Richard Rose’s Psychology of the Observer The Path to Reality Through the Self

214 Richard Rose’s Psychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self
dispel the cloudy state-of-mind in which we exist and to bring the finite human being closer within
hearing range of the Truth. The clearing through from the top or transpersonal end of the channel is
less willful and involved. This is generally the practice of mindfulness, of residing more and more in
the still, pure observing awareness of all relative experience, until one is established in this as beingness.
This is the reversing of the vector in its highest form: the continued refinement of the definition of the
observer and pulling one’s point-of-reference of attention back along the ray of awareness through
oneself into its ultimate source.
This dual-sided approach to the work should optimally be done concurrently, as this would
double the speed in which the channel will finally be cleared through, although some teachings tend
to stress one aspect more than the other. This strategy is also seen to be necessary when the reality of
duality is recognized and one realizes the ever-present paradox requiring another paradox to resolve
it. When we examine the question: “Who am I?,” we discover there is really not only one, distinct
reference point of selfhood as the answer. When we become sufficiently familiar with the subjective
pole of our mentation (the “I”), we can see that we identify our self simultaneously with both the
human experience of life as well as with the awareness of this person’s life. Jim Burn’s teaching emphasizes
the bottom end of this channel, Jean Klein’s the top end, and Rose’s addresses the entire range of
work. The promise is that when the channel is cleared through from both ends, there is the realization
that there was really only one change ever occurring—the shift in point-of-reference from the
multiple lesser to the anterior-most “I”, and only one, all-encompassing Self remaining.
Sincere, single-minded devotional meditation upon the longing for one’s God (a good, elementary
definition of prayer) may also be considered a form of attending to the top end of the
channel, so long as one is not too exclusively identified with oneself as a devotee (i.e. exoteric religiosity).
Likewise, the practice of passive observation of the mind without stressing the personal effort of
self-correction, proper action, philosophical discernment, psychological insight, etc. (Vipassana, for
example) is working mostly on the top end of the channel. The assumption in both approaches is that
by surrendering one’s individuality to a higher state-of-being (“God”) or residing more in choiceless
awareness (Krishnamurti’s term), the truth of life-as-guru will bring about the required changes in
character and understanding by itself, without one’s willful effort.
There is merit in this notion. However, the Albigen System teaches that while being short of
complete self-definition, it is more honest and reliable to take the in-between path of committed
action, being guided by one’s higher intuition, while taking care to not regard oneself as the “doer.”
This is because the issue of will vs. no-will is all dependent upon the question of identity or point-ofreference:
is one the person meditating—or the awareness/grace being cultivated? Are the changes
due to the “person’s” will or does one just see changes happening as they need to?
Keeping all this in mind, strict devotional or mindfulness meditation could be likened to riding
an escalator up to “Heaven.” Self-inquiry meditation is then like climbing the escalator too while it is
going up. Pure devotion or mindfulness does enable betweenness to work behind the scenes to
change inner factors and make things happen. Self-inquiry experiences this same process of transformation,
but more consciously and deliberately.
This theme relates to the principle of kundalini, or transmutation of energy. As earlier explained,
many methods have been put forth in diverse spiritual teachings to raise this energy to the
apex point in the head. Rose had studied and practiced many of these himself and concluded that the
real key or common denominator in all of them was concentration. It is concentration that redirects
this vital energy back into the self, from its usual waste and dissipation in futile, external obsessions,
and then raises this energy through the different centers of consciousness (he seldom uses the term
“chakras”) up to its rightful seat in the mind.