Printed in the Spring 2022 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Sugg, Judith, "Piercing the Trance: The Wholeness Process" Quest 110:2, pg 37-39
By Judith Sugg
At our Source, we are the same, yet an individual’s interaction with the world is distinctive. Psychology refers to the sum of our habitual responses and tendencies as personality, and these patterns and biases can prevent us from experiencing life directly. If we believe we are the sum of these patterns rather than an emanation of the Source, we remain ignorant of our true nature.
Those on a spiritual path align their lives with ideals such as Truth and Love. Sadly, our best intentions are shattered by those same biases, habits, and knots (granti) of personality. Millennia ago, the Katha Upanishad (3.5) taught that a person “who has not understanding (avijnana), whose mind is not constantly held firm—his senses are uncontrolled, like the vicious horses of a chariot driver” (Hume, 351). We see this truth every day, in ourselves and others.
Meditation is the most prescribed tool for holding the mind firm, yet its course is arduous. As Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater noted, internal silence is a rarity, and even though no one else hears the chaos in our mind, that doesn’t mean it’s not real. Thoughts are energy and form, often existing in conflict, fueling emotions and self-interest.
I have long been intrigued by the mechanics of the mind as viewed in both psychology and meditation. How do we align higher ideals and intentions with personality patterns that seem so entrenched? Having taught yoga and meditation for thirty years, I have a deep respect for the potential power of practices, but I also know the hazards and struggles they involve. This article attempts to link our highest intentions for living with love and clarity with a psychological tool that deepens meditation.
The Purpose of Meditation
I.K. Taimni, whose translations of Hindu texts are well known to Theosophists, published a short paper on the more profound aspect of meditation in The American Theosophist. He speaks to the motivation for meditation, hoping to move the theoretical discussion of yoga to a deep, serene, impersonal experience of Reality. Without an impartial perspective, we are likely to remain oblivious to the illusions in our mind. Taimni states that intensity of purpose is needed to “open up the channels between the lower and the higher and establish the center of consciousness on the spiritual planes of manifestation” (Taimni, 323).
When that happens, no matter the circumstances of life, the higher mind is present, “brooding in the background.” Here spiritual knowledge or intuition comes as a direct perception of Truth, and these glimpses, free of illusions of the lower mind, fuel steadiness in meditation. Does this spiritual knowledge or intuition result solely from effort and devotion? Maybe, but knowing how our lower mind is structured—and deconstructed—helps our practice become more reliable and purposeful.
Untrancing
There is an old story, told in many forms. A meditation teacher asks a novice to fetch him a glass of water. To fetch the water, the novice decides to walk down a trail. He meets a woman, falls in love, and has children. To his horror, the family’s lives are threatened by a flood! But then the family is rescued! And he is saved from sure death! Suddenly, in the middle of this drama, the novice feels a tap on his shoulder. A voice asks, “Where is my water?” While only a few seconds have passed in reality, the mind has conjured up a lifetime of events.
Trances are, by their very nature, enticing, unconscious, and seductive. Personality is the most elusive trance of all. Meditation elucidates how wildly pervasive it is: can we sit even two minutes before wandering off to memories, plans, and imaginations?
Guided imagery substitutes another trance, with good intentions and often good results, because it encourages relaxation and possibility. A more skilled meditator will eschew trance by tracking the breath, being mindful of the moment, or focusing intently on a chosen symbol or concept. As meditators wrench their awareness back to task when their mind wanders away, they exercise a mental muscle to break an impending trance. This effort takes courage and skill but results in increased clarity, stillness, and freedom from drama.
Shifting Consciousness
When I met psychotherapist Connirae Andreas and learned her Wholeness Process, I recognized something that was integrated with, and complementary to, meditation. This process hones the skill to manage the mind and pierce the trance of personality. This process is not everything needed to reach that deeper level, but it is an elementary how-to for shifting consciousness.
As I learned this process, I realized that what arises in meditation is not just a thought or sensation: it is a door opening to a colorful, enticing story. Until we can open or close that door at will, we have no control. For example, I start to meditate and notice my left arm itches. The door opens, and I wonder about the hike we took: we were warned about poison oak; now I feel scared; I don’t know if it got on my dog . . . Two minutes later, if I am lucky, I return.
The understandings behind the Wholeness Process arose from Andreas’ health issues. As a psychologist, she now uses the process with others to manage many forms of pain and distress. Starting with a problem or feeling at hand, she helps the client locate where in the body it is located and its sensory qualities. For example, the client locates it in her belly and notes that it is jagged and impermeable. There is no storytelling or history; understanding the story is not the purpose, because the story is part of the entrenched pattern. Here the objective is to dismantle or disentangle the mental structures that hold distress in place, leaving a person free to experience the moment in isolation. When that happens, experientially it feels like profound relaxation.
In meditation, the distress can be anything that arises. After relaxing, the meditator notes what remains after conscious relaxation. There is no expectation of what will arise or remain: it can be an internal voice, memory, feeling, or image. The location can be anywhere, inside the body or outside, although I have found that what remains is frequently inside. Tracking this location can be subtle work, especially for those unaware of the effects of thoughts on the body. For example, I have a thought about planning my day: “I should call my friend.” If I investigate, I note a tension in my left shoulder accompanying these words. For thoughts to have much traction, there is often a corresponding reaction in the body. When I uncover this linkage, I move deeper into the process of unraveling thought because I begin to see the linkages and knots of my thoughts.
To summarize, the meditator notes what remains after relaxation and then finds the location of the experience. Staying with the sensation, the meditator notes its qualities: Is it hot or cold? Fuzzy or clear? Hard or pliable? Hefty or light? Dense? Opaque? Vibrating or still? Notice that no story or meaning is given, and for those of us locked to our stories and explanations, this is a puzzling inquiry! Yet what makes thoughts invasive are the meanings we bestow on them. What makes us open to awareness is an impartial curiosity about the structure of thought.
Those familiar with Besant and Leadbeater’s work Thought-Forms will find that this type of inquiry jibes with their book’s abstract images of thoughts. Nevertheless, Andreas’ process lacks the interpretation after the fact: in fact, she adamantly avoids the symbolic interpretation offered by Besant and Leadbeater. Andreas’ approach helps relax the structure of thinking rather than ascribing meaning to thoughts.
Meditators talk about an “observer” of thoughts, or, in Andreas’ terminology, the “I who is aware.” Humans have the facility to mentally step out of their experience, gain distance, take perspective, and observe. We can debate the terminology, but ultimately this observation skill is a tool for awareness.
In the Wholeness Process, the “I who is aware” (the observer) is another manifestation of the thought complex. Consequently, the questions are the same: What is the location of “I who is aware”? What is the sensation? When I first asked myself these questions, I was startled to find a concrete answer.
Many find that the location of the “I who is aware” is not inside the body. For me, it is usually located above my head, and its characteristics are fuzziness, permeability, and darkness. It could be anywhere and have any qualities, but when meditators answer these questions, they let go of expectations about what it means.
The “I who is aware” is then “invited to open and relax . . . as the fullness of Awareness . . . There can be an allowing of this to happen in its own way” (Andreas, 87). Then the original sensation is also invited to open and relax as part of Awareness. I have puzzled over these words, which turn out to be both powerful and beautiful in action. The words both facilitate trance and interrupt the existing trance. This dual action perhaps explains why I see this process as aiding direct perception. As our internal, unconscious structures dissolve upon exposure and kind direction, what is left is, for me, something more authentic.
Now return to the earlier example of a thought in meditation: “I need to call a friend.” I note the thought and feel it in my shoulder and arms. It is a gripping, dense sensation. The “I who is aware” floats above my head on the right, a fuzzy, grey, small orb. I invite the “I who is aware” to melt and relax into all awareness. I take the time to allow this to happen fully. I invite the sensation in my shoulders to relax and dissolve into awareness. They melt. I breathe, and for a blessed time, there is only awareness. I am clear and present.
Andreas suggests that over time, with practice, the “I who is aware” may fade, yielding to the “I who invites awareness,” This is another, subtler layer of thought. When we speak of a meditator who experiences the rise and fall of mental activity without being carried away into trance, we are talking about a presentation of experience without an automatic split in consciousness. In a sense, the old personality structure has, at least for the moment, dissolved. While this may be temporary, the skill to return to wholeness is being honed. It seems natural to expect that when our split in consciousness is healed, compassion arises. We are not a self in the world battling for ourselves; we are.
Whether or not you use this tool, the process highlights three aspects of understanding consciousness. First, the structure of our thoughts and personality is generally unconscious. We obsess about the content of our thoughts, but we don’t pay much attention to the structure. How do we create these thought forms? What is their form? Second, approaching an experience of direct perception deconstructs the unconscious structures of personality. It is not a mystery, at least at the initial levels, to disentangle our coding. Last, for students of yoga in particular, this work sheds light on the mechanics of avidya—how ignorance obscures the knowledge of our own true nature. With that knowledge, we are more likely to align our daily actions and thoughts with our spiritual ideals.
Sources
Andreas, Connirae. Coming to Wholeness. Boulder, Colo.: Real People Press, 2018.
Besant, Annie, and C.W. Leadbeater. Thought-Forms. Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House. 1999 [1925].
Hume, R. The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Taimni, I.K. “Some Interesting Aspects of Meditation.” TheAmerican Theosophist, 58, no. 11 (Nov. 1970): 320–28: http://www.stage.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/InterestingAspectsMeditation.pdf.
Judith Sugg, PhD, is a counselor, psychology instructor, and yoga teacher. Her graduate work was in the psychology of yoga and the Samkhya, and she wrote the Study Guide for the Yoga Sutras for the Theosophical Society.