Two Truths and Language

Language develops in the sphere of conventional consciousness. Generally, verbal communication serves the purpose of taking care of sharing a common view of reality. "Is this the sun?" asks the child. "Yes, this is the sun," replies the father. "Do you love me?" asks the person freshly in love. "More than anything else," is the answer which transforms the own prospect of reality into a shared one. Many of our verbal remarks come from this need for reassurance. They start with an insecurity, and by talking this insecurity either diminishes or grows, depending on how secure or unsecure the addressed person reacts.

"Do you understand me?" asks the grown up and means: "Can I feel safe in the relationship with you?" When the answer comes: "No, not at all," then the insecurity grows and the wish comes up to go on talking till safety is restored.

So language serves also serves as an instrument of the ego to reassure itself about itself, in an effort to reduce its fears. By talking and sharing it wants to create safety. This is why people like to talk so much and so often. For instance, when a few people attend a concert or a movie, everyone is focussed on oneself during the performance. Afterwards, the need for talking arises on how to create the understanding necessary for restoring a shared reality after a time of singular experiences, and thus restore social security. It is as if the storage of safety is used up after some time, so that we have to rebuild and reload it now and them. Our egos need the coordination with the other egos to be able to relax.

Thinking as Inner Talking

Large parts of mental activities are internalized talking. E.g., when I write a text like this, an inner voice talks the sentences prior to writing them down. Each change I want to make is first discussed in an inner discourse. Also here, thinking acts as protection as what I write should make sense for others. When someone told me that my writing is incomprehensible or silly, this creates an insecurity in my ego which I want to prevent by writing as clearly as possible.

It is obvious as well that I become unbalanced when reading a text which I consider as uncomprehensive or silly. By such a labelling I try to create safety again. By asking someone else to share my opinion I can even do more to it.

The sphere of speechlessness

We do not need language in the sphere of ultimate truth. Here, everything is crystal clear and does not need any explanation. We do not have any insecurity of doubts so we are not dependent on reassurement. We even cannot communicate what we experience as it cannot put into words, according to all mystics. To talk about the unspeakable is trying to translate the absolute into the world of the relative. In any, even the best translations from one conventional language to the other, lot of the original meanings get lost.

Yet in this case, even the undertaking of translation is bound to fail from the beginning. For it attempts to transfer nonlingual experience into language. This would mean to press the infinite into the form of the finite. Timelessness should fit into the framework of time.

So as soon as we are talking about the states of experiencing the absolute, we are already back in the world of conventional consciousness. Here, some share our understanding, some don't. Some affirm our view, others devaluate us. The more we talk the more we get entangled in the complex pitfalls of the conventional world, which are sodden with fears and mistrust.

The  problem of esoteric

Mysticism lives in a communicative nowhere land due to the difficulties and misunderstandings connected with expressing mystical experience with the means of language. This is why mystics in all societies got into problems as soon as language became a media of accusation and justification in the course of history. To share experiences which question the conventional consensus and to state additionally that these highest insights are only available in a certain framework of experience, has been a scandal which caused prosecution and severe punishment. As a consequence, many teachers passed their wisdom only to inaugurated students which again fed the distrust of the outsiders.

The mystic would say, "When you want to understand what I mean you have to enter the same realm of experience in which I am." This realm is not easily accessible of anybody, so it is "esoteric" which means only open for insiders. Yet anybody can become an insider and it is not necessary to become part of a school, cult or secret society. Still, everyone enters this realm by his/her unique entrance.

The critic of esoteric might demand: "So tell me, what there is inside." The mystic might answer, "I cannot express it in words." This will cause the critic to frown and say, "What a nonsense. Everything can be expressed in words. How should I or anyone else otherwise understand what this is all about?" The mystic will reply, "You can find this truth only inside yourself. By closing your eyes and exploring inside yourself it will become apparent to you." When the critic follows the suggestion he will probably become a meditator, when he refrains from it he will stick to his skepticism and talk disapprovingly about the mystic and about mysticism.

This is the border between the rational and the transrational area, the border between the conventions and the ultimate. For crossing it, the conventions of language have to be left behind as well, including the ideas of general validity based on them. Spiritual insights gain their validity in the sphere of introspection and who knows this world can easily communicate with someone who is familiar with it without any need of conventional language. Those who do not know it will not have any use for verbal descriptions similar to explaining colours to a blind person.

The differing accesses

Some people need a teacher or guide, others find themselves suddenly and spontaneously in the sphere of the absolute. Some stick to a certain method for a longer period of time, others change from one practice to the next. Some collect the insights into the infinite like pieces of a puzzle, to others a gigantic door opens up at once. Some of the experiences are singular and fleeing, others return in a similar form, some stay permanently, others can be recalled by will.

Some reach the sphere of the absolute via language. They hear words or read texts which send them on the journey. But as soon as they have found a place where they know that they have arrived, they realize that they do not need language any more for being able to stay in this place, and that they do neither need language to return to it. So silence which is also the freedom from words, becomes a steady companion. Slowly and persistently, the power of silence becomes stronger than the talkativeness of the conventional world.

Some of the saints like to talk and like to talk a lot. They want others to take part in their experiences true to the quote: "For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luc 6, 45)
Some of the listeners are taken away by such speeches as the words are soaked in a spirit which lets them make out what is meant. It is the clarity and power of the speech and not the words which convey the good message. They are permeated by a sense of not-wanting which comes from inner freedom.

There are ears used to only hearing what they expect and to reject anything challenging the habits of listening. They will have difficulties in being touched by the talk of a saint. They will perceive power instead of surrender, craving for approval instead of love and stubbornness instead of freedom. The tenser the ego is, the tenser its range of receptivity (chronical stress stiffens the muscles which move the auditory ossicles, thus limiting the ability to hear certain frequencies). The fearful ego only hears what it wants to hear, which is mainly itself with its anxieties and cravings. When hearing has been opened and expanded, it becomes easier to hear the frequencies of the final truth and to resonate with it.

Listening consciously to music (not just allowing it as a kind of background noise or just listening to one's favorite hits repetitiously) changes habits of hearing. So this can serve as a good preparation exercise for leaving the areas of convention behind and gaining a taste of the absolute. This is why many musicians feel close to the absolute.

There are mystics who do not talk at all or just converse about trivialities of daily life. They are only present with those who want to be together with them in silence. And there are others who only look deeply into the eyes of people and embrace them.

These are some of the possibilities of hinting at the great mystery, which beyond conventional talk awaits everyone who want to open up to it.

"These words are for someone who needs words to understand. But someone who understands without words - how would he need words? ... Someone who hears a low tone, how would he need talking and screaming?" (Rumi)

Two Truths

 “The conventional and the ultimate these are accepted as the two truths. Reality is beyond the sphere of the intellect; intellect is called 'concealing'.”
“Relative and absolute - These the two truths are declared to be. The absolute is not within the reach of intellect, for intellect is grounded in the relative.”

(Santideva, Bodhicharyavatara 9.2 – in two translations)

Shantideva

This classical text from the Mahayana-Buddhism written in the 8th century reminds us of an important distinction which most likely has been encountering us on our inner search and by dealing with its resistances since its beginning. This distinction will be used for a series of articles on this blogsite using it for different issues related to spiritual serach.

Conventional and final truth point are two ways which we as citizens of this planet have to go through in one form or another and more or less always simultaneously. The ultimate truth is also the original truth. It is like the amniotic fluid which has been surrounding us from the beginning onwards. We take everything it offers us for granted and as straightforward. As soon as we are born, our parents tell us this and that, and we trust them blindly. Thus, our conventional thinking is formed, our criterion for right and wrong. When we believe what brain researchers say it guides 95% of our behaviour, of our decisions and thoughts.

Conventional truth can be accessed by our outer senses as it says in the Buddhist scriptures. It derives its contents from objects and processes we perceive, like the sun and the moon, the clapping of hands, the smell of peppermint. It trusts in anything which is presented by the outer senses.

It acts like the doubting Thomas in the New Testament: “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” Conventional truth needs proof from the visual and haptic reality, otherwise it remains skeptical. It is only the outer perception which guarantees safety. All which comes from inside fosters doubt and could always be different. With thinking, it has an instrument at hands which is always able to negate by creating the opposite to everything which exists, and can even negate its negation and so one into infinity.

The Absolute

The final truth we experience by directing the feeling to the inside. This sense is part of us from the beginning of our existence. It connects us with the organismic flow which is the basics of our lives. The experience of this flow of life provides us with the genuine experience of final truth.

Later in our lives, when we are filled up to the top with conventional truths, we are only able to experience the final truth in specific moments in which we feel totally connected to life. This can happen by simply being in nature, by meditating and very often, when a deep going inner process of healing could resolve fears which were in the way of entering this level of experience.

The ultimate truth is simple, clear and convincing in itself. It does not need a proof, it simply is there. We feel connected with all, we are in the moment, time and space is not important. We do not have questions or doubts, the mind is very calm and the head is empty.

We can experience this sphere of the absolute in different nuances, and probably every individual has his/her own entrance to this realm. Apart from that, it seems that there are many different categories of experiencing the final truth. This is why we can name different peak states as opposed to "one" state of enlightenment as assumed by some teachers. The absolute can meet us as overwhelming experience of nature, as opening of the heart, as shower of light or deep inner silence and in many more other forms. All these experiences have a boundless feeling of inner freedom in common.

They also have in common that they are bodily experiences. Even though our body may feel different compared to the usual self perception - probably hollow, weightless, flooded by light or transparent, we still have a conventional consciousness about it at the same time, which becomes obvious when we for instance visit the toilet in such states of consciousness. This criterion forms an important distinction to dissociative states which we experience in a situation of traumatization. According to the necessities of the situation, we can switch from a state of absolute truth to a process of relative truth without being exposed to shock, aggressive feelings or disorganization.

The art of switching between the levels of truth

As much freedom we can gain, as much freedom is given to us – we are not spared of having to cope with the realms of the relative truth and make our living there. We live in our three dimensional and timely bodies with its processes, diseases and weaknesses. We live with our mixed feelings and changing moods. We live in this society with its people and structures. For all these areas, genuine strategies, genuine knowledge and multiple skills are needed which we can derive from the conventional truths.

The more we dive into the realms of the absolute truth, and the more we have learned of the art of switching from one level to the other, the more of the higher realm of the sphere of inner freedom will flow into the realm of the relative. We become more equanimous towards the challenges of daily life, we get less and less entangled in fears and worries and find easier to the hearts of other people.

Prenatal Traumas and the Healing Power of the Breath

We took our first real and independent breath immediately after birth. When working with conscious breathing – why should then issues coming up which have to do with prenatal experiences in which breathing did not even exist? The second question I want to discuss in this article is how conscious breathing can help with healing these early wounds.
When working with clients, I notice how many problems and distortions stem from traumatization dating back to the time before birth. We can imagine traumatizations like chains. When we had a situation of shock similar situations later on bring up this shock, not in all details but with the same patterns of sensations and feelings. This is what we call retraumatization. After the original traumatic experience, by repeating the experience in similar form retraumatization after retraumatization is lined up on a trauma chain. 

The last link of the chain is an actual experience in which we notice unpleasant symptoms or feelings which do not seem appropriate to the present situation. We get enormously angry at something which later on would seem like mere nothing. We get a diffuse fear and do not know why. We react defensively towards someone without any reason on the outside.
When we find back to the first and original experience of the trauma along this chain, and only when we find back to this event and not to a later retraumatization, we can experience a deep going healing which will help to dissolve the reoccurring symptoms and feelings. This is why we often have to go back to the prenatal phase of our lives when we want to cope with a problem at its root.

In the prenatal phase of our development, there are especially many crucial events. An organism which has very little inner organization and strength is highly vulnerable in any difficult situation. Survival is permanently at risk and there are only a few simple strategies to cope with such threats. The well-known fight-flight response as a reactive pattern of the sympathetic nervous system requires an organism which is able to act independently and free in time and space. In case of threatened survival, the embryo cannot run or fight, it can only withdraw by contracting every part which can contract and by switching to emergency programs with a minimum supply of energy (“primal withdrawal”). We will later discuss how this reactive pattern can or should be treated in breathwork.

In addition to that, the embryo as tiny and rather instable being reacts especially sensitive to the different disturbing influences from inside and from outside. “Peanuts” in the view of the grownups like a collapse of the mother or a fight with the father can be experienced as catastrophes by the tiny embryo.

The Theory of Cellular Memory

In the therapeutic work, the breath is always an important support and this can happen in two ways. In our clinical experiences, we can often observe that conscious breathing leads to remembering events dating far back beyond birth. Obviously, during intensified breathing the cellular memory is opened up. It releases recalls from the earliest stages of our development. So we can access memories which are not (or not mainly) saved and coded in the cortex. We know from brain research that a large part of our memory and especially the conditionings of fear are stored in the areas of our brain which are not accessibly by consciousness.

These forms of storage seem to correspond with the cellular memory. We can assume that even single cell organisms must have the capacity to safe memories in order to be able to survive. So we can imagine that for instance the egg cell right after conception has passed on its memory database to all the following cells which develop in the subsequent cell divisions. So all cells of the organism will dispose of this information when the organism develops and expands. 

Probably, the transmission of information works selectively so that not every new cell contains the information in the same strength and calibration. This would explain why certain experiences of fears from the prenatal phase can be felt in certain areas of the grown up body (as contraction, pressure, tension etc.) while other parts are free from these sensations. 

Scientific research in the area of epigenetics has shown how the mechanisms of cellular memory work. It has already shed light on the proceedings of storing and transmitting information on the cellular level. This fascinating area of biological research gains more and more public attention and gives a strong support for considering many diseases and psychological disorders as caused by early, prenatal and even transgenerational traumatization. Basically, it shows that we are only weakly determined by our genes but that the circumstances in which we started our lives and grew up determine our fate to a high degree.

The Evocative Function of Breathing

How does engaging in conscious breathing open up the cellular memory? It could be that the specific ability to remember and the accessibility of the cellular memory we can experience during a breathing process have to do with the deepened state of relaxation. When turning inside by giving the full attention to the breathing, a trance like state is entered. By abandoning the linear logical thought process, the associative abilities of our brain become more active and deliver memories connected with emotions, especially with fear. 

Another possible explanation is that memories come up as a consequence of the metabolic changes in the body as they happen due to the intensifying of the breathing. As we accompany these processes with our awareness, different systems of storage could start to cooperate. Thus, complexes of sensations which can be felt as rather amorphous and ambiguous on the physical level, could reveal their contents which is linked to an early trauma. This meaningful content sometimes comes in form of images, sometimes of felt ideas or any other form of intuitive knowledge.

Another explanation relates to the scientifically proven fact that stress the mother has to deal with during pregnancy can reduce the oxygen supply for the embryo. This will cause anxiety and stress in the unborn child. The attention directed towards the breathing in a session can bring up the memory about the lack of oxygen in dramatic situations of the prenatal phase. For breathing is the successor of the umbilical cord as oxygen supplier.

Here we are on the ground of assumptions rather than secure knowledge as these connections have not yet found a comprehensive theoretical explanation as far as I know. Maybe all these and/or other circumstances we do not yet know work together to allow the often stunningly deep insights we encounter during conscious breathing processes.

The Metaphorical Function of Breathing

This is the evocative side we can see as support by the breath to climb to the depths of our souls. Yet conscious breathing does not just serve for awakening of memories but also for integrating the issues which arise from layers of our lives far beyond conscious remembrance.

For this we use the metaphorical power of breathing. Breathing is the metabolic process closest to us as it is permanently active on and can be observed consciously at any time. By experiencing our breathing we experience the self-organization of our bodies, or, as seen from another perspective, the flow of life itself which develops its healing power throughout ourselves. We experience that we are alive and that it is this power of life which keeps us alive.

When we have to deal with unpleasant and burdening experiences in our lives it always helps to become aware of the breath which reminds us of life moving on, as terrible the present situation might be. We realize that there is a life force which moves on while we are entangled in some drama. This power drives us whether we are aware of it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. It is with us when we enter the drama, and it is with us when we find a way out of it. The breath is always flowing with all these motions of the waves of life. So breathing can become a carrier with the symbolic power for life itself which is stronger than our consciousness and mightier as the control we like to exercise upon our lives.

Trust in life does not mean anything else than acknowledging that it is this power which carries our lives and which leads us on despite all the turbulences and distortions which cause our suffering. As the Arabic saying goes: “The dog is barking and the caravan moves on.” All the terrible and dreadful experiences have their place in this process. They are part of the caravan although it cannot be stopped by them. The moving caravan is the symbol for the flow of life power, which is portrayed in the self-realization of the organism we can perceive in our breathing at any moment.

The Symbolic Healing Power of Breathing

By taking this symbolic power of breathing with us when healing prenatal traumas, we can use it to reconnect to trusting life while the client is feeling despair, hopelessness, emptiness, and pain. “Feel with your breathing how the power of life carries you, with all these feelings which are there now.” By this, the facilitator can remind of the power of the flow of life which offers trust, until eventually the fearful and burdening feelings have resided and given way for a deepened trust, connected with inner safety.

When working with a lost twin, the breath is an indispensable help. At some point of the inner work, the client reaches back to the moment when this first companion in life died and vanished. Here he will experience very intense and deep feelings of pain and despair which seemingly come to no end. The feeling of loss and incomprehension can be immensely huge. 

The facilitator will encourage to accept all the feelings as terrible as they might be, and at the same time to feel the flow of the breath which guides trough this experience, as the constant and reliable power of life. At some point in time, the experiencer realizes that it is this life power which allocates the fate, may it be the gravest of all. For one twin it means an all too early leave, for the other a life to an end much later on. By accepting this major power which distributes fates without any influence from our side, it becomes easier to let go of guilt feelings which are often connected with going on in life in the face of a close companion dying. 

Trust in life is restored, deepened and enriched by a new dimension which indicates that life is a permanent process of giving and receiving, giving and receiving from individual life and from chances in life. As in any breath: Giving from one’s own and receiving the other, as a steady ongoing process which embraces and transcends every single life.

Primal withdrawal in breathwork

As long as strong emotions like anger expressed by kicking and screaming or sadness expressed by intense crying prevail during a breathwork session, the client deals with issues from perinatal or postnatal experiences. Intense breathing which comes with these strong emotions indicates that events from the childhood are processed. Withheld emotional energy which had to be suppressed rises to the surface and seeks its physical expression.
Minimising the breathing by contracting the breathing muscles is a sign for primal withdrawal and for re-experiencing prenatal traumatization. In case the facilitator motivates the breather in such a situation to intensify the breathing, the prenatal trauma cannot be accessed. The energy will move away from the early event and stuff from later experiences of retraumatization can come up. The breather can feel relieved but the symptoms related to the prenatal trauma will come back. Methods of breathwork focused on intense breathing alone thus cannot access or heal prenatal traumas characterized by primal withdrawal. Even worse, such approaches can reinforce the inner protection mechanisms against re-experiencing the trauma contents.

Instead, the facilitator should accept the shallow breathing pattern and carefully help the client to feel the contractions in all detail and allow the withdrawal come fully into the present moment. It is also useful to let the body of the breather go into the posture of withdrawal. By breathing gently into the tensions and by suggesting feeling the breathing as a source of trust and of the ongoing energy of life, the contractions can slowly resolve. Sometimes the client gets images, feelings or even words which indicate the event that has come up. Following this information, the therapist can deepen the healing experience. Often, it is helpful to explain the context of the prenatal experience after the breathing process so the client is able to integrate the outcomes of the session. Cognitive understanding of what has happened in the session as well in one’s own history is valuable for a sustainable integration which also needs the consent of the mind.

Recommended reading:
Arthur Janov, Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives. Nti Upstream 2011

Cathartic Breathing and its Limitations

Some schools in breathwork focus on creating intense emotional experiences as a way of healing. This article looks at the value and the limitations of this approach.

Why does intense breathing cause intense feelings? 

One explanation for the dramatic results that can often be achieved through intensive breathing can be found in the fear centre of our brain: the amygdale. This small organ with the size of an almond seed situated deep down in our brain is developed in the third month of pregnancy and works as an accurate storage of all events, which have caused fear and emotional overwhelm throughout our lives. It works totally unconsciously and has no reference to time. This means that the amygdale stores the memory of a barking dog, which I perceived as dangerous at the age of one without taking a note about the time. So the same fear with the same intensity as I had experienced it in early childhood is produced when meeting a barking dog in an adult age. 

The task of the amygdale is to react within very short time to sensory data coming from outside, which indicate a dangerous situation. This is why the connection from the ears to the amygdale is extremely short: a signal that is coming in from the ears needs to jump over only three synapses to reach the alarm centre in the brain, and these three jumps do not need more than eight milliseconds. 

After that, the amygdale is able to set off the complex stress reaction immediately by activating other brain centres, mainly the hypothalamus. Thus an overall change in the whole body including intense breathing is triggered and all the body’s resources for fight or flight are mobilized so we can face challenges in an effective way.

Intense Breathing and Fear

In a Breathwork session, we usually start with relaxing the body. It is important for the client to let go of obvious muscular tensions, so that the breath can start to flow easier and deeper as usual. Then the breathing can be intensified by will and encouragement up to a point, where the amygdale is reminded of danger in which this form of breathing had appeared spontaneously in any former time of the history of the person. So the amygdale starts the stress reaction in the body similar to a past traumatic experience. The client experiences strange body sensations, bizarre movements and intense feelings of fear, anger or sadness up to the point of cathartic release.

The amygdale also connects to the other memory storages in the upper regions of our brain, the cortex. The connection is mediated by the hippocampus, which is our unconscious organizer for conscious memories. In this way, sensual memories from the past are activated and can be experienced as images, sounds or body sensations which come along with the intense feelings created by the amygdale. Past situations of traumatizing power arise, can be faced consciously until we are ready to integrate them.

We can understand the fact that memories come up often far beyond the range of our conscious memory storage, because the memory capacity of the amygdale reaches back to the early times of pregnancy. The visual impressions that come with it may not always be accurate, as they are formed by the associative cortex under the governance of the hippocampus. Their production does not follow a strict rule and principle. Yet it can provide a lot of relevant details. Our brain does not work like a historical scientist who clearly separates facts and fiction but more like a poet who creates images with complex meanings. (This is the place where the false memory syndrome comes in.)

The memories from the fear storage are provided in a different format, which is simple and accurate. This information is far from being complete or objective. It is like a database with very few parameters and it focuses on detecting dangerous signals in the environment quickly and precisely. When I got hit by a red car years ago, the same colour in a tiny spot in my vision can trigger the original panic reaction.

Just bringing up the fearful information would not help to heal them. On the contrary, it would intensify and strengthen them in the sense of retraumatisation. But the relaxed state, in which the body receives the traumatic memories, and the safety, which is provided by the therapist, help to integrate the memory. Integration means that the fear which is stored in the amygdale is strongly linked to a time frame from the higher regions of the brain so that we are able to allocated the fear far back in the past and to experience the present as safe and trustworthy.

Here, another important centre of the brain comes into play, the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This is our agent for reality check and responsibility. It matures during adolescence. The PFC is able to quiet our fearful amygdale when we bring old memories to consciousness. It says, that old experience was very frightening for us, but now we are grown up and we are no more in danger. (This is called a top-down-control.) But the PFC needs calm circumstances, because when anxiety prevails, its reasoning is set aside by the alarm centres.

One client of mine came to a breathwork session because she felt highly disturbed after a breathing session in a group where the person who was assisting her, became unsafe during the process and could not give her the support she would have needed to integrate the emotions that came up. So she needed careful attention and relaxed breathing to work through and integrate this disturbing experience.

When the right circumstances are provided, the client experiences the intensity of the emotion and feels safe enough to face it and to cope with it. She stays consciously focussed on the breathing, so she cannot be totally overwhelmed by the emotion as in the traumatic situation of the past. The therapist is present and aware of the needs of the client, encourages the client to experience the feelings and to stay aware of the breathing. He serves as a grounding anchor and a connection bridge to present reality. 

In case that daily life provides another situation, which could trigger the pattern of fear which came up in the session, it is much less likely that the fear will arise as intense as before and after some time, it will happen that the person can stay calm and does not even think of being afraid.

Limitations of Catharsis

Cathartic breathing has some limitations we should be aware of when using it as a therapeutic method. One limit is that strong emotions from past trauma can arise too quickly for the organism to integrate them. This brings the danger of overstretching and damaging a fragile ego structure and cause severe desintegration and decompensation resulting in psychosis. So persons with a fragile personality structure and a weak social background should not be guided into intense breathing sessions. They have to become acquainted with their body and their breath in the first place. When they have learned to feel grounded in their bodies and to relax with their outbreath, then they can slowly be lead to towards increasing the volume of the inhalation.

The other limitation can be found in the learning abilities of the amygdale. We know about the mechanism of extinction from classical conditioning as researched by Iwan Pawlow a hundred years ago. For a person who is exposed to frightening signals over a period of time without anything dangerous happening, the signal loses its scaring character. When we hear a car alarm going off every two minutes, we stop to listen to it. 

Similarly, after some experiences with intense breathing, the amygdale stops to get anxious when the breathing rhythm intensifies and the pauses of relaxation are omitted. It has learned with the help of the prefrontal cortex, that there is no real danger in the situation. So the client has learned to integrate her fears to a certain degree and has strengthened the top-down control to tame the lower emotional centre to fire off unnecessarily all the time. 

We observe that most clients who come to breathwork sessions on a regular basis, reach a level where they can breathe strongly and intensely in a connected rhythm without producing intense emotional responses or outbreaks. Their system gets adjusted to the “strange” breathing pattern. This does not mean that all their traumas are healed, but that their body including their brain has managed to cope with the intensified breathing pattern and is ready to move on from that level. 

At this point, the method of cathartic breathing has reached its purpose and needs to be changed. Working with relaxing the breathing combined with a full volume can provide deeper levels of healing. Still, not all issues and causes of suffering can be eliminated by conscious breathing. We need complementary approaches to access these ailments. This can be emotional level breathing, systemic breathing, interactive breathing or any other approach in complementary breathwork, which opens the door to the different levels of our soul other than by cathartic breathing.

The drama-resolution-cycle

Some therapists and some clients become disappointed at the point when cathartic breathing fails to produce remarkable and sensational results. 

As we know from wave theories, even the strongest waves cool down and disappear after some time. When the client and the therapist associate therapeutic success with high waves, they think after a smooth and quiet session, that something essential is missing. When dramatic breakthroughs are considered as the core of therapy. intensity as such is the marker for success, and the lack of intensity the sign of failure. 

The therapist will transfer his concept to the client whether it is shared verbally or not. Both, therapist and client become addicted to a drama-resolution-cycle: a drama is needed to obtain freedom so dramas have to be created to gain the benefit from the feeling of resolution. This is like seeking the experience that we never feel as good as after recovering from a severe disease. But it would not be considered as normal to acquire intense illnesses for the sake of the nice feeling after recovery.

If the therapist feels stressed for delivering dramatic results, she will look for new means of producing such. There are several tools to provide a high level of excitement and dramatic tension, mainly with interventions on the physical level. Applying pressure on certain points of the body will inevitably produce strong emotional reactions.  

Some breathworkers claim that more breathing is better breathing. So they motivate their clients for intense breathing and assume automatically that less intense breathing indicates psychological resistance. More breathing is equated with more life energy and this is stated like a dogma. 

But those therapists do not consider that the level of energy which the body can take from our breathing metabolism does not depend on the quantity of air taken in but on the ability of the body to take in the oxygen. Simple measurements can show that strong and rapid breathing takes more energy from the body as it adds to it.

So the question is whether any further healing can happen under such manipulative and ideological circumstances. Healing cannot be measured by the quantity of dopamine in the brain, which is likely to be high at the end of a cathartic session. Becoming addicted to emotional arousal is bound to create more suffering and to deepen neurotic patterns. When therapy turns into a sportive exercise, it would be better to tell the client to do an hour of running instead of the session which would probably give him the same or even a healthier result.

Good breathing is relaxed breathing

In many cases of therapy, catharsis is useful to open up the blocks, which are in the way of gaining more relaxation. So it is an episode on the way. Learning to intensify the breathing is needed and can be used up to a certain point, which is different for each person. When this point is missed, the deepening of relaxation is blocked and the craving for tension becomes an addictive pattern.

Therapy should result in weakening and dissolving patterns of dysfunctional behaviour, in reducing underlying fears and in enlarging the areas for relaxation in daily life. A healthy life can have its intense aspects and times but they should not arise from stress, fear or craving but should be associated with joy and pleasure, as the playful side of relaxation.

A good breathing pattern is a sign of a healed body-mind-system. In my view a good breathing pattern can be measured by the amount of relaxation in the breathing muscles and not by the quantity of air flowing in and out. A relaxed breathing rhythm is flexible and can adjust to different situations, calming down to slow breathing when the circumstances are pleasant and free of challenge, and speeding up when things need to be done. It provides the minimum of breathing activity which is needed to fulfil the actual demands of reality.

The Pre-Trans-Fallacy

With this concept, Ken Wilber has formulated an important tool for differentiation. When we build up a stage model for the evolution of consciousness, it can be arranged roughly in three phases:
Prerational – rational – transrational, or: prepersonal – personal – transpersonal, or: promodern – modern – postmodern.

•    Prerational means that experience is mainly directed by images, emotions and fantasies.
•    In the rational phase, logical and symbolic thinking together with verbal language takes over the dominance in conceiving and interpreting the world.
•    The transrational realm, experiential elements like intuition, spirituality and mystics join in.


In my model of the evolution of consciousness (which will be published as English e-book by the end of the year), the prerational level is strongly developed in tribal consciousness. The rational level can be found in the center of the fourth, the materialistic stage, exactly in the middle of the seven steps. The transrational level is fully developed on the seventh, the holistic stage.

A pre-trans-fallacy happens when either a prerational experience is taken as transrational or a transrational experience is taken as a prerational one. This misinterpretation can happen in two ways: internally or externally. Subjectively I can mix up an experience, when I am for instance in a regressive state but when I believe to have experienced a supreme spiritual opening. An intersubjective mix up happens when a psychiatrist declares someone with an intense spiritual experience as lunatic or when a psychoanalyst diagnoses this state as a childish fantasy of oneness.

In therapy

When working with sensitive and early traumatized persons, we often encounter such fallacies. Either clients report special experiences which are bizarre for the mainstream reality or they find such experiences during an inner travel or in deep relaxation in a therapy session. It is important to attribute these experiences in the right way in order to avoid the fixation of distortions. Issues which come from the prerational level have to be worked through and resolved in therapy, because otherwise they stabilize unwanted symptoms.

When these issues belong to the transrational level, they can serve as resource. Additionally it has to be taken into account that there can be a mix of aspects in one set of experiences so that one aspect has to be treated therapeutically and the can be used in a transrational way. Find an example further on in this text.

Similarities and differences of „pre“ and „trans“

Such confusion can arise also due to the fact that there are similarities between the two realms. The prerational as well as the transrational area is structured visually rather than verbally and directed by the right brain hemisphere. In the first years of life, this halve of the brain dominates, and in states of expanded consciousness we also can notice a strong activity in this part of the brain which processes information mainly as images. This visual content is representing objects on the pre-level, while it appears more complex and abstract on the trans-level. While the former does not use logics but is strongly influenced by emotions, the latter is based on non-linear logics and systemic thinking and perception.

A further distinctive feature for the subjective experience of these diverging states: transpersonal experiences are free of suffering and anxiety. They feel like expansion. Spiritual longing as an example, the intense wish for inner freedom, contains a confusion when it is experienced painfully: There is something I need, and I am missing it. This is a childish wish which covers a frustration from childhood. When this longing just expresses the urge for enlargement, it can be attributed to the transpersonal area. So, as long as neediness is contained in an experience, it indicates a disappointment from early childhood dressed up as spiritual revelation. In case of traumatization, the mechanism of dissociation provides for the access to realms of experience which resemble those of mystics in many aspects but are just symbolizing a dissociative detachment from reality.

Further characteristics of the transpersonal realm: It is free of ego (not selfish and self-fixated). It is empathic, free of fear and growth oriented. From this state, it is easy to switch to the rational level when necessary. So a transrational experience can be left without greater difficulties.

It is possible to describe such an experience in detail without dogmatization and missionary pressure. Inner and outer perceptions are clearly differentiated and not mixed up like in psychotic states. The person can communicate explicitly which part of the experience is internal and which is external.

In such a state, people interact with positive regard and tolerance. They have a sense of responsibility for themselves and for others. There is trust to other people as well as the confidence to accept help when problems about categorizing the experiences arise.

In history, it happened a lot of times that transpersonal mystics were fought and prosecuted by the organized religions which are basically rooted in a prerational perception of reality. Examples are St. Francis, Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross who had to face resistance to their mystical insights and were banned from teaching. Others like the visionary Giordano Bruno were treated even more cruelly and ended their lives on the stake.

Superstition and fortune telling

On the other hand, superstition which is based on the prerational perception of reality has often been offered and sold as transpersonal wisdom. In this context, we can define esotericism as an either planned or unconscious pre-trans-fallacy. Typically, tribal practices are propagated as redeemer for problems of the modern world. As long as these methods cause no harm and no cheating, it is not condemnable to use them. The problems of our inner and outer experiences and its numerous connections are often so complex that we desperately search for help wherever we can find it when we cannot move on with the means of the rational and scientific world. There are archaic practices which have been around since the stone ages but we should not overestimate them even when they are popped up in a modern fashion. They as well cannot offer the all healing powers, but work in one case and fail in another.

The abduction of romanticism consists in glorifying the past. What has happened earlier in history is automatically better because what we have now is bad. We overlook in this view that the glorification of the past is basically a glorification of our childhood which we use as a cover for the wounds and fears of this time in our lives. We transfer the image of a sound childhood onto history. Thus we build up a great expectation that the wisdom of tribal societies could solve the problems in the far more complex actual world. For sure, we need this wisdom as well as all the other forms of wisdom from all traditions and ages but none of them offers the one and only true method.

And in all cases which use the poking of fears (by so called “fortune”-tellers), which sell useless charlatanry and cheat and betray people by wrong assurances, so in all cases in which prerational hopes are evoked manipulatively with the means of rational calculation, civil society as well as jurisdiction has to become active with adequate sanctions. The best immunization against the seductions into the prerational realm consists in considering and realizing our issues from childhood, the fears and unfulfilled longings. Then we are no longer prone to mix up what belongs to our childhood and what offers the paths to the future of our inner development.

The sceptics

Between the pres and the trans, there is an ample space for the sceptics. They mistrust both sides and easily fall for the same fallacy. In case they do not have any experiences on the transpersonal level, they judge every spiritual insight as a breakthrough of prerational rubbish. In their view, anything which cannot be presented rationally is primitive and useless for modern society. Thus, sceptics tend to a certain kind of arrogance: We know what is true and sound and everything outside this area can just be differentiated in the degree of naivety or stupidity. 

E.g., they see the integral philosopher Ken Wilber as esoteric and mystic. According to the definition formulated above, he cannot be both, only if he is accused of a permanent mix of pre and trans which also sounds quite absurd. It is likely that a purely rational view cannot note a difference between alchemy and spirituality, as both elude a fierce academic and scientific test. In their attitude, the sceptical fanatics resemble the persecutors of witches at the end of medieval times who wanted to eradicate any form of irrationality and targeted especially on premodern healers and midwives. The accusation of sorcery contained a fear of special, that is transpersonal powers which yet, as being attributed to the devil could only come from a prerational sphere. 

Lines of conflict

The example of the persecution of witches indicates that especially at the turn from one step of the evolution of consciousness to the next, problems of identity can arise which often cause the eruption of violence. In any case, at such points of transition (fulcrums according to Ken Wilber) typical conflicts come up. Historically, this was the time when the medieval world which was governed by prerational belief systems was replaced by the modern scientific model. In other regions of the world, e.g. in the Islamic or Hinduistic areas, these conflicts still rampage. The Western world though, comes to the exit of the materialistic stage of consciousness which is closely connected to the rational scientific world view and faces a similar potential of conflict yet hopefully with sufficient different means of conflict resolution.

Internally or psychologically, cultural changes resemble identity conflicts as they occur for instance in the school-age up to puberty in the transition period from a prerational to a rational stage. Also on the threshold to a spiritual opening, questions about one’s own identity can arise. In those phases, the orientation swings between the wish for an old and well-known safety and the urge to a new but insecure freedom.

Depending on how these phases were experienced, fixations can happen. Someone who has encountered a lot of problems and emotional difficulties during the prerational phase can find stability and safety in rationality. From the attachment research we know that such fixations can happen very early. In such a case, the whole sphere of prerationality is seen as a threat which has to be fought off with all cognitive means. The transrational spheres get depreciated, as with a lack of experience, their similarities to the prerational patterns are noticeable and activate the same scenario of menace. In these cases we also confuse a stable I with a finished or an armored I.

When someone who has shut off his/her painful past deeply inside but proceeds from the level of rationality to transpersonality by attending meditations courses or following other spiritual methods, or by experiencing deep revelations during a breathwork session, then there is a danger to intellectualize the experiences in this area while the unresolved emotional problems still linger in the unconsciousness. Then we have the type of a passionate meditator who just finds silence and relaxation in meditation while in daily social life personality deficits come up which he/she can suppress with the help of wisdom and depth gained in meditation. Ken Wilber says in an interview: “A deranged emotional life cannot be healed by Zen the same as it cannot heal a broken bone.”

Another conflict happens when someone has a transpersonal experience but cannot integrate it as either a prepersonal traumatization is activated along with it or because society pathologizes the experience and labels it as psychotic or schizotypic. 

Spiritual crisis

On the way to inner expansion, concussion and crisis can happen as the existing safety structures of the psyche which are based on fixated patterns and neurosis get weakened and the new structures are not yet established. So symptoms can come up which resemble psychotic states and can easily be mixed up with them. In this context, Stanislav Grof has coined the expression of spiritual crisis and has formed a Spiritual Emergency Network, so that people who go through such a crisis can receive competent help and do not have to be hospitalized in mental institutions.

At the turning points of the inner development, old emotional patterns can be reactivated while new perspectives open up. This leads to a strong sense of insecurity and confusion. On the other hand, these phases offer a good chance to work up the prerational issues therapeutically. For the spiritual opening provides for new resources to support the emotional work.

Look-out

The power inherent in the evolution of consciousness motivates to transcend the limitations of the rational ego. We want to proceed in our growth and set ourselves free from the constrictions we have adopted during our history. We do not search for inner freedom because we are driven by childish wishful thinking for a paradise, but because we want to find our inner being. We have a vague idea of it which does not leave us alone until we have found our home in the huge whole. We can master the challenges of this transcendence only when our ego is stable enough. Otherwise, we will get thrown back to our prepersonal issues with every step in the new direction. We only can let go of a stable and strong ego.


 

Overview: Pre-Trans-Fallacies

Short form	Short description	Examples
Pre ⇒ Trans	Prerational experiences are mistaken for transpersonal experiences.	Esoterics, romanticism, refusal of intellectuality and rationality
Trans ⇒ Pre	Transrational experiences are mistaken for prepersonal experiences.	Science, psychoanalysis, atheism, overestimation of intellectuality and rationality

Short form	Subjective perspective	Intersubjective perspective
Pre ⇒ Trans	A regressive or dissociative experience is experienced as spiritual.	The experience gets naively overestimated by worshipping the person.
Trans ⇒ Pre	A spiritual experience is experienced as distorting and irritating (cf. spiritual crisis).	The experience gets pathologized, the person is declared as insane.

Short form	Subjective symptoms	Objective attributes
Pre ⇒ Trans	Suffering from a transpersonal experience, anxiety	Inauthenticity, discrepancy between talk and action
Trans ⇒ Pre	Distortion, experience cannot be integrated, cannot find its proper place in the inner world.	Intact ego, insecurity in terms of spirituality, difficulties in conceptualizing

Short form	Therapeutical mistake	Adequate therapeutical consequence
Pre ⇒ Trans	The traumatic part (the dissociation) of the experience is overlooked. Positive counter transference	The traumatic part of the experience is treated in therapy.
Trans ⇒ Pre	A traumatic aspect (a dissociation) is projected onto the experience. Negative counter transference	The experience is used as resource.

References:
Grof, S. & Grof, C.: Spiritual emergency: When personal transformation becomes a crisis. (1989)
Wilber K.: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. The Spirit of Evolution (1995)