Transe Learning: A New Transpersonal Methodology

The Self

In order to understand Transe Learning, we start by thinking about the object of our research. The transpersonal methodology has the object of Self-realization, but what is the Self?

We can say, as Wilber says, (Wilber 2011) the Self is not the object, it is the subject; the Self has no space and has no time. The Self which is the essence of our life, our soul, and our psyche, represents the whole totality of our inner experience. So, if the Self is the object – the subject of our inquiry – we have to ask: how can we perform the inquiry, the methodology, and the training that respects the true nature of the Self? Of course, we know the Self manifests through the ego, like something in the theater’s backstage; and the ego, which is its manifestation, is on the front of the stage. The dual mind is the tool of the ego. The dual mind, the rational one, represents the instrument in finding out the manifestation of our Self. But in order to reach the Self we have to go beyond the mind, beyond the dual mind, beyond the ego, and open our consciousness to the limitless mind. This means to study and investigate the states of consciousness, in order to expand our normal state of consciousness.

The Second Attention

We need to shift from the first to the Second Attention tools, (Lattuada 2018). We propose a new epistemology, suggest new rules for a new game – the game of exploring a dynamic and interconnected world using the appropriate tool: the Second Attention. This will lead us beyond the theater’s stage.

Second Attention epistemology hypothesizes that pure observation, pure sensation and pure action allow us to transcend the First Attention, which perceives reality and identifies with it. Second Attention, instead, observes and de-identifies itself. This operation consists of an endless dialogue between truth and reality, a dialogue that includes subject and object, event and master of the given data, the boundary and whoever experiences it, thing and mode, ever-coinciding spheres, here and now. Everything is in its own way: the thing points to the sphere of reality, the mode points to the sphere of truth.

Second Attention doesn’t exclude First Attention but transcends and includes it, here and now.

Is Something Missing?

When we investigate our curriculum of studies, we realize that they were provided by something we could call “the or/or fallacy” – learning that was provided mostly through theory, a few practices, and no experience from within. It is like a thing having matter, but lacking spirit, or something that works with our mind, but forgets about consciousness. This has been the conventional way to learn.

Then we can find many more advanced ways to learn which put together the body and the mind, matter and spirit. We name this methodology “the and/and fallacy,” which is achieved by studying some intellectual theories with the mind, and then practice something such as meditation. Through these means, we begin combining theories and experiences, mind and body, knowledge and awareness, matter and spirit. We are putting together something! Yes, we improved our way of learning, but we are still working with the dual mind, with the reality on the theater’s stage.

What does this methodology, “the and/and fallacy” of the dual mind, look like? To go from the past to the future, to judge everything, to fight, to develop strategies, to achieve some goals, to move from one point to another, to go away, to control, to organize, to search for an answer, to know the reason why, to delegate, to try and solve problems.

We are so used to behaving in these ways, we believe that they are “normal” and we are all in collective agreement with these ways of seeing and perceiving our reality.

When we are aligned and centered in the Self we easily understand that fear-based behaviors are not the way to solve problems or perceive reality. In order to reach the self, we have to go beyond the dual mind and develop a sort of unitive mind, a Second Attention, a Further Mode.

The Further Mode

Summarizing the framework of our assumption is completed by postulating the capability to distinguish a First Attention, begotten by the reactive mind and emotional identification, from a Second Attention, yielded by knowledgeable observation, compassionate love, and de-identification.

This brings us to the statement from which our argument stems: Second Attention offers an epistemology that by its very nature provides guarantee of validity, and transcends any theory, approach, or evidence.

Second Attention Epistemology is configured as a meta-epistemology that, if carried out, opens up the world to meta-theories, meta-approaches, and meta-experiences that are understood as being united by a common denominator: The Further Mode.

The Further Mode through Transe Learning is an approach that is able to know with a unitary and intact attitude, based on the experience of integral dialogical dance between part and whole, Organismic Self and field, phenomenological map and territory, theory and practice, structure and process, epistemology and ontology.

Transe Learning seeks to promote and actualize the organismic-dynamic Further Mode, through the interconnected and integral experience of unity in every event, an experience that cannot be separated from the body, or rather from the bodies as explicated as an integral experience.

A Further Mode of Knowing: Eight Pillars of Transformation:

1. Observing, instead of thinking

• Thinking is like waves upon the ocean. Being guided by one's thoughts means being carried by the waves. Practicing conscious observation means being able to grasp the true nature of the water of life rather than getting lost among its unending waves.

• A first condition is to realize the Further Mode to achieve the new understanding, result of the consciousness of unity, seems to be to learn to observe with clear eyes.

1. Remaining, instead of going away.

• If we want to sail from Europe to the United States, we must follow the east-west direction. The waves and winds will tend to take us in multitude directions. By keeping the helm (steering wheel of a ship) in the center, we will arrive at our destination.

• In the same way, if we want to master the observation of both an aspect of ourselves, or a function, such as breathing or an emotion like fear, we will have to learn how to maintain attention, without being distracted by the flow of our thoughts.

• To remain means to develop qualities such as listening, acceptance, and responsibility.

1. Feeling, instead of understanding why.

• To feel means to grasp the felt sense, the relevant characteristics of events, and access a new understanding: insight.

• Let us now dedicate a few minutes of our time to a simple experiment.

Let's close our eyes and follow our thoughts for a few moments …

Let's focus on our breathing.

With certainty we can see that it was blocked.

When we follow the flow of thoughts, we block the flow of life.

• Now let us reflect on how much time we spend every day listening to our breathing and following our thoughts. Here, we have identified one of the main factors of disease in our society:

We spend more time thinking about our thoughts than about the flow of life itself.

In this way – we repeatedly cause incessant interruptions to the vital flow of energy. But we do not realize it, except if we feel a headache and try to make it disappear. If we do not succeed, we ask ourselves why?

• Instead of looking at what we are doing, we feel how we are constructing our headaches. Instead of listening to what we are asking for, we try to understand the reasons why.

That is, we do not observe what is happening now, what is there to be seen, to think about what had happened before, which we can hardly recognize.

• We do not do what we could do now to think about what we should not have done before.

1. Accept, instead of fight

• When we lay down our arms and say yes, then we realize that the doors are open and that everything is working so that the right action is accomplished.

• You will then learn how to lay down your arms. To make love and not war.

• The aware observation of the ocean waves of your consciousness, the firmness in order to come into contact and lovingly listen to every message of your organism (body-mind) will teach you to accept every emotion, every pain, every “symptom” without fighting it.

• The willingness to say yes to your swollen belly, to your arrhythmic heart or to your anxiety, and to remain in their company, will allow you to know them thoroughly, to go beyond the inconvenience that they create you.

• Then you will feel something happening inside you, the heaviness being lightness, the blocking being pulsation, the pain becoming a sound, the gesture anxiety, the stiffness of movement and after the word, the empty fullness.

• From that emptiness rises insight as the dawn of a new day. On the ocean of your consciousness, after the storm, the sun will shine with new clarity.

1. Relying instead of controlling

• When we let go, then we understand that the problems are not resolved but dissolve into the transforming power of trust.

• Here are some suggestions:

• Allow all your explanations flows and listen.
• Do not try to understand the waves but listen to the sound of the sea.
• Observe how life manifests itself in you, hears where it flows, where it hangs.
• Listen to the sensations of your body, your organs, your viscera, the states of your soul, your emotions, your feelings. Observe the ocean of your consciousness and you will discover that there are no boundaries, there are no symptoms or conflicts. There is only the flow of life or its interruptions produced by your lack of awareness.
• Bring the observation into your closed and painful stomach and you will see that pain is an image, colors, sensations. Sensations are emotions, emotions are memories, memories of breathing rhythms, pulsations of your organs, tension of your muscles and so on.
• Observe, breathe and let it flow, pure and simple conscious observation will show you the way to healing.

1. Facts, not problems

• Our mind is the source of all problems and all solutions.

• Aware observation can enable one to understand the true nature of each event and to grasp its creative potential.

• This behavior stems from a deep-rooted belief: We believe that solving problems is in our mind. What about this would be false?

• The Further Mode recognizes that:

Our problems arise from the way we use our mind.

The dual rational mind, as we know, considers every problem, specifically each symptom, as a failure to be repaired. The unitive mind of the Further Mode recognizes in the symptom, first of all a phenomenon, a fact, like the waves in the ocean; knows that, just like the waves in the ocean, the solution lies in the phenomenon itself. Ask yourself why waves only produces others.

Aware observation can allow an understanding of their true nature.

Even the most elaborate explanation, the most accurate diagnosis, still remains a wave and if we are not willing to let it flow, it will overwhelm us.

Second Attention, doesn’t give up explanations or diagnosis, invites you to recognize the true nature of any event and to behave accordingly.

1. Allies, not symptoms.

• You will discover that in every problem the solution resides, in every symptom an ally dwells, full of a creative potential that longs to express itself.

• You will see in every adversity the benevolent face of existence that whispers to you the qualities to awaken.

• You will recognize in every illness nothing but a request for love.

1. Responsibility, instead of delegation

• Further Mode wants to teach every human being to take full responsibility with respect to himself. Acknowledging through aware observation, acceptance, listening, that every fact of life is an ally that tries to show the way to understand the meaning of one's own existence, the discovery of one's own vocation, the realization of one's true nature.

• Clarity implies responsibility, and responsibility scares us. It seems in fact that the mother of all fear is to be alone with ourself in front of life. When we are completely free of problems and symptoms, then we no longer have alibis for not loving life unconditionally. Then there are no more tyrants to unseat, no more responsible to share the weight of our lightness. So here we are alone and empty in the face of the fear of the self.

• We are used to delegate. We delegate to the adversary destiny the responsibility for our condition. We delegate responsibility for our illnesses to not be happy. We delegate to the doctor the responsibility to get us out of trouble. In turn, the doctor delegates scientific research or drugs, his therapeutic ability. Nobody deals with the human being in front of him.

• We neglect in our diagnostic and therapeutic pathways details such as love, consciousness, awareness, trust, beauty, creativity, joy, listening, intent, vital energy, vocation, true nature.

From Identification to Self-Realization

In order to realize the Further Mode, we apply Transe Learning methodology, which suggests a way of learning that implies the here and now concept, that gives the ability to recognize that ego and self are here and now, one inside the other. We do not have to separate or unify them because they are already united, already here and now. We perform a fallacy both If we do something to separate or try to unite them because they are already one whole unit.

Through a Further Mode of knowing we try to develop a Second Attention, a unitive mind to recognize that everything is here and now. The methodology of Transe Learning helps us to realize that the above unity is here and now, and no necessity of putting together exists. This way we can resume the skills of our transpersonal learning, for example coming from personal history to self-realization, helping people to walk from problems, identification, ego and personal history towards self-realization. Shifting from problems to quality means to recognize that each problem, each symptom contains positive qualities, and in order to overcome the problem we could treat these forces positively. Shifting from dual to unitive mind does not mean one fights against the other, but transcends and includes, passing through.

Shifting from reality to truth, means to become aware that everything happens on the stage of reality, but facts exposed on the stage of visible reality indicate beyond the stage, the truth, beyond appearance, the essence.

I don’t mean we can get a universal truth, I mean we can go from knowledge to insight and get to where we realize the truth about something, a truth related to a specific contest. All the real knowledge, the real comprehension is something that comes from inside, and lets us reach the wisdom, the wisdom of humanity, which is nurtured inside all of us.

References
Lattuada P.L. (2018), Beyond the Mind, ITI edizioni, e-book
Lattuada P.L. (2014), Biotransenergetics, ITI edizioni, e-book
Pinoli P (2012), Facciamo che…, ITI Edizioni Milano
Wilber K. (2011), Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, The Spirit of Evolution, Shambhala, Boston U.S.A.

Pier Luigi Lattuada of the Integral Transpersonal Institute, Milan, Italy, is a Medical Doctor. He has a Ph. D. in Behavioral Studies and a Psy. D. in Clinical Psychology. He is also a Psychotherapist. Founder of Biotransenergetics, he is Director of the Transpersonal Psychotherapy School in Milan, and director of Training in Transpersonal Counseling accredited by AssoCounseling. He is Adjunct Faculty at Sofia University, Palo Alto, and Faculty and chair of BA in Integral Transpersonal Psychology at Ubiquity University. He has published sixteen books and presented Biotransenergetics in more than 50 International Conferences throughout the world. www.integraltranspersonallife.com