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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - Some Problems of Psychology
I use the term subconscious to signify the entire instinctual life of the form nature, all the inherited tendencies and innate predispositions, all the acquired and accumulated characteristics (acquired in past incarnations and frequently lying dormant unless suddenly evoked by stress of circumstance) and all the unformulated wishes and urges which drive a man into activity, plus the suppressed and unrecognized desires, and the unexpressed ideas which are present, though unrealized. The subconscious nature is like a deep pool from which a man can draw almost anything from his past experience, if he so desire, and which can be stirred up until it becomes a boiling cauldron, causing much distress.

The conscious is limited to that which the man knows himself to be and have in the present - the category of qualities, characteristics, powers, tendencies and knowledges of all kinds which constitute a man's stock in trade and of which he is definitely aware or of which the psychologist is aware. These are displayed in his window for all to see, and they make him what he apparently is to the outer onlooking world.

By the superconscious, I mean those potencies and knowledges which are available but which are as yet uncontacted and unrecognized and, therefore, of no immediate use. These are the wisdom, love and abstract idealism which are inherent in the nature of the soul but which are not yet, and never have been a part of the equipment available for use. Eventually, all these powers will be recognized and used by the man. These potencies and realizations are called in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by the interesting name of "the raincloud of knowable things." These "knowable things" will eventually [441] drop into the conscious aspect of a man's nature and become an integral part of his intellectual equipment. Finally, as evolution proceeds and the ages pass away, they will drop into the subconscious aspect of his nature, as his power to grasp the superconscious grows in capacity. I might make this point clearer to you if I pointed out that just as the instinctual nature is today found largely in the realm of the subconscious, so in due time, the intellectual part of man (of which he is at this time becoming increasingly aware) will be relegated to a similar position and will drop below the threshold of consciousness. The intuition will then take its place. For most people, the free use of the intuition is not possible, because it lies in the realm of the superconscious.

All these movements within the realm of consciousness, - from the subconscious to the immediately conscious and from thence to the superconscious - are essentially crises of integration, producing temporary situations which must be handled. I would like here to point out that when an individual becomes aware of the higher aspect of himself which is demanding integration and is conscious of its nature and of the part which it could play in his life expression, he frequently becomes afflicted with an inferiority complex. This is the reaction of the lower, integrated aspects to the higher one. He experiences a sense of futility; the comparison which he makes within himself of the possible achievement and the point already attained leaves him with a sense of failure and of impotence. The reason for this is that the vision is at first too big, and he feels that he cannot make the grade. Humanity today has made so much progress upon the path of evolution that two groups of men are thus powerfully affected:

  1. The group which has recognized the need for bridging the cleavage between the emotional nature and the mind [442] and has thus, through their integration, reached the level of intelligence.
  2. The group that has already bridged this cleavage and is now aware of a major task which is the bridging of the gap between the personality and the soul.

These groups include a very large number of people at this time; the sense of inferiority is very great and causes many types of difficulty. If, however, the cause is more intelligently approached and handled, it will be found that the growth of a truer perspective will be rapid.

Another real difficulty in the field of achieved integration is to be found in the case of those who have integrated the entire lower nature and have fused the energies of the personality. All the energies involved in this fusion have quality, and the combination and interplay of these qualities (each determined by some particular ray energy). constitute the character of the person. For a long while after integration has been reached there will frequently be much conflict, strictly within the realm of character and within the Man's immediate consciousness. First one energy and then another will assert itself and battle for the supremacy. It might be of value here if I posited a hypothetical case, giving you the governing ray energies and reminding you that their fusion is the objective. In the case in point the subject has fused the personality vehicles into one functioning whole and is definitely a personality, but the major fusion of soul and personality has not been made.
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