SHOCK! in Context to the 8-Circuit Brain
© 2007/08 Antero Alli
THE FUNCTION AND MEANING OF “SHOCK”
Shock, as I am using the term in context to the Eight-Circuit Brain model, represents any force beyond the comprehension and control of the ego; a genuine shock arrives from beyond ego. Real life shocks emerge everywhere and can happen anytime to anybody; no one is exempt. Examples: sudden housing eviction, getting fired from work, marriage, divorce, childbirth, parenthood, loss of loved ones, natural disasters, sudden kundalini activations, death of parents, death of children, falling in love, unexpected financial windfalls, terrorist attacks, any move of residence, police arrest, incarceration, big employment promotions, betrayal by friends and/or family, car accidents, hospitalization, surgery, spiritual epiphanies, cardiac arrests, strokes, epistemological crisis, heroic doses of magic mushroom; the list goes on & on & on...
Contrary to popular belief, shocks may be neither bad nor good by nature but neutral. How we respond to real life shocks usually determines the degree our experience turns negative or positive, painful or joyous, destructive or creative. To assume that shocks are not neutral but either negative or positive suggests that the universe is either out to burn us -- the negatively inflated paranoid bias -- or that the universe is out to bless us -- the positively inflated messianic bias. In my view, both express self-delusion. I think how we respond to shock may actually be more important than any initial shock itself and redefines our responsibility as our response-ability.
Shocks act as trigger points for Self-initiation, engaging the separatist ego in a confrontation with the archetype of the Self. And, as Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung was oft to say, “ the experience of the Self is almost always a defeat for the ego”. With enough outside shocks absorbed and integrated, we become as human shock absorbers for the transmission of initiatic shock to others. As we are initiated, so can we become as initiates, men and women of power; if that is what we want. Some of us undergo this Self-initiation process instinctively without any conscious plan or knowledge of the eight circuits, while others approach it on purpose as an ongoing Self-initiation ritual; either way, outside shocks absorbed and integrated throughout our systems become transformed into the transmission of its presence to the world.
OUTSIDE SHOCKS, INSIDE SHOCKS
Shocks come in basically two forms: inside and outside. Inside shocks are shocks we can give ourselves. For example. By creating intentional inconveniences for ourselves in daily life, we can administer small shocks to our habitual routines by altering the expected. Any way we can shock ourselves more awake constitutes an “inside shock”. However, there is only so much we can do by our own efforts alone. Armenian philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff called "outside shocks" any event arriving from any place beyond our personal control and comprehension (such as the examples already given earlier). Outside shocks tend to be far more effective in genuinely transforming and shaking things up than any inside shock can. Implementing inside shocks can, however, encourage enough internal flexibility to help us navigate and manage the greater forces of real outside shocks when they arrive.
When we are in a state of genuine shock or crisis, consciousness naturally escalates as a survival reflex and we enter an emergency state. We can experience this escalation on a small scale whenever we become genuinely upset or thrown off-center. In a state of shock the ego wobbles into "marginality", a kind of gap zone, where our experience and awareness of uncertainty greatly increases. The marginal state of shock tends to be fluid and unstable, representing a time when new directives and values can be implemented and then, maintained through applied effort, a supportive environment and a series of challenges to strengthen the new patterns. Think of shock as a creative state. It was under such circumstances that ANGEL TECH was originally written and written for: to provide practical guidelines for those currently in shock or marginal, and marginalized, states towards creative rearrangements of your present and future lives.
To be continued.