Why knowledge of self is
important for everyone?
1. Away from disturbances - towards love
2. Release from disturbances: finding inner peace and love
Psychic experience is important
Trust in mental events
Contiguity is meaningful
1. Away from disturbances - towards love
The grandest and richest opportunities of human existence, if also all our basic problems, derive from growing up in a family. Self-knowledge accumulates from the knowledge of one’s own growth as well as the former times of one’s family and community. It aims at becoming able to rid oneself from any experiences, commands, and definitions preventing true life in the here and now. The essence of love lies in the ability to live each moment in the energies of genuine wonder and ecstasy of sheer existence. True ecstasy, at the same time, consists in silence, and being in touch with the most profound level of the soul. The meaning I give to the word ’soul’ is the route that one has to go to be able to love, to find life in its abundance. This route is different for everyone. In this state events constitute pure play; an activity without an aim or intent. Even in the turmoil of anguish and sufferings of life, it provides enjoyment of life with no sentiments disturbing equilibrium and calm.
Disturbances curbing our full life originate from violations and injuries we have suffered in many ways during our lives. Some means of restriction and control are part of even the truest motherly love and of even the most advanced methods of child rearing. They are instrumental in facilitating a meaningful life for a child. For a child, these restrictions, commands, and control are necessary, but an adult has to get rid of them in order to lead an independent life beyond any evaluation of himself. Every single emotion or sensation connected with parental control, lifestyle, pattern for a course of action, and word of guidance will live a life of its own within the individual. This ’suggestive’ layer (of commands, persuasion etc.) has to be for inner peace rooted out.
Dreams, fairy tales and myths describe the matters disturbing life. Dreams provide images attached to disturbances. In the waking state, conversation about ordinary life occurrences brings to light these disturbing things. Also, our emotions will be likewise attached to such occurrences events which constitute disturbances to our lives. Inner peace consists in not attaching oneself to anything but living, and while living, merely observing, enjoying, and watching the progression of things and events. Each time a past occurrence remains bothering the mind, it will bring about a disturbance to inner peace and the ability to attend each new situation in the state of pure love. Dreams, fairy tales and myths show us such disturbances.
Even the grandest of visions and dreams of divine lights, beings from such light, and Garden of Eden constitute disturbances, if the seer keeps longing for them after the experience itself has passed. Such longing creates an intent towards a similar renewed experience. This very intent destroys everything. It keeps the individual attached to a past experience, invalidating his true presence in the moment at hand. This new moment may consist of deep suffering, grief, passion, exaltation, or any other kind of emotion allowing a recurrence of similar heavenly presence and enchantment unless it is evaluated against an event in the past. True presence implies non-evaluation. It is love, and life, the here and now.
In fact, the power of such wondrous divine moments only grows when they are left untouched. Emotional upheavals will only destroy these moments. In all cases, therefore, it is necessary to maintain peace of mind.
2. Release from disturbances: finding inner peace and love
Everything this book presents is to be read with a view to gaining inner peace. The introduction aims to pointing out to the educated western mind the significance of past events recorded in the self. It is essential to realize that one is not the master of one’s life, but, rather, the arena and meeting place for a variety of events, powers, and phenomena. Everything that disturbs our true existence is derived from a past event that we still adhere to. We are then under the law of cause and effect: the past determines what will occur in the future. Peace arrives once the past is released.
The interpretations of fairy tales and myths presented in this book are to be approached from the above viewpoint only. With any other role and importance attached to them, the interpretation arrived at in the text may prove difficult to understand. The significance of releasing one’s past is emphasized throughout the process. This release is obstructed, mostly by the experiences of adherence to one’s parents. Due to this parental attachment, the experiences with parents have come to represent ogres, monsters, trolls, and witches. On the other hand, parents also provide us with the strength to overcome these difficulties; their effects can therefore be found in the shape of miraculous guides and helpers. Yet, an individual can become attached to both his violators and his helpers. The methods of release signify that each and every one of us has to set forth on a personal journey to find his integrity through new sensual experiences without resorting to those of the past. The past is, at its best, a stock of abilities and accomplishments. This is how the ancient Greeks depicted the domain the deceased. Understood in this way, the domain of death is the domain of the soul4. In other words, it is there, that the peace within the subconscious can be found. It is the hereafter, the secret abode of gods or God, that can flourish within us as soon as we learn to live in peace. Its brilliance is the appearance of that divine world - the world of ancient gods or Christian God - into our lives.
PSYCHIC EXPERIENCE IS IMPORTANT
It is unessential whether we believe in the existence of these mythical images and gods; they keep on living within us whether we believe in them or not, for they are named in this book as an inherent part of our subconscious psychic reality. In fact, they are more real and influential to our minds than any routine scientific truths.
Everything in us is the product of our psychic reality, By that token, nothing is to be taken as a literal truth. As a result, we need not let any experience shock us. Death, for instance, is a commonplace event in dreams and folklore. Such dreams are not to be interpreted as omens of imminent death. Ominous dreams do occur, but to the average dreamer they are very rare. In traditional folklore and in the average dream, death is symbolic: it is the necessary step facilitating the rebirth of the phenomenon it depicts.
TRUST IN MENTAL EVENTS
In Christian heritage, the term ’belief’ or ’faith’ beautifully - and correctly - translates into trust to life. Each new thing in our personal growth occurs through exposure to the new. We have to grow to trust in that everything occurring to us has its inner significance. Each life is guided by an inner spiritual principle, which instinctively aims at bringing the individual into contact with his existence, his true self. The dreams and stories gain their wisdom and significance only if we allow ourselves to beunder their guidance.
The greatest of illusions is to trust in the sovereign rule, even tyranny, of reason. Mental illness, as a rule, is the product of the conscious imagination of power. As soon as the conscious mind arrives at the conclusion of life being beyond its control - which finding is correct, of course - this conclusion has been regarded as a sign of a mental illness. In our egotistic world, this kind of conclusion comes as a shock. We tend to underestimate the significance of the myths and dreams in order to keep their rich underworld outside our conscious mind. As a rule, however, psychic reality is strong enough to break through to our inner awareness.
A person can deny the significance of his dreams throughout his life. In such a case, perhaps dementia will finally make him encounter reality. It is advisable, therefore, to get to know at an earlier stage of life the unforeseen riches of life instead of leaving them until the very last days of one’s life. Rightly seen, dementia may contain an immense comfort. In this view, it signals the advent of psychic reality into one’s consciousness. Now at last, the illusory power of reason, fueled by the fantasy of control over things, has to give way. Dementia, therefore, could be seen as a gift bestowed by Nature, a blessed beginning on the path to the folkloric world. Life is immeasurably more multidimensional than we normally believe.
The western scientific paradigm contains a fanatical trust in the hegemony of reason. For man, this belief is most destructive: it is instrumental in causing an empty, stagnated and boring life.
CONTIGUITY IS MEANINGFUL
Contiguity, i.e. the ability of a dream or myth to arise emotions in its seer or reader, helps him to identify any essential elements. The contiguity of each moment is connected to the prevalent life situation; it reveals our innermost and most profound feelings, which some theologians interpret as an experience of the presence of God5. Dreams and myths describe situations where sensations and emotions surface and inner abilities come to life.
Dreams contain a specific significance to the dreamer: they are tales produced by the subconscious mind into the prevailing situation. In this way, they speak words of personal wisdom to the dreamer. Unless the person understands that speech, he is not in touch with an essential part of himself: he has become alienated from his true self. A new contact with his self, a more profound way of being, can be gained by starting to interpret dreams as a cavalcade of images produced by the common tradition of the folklore of a given culture. Then at the same time, this process of finding one’s true self means also finding a connection to one’s family history and cultural background.
From the dreamer’s viewpoint a touching experience signals the correct interpretation of his dream. He then realizes that;
- he is alive and the subject of his own being
- his sensations and feelings are genuine and true
In short, even if one’s life is frequented by sensations and the presence of people that are foreign to him, he can nevertheless find himself living a life of his own.
In the locations that touch one in his dream, myth, or fairy tale, ones true self is present and live. ’Se koira älähtää, johon kalikka kalahtaa’ (The dog which is hurt, gives a bark) is an old Finnish metaphor which contains a profound truth: the very part of a story that touches the self reveals something of importance. At the same time, this is a part of that area of life that one has the courage to gaze upon, an area about to surface from hiding and will be soon available for recognition.
This article is out of the book Find Your True Self through Your Fantasies and Dreams by Olavi Moilanen, Ph.D, published by Atophill in USA 2009
