human being has every reason to fear, worry, plan, and seek security in such a predicament! One thing is for sure: we are bound to die.

But wait! This physical death is only your own death if you are absolutely sure that you and the physical body are one and the same; that is, if you identify yourself with your physical body. Identifying with the physical body is very close to defining yourself as a separate self, a defended character, a mass of stories, experiences, judgments, and prejudices that comprise your character, what you are like, both hidden and apparent.

Fear of Death/Fear of Life
Now, fear of death is projected into your present existence as fear of life. In fact, the fear of death comprises all your fears, so it is the only one you really need to focus on and heal. Healing your fear of death is not as difficult as you may think; the key is to locate your identification. What are you? Who are you? Don't falter over this question or deal with it too hastily. Plenty of spiritual adepts in the East have spent their entire lives working with the discipline that's inherent in this question: Who am I? It is, in fact, the question—without some semblance of an answer what are you going to do, think, or feel that's of any consequence? What is the foundation of your life? What are you building on?

You may answer, "I am me" (fill in the gaps with experiences, stories, prejudices, thoughts, opinions, and so on) "in a world of others" (things, people, the earth, and so on; fill in the gap with everything that is not me). This may be how it looks, but it is patently untrue! You cannot possibly exist in a world separate from everything else, divided from the others. You are like everyone else—continually in context. Look at any photograph of yourself and what do you see? Other people, trees, a dog, sidewalk, beach, sky, clouds, sunlight, nature, a street. See what I mean? In fact, you do not exist without these things (and arguably they may not exist without you).

Identity, Separation, and Division
Yet, by means of a threefold process of identifying yourself, separating yourself, and dividing yourself, you have created the basis for a consensus reality that everyone more or less subscribes to. In other words, you are not alone; you have supporters—in your delusion.

Having supporters is a comfort and a consolation, and it tends to be fine until one of two things happen: dissatisfaction or crisis.

Some dissatisfaction or crisis is necessary to propel you into inner work. Something provokes the conviction that this is not enough and you want more! (And this "more" will lead you to reality.) Inner reality demands an archaeological dig to skillfully clear the layers of emotional-behavioral patterns, restrictive life-statements, repressed emotions, and deeply-held protective beliefs that cover your essence. Your essence is intact beneath these many veils and waiting for you. It is as I have written in my book Your Essential Self: you awaken to a most welcome stranger, your true self.

The Gifts of Life
What people most want today falls into four broad categories:

• Love and partnership
• Money and pleasure
• Attractiveness and popularity
• Health and long life

Excerpt from “Your Essential Self”

The inner journey is a response to a deep longing… for the truth, for the divine, for ourselves. Once, the mystical philosopher Ouspensky was speaking to a group of pupils. He said “I…” and fell into a profound meditative silence. It was a long time before he came out of that silence. Inner work is like that. “I” is the subject title of the accumulated experience of a human life. We unpack and explore the unfinished business of our lives until one day, unexpectedly, we arrive here – in the moment.

The inner journey returns us to ourselves, to our original sense of being. We lose ourselves in our attachments to actions, achievements, and outer relationships; we “do” so much physically and mentally that the doer gets lost in the doing and we lose touch with our being.

Over the years, many people have shared their inner journeys with me. They have spoken of their most private feelings, thoughts, and experiences; unpacked the baggage of their personality and discovered deeper truths beneath their self-image. Some have used this insight to deepen their exploration and seek even more profound levels of awareness, being, and consciousness. Out of a deep longing and intuition that there must be more, they have sought their true nature, their essential self.

The inner journey spirals around our true self. Each turn of the spiral brings us closer to it. In time we arrive at the border of timeless space and being. Then we need journey no more, because we have become one with our self; we have awakened. As the ancient Indian rishis would say, the river has remembered and returned to the ocean.

But how will we remember? Where will we turn to for guidance? How is it to be done? And how will we navigate through the awesome geography of our inner world and find the ocean?

Inner Work Practice

1. Do it your way. Inner work may be done on your own, with a friend, or in a group. No precedent has been set to dictate how you should go about it; for everybody it is different, because everybody’s personal journey is unique – as unique as fingerprints, as unique as each of the billions of pebbles on the beach. So don’t let anyone fool you, you should and must do it your way.

2. Methods – explore themes appropriately using a variety of ways and means. Your criterion should be which techniques are relevant and inspiring. For example, writing, drawing, contemplation, meditation, dance and movement, active imagination (interacting and dialoging with inner parts of yourself), fantasy and visualization, free association (spontaneous “first thoughts”), keeping a dream diary, keeping a notebook for insights and recording major life statements, awareness exercises, and conscious breathing. The notebook will be of particular use when you feel dejected about inner work and require some evidence that you have made progress, as well as when you need to revise your inner work or recall some event or insight. Sometimes seekers have even published their notebooks to serve as guidance for others. Often I have resorted to my inner work notes for illustrative purposes in this book.

3. Space and Equipment – have a space where you can gather what you need for your inner work practice. Often you will choose a method intuitively, so it is essential that you have everything you may need ready so you are not distracted by having to find things. This may include: paper, a notebook, drawing pad, pencils and pen, wax crayons (preferably not felt-tips because they are nowhere near as expressive). Please write by hand with pencils and pen rather than use a keyboard, because the hand and the body, and particularly the heart, is linked through hand-writing in a way that is virtually impossible to preserve through writing with a keyboard. You may also require: musical instruments, a sound system, an altar evoking higher energy concerns, and aesthetic or devotional objects that give you pleasure. The room or space should be private, comfortable, warm, and safe. Disconnect telephones, turn off mobile devices and the door bell if you can, and be sure that all your chores are done or scheduled ahead, so they don’t worry you during your inner work time.

4. Time – inner work should be scheduled and made as regular as possible, preferably at the same time each day. An alarm clock or visible time piece may be desirable. Setting the time – say, half an hour – ahead encourages you to persevere, even when you don’t feel like it, and to stop, even when you feel like going on. Giving yourself a time boundary contains your inner work and helps to ensure that you keep to your discipline, but it also gives your ego the chance to play up and become visible, which in turn gives you material to work on. Either way, you win.

5. Help from others – when the time is right, be willing to ask. There are unparalleled advantages to working with others. A trusted friend or a group of like-minded seekers are indispensable to your journey at some point. When the time is right try it, persist in it when it feels right, and use the reflection, mirroring, witnessing, and understanding of the other to highlight and bring to awareness your projections and transferences and provide insights into your emotional, behavioral, and relational patterns in ways that you could never do on your own.

At some point too you will need a guide to support, encourage, and conduct you over significant thresholds. When the time comes, remember two things which are of the utmost importance. One, the most vital aspect of the healing process with your guide is the relationship. Two, take responsibility for choosing the right (not the easiest, not the most obvious, not always even the most difficult) material to work on and don’t waste any time. While you are practicing inner work on your own these two points still apply.

5. Finally, attitude – the way you approach inner work practice is crucial, because your success or failure depend on it. At the outset of an inner work session, ritualize your approach to your work. This ritual should be self-directed and it can be as simple or elaborate as you wish, but it should bring you to your inner work in a relaxed, alert, vibrant, and open state of heart and mind. So conscious relaxation, breathing, physical centering, lighting incense or a candle, preparing the room mindfully, bowing, stretching, humming, chanting, or bringing hands together in the prayer position are all appropriate examples. The important point is that the ritual has inner significance for you.

BLOG entry #162

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘The Inner Journey.’ was first published in 2013.

Richard Harvey reflects on T S Eliot and Leonard Cohen.

Several years ago, a friend phoned me excitedly in the early hours of the morning. She wanted me to know that she had discovered T S Eliot’s lines from the poem “Little Gidding”:

And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.

I was excited for her. But I had discovered these lines years before, as had many others. It is one of those difficult moments when you want to share another’s joy without appearing condescending. Something has been uncovered in them through art, the lyrical insight of the wise and you, wanting you to share in it as an equal, cannot. You cannot because you have crossed that terrain already. Your footsteps have faded and your footfalls long ago ceased to sound there.

Similar to the discovery of T S Eliot, is the latest taste for the erstwhile monk, songster, poet, visionary Leonard Cohen. Of particular merit to the modern ear are the lyrics to his often–and possibly too often–quoted balled, the aptly-named “Anthem.” Specifically the line:

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

This has become a perennial popular quote on many social media exchanges and a host of professional websites. T S Eliot owes a lot to St John of the Cross and the Bhagavad Gita. So it should come as no surprise to discover that Cohen’s line appears also in the wake of several sources. First, it owes much to that famous manic depressive, the comedian Spike Milligan whose epitaph carved on his headstone read, “I told you I was ill.” He famously joked:

Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.

Even earlier, however, is E M Forster’s phrase:

The greater the darkness, the brighter shine the little lights… 
(from “What I believe,” 1938)

In spite of all this, Cohen is generally thought to have pilfered the line, or at least the idea, from a story in a book by the Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield. The story tells of a young man who lost his leg. He enters a Buddhist monastery. Angry at life, he draws pictures of cracked vases and broken things. Through his life at the monastery he attains a state of inner peace, yet still he draws only broken vases. When asked why he still draws broken vases, when he himself has become spiritually whole, he replies, “… and so are the vases. The crack is how the light gets in.”

Eliot’s phrase “the end of all our exploring” is greatly enlightening, because is there ever really an end? Not only does he seem to take it for granted but he goes so far as to define it. It is arriving in the place where we started and to “know the place for the first time.” This is redolent of the Delphic oracle and the plea of the ancient sages of the Indus valley that we should “know ourselves.”

I saw Leonard Cohen a few months ago, 78 years old, he played for 3¾ hours on a Madrid stage and delivered an inspiring concert of almost perfect musicianship and poetry. He exuded supernal dignity and humility while doing it. Not apparently cracked, he lit a light before us that brought people and continues to bring people together all over the world in large numbers to experience reality and compassion, and to celebrate the human condition as he describes it in his pulsing, visceral, spiritual poetry.

I cannot say it better to you than that. He probably could. My favorite line of recent years is:

I ache in the places where I used to play.

But with the release of his superb new collection of songs, Old Ways, even that line has been usurped now by:

I’m sick of choosing desire
I’ve been saved by a blessed fatigue.

If an excited friend phones you up in the early hours of the morning, even if you’ve been listening to him since Suzanne, try and share in the excitement.

BLOG entry #161

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘The End of All Exploring: T S Eliot and Leonard Cohen.’ was first published in 2013.