By Stephen Russell-Lacy.
Contents of a talk about self-observation and spiritual presence given at Well Spring House Swedenborg Open Learning Centre 1/7/23
We have a natural tendency for mindless reactivity
Jumping to conclusions
Travelling to the venue where I presented this talk, I indignantly watched a driver ahead of me stall in the queue just as the traffic lights turned green. I muttered something very rude under my breath. His car stayed put and the signal changed to red again. I was stuck until he eventually got going. I was cross because I had assumed he was a rotten driver or too lazy to focus on what he was doing.
You probably think I was lacking self-observation and jumping to conclusions. Perhaps the other car had a fault or the driver was distracted by a wasp in the car or any one of several possible explanations.
Knee-jerk reflex
During the recent heat wave after going to bed, I felt hot so, without thinking, threw off all the covers only to later wake up cold with a complaining wife.
We tend to make natural responses to what’s going on around us. And so react automatically with a knee-jerk reflex.
What mindfulness is
Opposite of mindlessness
Instead of my mindless reactions, I had the option of responding mindfully. In other words, pausing before reacting. Using self-observation rather than immediately acting out impulses.
A definition of mindfulness
One definition of mindfulness is a lucid and appreciative ‘knowing’ what we are doing as we are doing it.
Aware of one’s thoughts
In the state of mindfulness, one is more aware of thought processes. We use self-observation. Then we are less likely to fall for whatever they are telling us, and so not jump to premature conclusions.
Letting go of what is negatively affecting us
Observing what the mind is doing means we can let go of what would otherwise be negatively affecting us. No longer caught up or overwhelmed by what’s going on around. As a result, we are liable to feel calm and at peace.
Not hindering inflow of the divine
Had I been more mindful of the Divine principle of love to the neighbour, I would have paused before cursing my fellow driver.
Experiential learning
Mindfulness, like all spiritual learning is only truly acquired at an experiential level. The aim of mindful meditation practice is to become more mindful in daily life. It needs to be regularly practised.
Purley Chase Centre
An introductory experience of mindful meditation together with a spiritual perspective on this process will be offered at a residential weekend event 8th-10th December later this year at Purley Chase Centre Warwickshire.
Mindfulness in Buddhism and Christianity
Although mindfulness is central to Buddhism, it is also found in the mystical wing of Christianity, known as contemplative prayer, silent prayer, centering prayer and the desert fathers tradition.
Mindful prayer is crucially important
Head stuff
In my opinion, among readers of Swedenborg there has traditionally been an emphasis on intellectual knowledge and understanding. At the same a caution about – if not mistrust of – our personal feelings and experience. We may have pure, beautiful and correct thoughts about theology but our heads alone won’t get us to the Lord.
Experience of divine presence
It is an experience of the Divine presence that we also need. Of course private prayer is a hugely important spiritual practice that facilitates this sense of presence.
Receptive stance
Mindful prayer is about sitting before God in loving attention. Not going through the motions. It means making space for the Divine to be present. Not with our own agenda but listening rather than telling. Being open to noticing any spiritual feelings and insights flowing in.
Concentration
It is being able to concentrate on the Lord without the mind wandering off say to think about plans for the rest of the day. We use self-observation to notice when the mind goes off in its own direction, we can learn to gently return our attention to the focus of contemplation.
The focus in mindful prayer
The focus in mindful prayer might be for example the words of a biblical text, the Lord’s Prayer, or an image of the sacramental bread and wine.
Self-identification as a hindrance
Interest in genealogy
Genealogy websites help people trace their ancestors. This is an extremely popular hobby. It shows the importance of self-identity for people. Not only do we ask ‘Where do I come from’. But also ‘Who am I’ ‘What is my essence?’.
Usual assumption
It is usual to believe that one’s conscious mind belongs to oneself. We each think, feel, perceive, and remember things. So when we experience a passing thought, impulse, sensation, or memory, we naturally assume these particular experiences come from ourselves and define who we each are.
Examples
So when I inwardly hear a new melody, I assume it was due to my creative imagination. Or if I feel an impulse to look at photos of scantily clad women, I believe this is me wanting to do so.
After all, it is in my individual mind and not somebody else’s. Surely my thought or feeling must originate within me. To believe otherwise would seem inconceivable to some people.
As Swedenborg says:
The person’s nature is such that he would be indignant if anyone told him that his thoughts and desires…did not begin in himself. [AC 6324]
Emotional involvement
Because of identification with what’s in the mind we tend to emotionally involve ourselves in even fringe thoughts and feelings. This is why we need to learn to be more mindful.
Fallacy about origin of thoughts etc
Mind chatter
Mind chatter is what Steve Taylor, transpersonal psychologist, calls the stream of images, fantasies, and other fleeting and inconsequential aspects of consciousness. When we learn self-observation we soon learn consciousness is chock full with all sorts of images, ideas, memories etc.
Fallacy of self-identification with mind
Swedenborg says it is a mistake to assume the contents of the conscious mind originate in oneself. But if we do assume this, then we get emotionally involved and we act automatically in line with this belief.
Other thinkers
Likewise, teachers in the secular mindfulness meditation movement such as Jon Kabat-Zinn emphasise self-observation. Also, esoteric and spiritual writers (such as Ken Wilber, Eckhart Tolle, George Gurdjieff and Pyotr Ouspensky) say a similar thing.
Unique value of Swedenborg’s experience
Vast testimony
One unique value of Swedenborg’s books is his vast and detailed testimony about spirits. This explains why the contents of consciousness do not start with ourselves.
Present with every person there are good spirits and bad ones. … When these spirits come to a person they enter the whole field of that person’s memory, and from there the whole field of his or her thought. … Several years’ continual experience has taught me that this is the nature of spirits’ alliance with people. I am surer of this than anything. (HH 292)
Unconscious sharing of mind
He reports that, unlike his own special experience, this presence is an unconscious one with us.
The spirits who come to a person …take on his whole personality, so completely that they are unaware it is not their own… As a result, everything a person thinks they think, and everything he wills they will; and conversely, everything the spirits think the person thinks, and everything they will he wills. For by being linked together the two act as one. Yet the spirits on one hand and men on the other suppose that whatever they think or will is something inside themselves and has its origin there. That is what spirits suppose, and it is what men suppose; but they are mistaken. [AC 5853]
So he is saying the spirits share their thoughts and desires within our minds. Also, neither they nor we realise that this sharing is going on. In addition, both the spirits and we identify with the shared contents of consciousness.
On the basis of what Swedenborg discovered, he explains why the contents of consciousness are not our own in terms of spirits present with us.
Problem with uniqueness of Swedenborg’s experience
As Swedenborg says:
I realize few believe that any spirit is present with them, or indeed that spirits exist at all. [AC 5849]
In other words it’s very hard for people in our materialist time to accept that we each have a nonphysical spirit body. Or that we can survive death each as a spirit. It’s even more difficult for people to accept that some of these spirits share their thoughts and feelings within our minds.
Self-attribution creates a false self
Sense of self-worth
When without self-observation, we self-identify with mind, we attach our sense of self-worth to its thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. We identify ourselves with whatever is going on in consciousness.
Everyone makes himself responsible for an action if he believes that he does it of himself…but does not make himself responsible for it if he believes that he does it as though of himself. [AR 224:10]
Having bad thoughts we jump to the conclusion we are bad. Such assumptions can become self-fulfilling.
Self-merit and unwarranted guilt
If man believed, as is the truth, that all good and truth are from the Lord and all evil and falsity from hell, he would not appropriate good to himself and make it meritorious, nor appropriate evil to himself and make himself guilty of it. [DP 320]
We should stop claiming merit for good things inspired into our minds and no longer beat ourselves up for past errors.
Worthy beliefs
So having worthy beliefs we assume we are worthy.
Allying ourselves to false self
Believing tempting impulses and darker thoughts are part of ourselves, keeps them in the heart. For then we ally ourselves more closely with them.
Swedenborg wrote:
Because he believes that it begins in himself he takes evil as his own, for his belief causes this to happen. [AC 6324]
Summary
To sum up, one’s self-identification with the contents of one’s mind results in an illusion of a false self.
How to not self-identify with mind
Practising dispassionate self-observation
The main way to no longer self-identify with one’s conscious mind is through practising objective self-observation. As a result of mindfulness training, practitioners do learn to dispassionately observe their conscious experience.
Passing mental events
Mindfulness mediation enables learners to no longer treat sensations, thoughts and feelings as though they are their own. Instead, they have become aware that these are simply passing mental events: ones one need not immediately own as part of oneself.
Value of self-observation
The mind has a mind of its own
People who start self-observation report that one has practically no control of one’s thoughts. We cannot even stop thinking if we try to do so. Thoughts, images, memories, impulses etc of every kind come and go in the mind whether we wish them or not. The mind has a mind of its own.
Attention initially captured
As learners practise self-observation they notice how the myriad concerns and pre-occupations of the unruly mind capture one’s attention. As they become more self-aware they start to realise the extent and frequency of anxious and judgmental thoughts.
Quietening the mind
However, those with a regular mindfulness practice report that through self-observation and disowning fleeting thoughts and feelings, it is possible to quieten the mind.
It is possible to disentangle oneself from the presence of unwanted images, impulses, and thoughts.
Meditation and daily events
One starts to do this whilst meditating and later when applying the new mental skill in daily life.
Conscious choice
Difficult thoughts and feelings will still arise. However, they will have less influence because trained individuals no longer give automatic consent. They can now usually make the conscious choice not to let what they are observing in the mind to overwhelm them.
Letting go of what is hurting us
According to the mindfulness tradition, we can let go of what is hurting us. Disowning our unwholesome attachments. This happens when through observation we distant ourselves from what we are emotionally attached to. Such attachments include unhealthy appetites, harmful habits, envy, resentments and so on. Letting go of passing inclinations is very different from clinging on to them.
Volition
Letting go is in line with Swedenborg’s idea of our power of volition and the importance of using it to disown what the conscience disapproves of. Both useful and useless thoughts and feelings come from spirits. He points out we can choose to follow or disregard their impulses, thoughts, etc.
Equanimity
In a state of mindfulness, one lets go of unhelpful feelings of worry and unwarranted guilt. As a consequence one finds calm and related positive feelings.
Eventually, learners meet situations, that would have once created anxiety, depression, anger or frustration, instead with acceptance and equanimity.
Changed inflow from spiritual world
Troubling spirits depart
There is a Swedenborgian perspective on this. Troubling spirits are no longer welcome in our minds. And so go away. This happens when we stop identifying with the egoistic nature of their desires and thoughts.
Divine inflow unhindered
Then the inflow of good angelic life is not hindered by them. We can then experience heavenly states of calm and peace.
There is nothing that a person thinks or wills that can originate within himself. Rather, everything flows into him; goodness and truth flow in from the Lord by way of heaven, thus through the angels present with the person [AC 5846]
Summary
Mindful of the Divine presence
To sum up I would suggest that we can learn to be more mindful of the Divine presence every moment of our lives.
Disidentification
We can do this by disidentifying with the contents of consciousness
Learning self-observation
After objectively observing it’s thoughts, feelings etc
Presence of spirits
And remembering that it all comes from spirits
Non-judgmental
And refraining from rushing to judging others and self
Conscience
Also by being mindful of Divine good and truth
Self-examination
And setting aside time for self-examination & mindful prayer.
Copyright 2023 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of Heart, Head & Hands Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems
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