“The mind has the ability to create, better than the ability to accurately witness. With the ability to create comes the ability to delude the self.” – Richard Rose
I remember my first real encounter with the trap of projection, when I was a struggling alcoholic trying desperately to become sane and sober. I had spent months believing that my problems were based in others only, and if they would just leave me alone, I would be just fine. I also bought into the projection of place being a cause, in that I thought if I could move to another town, I would be free of the restraints of my negative state of mind. The saying, “Wherever you go, there you are”, hit like a ton of bricks when I changed towns, jobs, and friends several times and things went from bad to worse. It slowly became apparent that the problem was in me, not outside in place or person. The projecting of our problems on the environment and others, thinking that if you could just be away from your current environment and associates, things would be better, is just projecting the blame away from our infallible, self-righteous ego. I was not facing the fact that our being creates our life, and to change our life, we must change.
We can also project positive, but likewise unconscious, aspects of ourselves onto others. This can be seen first as an admiration or jealousy of a facet in the other person. Later, we may come to see the same attribute in ourselves, and realize that something inside was simply trying to draw our attention to it. I can remember having a vivid first impression of someone as being ‘capable’. Later, after working with them for several months, I came to see that this was something I admired about them, and wished for myself, but my ego, again, couldn’t imagine it as possible. It went against the current belief-system. I needed to see it in action in the other person before I would accept it as something possible for me. The experience of it in the other led to it’s manifesting in myself, after I had come to see it was not an impossible, or even impractical, thing for a normal human to have.
The same thing happened when I first met a spiritual teacher, and felt his inner strength. I at first believed this to be something only he could possibly possess. Years later, I came to see the same inner light in several of my fellow seekers as well as myself. It had been something I wouldn’t have accepted, therefore unconsciously refused to cultivate, and had to be seen first in another before it could become manifest in me.
This trap of projection is mainly one of thinking, rather than observing. The thoughts we believe, whether our own or those perhaps projected into our heads from sources that may or may not have our best interests in mind, we take to be valid and ‘us’. By learning to observe our thoughts rather than mechanically react on them only, can lead to a new level of being, one in which everything is possible, even our own becoming.
This Missal takes a look at a twentieth century philosopher and doctor from France, Hubert Benoit. Best known for his book, The Supreme Doctrine (now entitled Zen and the Psychology of Transformation), Dr. Benoit was a psychiatrist, surgeon, violinist, and writer whose understanding of Zen and Traditional Metaphysics lives on today. Counted among the pupils of Gurdjieff, he wrote on the subject of Zen and its masters, being one of the first to bring this ancient teaching to the West. Born in Nancy, France in 1904 to a well-read family, he entered into the study of medicine. He studied in Paris and specialized in surgery, which he practiced until being gravely injured in the Allied bombing of the town of Saint Lo during the Normandy invasion in 1944. His injuries put a halt to his surgical career, and he became a psychiatrist, practicing for over thirty-five years.
During his long years in a hospital bed recovering from his injuries, he had the chance to fulfill a life-long yearning to understand the human condition. His practice of psychiatry and his books on Zen brought this to fruit. Besides his book The Supreme Doctrine, he published several others including The Interior Realization, which he considered his best. He continued to bring his work to others through his psychiatric practice and his writing until his death in Paris in 1992.
” Imagination does not bring realization, but only the fallacious hope of realization. – It is in the failure to master the imagination that human servitude resides.”
– Hubert Benoit
Benoit’s understanding of our dilemma is explained in detail in The Supreme Doctrine. He tells us our problems with suffering are facets of our imaging process, the imagination, and never based in the outside world. They start from the misconception that we are a separate creature, an animal and/or abstract self, at risk of complete annihilation at the hands of the not-self, the world. The animal self is at odds with and the opposite of the abstract self. The abstract self lives in the imagination, in the world of ideas, while the animal self is the emotional identification with the body and its needs. One or the other of these selves is dominant in us, and the other is repressed or ignored. The animal self goes about its survival by accumulating wealth and security, using success or failure in the world to gain emotional stability. The abstract self finds its haven in the ideal, it’s ego identifying with the intellect and thought. These selves can be either positive(preferable) or negative, depending on circumstance.
When I awoke into my life,
a sobbing dwarf
whom giants served
only as they pleased,
I was not what I seemed.
The Sea and the Mirror – W.H. Auden
Benoit goes on to say that each of us covers the feeling of having been separated from our divine principle(which is not in fact the case) through compensations, tools of the ego to keep us believing our life has meaning outside our true nature. These compensations eventually wear thin, and we keep having to find ever new ways to not face the truth or facts of our mortal life and our near complete identification with it. The only way out of this trap is by the trick of letting the compensations run their course, or seeing through them at once. Through this loss of footing we come face to face with inner truth through humility. We cannot work at becoming humble directly, for that is yet another form of pride, but we can face our mistakes and humiliations, and thus see ourselves more clearly. This is another of the paths of retraction, a retreat from error rather than a gathering of ego and will. We come to see we are in reality what Benoit calls the conciliatory principle, the top point of a triangle, the base-line being our constant struggle to uphold one or another of the opposite poles. This principal is always present, regardless of our feeling of angst or loss, and comes into play when we realize our helplessness in solving the problem of life through ego and its illusory will. We have never been truly abandoned, but have become lost through identification with one of the inferior points.
I’ve found Benoit’s The Interior Realization to be a compact work containing his major ideas, and a road map to realization if one’s intuition is able to pick up on it. The Supreme Doctrine offers much more detail, but is rather weighty, to say the least. Art Ticknor’s excellent explanation of Benoit’s compensations and general ideas is worth a look, found at: http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/bzrecap.htm
Select Benoit quotes:
” Man is of the nature of God, but in a state in which this is not apparent.
” The Gospel tells us that we must be reconciled with our brother before we pray; the balancing of our being in the conditions of everyday life represents this reconciliation. This means that a man may have to work long and laboriously on his ordinary nature before undertaking the work of transcending it.
” Asceticism has in itself no efficacy — at any rate where timeless realization is concerned. Nevertheless a certain asceticism may be necessary for the achievement of the inner state of maximum calm, without which the exercise cannot be properly carried out.
” ‘Moral’ suffering working on the image-plane is closely bound up with the play of the imagination. It is in the failure to master the imagination that human servitude resides. – Hubert Benoit
” What I suspect we need is not any kind of path or discipline, but a collection of tricks or devices for catching the Dark at the corner of the eye, as it were, and learning how to spot its just-waiting-to-be-seen presence, combined with strategies for stopping the hyperactive survival-programmes from immediately explaining the perception away. D. E. Harding’s exercises for discovering one’s own essential ‘headlessness’ are the best ideas I’ve yet come across for the first half of this process, but, by his own admission, most people ‘get it but simply don’t believe it’.” – John Wren-Lewis
The above quote by John Wren-Lewis points out a common conundrum seen often nowadays in seekers of the Truth. Many of us can recall times when we were strangely indifferent to our usual pattern, and the world seemed new and alive, with the noise of the mind blessedly absent. Then, the thought-pattern of personality took back the reins and the world became once more known and dimmingly familiar. Even the startling effects of Douglas Harding’s exercises can become relegated to memory, for in our everyday world the miracle of ‘seeing’ is soon lost, replaced by the usual fog of ‘knowing’. Why is this? Why doesn’t something so startling as seeing without one’s own head last? Why is the ego’s hold on us so complete, that its survival is the paramount fact of our very life, robbing us of seeing without warning?
We may think that the problem lies in emotion. That if we were just a bit more enthused about it all, we could retain the clarity through thick and thin. We come away from a seminar pumped up, making inner promises to never forget what we’ve seen, and to try harder at every turn. Here, we may be misled once more. The act of seeing is not one of emotion, anymore than it is of thought. The memory of seeing is not the act, any more than the memory of the emotional reaction is. I can remember once listening to an intense emotional sermon by a sincere preacher. Everyone in the church came under the same spell, convinced that they would go forth from that moment on and be a better person, worthy of the glory of eternal life. Then, an even stranger thing happened. While in the parking lot after the service, I realized I could not remember anything the preacher had said, not a word. I couldn’t even remember what I had been so enthused about. By the time I got home, the mood was completely gone; the thoughts and business of the day had totally replaced it.
Now, there is nothing wrong with becoming inspired. It’s a necessary part of the path. But, it is not the goal. Seeing is not a state of being in perpetual bliss, about our seeing. This is again the trap of living in the reaction, not the state. This trap of reaction is a clue to why no matter how intense or startling a state is, we soon lose it. We are trying to get back to seeing by looking at the reaction. We forget to see, by trying to remember to see. We look at our previous emotional or mental reaction to seeing, while our seeing, always there in the moment, every second, is overlooked.
Let’s back up a bit, and go back to the start of the problem. When we were first brought into the world, we were taught by people, well meaning but asleep, that we are a thing, an object, living in a world of things. We were taught that some of these things, our thoughts, were more real than our very being, meaning our seeing was secondary to our thinking about our seeing. This trick was played on us until we could do it ourselves. Once we were well trained in fooling ourselves, we became ‘thinking’. The world of thought became our new home. We lost our innocence, as we slowly lost sight of our seeing. We traded it for knowing, the unquestioned belief that our thoughts were more real than our seeing of our thoughts. Soon enough, we could no longer see our very seeing, and began to believe we were our thoughts.
Here then, lies the problem. We have become a collection of thoughts, an entity, which treats every new moment as if it were already a memory, basing each new moment on only the past and the reaction this past has to each moment. We are so wrapped up in this thought-collection, this ‘knowing’, that we even treat a moment of seeing as if it were another memory, reacting to it as if we already know all about it. A reaction can never be in the moment, for only seeing happens now. This trap of living one step behind ourselves cannot be explained away with conceptual thinking or fought with reactionary emotional thrills. It cannot be gotten rid of by changing our behavior, such as going left instead of right. What then can be done?
Franz Hartmann gives us a clue when he says, ” There is nothing more difficult to find than one’s own self.” There is also nothing more valuable. It is our own ‘self’ that is the problem. Any plan of escape from the trap of thought-reaction is simply this self trying to survive, even if the plan is one of perpetual seeing. The self will see seeing as yet another tool to perpetuate its own continuity. This self is a collection of thoughts, an inventory of all reactions, which seeks only its own continuity as a thought-pattern. The only way to deal with such a thing, is to see it. To observe it.
Simple observation, unbiased and without reaction or judgment, i.e. seeing, will take us farther than any clever plan or emotional outburst. A return to innocence, the initial stage of not-knowing, will give us an edge, open a crack in the ego’s armor, and return the value of our very existence to that of seeing, rather than to the reaction to seeing. By beginning to watch what we do, we start a pattern of return to the state of a free attention. Once we are able to watch our ‘selves’ as we go about our daily tasks, we may soon see that we can watch our thoughts as well. We all have moments where seeing is spontaneous and personal. If we come to value these moments, we begin to switch our meaning from the world of thought back to that of awareness. We can take the tricks we learned at meetings and seminars and put them to use in every moment: while driving, working at our desk, and even while watching TV.
We may soon notice a strange thing happening in our head, while we watch our watching. We may see that as soon as a moment of seeing fades, a familiar mood or state has returned, which is in fact the reason for the cessation of the seeing itself. This vaguely familiar pattern is our own state of mind. The collection of thoughts we feel to be ‘us’, has slipped back. The old pride in ‘knowing’ as reactive thought, our personal dogma, will slide in like a fog bank, and then we are our old self again, and the seeing is now incorporated into this ‘self’s’ inventory. “It” has survived, and we are back asleep.
Only through the simple process of self-observation can this thing called the ‘self’ be seen. We may need years of looking at it, seeing why it does what it does, thinks what it thinks, until we know it well enough to cease to believe in it. All of our energy, for all of our life, has been poured into this thing: our personality, the little self, the ego. A few moments of seeing, while of momentous importance, will not cause its complete demise. This demise is what we fear most; for it is seen by the thought-pattern we call `us’, as death. At some point, the initial joy of seeing will turn to the pain of ego-death, as the Truth becomes known. It will not be pleasant. In fact, the pain and horror felt by the ego as it faces its own death, will be felt as yours. Hartmann’s words again ring true: “Conquer the pains resulting therefrom”. While all this may be just words to you for now, know that after you have gone beyond this realm of thought, beyond this self-surviving collection of reactions seeking nothing but its own continuity, ‘seeing’ will still be there. You will then have no more need of thought or reaction to give you meaning and value, as the simple act of seeing will once again be enough. The world of thought will no longer be your home, having become a movie, a dream, as much a comedy as a drama, wherein the bit character you used to call your ‘self’ is merely another player. Your interest will be only in a pure amazement at your own unknowable Being, … and perhaps the need to help another find freedom from the trap of reaction, the world of ‘self’.
Tolstoy said there are two fundamental stories in all great literature: “a man goes on a journey” or “a stranger comes to town.” When you examine them, both are really about change. They show that our comfortable routine—sitting safely in the village, wrapped in familiar habits, everything staying the same—is about to be disrupted in a major way.
We have a choice in how we meet that change. It is far better to embark on the hero’s journey deliberately, with eyes wide open and a “yes” attitude—a positive, receptive state of mind—than to passively wait for the stranger to arrive. If you wait, you may learn nothing; worse, the story could turn dark. The stranger might be a dragon or a demon. It is preferable to confront such a force in the wilderness than to let it ravage half the village first. If we wait, the stranger eventually will come, and shatter the pattern. Real change—and real damage—will certainly follow. It is a risky chance.
For the journey to be a true hero’s adventure rather than just more routine, certain conditions are essential. As Huxley observed, “experience only teaches the teachable.” If the hero sets out only to criticize and take offense at everything unfamiliar—judging new events against the narrow habits and thinking of his old life—little good will come of it. He will grow miserable, assign blame, and keep his small self firmly at the center. Nothing can truly change. But if he meets experience with an open-eyed, clear attitude, wonder becomes possible—wonder in the sense of questioning, and also in the sense of amazement and mystery. With this inner posture, he may begin to see the mysterious patterns that constitute him, reflected back in the events he encounters. He may come to know something real about himself.
Courage, self-honesty, and being tested in different environments help keep the eyes wide open so he does not simply drag his old baggage along. The journey then proceeds with an open state of mind—what we might call “Yes” instead of “No.”
For most of us, the journey begins by leaving the nest and stepping into life. Change often arrives first in seemingly ordinary things. Being open-minded—not merely in a polite, social sense—means being capable of truly seeing and listening rather than reflexively judging. This is not just a slogan; it is a practice. When we look to observe what is actually happening, non-critically and non-judgmentally, then marriage, raising children, building a home, starting a family, launching a business, pursuing a career, developing a talent or skill—any of these can become the journey, the path. We keep an open mind and refuse to force our life into something that only chases money or to adopt the bitter attitude that everything always goes wrong, that the world is against us, and that only we are right.
If we can reclaim our innocence, we become capable of something different. We can develop real skill, a direct way of engaging the world. We can become a parent, a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a leader, a reliable colleague—identities profoundly different from who we were as teenagers or toddlers. For those who complete this phase and later feel a nostalgic pull, a remembering of something greater than ordinary life can offer, the journey can turn inward. It becomes an exploration of what we are truly like and whether something real lies beneath the surface.
This inward turn must also be undertaken with a sense of mystery, wonder, and eyes wide open. Otherwise, we risk simply rationalizing and blaming what we find inside. But if we observe inwardly in a universal, neutral way—true, non-judgmental observation—then we can learn from it and gradually free ourselves from the emotional hot spots and knots accumulated over a lifetime. This, too, is the hero’s journey: an adventure of stalking oneself, of coming to know oneself.
Richard Rose pointed out that we must get to know the self precisely because it is the thing we know least about. Most of us assume we already know ourselves, but honest, non-critical self-inquiry often brings real surprises. It can be deeply depressing and profoundly enlightening at the same time. Yet it remains an adventure as long as we maintain the eyes-wide-open, non-judgmental attitude. Beating ourselves up, blaming parents, society, or some other group so we can feel right—these are not productive. Pure observation is what matters.
This non-judgmental approach works equally for the outward journey and the inward one.
Once we understand how “going within” operates, nostalgia—or what Rumi calls “a longing”—becomes our guide. This longing is not sentimental. It has nothing to do with sitting on the porch of the old farm, drinking lemonade, and drifting into fond childhood memories. We are seeking an entirely different set of guideposts, a different environment, a different version of ourselves—one we only vaguely remember. We carry faint memories of heaven, and if we follow this thread of longing, it can lead somewhere Real.
Richard Rose also discovered through his dreams that life is dominated by three main moods. The two primary ones are opposites: seduction and fear (or desire and fear). Desire pulls us outward toward things; fear drives us back toward security. Neither leads the soul inward or upward beyond this dimension—they simply make us chase or flee. But nostalgia—the remembering of who we were before we came here—is different. It is the thread that can guide us Home, toward something eternal.
