Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Causal Level of Reality

On a theory level, I am aiming to create art based on a new, but robust model of reality using an adaptation Jung's model of four underlying universal structures conjoined with the four levels of reality. The melding of the so-called Gross and Subtle realities with Jung's two masculine structures (dynamic masculine and static masculine) has been going quite well in my writing - but the Causal (as it is by definition mysterious), is proving more of a challenge to link to dynamic feminine.

For those unfamiliar, this is what Sri Aurobindo wrote about the gross and the subtle:
By the gross physical is meant the earthly and bodily physical - as experienced by the outward sense-mind and senses. But that is not the whole of Matter. There is a subtle physical also with a subtler consciousness in it which can, for instance, go to a distance from the body and yet feel and be aware of things in a not merely mental or vital way.

...the subtle physical has a freedom, plasticity, intensity, power, colour, wide and manifold play (there are thousands of things there that are not here) of which, as yet, we have no possibility on earth.
Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, part 1, section v
In this I equate Jung's Dynamic Masculine (DM) to the gross physical (or Earth Element), and the Static Masculine (SM) to how the masculine mind approaches (And aims to control/understand) the subtle.

English author and occultist Aleister Crowley's used rigid discipline, including rituals and the "assumption of god-forms", but seems to have been coming from a desire to control and enhance the individual - thus masculine according to Jung's model:
One passes through the veil of the exterior world ... one creates a subtle body .... it gains new powers as one progresses, usually by means of what is called "initiation:" finally, one carries on almost one's whole life in this Body of Light, and achieves in its own way the mastery of the Universe.
Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears


This is why, even if it seems complicated, it’s essential for the artist or the ecology-minded activist, to notice if they are using their actions to bend the world to their view, or allow themselves to be bent (used) by the world. Note by “the world,’ we don’t mean society, but “the world” as in nature, the universe, and if you prefer, the divine. This is more of the spiritual approach, but includes the admission that our mind might be inventing a position on behalf of the world or nature. In other words, Nature may not be aware of, in favor or, or have a position against pollution. So we may fancy ourselves as her protector, but she didn’t ask for it and is simply the passive allowing where all events arise without judgment. If looked at from within the masculine, this may see this as non-conscious or non-caring universe, while those who look from the feminine, see it as boundless unconditional love. Both positions might be paradoxically correct.

For my writing I also am aiming to shift from Jung's terms which are confusing to

DM = force
SM = structure
DF = play/innovation
SF = ____________



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