Aldo Cauchi Savona <aldo@...> wrote:

 

Hans:

Thanks for asking this question, Aldo. Great to see you stimulating some discussion.

 

Here's the part where Van Rijckenborgh talks about the I-being:

 

I see the I-being as a court with a king and ministers and other officials.

 

The king is the consciousness-I, situated in the head. There are three ministers, heading three departments: the head, the heart and the belly.

 

The minister in charge of the head is the mental I, the minister in charge of the heart is the emotional I, and the minister in charge of the belly, and in fact of the whole body, is the blood-ego (Wormtail) in the spleen liver system.

 

These ministers and their departments control all input, and categorise and summarise all sensory experiences ready for the king. All three of them put constant pressure on him to follow their advice, which will often conflict.

 

There are great books of law, both common law and statute law. By these I mean habits and precedents, and subconscious impulses. The king will usually make the same decisions every time and he has very little freedom.

 

The will is the High Priest; he is supposed to do what the king wants, but he often does his own thing.

 

In this picture I'm reminded of a king in the film Lord of the Rings. Do you remember how there was a king who had an adviser called Wormtongue, who practically had the king under hypnosis? His eyes were glazed over. Of course in Harry Potter the (belly) ego is called Wormtail, so that's an interesting coincidence.

 

In the case of a life-spark entity ( a person without a Lily in their heart) this is the situation that continues till the dissolution of the personality. But a spirit-spark entity has a court that is constantly disturbed by a voice that comes from the heart, as you know. When the Lily is more or less asleep it's the voice of the conscience. So I guess we could say there's an adviser to the king who keeps telling him what is the morally right thing to do.

 

As you know, the Lily is shocked into opening up by two types of suffering:

 

(1) anguish and grief through personal losses, illness, disappointed ambitions, attacks by evil people, etc.,

 

(2) the suffering of the limitations of dialectics. When people pursue talents they eventually realise that there's a limit to their development; a point beyond which they can't develop. That's a very beneficial suffering from the point of view of the Rose.

 

The kingdom has suffered great losses or has suffered in some way, and the king is looking at what he can do. The three ministers are unable to help him. Independent of them, the king, if he listens really carefully, can hear a still, small voice whispering about the meaning of life. The seeker is born.

 

As you know, the seeker begins on the horizontal plane. He listens to his three ministers. He reads books, goes to meetings, etc etc. All the time his three ministers are telling him what it all means. They are part of the dialectical court, and therefore can't know anything about the Divine World.

 

Eventually the king realises that nothing new can be found by listening to his three ministers. They can't hear the small, still voice, and their interpretation is always horizontal. And so he begins to Lift his eyes to the hills from whence his help comes. He realises for the first time that he is not the real king. Regulus dies. Sirius rises up in the microcosmic sky. Harry is born.

 

The king begins to practise self-surrender. He starts listening to the voice of the Rose, which doesn't speak in words, but in peace. When the king does what is right, peace enters him. When he listens to the three ministers, especially Wormtail, conflict enters.

 

In other words, the I-being is not alone in the personality any more. There is a companion: the Other One, the New Soul. This is unconscious, like a foetus, but the more the king listens to it and obeys its silent commands, the more it becomes obvious what it wants.

 

The rest of the story is told in Harry Potter. The reader of Harry Potter is the king, and the Septology describes in astounding detail what the king has to do to hand over the kingdom to the Other One. It describes the death of the three ministers and how the king himself finally dies. At that moment the I-being is gone, and the eternal soul is now king. That fact is not discussed in Harry Potter. As Alice said, externally everything remains the same. The process is an inner change.

 

This is a very abridged idea of the Path and how the I-being fits into it. But I hope it helps your understanding. I also hope others will add to this so we can all benefit from thinking about this life and death issue. It's the most important thing in our lives.

 

Love to all,

Hans