Reaching adulthood, we stop learning about the many more layers of what we are, and remain blind to Spirit and the purpose of life.
It will come a time when we get to touch the different aspects and qualities of what we are beyond the body-mind, recovering, as the process goes on, the sight of truth, the sight of light, the sight of grace, and the sight of Love.
I do agree with the concept of an active and responsive Absolute ― active in life and responsive to life.
The ascent implies the awakening of Spirit to its potentiality, the descent, the fulfillment of such potentiality in our human dimension.

Unity, Individuality and Force ― The Three Agents of Spiritual Evolution (An Overview)
By Isaac Portilla

It is certain that there is unity at the foundational level of existence.  Such is the consistent experience of those who have gone far enough, deep enough, to touch the infinite bottom of what they are.  I attest to that view ― there are no “others” at that level ―, but that is not all that there is to be known ― unity is not all that spirituality has to offer.

                There is a well known story, told in various ways.  I will give my own version of it.  Various blind men, not knowing what an elephant is, are allowed to touch only one part of an elephant to determine what it is.  Initially, each of them describes the elephant differently ― the one that touched the leg thinks that it is like a tree, the one that touched the belly thinks that it is like a wall, and so on.  Then, they are told that all of them are right, but that each description is just one aspect of the elephant’s totality.  After that, they are allowed to touch all the parts of the elephant, and when they do, they recover their sight.  Following a similar path of discovery, throughout our early lives we learn to acknowledge the body (as babies), the emotions (as children), and the mind (as young adults), but reaching adulthood, we stop learning about the many more layers of what we are, and remain blind to Spirit and the purpose of life.  However, it will come a time when we get to touch the different aspects and qualities of what we are beyond the body-mind, recovering, as the process goes on, the sight of truth, the sight of light, the sight of grace, and the sight of Love.  This implies to know not one but three aspects of Spirit through direct experience, and to embark on a self-revealing journey of evolutionary life.

                The three aspects of Spirit that I came to realize are: the impersonal Universal Spirit, the Personal Spirit or inherent perfection, and the Spirit Force and its processes.  I consider this distinction necessary in order to address the three “spiritual needs” or impulses: the return to the primordial Source, freedom from trauma and psychophysical contractions, and spiritual evolution.  This notion, known as the Trinity in the Christian tradition, has also been recognized by the spiritual visionary Sri Aurobindo through his acknowledgment of a triple Divine ― the cosmic, the individual and the transcendent.  Regarding the similarity between the Christian perspective and his realization, Sri Aurobindo writes: “Christ, whether as the human Incarnation or the Christos in men or the Godhead proceeding from the Father, seems to me to be quite my individual Divine.  The Father has very much the appearance of the One who overstands and is immanent in the cosmos.  And although this is more obscure, yet if one can be guided by the indications in the Scripture, the Holy Ghost looks very much like a rather mysterious and inexpressible Transcendence and its descent very much like what I would call the descent of Light, Purity, Peace.”  These three aspects ― Universal Spirit, Personal Spirit and Spirit Force ― cannot be reduced to one single aspect of Spirit, as their experiences, functions, and other defining factors are clearly differentiable.  Only the temporal absorption into Love seems to unify the three into an all encompassing Light.

                Therefore, we have three aspects of Spirit, which are also the three principles of consciousness and life: unity, individuality and force.  Taking a closer look at these, I consider the foundation of life to be a unity-field with diverse qualities (consciousness, emptiness, light) and properties, such as intelligence and response.  Thus, I do agree with the concept of an active and responsive Absolute ― active in life and responsive to life.  There is also the Spirit’s force, which propels evolution by its own will.  It moves through different successive patterns (within the range of our perception), ascending initially, but later descending in ways much like those described by the Indian sages Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo.  The ascent implies the awakening of Spirit to its potentiality, the descent, the fulfillment of such potentiality in our human dimension.  This is the way in which the Above comes down to the Below.  Moreover, there is a process of regeneration, linked with Christ’s contribution to humanity, which liberates us from our traumas and psychophysical contractions and awakens the truly integrated experience of Spirit.  It represents the actualization of the personal being, not less important than the foundation of life and the spiritual force, mentioned above.  This barely forgotten principle of individuality shall become more and more prominent, as we evolve from the transcendent Spirit to the embodied expression of the eternal being.
© 2015 Isaac Portilla
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