Revealing the Mystery IV

Empathy as a Spiritual Path

Isaac George

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Part of the spiritual awakening that appears to be happening on this planet for many years has been the emergence of numerous paths and therapeutic techniques for dealing with personal trauma and painful memories.  Beginning in the late 1960’s there were the first stirrings that modern psychology didn’t have all the answers to the deep and often incomprehensible experiences that many have in our “modern” lifestyles.

Past life regression yielded some answers as to the origins of troubling emotions and feeling states, like chronic anxiety, depression or physical illnesses or conditions that apparently were the result of memories stored in our own soul memories of incarnations past in which we suffered some tragedy or life or limb.  Other techniques such as transpersonal psychotherapy and psychosynthesis focused on a more holistic view, incorporating the soul, but within the framework of dealing with the difficult emotional states as being the result of beliefs or behaviours developed through adaptation to outside authorities, i.e., parents, peers and/or religious or secular authorities.  These processes utilize a number of integrative methods to cut through the debilitating beliefs and restore some semblance of balance and self-acceptance.

Through the decades since perhaps thousands of spiritual and psychological paths have emerged to deal with the underlying strata of the human mind – the subconscious, and how it interrelates to the soul and the psychic health of the individual, larger groups and the human family.  One of the wonders of the human animal is its range of emotions and feelings, but it is only recently that scientists have discovered that all sentient creatures, including plants, are emotional beings.  What is also amazing is that, given this palette of feelings, no one seems to understand why we feel anything at all!

Some spiritual disciplines view emotions and feelings as the antithesis of enlightenment, a distraction if you will.  Using the mind to try and understand and overcome itself (non-dualism) has had limited success, even though it has been around for centuries.  Mainstream humanity hardly has the time or inclination to embark on a path such as this, and it remains the province of a few who have mastered the technique.  The sages Papaji and Eckhart Tolle are two examples…and both of their “awakenings” were spontaneous products of deep emotional pain and spiritual crisis.  The ‘pain body’ is the source of all the ruckus, and needs to be dissolved in order to be really peaceful and aligned…or so it goes, until the next challenge arises in our path.

The human brain/bio-computer is the source of raw emotions, and this is psychological and scientific fact.  When we experience an inner conflict in our minds or within the Soul mind (subconscious-Superconscious) it becomes a felt experience in the body.  In fear, we clench.  In depression, the shoulders slump forward.  In order to survive we put on weight.  The body/mind connection, or as Dr. Bruce Lipton calls it, “the biology of belief,” is an ever present condition of our lives.  As we get nearer and nearer to the actual, not theoretical, realization of the inherent one-ness of Life, we are beginning to understand that empathy is happening all of the time.  Empathy is defined as:

“…the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective. You
place yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling.  Empathy is known to increase
prosocial (helping) behaviors.”

Sympathy is a bit different:

(From the Greek words syn “together” and pathos “feeling” which means “fellow-feeling”), sympathy
is the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another human being.^[1]

Pitying another is sympathetic.  Identifying and understanding the experience of another, and the associated feelings and emotions of the person is empathetic.  Now we move into connecting the personal human range of empathic awareness to our personal and collective experiences, and see where they might source from.

One of the most interesting aspects to the Gnostic mythos about Sophia, the Wisdom Goddess, is the real origins of humanity and Planet Earth itself.  The Gnostics weren’t Christians, but the groups of scholars, parapsychologists and mystics who pretty much were responsible for the origins of the Mysteries, or Mystery Schools, in the Levant – an area of the pre-Christian world that extended from Celtic Britain, through Central Europe, the Middle East and all the way to what we know now as India.  This included the famous libraries and schools in the Upper Nile regions of Egypt at Alexandria.

The history of the Gnostics and the content of their surviving documents, the Nag Hammadi Codices, would take too long to recount here.  The nugget about the creation of our species and the origin of this planet is in those documents.  Essentially, this planet IS the goddess Sophia – or at least a part of Her is the planet, the biosphere, and all of its processes.  According to the Mythos, this goddess, or creator Aeon, fell out of the Pleroma, the field of singularity in the centre of our galaxy.  She, along with another Aeon named Thelete (Christos) created the human template, the Anthropos, in an ecstatic dance.  This template of complex amino acids, infused with the divine gift of imagination, was seeded into the spiral arms of this galaxy.  The Aeons are self-aware, living currents of luminosity…organic Light for lack of a better analogy.  When  Sophia “fell” into the celestial mechanics of the outer spiral arms of the galaxy, she did so because of her passion for the Anthropos.  This created an anomaly…an unforeseen, divine mistake.  According to the Mythos, as Her luminosity combined with inorganic matter, the debris of stars, former planets, and subatomic particles, part of her began to solidify into a planetary body. 

According to the Gnostics, the process took eons to accomplish, but during it, this Being experienced confusion and despair because She was cut off from her fellow Aeons and did not understand what was transpiring.  More emotions followed…feelings of aloneness, loss, depression, as well as exalted states of passion, ecstasy, and joy.  At a distant point in the evolutionary process, Life began to appear on Her surface, including the portion of the Anthropos template that would become us – humanity.  Her love for us is as a mother for her children, but she and Thelete aren’t our “parents” in the same way we view human families. 

Nonetheless, if the Gnostic investigators were reading the mind of Sophia in their initiatory practices correctly, then we can begin to understand that our role as her ‘co-creators’ is to help Her out of Her dilemma.  We can become “empathic” to Her plight.  If this is all a bit too sci-fi for you, then I’d like to remind you that every culture on this planet has, from time immemorial, referred to Earth as “Mother,” “Her,” or “She.”  The Gnostics term was “Magna Mater,” the Great Mother.  The Gnostic Mythos is the only one that differs from all other creation myths.  This is an important point to remember.

Empathy as a way for awakening to the world of the Soul, and its deepest connection to the planetary intelligence, or Gaia, is emerging very strongly within individuals and groups.  I feel that this is an impulse that is directly stimulated by Sophia to us, to assist in the realization that our deepest spiritual roots lie within this very orb we stand upon, and to which our bodies are returned at the transition known as physical death.  Sophia/Gaia is said to have a trans-humanist plan for the evolution of the Anthropos, but that isn’t the same as a merger of cybernetic digital technology and the human biology. 

To my perception, that is a temptation we would do well to steer clear of; the promise of immortality in some virtual reality. Only by becoming aware of the “organic Light” within us, and of the planetary consciousness, will we possibly rediscover that our true origins aren’t just among the stars, but in the core of the galaxy itself.  From there, we can expand our scope to include multiple and parallel realities and dimensions beyond count.  However, the Gnostic view tells us it is through direct interaction with Nature, and remembering the plight of the Goddess and having empathy for HerStory (instead of history), that we can realign to an organic life that not only confers health, but restores our minds and souls to the Continuum that we were birthed from originally.

So, feeling your feelings, or using empathy to feel into and recognize the emotions and feelings that others are experiencing, are very important to understanding ourselves, the human condition and the planetary crisis we face (ecocide and extinctions, etc.). Whenever we see a beautiful part of Nature, or when we are feeling close to it in some way, we are making contact with the Universal Mother.  Whenever we eat, make love, cry, laugh, we are reconnected.  Whenever we meditate we are awaiting a dialogue with Her to begin in the center of our heart.  The Gnostics never sought “salvation” or chased after “redemption.”   The human race never “fell” from Grace.  Perhaps it was pushed, but we are not fallen from some higher, more exalted realm.  Neither is Sophia, as part of her essence never morphed into the planet and it remains as is always was…luminous, playful, loving, and supportive.

For those who are healers and counsellors, or anyone who is empathic, I recommend that you celebrate your sensitivity and allow for your own vulnerability and that of others to touch you.  When you find yourself in overwhelm, there are loads of things you can do to rebalance.  Obviously, spending time in Nature is the first choice, as grounding is essential for balance.  There are loads of other things to do to maintain an emotional equilibrium.  I do advocate counseling, especially the holistic type like psychosynthesis.  Combining some mainstream therapies with body and energy work is can be a good mix.  Eating healthily and exercising is also important.  But perhaps for some it’s just enough to have a good network of friends with whom you can share and talk things over.  Cultivating healthy relationships for sensitive folks is a delicate and necessary process.

We are all in this together, and connected soul-to-soul, heart-to-heart, with all that we perceive and interact with.  Sophia is Dreaming, and we are part of that dreaming.  In the most literal and poetic sense, our creative impulses, our emotions and feelings, all are a gift from our Mother.  Vulnerability is the new strength, the wisdom of the heart demonstrated.  And when we listen to our heart, we are in tune with the heart of our Earth, our Mother, and the Cosmos.  Listen to your heartbeat, and direct your empathy towards your Self and all that lives.

Blessings on your journey,

Isaac

Resources:

The free movie Origins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf4vJKZXxn8#t=106
Heart Math Institute: http://www.heartmath.org/
The Earthing Institute: http://www.earthing.com/