Aspects of the Imaginal (Part 5)

All right, if we continue with our list of elements, aspects of the imaginal and of sensing with soul, I think you'll probably, almost certainly, have got the sense by now that you should take my counting of the elements of the list with a large grain of salt. But I think it's number twelve, depending on how you count and how you slice things up.

(12) So number twelve. I'm not quite sure what to call this, but let's call it fullness of intention for now. Let's call it that for now: fullness of intention. I'll explain what I mean. Now this is related -- you'll hear -- this is related to many of the previous elements. In fact, they're all related, but more obviously related to many of the previous elements: grace, reverence, humility, divinity, duty, etc. In a way, we could say that it's perhaps implicit in the fullness of the meaning of those elements, but I want to draw it out. I think it's helpful, worthwhile, to draw it out, separate it out as if it were standing on its own, when it's not.

And the reason it's helpful, the reason I'm picking, or speaking again about, and drawing out, and delineating these lists is partly just in response to what has come back to us so far in terms of what we hear people not quite understanding, or I know that they've heard it, but perhaps it wasn't clear, or they forgot, or they overlook. So partly, this choice, and going through the list in this way, is basically a response to the sense we're getting from people who are working with this material. And partly, as I said, it's helpful to draw these elements out, because it will contribute to our understanding, but also our sensitivity and discernment, and also to the art of practice and our kind of finesse there, our subtlety, our art.

Okay, so number twelve: fullness of intention. Now, this itself, we might split it into two parts, or two aspects, or two dimensions. It's interesting as well. I was reflecting on it. I don't know that this is something that we so much notice, and in the noticing of it, it will ignite the other factors. But it's something that we may be able to focus on as we're working, or working with an image, or with a certain sensing with soul, and then kind of, as I said, wiggle it, jiggle it a little bit, open up, or bolster it, or deepen this dimension of filling out the intention, letting the intentionality fill out. So it might be more that an activity is implied in this node, rather than just a sort of noticing it. That may be the case.

So two aspects of this, two parts of this. They're both actually relative to the subjective pole -- in other words, of my part of the relationship or attitude to the imaginal figure, the imaginal object, the perception that I'm sensing with soul. It may be, as we get really deep into this, that one perceives it's actually also an element of the objective self, of the objective pole of the relationship, of the imaginal constellation. But this first part of this fullness of intention (and I mentioned it already) is that my relationship or attitude, the intention there is not primarily in the service of my growth, my spiritual growth, my empowerment, or whatever it is, my psychological growth, my healing, even, or my psychospiritual process, or whatever.

It may be that that intention is mixed in there. It certainly is the case that these kind of things will be endemic. They will grow with the imaginal. They are gifts of the imaginal relationship as it deepens. But the intention is not primarily in the service of that. It's not primarily for my growth, my empowerment, my psychological or spiritual process, my healing, etc. So I mentioned this before, but it's quite radical. It's quite rare as well. So people often kind of use certain language, but when you just ask a little bit, or hear a little bit more what their relationship really is, it often is in the service of self-growth, and it can be a bit almost baffling to the modern mind, often, to conceive of some other kind of intention in this regard.

So again, I don't want to overwhelm you, or have you feel like, "Well, the bar is just set so high here for what you're talking about, Rob. It's like, I don't know if I've ever come close to that." So there is a natural evolution in practising with images and bringing all this to bear, so that even if this particular piece feels like, "Hmm, I'm not there yet," or "I don't think that that's really the case for me," remember: there's a spectrum of skilful uses of the imagination, and it kind of gets more and more into what we might call the fully or authentically imaginal. So we're on that spectrum, and we're just interested in encouraging the movement to that fuller, more genuine, more authentic end.

And there is a natural evolution. In other words, if we begin to love this kind of practice, this kind of work, if we begin to start to understand some of the ideas, and begin to work with it in practice, there will be a natural evolution, over time, towards the intentionality being primarily for soulmaking. Soulmaking is the primary intention for engaging with the imaginal, in relationship with the imaginal other, the imaginal figure, in sensing with soul. Soulmaking is the primary intention.

Another way of putting that [is] -- and I think I did focus on this in some talks; I think it was the beginning of the Re-enchanting the Cosmos retreat, some of those talks at the beginning there -- practising for the sake of God, of the god, for the sake of divinity, not for myself. And we can easily adopt that phrase, but actually, a genuine opening or shift or deepening or filling out of the intention that way is actually quite rare. So, so, so beautiful, and so transformative, in fact.

But as I said, there's a natural evolution. If we get into it, that will be, eventually, something in all this works its magic, and that becomes the primary intention, the primary reason why we're doing all this. And there are lots of other gifts, too, but the primary reason is: the soul loves soulmaking. We love that, and we want that -- almost want that more than anything else. We're practising for the sake of God, in the service of the god, in the service of divinity, in the service of Buddha-nature. Okay, so that's the first part of this fullness of intention: this is not primarily for me and my process and my growth or whatever it is.

The second part is kind of related, but it's to say that the intention, in being for soulmaking, is more than just an intention for heartfulness, or for passion, passionate living. I sometimes get the sense that a person has elevated those qualities, and either mistaken them for soulfulness, or just kind of fixated on those qualities in their life as being of paramount importance, in the way that they relate to, organize their life or their practice, or what they select out from what's most meaningful to them in the world, in relationships, and in stories, etc.

So what we mean here is, if the intention is for soulmaking, it's more than just for the sake of a rich and deep and intense emotional life, beautiful and lovely as that is, and beneficial as that is. It's more than just a kind of elevation of feeling passionate, or passionate engagement -- again, necessary, beautiful, lovely and fruitful as that is. It's more, also, than only a wanting of eros, or eros only in the kind of small sense, in the sense of, "I like this feeling of eros. I like the juiciness. I like the fire. I like the engagement. I like the passion. I like the aliveness of it, and the buzz, and all that," in the small sense. Eros in the big sense -- if you remember back to the talks, we explained this in quite a lot of detail -- if eros is allowed to do its thing fully, it automatically inseminates, involves, fertilizes, extends the psyche and the logos, and lots of other things too. So then we can talk about eros in the big sense, as an element of that larger and more involved dynamic that does involve psyche, and does involve logos, etc.

If the intention is just for the kind of buzz of aliveness and the juiciness and the fire of eros in its more isolated sense, without it really including the range of what is impregnated and catalysed in the eros-psyche-logos dynamic, then that, too, is not full enough of an intention, and certainly not a desire just for sex. Or again, if it's a desire for the pleasure, the delight in the soulmaking, and the eros -- again, it's not full enough. Or a desire for, an intention for fascinating images. It's endlessly fascinating, like, what might come up. Great, wonderful, extremely rich, bountiful, certainly interesting. But in itself, it's too small as an intention, finally.

So the intention for soulmaking, in the fuller sense, includes all that, what we've just been through: emotion, passion, eros in its smaller sense, pleasure, delight, fascinating images, all that. But it also includes eros in the larger sense, which includes logos, in terms of the understanding. Something is being pushed on, and extended, and enriched, and deepened, and complicated in the understanding, that whole dynamic, with all the sense of dimensionality and divinity -- all that. In other words, eros in its small sense, for example, or a fascinating image, might not be so pregnant with that dimension, the sense of dimensionality and divinity, and really all the elements that we're talking about.

Again, it's slightly personality style, it's slightly a cultural sort of influence or conditioning, but sometimes people love the eros, love the images, and kind of forget a little bit about the logos. Or it's not yet quite landed and opened as something really important and really fertile, a sort of aspect of the whole dynamic, or a fertile dimension of soul. Logos, in the sense of understanding, conception -- the stretching, the enriching of that -- is itself an aspect of soul. We love that element, the logoistic element of soulmaking, as much, eventually, as we love any of the other aspects: the delight, the eros, the vitality, the juiciness, etc.

And I've also said in some other talks -- I think it was primarily in Eros Unfettered, that series -- that the logos is also important for balancing and stabilizing with the images and intense energy and all that. That conceptual structure, having a conceptual structure that's actually adequate, can bring a lot of wisdom in the proceedings, and understand how to attenuate things or respond to things, or what to emphasize, what to seek out, etc., but also in itself, in its structure, provides balance and stability. So that in this second part of this fullness of intention, we're not limiting what we're aiming for. It's bigger, it's wider, it's more inclusive than just those more limited elements, wonderful as they might be, and vitalizing as they may be. [15:26]

All of them that we went through -- emotion, emotionality, passion, eros in the small sense, pleasure, delight, fascinating images, whatever -- they are all, in one way or another, they are all elements of soulmaking or subsidiary to soulmaking, if you like. Sometimes it's very obvious. Sometimes it's kind of a little bit oblique or more obscure or less concretely, how they're manifestly part of the whole soulmaking process.

I'll throw one more thing there, because it may be (or I'm wondering), it may be, however, as a qualification to what I just have been through, may be that the desire for one of these elements -- for instance, passion; so one can become kind of passionate about passion, and interested in it, and seek it out -- and if the desire for one of those elements, those sort of subsidiary elements, I wonder, if that particular desire is allowed and pursued with intelligence, intelligently pursued and fully pursued, whether it itself won't inevitably open up to the other aspects of soulmaking and, as I said, naturally evolve into a more full intention, intentionality for the fullness of soulmaking.

So the soul's got hold of one thing. Let's say it's passion. And it's enamoured with passion, and it's interested in passion. And if it follows that interest and that connection and that desire for passion, and inquires into, "What is it that allows me to have a fuller passion, if that's what I want?" I'm on the arrow of desire, but I'm pursuing it with the intelligence, with rigour, in fact, and allowing it, and riding that, but inquiring into what allows it, what allows passion to be full and rich, and multidimensional, and multidirectional, and all of that. And eventually, the passion itself, that singular arrow will open up the whole field of soulmaking. Or at least I'm wondering if that's the case, and I have a strong suspicion that it is. But in itself, it may well be too limited. And an aspect of the more fully imaginal, that end of the spectrum, is this fullness of intention in those two senses that we said. So that would be number twelve, I think. [18:06] All right.

(13) Number thirteen, roughly: autonomy, the autonomy of the imaginal other, the imaginal object. Now, I've talked a lot about this. I think it was right from the beginning in "Theatre of Selves" and things like that, and I keep stressing it. To me, this is very interesting. Actually, this number thirteen is autonomy and twoness, two things we've talked about before (the twoness much more on the last couple of retreats). But autonomy and twoness. So what does that mean? It means that the imaginal figure, or the object, the other perceived, sensed with soul, if it's something material, in our material world, or another in our material world, has an autonomy. It's independent of me. We get a sense of it as not kind of a part of me, or an aspect of me. I can't reduce it to that.

Now, this is interesting in a number of ways. One is that, in the way I would like to lay out the whole logos of this work, we never lose sight of the fact that any perception, including an imaginal perception, an imaginal other, whatever it is, is anything other than a dependent arising. So all perception, sensing with soul, or imaginal, or regular material perception, whatever it is, in the mind, it's all a dependent arising. So somehow acknowledging the dependent arising of things, and that's a kind of unshakeable base of the larger logos that I would put out there. Somehow within that, we get a sense of the independence of this thing.

So again, here, right in this notion of autonomy, we have a kind of straddling or bridging of two apparently contradictory attitudes, understandings, relationships. On the one hand, we see it's a dependent arising. On the other, we sense or feel it, or allow it to manifest to us, as independent. You could say the way of looking and the way of conceiving grants the imaginal other or the object sensed with soul, grants it a sense of autonomy and independence. It doesn't feel right or true to just reduce it to an aspect or a part of me or my psychology. It's not reducible. We've touched on this many times.

Extending that a little bit, we could say that this autonomy, when it's allowed its fullness of autonomy, what it really means is, we begin to recognize and become alive to the personhood of the imaginal figure, or the personhood of anything we are perceiving, sensing with soul. Could be a tree. It could be a piece of land. It could be my own body. And we think, "Well, that's a part of me," but actually once we get into sensing our own body with soul, the body itself begins to have its own intelligence, its own agency, its own intention, its own soul.

So we're entering -- I've talked about this before, on other retreats -- we're talking about the autonomy within the intersubjective field. An intersubjective field -- two subjects get established or filled out: me and the imaginal other. It's as if there is a respect for and a sensitivity to and a relationship between two souls there. [22:25]

This is, of course, related to this aspect and this twoness that we've been talking about on a couple of recent retreats and emphasizing. Sensing with soul, imaginal perception, does not, for the most part, collapse things or dissolve things or merge or melt things into oneness. There are exceptions to that, and I've been through all this on recent retreats, but generally speaking, it doesn't do that. It preserves twoness. So imaginal perception, sensing with soul, preserves twoness. There's a lot to this, but as an example, I was out for a walk on Dartmoor a few months ago, in fact, somewhere. And I'm walking on a lovely area there, and I had the image arise, as I was walking, of many, many kind of thick, muscular tentacles rising up from the earth that I was walking on, rising up -- these thick, muscular tentacles, almost like giant, reptilian octopus tentacles, like a foot wide, each of them a foot wide, many, many of them -- rising up to claim me, to capture me. One would think "to suck me down," would be the initial impulse. But really they're just rising up, countless of them, and densely covering the land, the earth's surface around me, at least.

Now, if we're not careful, this could be construed, such an image -- and by the way, it was a very delightful, very sort of rapturous image in both senses. It was very blissful in that sense, rapturous, but also sensed as a rapture, a seizing from the earth. But instead of the usual rapture (people tend to think it's up), it was down; down and earthy, rather than up and ethereal. Now, usually, we might construe that kind of image, and out of kind of Dharma or spiritual habits, habitual teachings that we're used to, as an image indicating oneness or a move towards union, dissolution in the earth below, a kind of oneness and merging with that, rather than with the spirit above. So yes, we can see the difference: it's down and earthy rather than up and ethereal. But we might tend to suppose that it's an image portending or indicating or signalling or initiating union, a movement towards oneness. But the image did not proceed forward in time to a dissolving union.

And I've been through this before: imaginal images are most often not what I call 'narrative,' moving in time, but 'iconic.' Again, there are many exceptions, but they're almost static, eternal moments, despite the kind of dynamism and energy implied in them, or present in the images, such as this one. There's something timeless. I'm going to come back to this, the eternality of images, later as an element on our list.

So if we see this image of the tentacles kind of claiming me, see it for what it is rather than through the typical assumptions of union or dissolution, etc., or a kind of Dharma that prioritizes that movement towards union, dissolution, fading, etc., that whole spectrum, as the primary aim of spiritual endeavour, if we kind of resist that temptation of the typical lenses, to go to the typical lenses, then you actually see that what stands out in this image is the twoness: it's the earth and me in relationship. There's relationship there. There's both twoness and eros. And there's not the dissolution, but twoness and eros are captured in or through the image. Might be more than two, actually -- might be many. I'm not sure now whether it was many or just the earth -- in other words, many tentacles, many others, or just the earth. And also, what's notable is the power of the autonomous desire of the earth, the eros of the earth. It was the earth's eros. In other words, there was two there. It -- the earth, she/he/it -- had its own eros. Its desire was autonomous. And that was also vividly sensed in the image. It was not my desire. There are two there. There's autonomy. [28:10]

So eros, as I said, sustains twoness, generally speaking. There are exceptions; I've been through it before. But more than that, eros and soulmaking needs twoness. It needs two. It takes two for eros. It takes two to soulmake. And further (again, I've explained all this before), eros and soulmaking will create and discover twonesses, othernesses, in an ongoing way, more and more twoness, more and more otherness. Eros needs two, and also creates and discovers twonesses, othernesses, open-ended, in an open-ended way.

Now, otherness is actually already a given of our existence. We sense othernesses. We sense otherness. There's a sense of self, [and] there's a sense of other, even if we know and perceive fundamental oneness. One knows unshakeably the fundamental oneness of all things and kind of has a vivid, palpable, deep, mystical sense of that oneness, at whatever level it is. There are different kinds of oneness; I've explained all this before. It's still the case that phenomenally or phenomenologically, others appear to us. Otherness appears to us. Perception delineates othernesses. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to move in the world. We wouldn't know how to function. We wouldn't be able to operate anything. We wouldn't be able to go to the toilet. You wouldn't be able to eat -- all that.

So perception delineates, at sort of a very basic level, othernesses, otherness. So this is already a given, but in consciousness, it's an aspect of the way consciousness works, and must work. But the thing about eros is that it creates and discovers. Or eros, as it's allowed to catalyse and ignite the whole soulmaking dynamic of eros-psyche-logos and all that, it will create and discover more othernesses. So that doesn't mean more distance, more alienation between self and other. It's not the same as a kind of unskilful fabrication, building more dukkha. But there will be an ongoing creation and discovery of more and more dimensions, more and more particulars, more and more images, more and more aspects within a beloved other, an erotic-imaginal other, an object, a thing, a being sensed with soul. We've been through all that before. [31:22]

Now, there's something I'd like to add here, which I perhaps haven't emphasized so much before, so I want to draw that out. So autonomy and twoness: there's the autonomy of the other, the autonomy of the imaginal other, the autonomy of the other sensed with soul. But also, there is, implicit in that, and worth drawing out, is the autonomy of the self, the autonomy of the subject. In other words, here I am in this imaginal perception, engaging in relationship with this imaginal other. I also have some autonomy there.

So very often -- and related to a lot of what we've said, just even in this talk so far -- things that we perceive soulfully, when we sense with soul our selves, our life, our circumstances, or some perception opens up, or an imaginal figure, all of that can seem, in the realm of soulmaking, in the realm of soulfulness, it can seem that it is given, that it has a kind of necessity. So this imaginal figure -- and I've talked a lot about this, again, I think, right from the start in "Theatre of Selves" -- the sense of the necessity of this imaginal figure, even with all its seeming craziness or perhaps pathology or whatever it is, and I don't understand it fully, or it puzzles me: it seems like soul is giving us something. And this is related to these ideas about claim and duty. Even when we sense our lives, and the elements of our life, and the events of our life, and the paths of our life, sometimes we can get the sense of necessity there too. My illness, maybe. My death, maybe. When we're sensing with soul, this is a face of, or a sense within that of being given something, of something as a necessity, and that it asks of us something. There's a claim there, and duty.

But the other side there, balancing it, is that, in relation to imaginal objects, and in relation to the imaginal figures, and objects sensed with soul, and whatever it is, we are free. At the same time as there's a necessity, and something is given to us, and we're just the recipients, we are also free to act, to choose, to intend, to steer, to adopt ways of looking, and attitudes, and conceptions, and conceptual frameworks, ideas that either move us deeper into the soulmaking or less, or this way or that way, etc. So there's this curious kind of, again, straddling or balance between two views: the givenness, the necessity of what comes to us from soul, let's put it that way, and our freedom to steer, guide, enter into, develop, hold a certain attitude, adopt a certain attitude, to choose, to intend, etc.

So this is something that, yeah, I think it's a very significant aspect of the whole soulmaking business. I want to linger on this just a little while. It's related a little bit to ethics, actually, and values. So I'll explain. I'll try to be brief. And I may well come back to this in the future, but I'll try to be brief now. Implicit in or fundamental to the very possibility of ethics, is -- in other words, just the whole idea of ethics, of right and wrong, and choosing rightly or wrongly, etc. -- fundamental and implicit to that is the perspective of the possibility of free will. No free will, the whole realm of philosophy of ethics is pointless. It's like, human beings can't choose. So the perspective of the possibility of our free will is fundamental and implicit in the very possibility of any ethical discussion or whatever. Because if everything, every response or feeling or intention, impulse is totally conditioned, if we solely adopt that view, that everything I think, all my responses, if I hate something, if I desire something, any feeling I have, all that is just conditioned from past history and present input from the environment, and from others -- if I just have that view, that everything is conditioned that way, then there can be no possibility of making ethical choices, right? So that's implicit when we hear ethical stories that move us, for instance.

That beautiful passage from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, when he talks about being in Auschwitz, being in the concentration camps, and he says something -- excuse me, I won't say it so well, but he says something like, "We who lived through the camps, we remember those who had nothing, had almost nothing, who were sick and weary and in the same boat as we were, and yet they went through, they went around giving away their last piece of bread, or comforting, consoling others. And they bear testament, such acts that human beings are capable of bear witness to the fact that you can take everything away from a human being except their freedom to choose their own way."^[1] Whatever the circumstances are, there is that freedom, and the beauty of that. We can choose what is noble, what we value. We can choose what we feel deeply is right. And that can transcend any other concern in our life.

So I hope to come back to this area, as I said, but I just want to say a little bit now. The question of free will versus determinism, it's kind of an open one, and I'll say a couple of things about that. All we can say at this point, I think, is that neither extreme view -- that of, like, complete determinational conditionality, "Everything is just conditioned, all my impulses, all my thoughts, all my feelings," or that of a total free will, "I'm always completely free, and I'm the one who's solely responsible. I'm purely self-determined" -- I don't think we can, at this point, really say either of those is solely or ultimately true. And in any particular situation, the exact balance, the exact mix or relationship of those inputs from, so to speak, 'the self,' and from, so to speak, 'conditions,' is too complex to fathom. [39:13]

They are, however, therefore, both available to us, both these views: the view of self-determination, self-choice, and the view of conditionality. They're available to us separately as views, or together, kind of fused, if they're held lightly as perspectives. And there are also views that go beyond both of them. So emptiness, to me, and no-self, that teaching doesn't stop at just "Everything is just conditions. You're just a process of conditioned elements, conditioned from your past and conditioned from the environment. And so there's no self. There's no self-choice. There's no free will." Conditions, too, are empty. Any of those kind of dots or elements you might want to say are the conditioning factors, when probed, they are recognized to be empty too. So there's a whole view even beyond these two.

People often get a little, I feel, silly with this insistence on "There's no such thing as free will." It's too extreme a view. And it just doesn't bear witnessing -- honest, authentic introspection. The idea or the view that there is no free will, "Everything is dependent on conditions," is a skilful view to adopt at certain times. It can really help with blame, and I've talked and written about this before. It's a way of looking, skilful at times. At other times, the view of free will is skilful. They're kind of opposite -- both true, and both adoptable.

So I feel it's really important to bring some intelligence here, and some actual honesty and discernment, actual clarity of seeing there. Sometimes you get certain spiritual schools, or even within Buddhism, that kind of lean way too much on this insistence that there is no free will. Not only is it a little short-sighted and not particularly intelligent, but it's also not very beautiful. It doesn't open up much beauty. Neither does it open up much soulmaking potential, which is the connection I want to make, because just like ethics, soulmaking needs a perspective of the possibility, to some extent, of individual free will. And at the same time, a view that, to some extent, regards the circumstance of our lives, and our individuality, and the imaginal figures that come to us, as given to us by the soul, by the god, by divinity, by Buddha-nature, whatever words we want to use.

Soulmaking needs a perspective of a possibility of both: to some extent, individual free will, and to some extent, this givenness of our lives, of our circumstances, of our fate, of the images that come, etc. It is in this balance of self and other -- really, the balance of the autonomies of self and imaginal figure -- while the two are, at the same time, somehow not separate. It's in that balance and that kind of straddling -- again, the balance of self and other, both autonomies, and at the same time, somehow not separate. It's in that mix or balance, or kind of meta-view, if you like, that soulmaking and imaginal practice is possible and fertile. So the autonomy of self, and the autonomy of other.

Soul draws us. There's a telos that we can sense in the way soul draws us or draws us on or towards something. Or in hindsight we can see that. Or soul gives us our circumstances, our individuality, the trajectory of our lives, our fate, our images. And at the same time, we assent with our free will. We have to assent to soulmaking. So all this relates to, actually, another element of the list that I'll come back to, a deep and central notion which I've mentioned before as well, of participation. It's all wrapped up in that, in a sense. We participate in soul. We participate in the divine. We participate in all the dimensions of our being, aspects of our being, participate in the divine or in soul or in Buddha-nature, in the imaginal other. So this notion of participation -- very deep notion -- one of the beauties of that notion is it preserves an autonomy in a sense of non-separation. The idea of participation preserves an autonomy in a sense of non-separation. We'll come back to that.

But the very word, even, 'soulmaking,' implies, in the suffix, in the 'making' bit, it implies agency and doing. Soulmaking. Agency and doing. It's not, in other words, a completely passive receiving that is involved in soulmaking. We receive, we're given, but we also need to do and adopt and relate in certain ways. We assent to soulmaking, as I said. And our free will is involved in that.

So the twoness of soulmaking, of imaginal work, of sensing with soul, preserves, to some extent, my autonomy, the subject's autonomy, as well as that, for example, of the imaginal figure, of the other. It preserves, emphasizes, requires my choosing, my will, my consciously orienting, my deliberately considering and viewing and adopting a certain way of looking and stance, etc., and all that. So there are two autonomies there that are necessary.

(14) Okay, number (I think) fourteen on our list. Now, many of these elements, perhaps you've already heard how some of them are kind of implicit in each other, or you could say, "Well, that's part of that," or whatever. Others, if you like, qualify each other: "This is an aspect of the soulmaking. This is an aspect of sensing with soul. This is an aspect of the imaginal constellation at the same time as that, which is opposite to this, is as well." So many of these elements interpenetrate. Many of them kind of qualify each other, or balance each other, or kind of polarize -- that's not really the right word, but -- give complexity to, you know, the richness of paradox. That may be a good way of putting it: paradoxical, apparently self-contradictory, is the relationship between some of these elements. So number fourteen. We've said already that despite the dependent origination -- there's one paradox already -- there is the sense of and the granting of independence and autonomy of the imaginal other, the object sensed with soul. And yet, number fourteen, the boundaries are not definite. So indefinite boundaries is the fourteenth element on our list, if we're counting roughly like that.

Boundaries between the subject, the self, if you like, and the other or the imaginal figure: that boundary is not a definite boundary. But also, the boundaries of the other, the object sensed with soul, the imaginal figure, and in fact of any soulmaking delineation, it will have boundaries that are not definite -- not just with self, but with other aspects. I'll try and explain what I mean, but indefinite boundaries.

So what do I mean here? I'm not talking about visual boundaries or the boundaries of the sensible form. In other words, I'm looking at the tree, and I definitely see: the tree ends there. I can see it's got very clear visual lines, whether that's an intrapsychic tree in an image, or this tree outside in the garden, or whatever it is. Or the music, if it's music that I'm hearing -- again, someone is playing some music I'm listening to on a stereo or whatever, or music that I'm hearing imaginally or whatever. The sensible boundaries of form, of the object, the tree, the music, or whatever -- they may or may not have clear boundaries, if we're talking about the image, or even when you're listening to music, and sometimes it feels like other sounds in the environment are drawn in. So they may or may not be. We're not really talking about the boundaries of the sensible form. We're talking about the boundaries of being.

So sometimes you get a very vivid, clear image. Visually, it's very clear. The contours, the boundaries are very clear to the mind's eye, if we're talking about visual, or music, as I said. But the boundaries of the being are indefinite. And sometimes, of course (and I've said this before), if we have a visual image, if it is, in that case, through that sense modality, they may not be. It may be kind of blurry and indistinct. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the boundaries of being. Soft-edged. So this is a characteristic that I would like to draw attention to: the boundaries of the being of imaginal objects and of objects sensed with soul are soft-edged. And that includes the self, when that becomes an imaginal object, if you like, or whatever becomes something that soulmaking has got hold of. Also an idea. It could just be a concept becomes a kind of soft-edged concept once soulmaking has gone to work on it.

So the soft edges, they kind of gradually blur or fade into what is not that object, what is not that imaginal figure, like the way echoes gradually fade. For instance, in a canyon, they become more and more imperceptible, less and less clear and available to the senses. You know what I'm talking about, when something echoes, like in the Grand Canyon or wherever? The object kind of shades further into its infinity, infinitude. Some kind of infinity shades into unfathomability. The further dimensions of it, we sort of see them as blurring gradually.

Now, we sense and perceive these soft edges, yes? They're also elastic edges, and I'll come back to that. I hope this makes sense. And again, this is something to notice in practice, and the very noticing of it can, as I said, ignite the whole other nodes in the lattice, lead to a deepening, lead to the experience becoming more fully, more authentically imaginal.

So usually, with the perception of material things in our environment, we're kind of convinced by the visual appearance of sharp boundaries. This lamp is very clear. I can see it. It's very clear where it starts and where it stops. The edges are very well-defined to my eyesight there. And we're a little too easily convinced. A little reflection will ... It's easier when you think about the body. Where exactly does my body begin and end? When does food become my body? When does something on its way out of my body -- urine or faeces or whatever it is -- become not my body? When does air become my body and not my body, etc.?

So the boundaries of material things -- and we also know this from physics as well -- they're actually not as clear-cut as we are convinced they are, just from the way we tend to perceive things. So a little reflection -- I've written about this in the context of emptiness, and probably talked about it in different places as well -- a little reflection reveals that things are not so sharp. Their boundaries of being are not so sharply defined.

More importantly or significantly, when we sense other human beings, or even ourselves, just a little kind of contemplative meditation on human beings (sometimes also with animals or others), just a little meditative contemplation, and there is this sense of the unfathomability, the mysteriousness of a human being, whether it's our self or another. Just to introspect: it's like I fade into unfathomable depths. And if I ever feel like I actually have sharp boundaries, and inwardly a sort of bottom, then I'm probably going to feel pretty strange and depressed, actually. The edges are blurred. The bottom, the top, the sides, if you like, are blurred. They're soft, and they're elastic. Just paying attention to the sense of self, the sense of an other, a human being, the sense of anything, really. It's also possible with animals, non-humans, and also material things. Just be there with the sense of this thing. It's harder with material things, but with enough meditative depth and acumen, it will emerge. It will be obvious. So number fourteen: boundaries indefinite, soft-edged, and also elastic edges. So a thing has elastic edges.

Now, a human being obviously has elastic edges as well. A human being can grow. Any being, whether it's an imaginal being or anything sensed with soul, also has elastic edges. In other words, our sense of it, our sense of what it is, and involves, and includes, and its depths and its range, must be elastic, must be extendable. And it will be, because of the eros-psyche-logos dynamic. We've talked a lot about this on the last few retreats, how that will extend. As that dynamic gets going, and they start enriching and fertilizing, complicating and pushing each other, the very sense of what a thing is, what it comprises, what is included, and the depths of the thing, and the dimensions of the thing will extend, expand. Sometimes it shatters first: "Oh, my original idea and conception and sense of this thing, it just has exploded," whatever this thing is that I'm talking about, and then it grows. Other times, it's just more elastic and elastically extendable without being so catastrophically dramatic as a shattering of the vessels. [56:54] Okay. So that was number fourteen: indefinite boundaries, soft and elastic edges.

(15) Okay, again, slightly related to that element, but actually a little bit different. It might be similar, some of it. It's number, let's say, fifteen. And this I will call something like an infinite echoing and mirroring. So there's something in the imaginal, in the perception of the imaginal, and there's something when we sense something with soul. In fact, this is much more apparent with intrapsychic images. I think it's still there much more subtly, much more obscurely when we sense something with soul -- in other words, when there's a direct cosmopoesis, that's not a cosmopoesis arrived at through a previous intrapsychic image then opening out, spilling over into the environment. So I think this element of infinite echoing and mirroring is present also in sensing with soul objects that are in the world. But it's much more apparent with the intrapsychic images.

So what I mean here by this infinite echoing and mirroring: imaginal perception involves or includes some sense of a kind of infinite mirroring and echoing, mainly between this image and one's life. There's some kind of mysterious and infinite-seeming -- we get the sense of this infinite echo, like mirrors that are placed opposite each other, and the reflections in the mirrors will kind of go towards infinity. Or again, like an echo in a canyon: it doesn't seem to clearly stop at some point. We can't discern exactly when that series of echoes ends. The edges, the further or the deeper edges are indistinct. Again, they fade into infinity. We sense that this echoing or this mirroring is or might be going on forever. We can't quite make out the edge.

And this sense of it, it's not often primary in our attention. It's usually secondary. But it's actually very important, this kind of infinite depth of mirroring, and mutual mirroring and echoing, usually between this image and one's life. So what does that mean? It's related to meaningfulness, in fact, which will be the next element of our list. But this image somehow reflects my life, or aspects or dimensions of my life, some of which may be quite clear, and some of which are a little indistinct and not so obvious. And there's a sense there's more of that reflecting than I can even quite delineate. The image is reflecting my life. My life is reflecting the image. And they kind of mutually reflect each other like that. This, as I said, is an important element, important aspect to become aware of. It's, I would say, intrinsic to the imaginal perception.

So I was talking and working a little bit with someone. I can't remember when it was -- a few months ago. I actually can't remember the context now, and I forgot to ask her to jog my memory. But at any rate, we were talking, and she described an image that she had had, not too long before that, of a kind of -- I don't know if it was Balinese or Indonesian -- it's quite a common stance for a kind of oriental statue that's ... I know you'll have seen this somewhere. It's like a figure that's a little bit fierce, with a sword raised above the head, and sort of held like a dagger pointing outwards. And often, one foot is on one raised foot, and the other foot is kind of cocked a little bit, bent at the knee.

And so there's this kind of very elegant, very dynamic, kind of fierce warrior pose. And the image that this person had was of this -- whatever it is; excuse me if I'm getting it wrong -- Balinese or Indonesian kind of warrior god. And she could tell it was important, but it wasn't becoming fully imaginal. We were talking about it. And she could tell there was a sacredness to it. But the sacredness was not familiar to her. And now, you could say, "Well, it's a culture that she's not familiar with. She's not familiar with that kind of iconography, etc." But also her poise in relation to the sacredness of this image -- she didn't recognize her poise either.

But the whole thing, really -- the idea and the feeling of sacredness wasn't quite familiar. And the whole thing really had not become fully imaginal. It was, in her words, a bit kind of two-dimensional. So we were talking a little bit, and I suggested that perhaps she could notice and tune into and kind of linger with probably the many ways, but really any noticeable way that she recognized the image, or this archetypal image, echoing her life personally, like the personal echoes, or echoing between image and personal life, the mirroring and being mirrored by this image, this archetype, this icon, whatever it is.

Now, one has to be not too clunky there. It's a very delicate sort of thing, usually. And I'll talk about this, that it's like -- and I have talked about it before -- not to land too heavily on "it means this." A lot of this work is really quite subtle. It's almost like we're picking up resonances that, certainly in their deeper end in their range, as they get more indistinct and more of that sense of infinity, they're really quite subtle, almost by definition. And so you can't be too clunky in the approach here, of just kind of feeling the sense of that infinite echoing and mirroring. But some of them may be distinct, and not entirely clear, but you really get the sense of, "Oh, yeah, I can kind of see a sort of refracted or inflected version of that stance, of that god, in my life, or in a certain thread through my life, or in a certain current of dealings or events and my relationship with them."

So the instances of this mirroring may be, for instance, very specific psychological aspects of oneself, very specific, personal psychological aspects or patterns, or may be also the events in one's life, or tendencies, etc., to approach or to be in certain situations a certain way, or the potential that we don't often manifest or realize to be in certain ways, in certain relationships or situations. In other words, there might be something that we're capable of, and if you like, the image and the imaginal figure, part of what it's doing is, it's catalysing something, or opening the door of a possibility, or showing us: "Hey, you know, you actually have this in you as well: this stance, this possibility, this way of relating."

(16) So all this is connected with the sixteenth element that I want to highlight, which is meaningfulness, okay? So again, you can see some overlap here. But this recognition of specific and, if you like, finite re-presentation or mirroring -- when I recognize that, it brings the image alive. It's part of the sixteenth aspect, which is the sense of meaningfulness. When I notice this specific mirroring, this finite thing: "Ah, it's echoing. I see: that echoes that," and maybe I get a sense of the larger sense of infinite echoing as it kind of shades off into being less distinct, the echoes and the mirrors, the mirrorings, then that ignites the constellation, the imaginal constellation. It ignites the other nodes. [1:07:15]

So there's, again, a tightrope to tread here. That's a little too dramatic a word, but a Middle Way. If I conceptually reduce and limit an imaginal figure to "This image means X only, or Y only," whatever X or Y is, if I limit it to just this meaning, this one singular meaning, or even a couple of meanings, or whatever it is, or five meanings, or whatever, sooner or later (and often sooner) it will kill the imaginal. It will kill the image as an imaginal image, as a potent, fertile, endlessly deep imaginal image, and also kill the soulmaking. It will squash it, constrict it, take the fire away from it.

So the reason I'm mentioning this: I want to get clear, because I think, again, based on feedback, I wonder whether I've been clear enough on this, or perhaps overemphasize something. I was working recently, a few months ago, with someone, and they had an image of riding on a flying dragon, astride this dragon, straddling this dragon on its back, flying. And there was a lovely relationship with the person and the dragon. But they completely had no sense of it meaning anything, and the whole thing didn't really open up the kind of richness and fullness of the imaginal there. So it was just a kind of interesting image, but it just wasn't really rich and deep, and juicy, and multidimensional, and coloured, and all that.

Now, because I knew this person and their practice quite well, I could see very clearly some of this echoing, and some of the elements of what was echoed and mirrored between their life and this image. And even when they were describing, and they were sort of wanting to squeeze the -- you know, like you (I don't actually horse ride, so I should say), but you kind of squeeze the horse with your legs, with your inner thighs, and that signals to it, so you're in relationship with the horse that you're riding. In relationship with the dragon, there was that kind of relationship going on, but he was just baffled. It kind of meant nothing to him.

Knowing him, for me, it was really clear. It's like this echoing is going on between that, and one of them was very much to do with practice, and kind of effort in practice, and relationship with effort, and modulating effort, and the sense of actually practice having an enormous amount of potential power, and really being able to fly, to take off with all the beauty and the soul-beauty of the dragon, and even elements of practice like samādhi. And yet he was stumbling a lot, or often ran into difficulties around effort in that. So for me, kind of knowing him, it was puzzling sitting there, kind of: "Why doesn't he see that? Why is this not taking off, and why doesn't he see that echoing and that meaning?" He actually told me that, "Oh," he'd thought that he wasn't supposed to look for any meaning in the images. So it's possible that I just wasn't clear, in the past, in making this distinction between meaningfulness and meaning, and I've overemphasized not to reduce it to a certain meaning, etc.

But yeah, I would rather say now that meaningfulness includes individual meanings, okay? So in this infinite echoing and mirroring, related to the last point, the last element, we can discern individual echoes or individual reflections, if you like, between life and image. But we're not stopping at that. So often we revert to an attitude to or relationship with images and imaginal figures -- including dream images and figures -- an attitude or relationship that wants to figure out, "What does it mean?" And figure it out, and kind of sum it up.

Now I want to hopefully make clear: it's not that we need to shut down that meaning-seeking attitude. But we need to make sure it doesn't dominate, it doesn't take over and limit. So, you know, another way of thinking about this is, an imaginal figure or something sensed with soul, as I said before, has personhood. We sense more and more of its personhood. This imaginal figure is a person. This thing or object sensed with soul is a person. And it would seem ridiculous in our lives to ask, about a person that we love, and are touched by, or who's important in our lives and psyche: "What does he or she mean to me?" I mean, I might be able to say a couple of things about someone who's deeply important to me and my life, some person. But I can't say, "That exhausts them, or it's only that they mean X or Y." And an imaginal figure, or a dream figure, even, is just the same. It doesn't, I would say, only mean X or Y, any more than a person that is deeply important to me, and in my life, and that I love, and loves me, etc., only means X or Y to me. There's personhood there, and personhood is unfathomable.

So meaning, individual meaning, an individual meaning -- yes, there is this meaning, there is this echo, there is this, whatever it is -- may be a part of it, may be part of what the imaginal figure is, if you like, or does. But we can never reduce either an imaginal figure or a person in our lives to one meaning, or even several meanings.

So the meaning-seeking and meaning-finding attitude, it's a part of imaginal practice. I didn't mean to exclude it completely or banish it from imaginal practice. But more it was: don't stop there. Don't limit it to that. So when it's there, you know, notice it. And take whatever meaning, individual meanings that kind of attitude or faculty comes up with: "Oh, it means this. Or I notice this echo, or I make this conclusion." Take it as just one (in inverted commas) 'true meaning' of potentially infinite meanings that are carried by and in a certain image, a certain soul-perception.

So in this way, we do include that. It is important, because it might, in this case with the image of the dragon, the individual meaning will be part of what stimulates. The figure of the warrior-god will be part, may be part of what stimulates. As a node in the lattice, it may be part of what stimulates the filling out of the imaginal. So yes, meanings are fine. Just don't limit it. Keep open the gates to the garden of infinite interpretations. Keep them open, yeah? Don't just settle for one tree or one apple in that orchard.

Okay, so we're, again, including individual, specific meanings. When I use the word 'meaningfulness,' it's really 'fullness,' meaningfulness, which means there's an unlimited possible number of meanings. And there's this infinite mirroring and echoing of image and life. So there's, as I said, a kind of Middle Way here. On the one extreme, a mistake would be any kind of monovalent reduction to one meaning only: "This image means this," or as I said, even several. That would be one extreme of a mistake. Another extreme would be a kind of refusal to see any personal and specific meanings in the image at all. That would be another extreme, another mistake. And as I said, if we do that, then probably the image will be without meaningfulness. It won't come alive. It won't open its full sacredness to us. It won't have its full beauty, potential, or the aliveness of the dynamic of its beautifying, its depth, etc., as it could be. Yeah?

So the meaningfulness -- not to labour the point too much -- meaningfulness includes meaning, meanings. But sometimes it's not actually clear. We don't have a clear sense of what any meaning is. And that's fine: "Still I'm puzzled by this image. I don't know," you know. But at least let's not shut down the possibility of individual meanings, individual discernible echoes and reflections between life and image.

So you can probably hear, again, this talk of meaning and meaningfulness is related to duty, right? Just a little reflection will make that clear. It's also related, meaningfulness and meaning, in fact, are related to values. And again, I'm hoping at some point to talk more about values and ethics and the relationship with soulmaking.^[2] But the thing about values, too -- I'll just mention this now -- so meaningfulness is related to values. We find a sense of meaningfulness in life in relationship to, or part of our sense of meaningfulness is our relationship to what we value, and what we value most highly, and what's kind of most important to us in our life. This will give our life meaningfulness, to the kind of height of that value, if that's a good analogy.

The thing about values is they're kind of limitless. They always will have a 'beyond' to them. If we say 'love' or 'goodness' or 'beauty,' these are things that -- you know, for some people, and I put myself in that category -- they kind of mean -- and soulmaking, you know, also soulfulness -- these are kind of open-ended values that mean more, even, than life -- more, even, than life and death. But they don't have a limit to them. They're transcendent in that respect. They're also transcendent in the sense that any manifestation will be actually limited in how much it instantiates or manifests any particular value. You know, a piece of art will always have some kind of limit to its beauty, if you like, or some kind of compromise that it's making. Or goodness. When we're actually faced with ethical choices, we're often making a kind of compromise between, "Well, if I take care of this, then that goes a little bit. Or if I take care of this, I can't take care of that," that kind of thing.

So there's a sense that values need to manifest in life, and we need to make choices. And oftentimes, choices are hard because we can't have perfect, complete, and comprehensive goodness. We can't have perfect, complete, and comprehensive love actualized in life. The brahmavihāra in the heart, in meditation, is one thing. Actualized in life, we make choices. So there's something about values that they're always beyond what we can reach. Not only can they always be more -- you can always be somehow more good, or more beautiful, or more whatever, soulful -- but how we actually manifest them and encounter their manifestations always is going to have some kind of limit or compromise to it.

So this in itself is something very interesting. I may return to that in later talks or a later series or something. But it means that, in relation to values, they've got a kind of infinity to them. They've got an infinitude, a transcendence, a beyondness, always. And that is part of why we can have an erotic relationship with values and ideas like goodness and beauty and harmony and soulfulness. So because of their infinitude, they're always going to have a beyondness, and it always allows eros to constellate in relation to them. And values have a part to do with meaningfulness, and therefore, values also have a part to do with images and sensing with soul. I'll come back to this. Whenever we have an imaginal perception, and whenever we're sensing something or other with soul, values that are really important to us, that are dear to our souls and hearts, are bound up, if you like, or expressed, or refracted, or hinted at, or shining through that imaginal thing, in that imaginal constellation. I hope to come back to this at some point. That's part of meaningfulness: our sense of value.