Awakening Vs. Integration

Why we strive to appear whole and seamless while being seemingly full of holes

“Important ideas and life-changing experiences beautifully expressed. Many thanks, Shiv, for sharing your story and conceptual frameworks. I'm a new subscriber, so you might have done this previously: my request is that you post on the ways you've discovered to "snap out of the hypnotic trance." Perhaps that happens just by recognizing it? But as Karl's comments suggest, the interpretation we give upon recognizing M.E. in the trance can be just falling deeper into trance of M.E. deception. It can seem like we're only changing channels on the Idiot Box.”

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“Shiv - interested to hear your thoughts on how integration work (esp. integrating the shadow) fits in with spiritual awakening techniques?”

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You are correct in assuming that I have been asked the question, of how to snap out of the hypnotic trance of the ego-driven separation we live under, several times and by several readers. And I can only give you the same answer I’ve given the others:

There is no how.

Awakening cannot be approached in such a manner. No practice, ritual, technique or affirmation can create or catalyze an awakening experience. Because all these are processes that the mind and the ego actively participate in facilitating. Even meditation requires the cooperation of the ego and the oversight of the mind to enable it. Then how can one possibly snap out of a trance when one is employing the very agents of the hypnotic state to facilitate the effort to break out of hypnosis?

And in that sense, you are indeed right when you say, “it can seem like we’re only changing channels on the idiot box.” Because that is what most of what is termed “spirituality” today is - another channel on the idiot box that is the mind. If you consider social media and other forms of media we consume - spirituality is just another genre, another marketplace, another industry, another form of entertainment we have at our disposal to cope with the existential void and attendant undercurrent of distress we are perpetually afflicted with.

There are two prevalent kinds of spiritual teachings - teachings on enlightenment and teachings on integration. Enlightenment teachings deal with how to turn off the idiot box. Integration teachings have more to do with how to surf the channels on the idiot box in a way that produces an overall experience of balance and harmony. Of the two kinds of teachings, only the latter i.e. those that deal with integration, have any practical application in a person’s life. Enlightenment teachings on the other hand are the proverbial carrot on the stick; woefully ineffectual at catalyzing any of the experiences they claim to speak about.

The human mind is fundamentally designed to analyze, interpret and abstract. It does so by creating models of reality and slicing and dicing the information it receives, so as to plot a best-path-forward. The resultant sense of self it projects a.k.a the ego, is similarly composed of various (often incompatible) reality models of self, superimposed upon one another, that make up our self-identity. Rather than being whole and seamless, the self-identity is built out of pieces of information roughly put together, often contradictory and generally overlapping one another. Imagine if you had to make a circle out of hundreds of little bits of oddly-shaped coloured paper. In attempting to piece them together none of the pieces would fit very well so you would have to fill in gaps by pasting other bits of paper over them. And while, when viewed from a distance, the circle might appear smooth and whole, a closer glance would reveal the patchwork mess it really is.

This patchy experience of self then leads us to become perpetually preoccupied with self-management. Sometimes busy peeling off aspects of ourselves that cover up or stifle other aspects. Sometimes desperately trying to cover up an exposed section where a bit off paper has fallen off. The game becomes one of “how to appear whole and seamless to the world while being seemingly full of holes”. Thus, our lives are driven by a pervasive sense of quiet desperation as we play endless games of cover up in each other’s presence.

I recently attended an industry conference during which this was glaringly apparent to me. The so-called industry leaders presented themselves as the experts with all the answers. The audience members presented themselves as individuals seeking to further develop and improve themselves by following the guidance of these leaders by networking with them. Each individual there, whether presenter or audience member, projected a whole and seamless identity - almost as if it were a commodity or a brand that they were trading with one another for leverage or for greater exposure. And witnessing this, I realized how pervasive and powerful the human ego’s need is to project a model of itself that is purposefully curated for societal consumption.

Realizing this fundamental inefficiency in how the ego is constructed and the suffering that inevitably results from it, spiritual teachings that deal with integration are really about taking a strategic, reflective and aware approach towards reorganizing the ego - by balancing its needs for authentic self-expression with its needs to be favourably treated by society. These techniques begin by looking at all those aspects and scraps that are buried under the more colourful shiny pieces we are inclined to show the world; the forgotten, neglected and hidden scraps that often become deeply problematic and cause us to suffer. Integration teachings take a simplified approach to piecing the ego together recognizing that just piling more scraps upon it in order to shore up gaps does not benefit a person in the long run and bogs the being down with world-weariness. These teachings seek to identify which aspects are core characteristics and which are borrowed or imitated. Especially when certain core aspects become completely buried (as is identified during shadow work and trauma therapy), these teachings seek to uncover them so that the core aspects may reintegrate and more profoundly direct how the ego expresses itself. On the other hand, when there is a core aspect that is particularly challenging, they may work to temper it with some conditioned behaviours which will soften its sharp edges.

Integration is nothing more than the aesthetic reconstruction of the ego by balancing the need for simplicity and authenticity with the need for practical functioning. A process of freeing up human potential while minimizing suffering.

Awakening, however, has nothing to do with developing potential or minimizing suffering. In fact, awakening has nothing to do with anything human beings are typically concerned about. Awakening doesn’t make us better human beings. It doesn’t eradicate suffering. It doesn’t help us realize our potential. It doesn’t allow us to integrate our shadows. It doesn’t necessarily even make us happier in the long run.

Awakening is the visceral realization that there is no circle to fill in. That the empty space we are attempting to cover and make whole - whether in a haphazard and reactive manner or an aesthetic and introspective way - is who we really are. And that space is whole by default - not because it is full and seamless but because it is fundamentally empty.

That emptiness is pure potential.

And precisely because awakening is the recognition of emptiness as our true nature, it cannot be contrived by any of the methods I have mentioned above. When it does occur, it does so by accident. Like when a large scrap piece of the ego suddenly collapses revealing such a sizeable empty space beneath the circle that the discovery shocks the mind into a state of temporary paralysis, preventing it from constructing an identity.

When I experienced a spiritual awakening many years ago, it followed a similar collapse. A catastrophic crumbling of a large chunk of my identity that had, unbeknownst to me, been held together for decades with tape and glue. I could not have created such conditions intentionally. For any attempt to do so would just have added more scraps with tape and glue to my fragile ego.

The fabric of my reality tore apart, and I found that what had appeared to me as solid for so many years was in fact hollow underneath. And I realized that no matter what kind of identity my mind created, no matter how skillfully and aesthetically it pieced the circle together, no matter how integrated my ego was, that it was only a cover up. My real self was infinitely vast in potential and infinitely empty of any material existence.

What is a mind to do with that? What is an ego to construct from that?

Yet, after the paralysis wore off, my mind began to play the cover up game again. This time choosing new “spiritual” scraps of paper to conceal the empty spaces. And I began to see the emergence of a new identity - a spiritual ego, that would then lead me down an entirely new rabbit hole of suffering over the subsequent decade before I eventually learned to dismantle it also.

Today, my ego has been painstakingly reconstructed once again through a self-taught process of integration that I have developed through a lifetime of trial and error. And while there remains much work to be done, it has transformed the experience of life into one of predominant flow. Although suffering still emerges from time to time, it is significantly reduced in comparison to what I once experienced as the norm.

However, this integration has not helped to awaken me in any way. If anything it has served to reinforce the illusion. It has turned the nightmare into a peaceful dream that I can comfortably endure now.

Awakening, on the other hand, has visited me a handful of times in my life and always unexpectedly. It has shown me my true nature to be the emptiness that exists prior to and infinitely beyond the integrated self-identity. And it has allowed me to familiarize myself with that transcendent reality frequently enough so that even when that reality isn’t evident to me, I trust it, I sense it and am guided by it.

Awakening cannot be orchestrated. Nor is it the solution to the problem of suffering. It does not dispel the ego but reveals it as holographic. Yet, it cannot improve or harmonize the ego in any way.

Only integration can do that. It has the power to greatly alleviate suffering. And so although integration does not reveal reality to us, it helps us endure the illusion with a profound sense of ease.