How the Self "Works Us" and Transforms Our Nature

When we shift our focus to the God-within, we encounter archetypes and other subjective realities. For our inner nature is not physical, it is psychic and personal. We can access this inner world through imagery, impressions, flashes of inspiration, intuitive hints, memories, and other kinds of instantaneous direct knowing.

Our subjective life operates under a different set of rules than does the concrete, objective world. The inner Self is more an artist than a scientist; it makes itself understood through association and interpretation rather than through observation. Yet psychic events are facts. Though the events themselves cannot be measured by scientific means, their effects on our lives are observable and can be measured. For instance, a woman who relives her childhood sexual abuse so vividly that its painful energies are released and healed might lose easily the fifty pounds she has been carrying around for years as unconscious protection against being touched.

Archetypes arrange psychic energy into patterns we can discern. Like the organs in our physical body, archetypes function in our psyches to bring a pure quality to fruition or to dismantle an illusion that's blocking our growth. Archetypes personify our abstract Self and build mental images of our ideals. We must have an image of something in our minds before it can be created. This psychological law explains sayings like "thought is creative" and "energy follows thought".

Archetypal influences act on our subconscious in much the same way human instincts act on us biologically. Just as we react automatically by fight or flight when we encounter danger, so too we react automatically in psychodynamic ways. We may even feel these reactions in our bodies. For instance, if we've never integrated the archetype of Power, we may overact psychically to even mild criticism by becoming excessively angry or defensive. When we are under the influence of archetypal energies, spontaneous reactions come upo us with fate-like inevitability.

However, when we focus consciously on a specific archetype, we activate it in our lives so that it can become a transformer. Some patterns in our life activate archetypal motifs - the perfect Lover, the ideal Warrior, an act of Courage, the classic Betrayal, and son. Our processes can also be archetypal. Cycles of Death, Birth, and transformation are experienced universally by every human, regardless of culture.

Other archetypes are key players in our divine unfolding, such as the Higher Mind, the Observer Self, the Heart - these are pure expressions of our divine essence. Higher Mind is the archetype we'll learn most about here. But you can make any one of them your guide whenever the situation calls for the special traits inherent in that archetype. The self wears many faces in its archetypal dimension, just as the ego behaves as various people at different times.

It's important to remember that archetypes have archetypal nature only, not physical nature. These powers are available for anyone to tap into. To say I am the Messiah, or the Divine Feminine, would be egotistically to "hog the show." It could even be dangerous or psychotic. Rather, we absorb an archetype's characteristics and own and recognize its influence on our consciousness. We only know archetypes, in fact, by their powerful impulses and their imprints upon our lives.

Archetypal interplay is very active during certain cycles in our lives when transformation is necessary. The archetype's function is to bring on a powerful crisis of some kind - to focus us on a higher lever of consciousness, in which everything is symbolic. They bring us a taste of our bigger story.

Once, during a week's meditation retreat, I saw Shiva dancing in the trees through the shadows and light of the leaves against the dark sky. I stayed up all night to partake in this amazing event. The next night I tried to make it happen again, but the magic was gone. Such precious moments are "visits from the gods." They cannot be counted on to be a regular part of our everyday reality.

Unfortunately, we're usually aware only of the more newsworthy events of our world, so we see more of archetypal negativity than we do of the grand acts of courage or reverence for life that humanity also brings forth. We must also keep these higher aspects of our nature in mind while we pass through humanity's "dark night."

The archetype of the Self observes us from on high and, when active, affects us on every level of consciousness, leaving no part of our old identity untouched. This is why we must learn to activate our Observer Self as a daily spiritual practice - so its archetypal function can enlighten us about all our actions and reactions. At the close of the millennium, each of us is making all of humanity's issues conscious. Our instinctual past and our archetypal future are at war within our psyches at times, attempting to make us whole. Our Observer Self will bring us closer to our completion.

The key to our freedom is for each of us to do our part in this cocreative process and commit to heal ourselves and focus on the highest good. Here is the magic formula for success:

First, we must observe. Second, change our course to refocus on what we spiritually intend. These are the powers of Sincerity and Willingness in action. Then, the rest moves ahead on its own; the rest is Higher Power's "part."

Your real Self continually guides you through intuitive hunches, deep insights, or revelations - those "ahas!" that come from out of the blue that you know are inspired. The Self even creates the content of your dreams. If you have spontaneous dreams, with image, symbols, and meanings far beyond what your ego brain knows, you must realize some kind of Grand Designer is at work.

EXERCISE: REFLECTING ON ARCHETYPES IN YOUR LIFE

Take a moment now to reflect on a period in your life when you went through a powerful transformative experience - a time when you sensed that Destiny had a strong influence on your life….Once you recall this time, try to remember the quality or trait at the core of the experience. Recall the feelings that led up to this event…

What was really going on at the archetypal level during this intense time? Observe this from your Higher Mind. Let the image or idea behind the experience emerge… Once you capture this in your mind, you've discovered the archetypal process that was represented. This can lead you to see the larger pattern for this aspect of your individuation.

How the Self "Works Us" and Transforms Our Nature was excerpted from Becoming a Practical Mystic, Creating Purpose for our Spiritual Future by Jacquelyn Small with permission form the publisher, Quest Books.