mandalaofsoul

Chapter OneART OF ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGYI begin with gratitude. This book explores a transformational use of mandalas that I call the MandalaProcess. The Mandala Process developed from over thirty years of teaching students in the ArchetypalPsychology Class at Southwestern College. Over the years, I have come to call this classroom The Studiobecause it is a sacred space for transformation. This book unfolds from the shared heart-space of TheStudio as a gift to the participants and to those who choose now to participate. Life is a sacred processthat I explore here as the Mandala of the Soul.To find truth, we must always begin with ourselves. We are our own compass. When we aresimply present, we can access the mystery of our origins. It is not outside. Deep within, we are the onewe have been searching for. Life has been given to us as experience. Life is an evolving journey throughperception. We are the center and our reality reflects back to us from the circumference. From thiscenter, we have three perspectives that always motivate us. Firstly, we speak, act and choose in waysthat maintain the status quo, that keep life unfolding in orderly and predictable ways. We make life fromour reflection, from the circumference. Secondly, we push past our limitations, strive for excellence,break molds and conventions, and seek the deep alluring transcendental sense of self. We make life bylooking beyond the mirror of the circumference. We may begin by wanting more and eventually want tobe more. In this progression, we awaken to a third nature, one that wants to integrate the external andinternal sources of self. We make life from our center. This has the effect of transforming our sense ofself into one that is centered in the eternal while we have a great time in the finite. Our deepest impulseto fulfill our nature is the beginning and the end of the circle that connects and integrates all of thecircles. Our life is a living mandala.Asleep or awake, we are in a constant movement of creating and resolving experience. We aretravelers in consciousness. Our personality is an artistic media for the journey of our soul. As succinctlystated by the Sufi master Hazray Inyat Kahn, “The personality is the greatest creative endeavor of thesoul.” We seek to know ourselves in all that we do. We build monuments to the great, noble and wise.We worship images of our deities. Celebrity even becomes a religion of its own. We seek outwardly inthis way and do not yet realize the powerful forces within us that drive us. As we grow, we realize thatthe outer greats remind us of our inner greatness. First we strive to solidify our sense of self by externalaccomplishments. At some point we reflect; we experience a call inward. We realize a deeper process inwhich we increasingly base our sense of self on our soul. Fulfillment comes in the internal realizationthat occurs as a response to outer reflection. Kahn’s statement redirects us to a greater self thatdiscovers through creating human identity. The ego is a creation through which we learn, discover,realize and fulfill. In this creative process the ego is a replicate of the archetype of self. I refer to thisarchetype as the cosmic person, primal self, or kadmon. In this context, I see it as the primal selfactualizing through the Mandala of the Soul. Through our creative process, we actualize the cosmicarchetype and in this way realize a deeper urge to know and fulfill our divine nature as love. Love is the4