Transformations: Transpersonal Gestalt Primer

Edited version: Transformations: A Transpersonal Gestalt Primer ( Draft: Oct. 8)
Ed Elkin Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 7:48 PM
To: rckula@maui.net
FYI ; YOUR FEEDBACK WELCOMED.

Mahalo & Aloha,

Dr. Ed Jor-El Elkin

760/ 884-7036

UTHC :: Multimodal therapy, evolutionary theater, creative spirituality

Universal Temple of Higher Consciousness (UTHC-MAUI)
2055 Kanoe St. Kihei, HI 96753

———- Forwarded message ———-

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Ed Elkin
Date: Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 8:28 AM
Subject: Edited version:

TRANSFORMATIONS:
A Transpersonal Gestalt Primer

October 1979

by ED ELKIN.,PH. D.

Founding Member,
Gestalt Institute of Washington, DC

Introduction by Stella Resnick, Ph.D.

Transpersonal Gestalt Prayer

Dedicated to Fritz Perls and Ram Dass

I do your thing and you do my thing.
I am in this world to help you give up your expectations,
And you are in this world to help me give up mine:
For you are me and I am you.
If by chance we find it each other, all is beautiful:
If not all is still beautiful.

NAMASTE

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INTRODUCTION by Stella Resnick, Ph.D.

It amazes me to think that it has been more than 10 years since Ed Elkin and I first met at Fritz Perls’ Gestalt Community on Vancouver Island.
Surrounded by the ever changing landscape of the Canadian seasons we lived and trained through the dark greens of late Summer, the yellow and the burgundy of Fall, and the blue shadows of white Winter.

Lake Cowichan, outside the windows of our dining room was often busy with the commerce of bobbing llogs rolling toward the paper factory on the other bank.
The only blemish to the serenity and beauty of our locale was, occasionally when the wind shifted and we were treated to the belching gases of pulp that made their way over to our side.

For Ed and me and about 35 others, nature provided the background for the emerging gestalten of resurrected childhood memories and raw feelings brought back to life by Fritz’s insistent probes. These were still the 60s; we had been living through a time when people were reclaiming their right to what they felt. While conformity and the lonely crowd had been the bywords of the 50s “ doing your thing” had become the slogan for our day. “ Stop worrying about everyone else” Fritz would admonish us in his thick German accent. “ Take responsibility for your self. What do you want? What do you feel?”

Fritz scoffed at the spiritual; he called meditation “ neither shitting nor getting off the pot” Fritz was very down-to-earth. But when he talked about “the fertile void”,
the “emergent now” and so many other principles of gestalt there was no denying the spiritual tone to it. Sometimes he would laugh about it and call Gestalt, Zen Judaism.

After Fritz died in March of 1970, those of us who studied with him carried on with a gestalt tempered not only by our own interest and philosophies but by the times as well.

From where we started ,being responsible only to oneself may have been the most pragmatic route to fully owning one’s projections , but as a clearer sense of self developed it often brought a re-appreciation of people’s connectedness to each other.

For some of us, like Ed and myself this has meant recognizing the spiritual component of the growth process.

When I began to meditate and study spiritual practices it became apparent to me that there were similarities here to the gestalt process. In a 1974 article for Psychology Today I wrote that the gestalt process of reporting moment to moment awareness was like a spoken and performed meditation. Later on, in a chapter for Gestalt Is (1975),
I elaborated on the usefulness of approaching Gestalt practice with an understanding of meditation, particularly with regard to the cultivation of the impartial witness- the ability to observe oneself without judgment.

in this little book, Ed Elkin has put together a collection of short stories, poems and random thoughts which draw further parallels between Gestalt and Eastern philosophies and practices. I like his direction and his imagination. I support his associating Gestalt with the gentleness of spiritual approaches, and with the compassion and interconnectedness that comes with this perspective. In the years to come as Gestalt becomes more and more finely tuned as a philosophy for living, and a method for self-awareness, I know that a sense of the spiritual will be an important part of this continuous evolution.

Stella Resnick, PhD
Los Angeles California
January 1980

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1 Gestalt as a Yoga for the West

Gestalt as a Yoga for the West was read aloud to a large international audience at the first World Scientific Yoga Congress in New Delhi, India in December 1970. It represents my thinking a year after leaving Canada and formulates the view of gestalt as a form of yoga or union of man with his universe.

Gestalt is probably familiar to you as a German word most often translated as “configuration” or “whole”. As a psychological term it has been used by perceptual researchers like Kohler, Koffka and Wertheimer referring to the tendency of the organism to form meaningful “gestalten” in perceptually organizing the world and in problem solving. Many principles of human gestalt formations were derived from these early researchers.

Fritz Perls and his colleagues applied these same principles to the development and nature of human personality and named this approach gestalt therapy.

Although Perls was born in Berlin gestalt therapy is relatively unknown in Germany and is only now becoming well known in Perls’ adopted country, the United States.

The term “yoga” is Sanskrit and is roughly translated as union. While yoga practice has been known in the West for hundreds of years, it is usually associated with physical exercises and meditation, and its deeper meaning of bringing about the union between body and mind, and between man and the universe is less well known.

In fact, both yoga and gestalt have much in common and both are relatively unknown to the profession of psychology.

Fortunately, humanistic psychology provides a framework under which both systems are becoming better known in a profession which encompasses both new and old methods for creating the “whole man” who actualizes all of his potential instead of its fragments.

Both Yoga and Gestalt are grounded in a tradition that is more Eastern than Western more monistic than dualistic. Both spring from a sense of unity in the universe, a sense that is once again growing… A sense of man as part of the universe and not apart from it!

I found beautiful expression of these ideas in the words of the poet, Robinson Jeffers:

Integrity is Wholeness,
The greatest beauty is organic wholeness,
The wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.

Love that, not man apart from that,
or else you will share man’s pitiful confusion or drown in despair when his days darken.

Similar notions are found in much of the writing about yoga. Thus, Christopher Isherwood, in introducing”: Vedanta for the Western World “writes:

“Every living creature and every object are interrelated, biologically, psychologically, politically and economically They are all of a piece.”

The basic principles of gestalt therapy can be expressed in a simple phrase which can be considered the mantrum of gestalt:
I AND THOU, HERE AND NOW.

In “ I and Thou” the mantra refers to the relationship between peoples’ souls;
the connection of the Atman in each of us rather than the masks of Maya that people often wear.

In “here and now” the mantra reminds us of the profound importance in the experiential reality of the present moment. By staying in contact with the here and now we lose our intellectual minds and come to our experiential senses, free of regrets and ruminations about the past; freed of the imaginings and expectations about the future.

If all of Gestalt meaning were condensed to one word that word would be NOW; as Perls says:

“ In my lectures in gestalt therapy I have one aim only; to impart a fraction of the meaning of the word NOW. To me, nothing exists except the now. Now = experience= awareness= reality. The past is no more and the future not yet. Only the NOW exists.”
(Fagen & Shepherd, Eds. “Gestalt Therapy Now”, Science and Behavior Books, Palo Alto, Ca. )

Gestalt, like yoga can also be understood as a system of integration, with emphasis on the essential unity of all the systems involved in the person and personality. One way this is manifested is in the emphasis that Gestalt places on the different languages, both verbal and nonverbal, with which a person speaks: for example, one language concerns the content of what I am saying; a second language concerns the music and rhythm of my voice and breath; a third language concerns the postures and gestures of my body.

Thus, if I stand with my arms folded, speak harshly and say: “ I really love you”
or smilingly say: “ you really make me angry”….. an incongruity is evident.
I am not speaking with one voice, and in the American jargon, it could be said that I was not “together”!

When my words my music and my dance all flow as if feeding from the same source, then I am together, I am whole, I am a unit in touch with myself and with the forces acting on me and through me.

When that happens all my potential is actualized at a given moment in time, all my
energy is available to me and I can move forward and change.

In “Vedanta for the Western world” an article called “Gita and War” by Isherwood says: “at any given moment in time we are what we are; and our actions express that condition. We cannot run away from our actions because we carry that condition with us. On the highest mountain, in the darkest cave, we must turn at last and accept the consequences of being ourselves. Only through this acceptance can we begin to evolve further.”

in Gestalt, one of Perls’ dictums is to remember that you CANNOT be anything other than what you are right now.

To my mind, when I fully experience the now, when I totally accept myself at the present moment, I stop holding myself back with thinking about my thoughts or actions, I minimize my attachment to those thoughts and actions, and I begin to approach the selfless action that is one of the hallmarks of the enlightened being.

Gestalt differs from yoga in many aspects of its practice but it is inappropriate here to detail the variety of techniques that have sprung up utilizing the basic gestalt principles. Suffice it to say that they in no way resemble Pranayama or Hatha yoga.

( One exception however, might be a kind of meditation known as Gstalt Awareness Continuum, in which I pay attention to the messages of my senses and report from moment to moment that of which I am aware; that which is figural against the ground.)

Differences in technique however great they appear, remain merely differences in paths toward a common goal.

Yoga and Gestalt share a common goal although there are differences in emphasis. Much of gestalt seems to emphasize getting into the self while yoga emphasizes getting out of the Self . Gestalt , in part seems egocentric with an emphasis on a separateness between you and I while yoga seems more universal with an emphasis on the identity of you and I

Yoga means union. If the union is to occur then a separateness of you and I is unacceptable.
For example in the traditional Gestalt Prayer:

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and
You are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I;
If by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful. If not it can’t be helped.

As I understand yoga, the goal is to be beyond the boundaries of ego; to find the Atman within the self and to realize ultimately the oneness of the Atman and Brahma.

But this is what gestalt talks about when it asks for each of us to be fully aware of the natural forces of our bodies At the atomic and sub-atomic and energy level, my body and your body are made of the same stuff; your body and my body are made of the same matter… and for that matter are the same as all matter.

The newest labeled branch of psychology in the West… let us say the leading edge of Humanistic Psychology is called Transpersonal Psychology. In keeping with this new direction I should like to offer a next step in the evolution of gestalt which at its core replaces the “you are you and I am I.” with “you are me and I am you”.

I therefore, offer a Transpersonal Gestalt Prayer which I dedicate to my two gurus,
Fritz Perls and Ram Dass.

I do your thing and you do my thing.
I am in this world to help you give up your expectations, and you are in this world to help me give up mine;
For you are me and I am you.
if by chance we find each other all is beautiful.
if not, all is still beautiful.

End of Chapter 1

CHAPTER 2: TOWARDS A THEORY OF TRANSPERSONAL GESTALT

Written in 1973 Chapter 2 elaborates some of the key differences between traditional and transpersonal approaches to Gestalt, as I gained experience in working with individuals and groups

“in my lectures and gestalt therapy, I have one aim only: to impart a fraction of the meaning of the word now. To me, nothing exists except that now. Now equals experience equals awareness equals reality. The past is no more and the future not yet. Only the now exists.”

F. Perls, Four Lectures ( Gestalt Therapy Now: Ed, Fagan and Shepherd)

In identifying the essence of Gestalt with the concept of NOW, Perls provided a key to
opening gestalt to the transpersonal. In emphasizing that “the past is no more and the future not yet”, we can enter the spaceless, timeless realm that Zen calls the “ eternal now”, …an ever changing configuration of figure against ground, subjectively experienced as moment to moment flow in which Figure is the focus of conscious awareness and Ground is the surrounding of that focus.

Transpersonal Gestalt emphasizes the continual shifting of these figure ground relationships in the Taoist sense of flow from one moment to the next with ever deeper portions of the personality becoming figural as therapy proceeds.

In a transpersonal framework the ground is not limited to the conscious surround, but extends deep below conscious awareness to include both Jungian “collective unconscious” and the awareness of the total universe beyond space and time esoterically known as “all that is”.

The transpersonal counterpart to the static image of the personality as an onion whose layers must be peeled is found in the dynamic image of a fountain continuously renewing itself and clearing away the surface for new material to emerge.
That which comes to the surface of awareness from moment to moment constitutes the next incomplete gestalt that the personality is ready to uncover.

In the therapy situation, the task is to bring incomplete Gestalts such as “unfinished business” or “holes in the personality” to the surface of consciousness, and encourage their expression either verbally or nonverbally. In the context of the transpersonal Gestalt group, the process of encouragement is provided more by creating an atmosphere of mutual trust and caring than by the traditional Gestalt mode of creative frustration. The misplaced emphasis on “I do my thing, and you do your thing” has led to a situation in which Gestalt has come to be identified as the “screw you” school of
psychotherapy. Transpersonal Gestalt intends to make explicit what is implicit in Perls’ “I and Thou, Here and Now;” namely the interrelatedness of “I” and “you”; the interdependence of Ffigure and Ground, and the subject object unity that underlies duality and polarity.

Thus, in transpersonal Gestalt,

I am I AND I am you
You are You AND You are Me

In Transpersonal Gestalt, gentleness replaces attack as the primary uncovering force, and in an allegorical way, penetrates to the heart of the matter, unlocking its energy.

“Gentle penetration produces gradual and inconspicuous effects. It should be effected not by an act of violation, but to by influence that never lapses. Results of this kind are less striking to the eye then those won by surprise attack, but they are more enduring and more complete.”

(I CHING, Hexagram 57: The Gentle)

It is sometimes useful to think of gestalt therapy as a stepping stone to transpersonal gestalt therapy insofar as the ego first needs to be strengthened before it can be transcended. The ego boundaries must be fully established before they and the ego itself can be seen as an illusion… Yet another version of the classical paradox of going more deeply into something in order to get out of it.

In the gestalt approach, the ego boundaries are first strengthened by focusing on the differences between self and others. The individual learns that the way to be is the way he is already rather than the way he “should be”. Eventually a strong sense develops that it is all right to be me and to do my thing.

As gestalt work progresses, however, more and more different ways of being come to be seen as part of that “ me”. The capacity of being father, mother, child, teenager, lover, etc. ….all lie within.

Furthermore, in the process of working with polarities, dream work, and other Gestalt techniques, the potential capacity for the full range of the human experience, comes within the ego boundary…. And I am the flower, and the sunset; I am the murderer and rapist, I am the fly and the cesspool and the mountain and the ocean. Just as the actor and the mime develop the ability to play many roles of persons, things and ideas so gestalt work enables us to explore the full potential of the many ways we can be. By re- owning all the disowned parts of our personality we reclaim full energy that is ours, and discover the entire universe within the I.

Gestalt and Transpersonal Gestalt are not clearly separable… one blends into the other as ice melts into water. The difference is one of emphasis and focus as much as philosophy and technique. For example, traditional gestalt dream work technique of identifying with all parts of the dream provides a micro cosmic view on the macrocosm of the transpersonal approach.

In working on a dream, all aspects are regarded as manifestations of the personality. In the process of discovering the “existential message” in the dream, different parts of the dream are identified with and acted out. However the dreamer usually only identifies at first with that part of the dream that he “recognizes” as himself. He usually discounts the reality that all parts of the dream are part of him as a creator of the dream.

. * * * * *

In the Transpersonal Gestalt approach, there is renewed emphasis that the
“patient” is his own therapist and a “therapist” becomes a facilitator or guide who assists the client to do what he cannot readily do for himself…..

1: go through the impasse;
see himself objectively in the sense of “witnessing” himself;
provide the secure environment that allows defenses to drop away.

From the transpersonal viewpoint, each person can do his own gestalt work through meditation, through developing the “witness” part of his consciousness and through letting divine trust and faith in the universe provide the secure environment.

These skills, however, are rarely developed in most people. They are potential in all people, but have been inhibited by years of conditioning. The transpersonal Gestalt task then, is precisely to de-condition the “character” which has strangled spontaneity, stifled security, and hidden that sense of integrated wholeness that is inherent at the core of all human beings. Such skills can then be seen as the “tools of” with which future problems can be dealt with, without the need of the external therapist.

The process of therapy then may be seen as the “transmission” of these “tools” from the therapist to the client. The therapist does this by embodying the tools himself and by reminding the client that they lie within him.

Perhaps the most powerful of these tools is that of self acceptance. Perls, towards the end of his long life, repeatedly advised: “remember that you cannot be anything other than what you are right now”. Aliveness van, he merges from accepting what is from moment to moment; from surrendering to the power that works through our personalities at levels beyond our ordinary awareness. Paper people become real people when all the discs own parts are really owned, and humans realize their ongoing perfection in harmony with the forces of the universe.

We are not apart from the universe, but rather a part of it and simultaneously all of it.
In essence, the being is whole, always was whole, and always will be whole.

In Transpersonal Gestalt Therapy, the aim is to discover that wholeness, and to make it the ground of being in the eternal now.

“ I AM IN EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING IS IN ME “………..Ram Tirth

End of Chapter 2

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chapter 3: A Transpersonal Gestalt Microlab

Chapter 3 is a “present centered” version of the workshop I offered at the Eastern Regional meetings at of the Association for Humanistic Psychology in Philadelphia in April 1974.
This “case study” dramatizes how transpersonal experience may be induced in a group setting, blending techniques of guided fantasy, encounter and theater games with those of traditional gestalt.

I am on the top floor of a downtown Philadelphia hotel.
There is a terrace outside; the late morning sunshine is brilliant, and the sky is bright blue. People are coming in and sitting around on shares, on cushions, and on the floor. I begin to do my own “grounding” and “centering” exercises as the room continues to fill. I ask people not to smoke.

I put on some music whose vibrations are calming, on the record player
such as Ram Dass’ “Love, Serve, Remember” and Paul Horn’s “inside”,
and suggest that people gradually bring their conversations to a close, completing their gestalts and tuning into the music as the room becomes quiet. The energy level evens out as minds leave their disparate foci and become more as one.

“Transpersonal Gestalt”, I begin, “is still Gestalt I am not here to live up to your expectations and you are not here to live up to mine. That still goes!”

There are murmurs and smiles. To experience the difference between traditional gestalt and transpersonal gestalt I asked the group to choose partners, and listen, line for line, to the Gestalt prayer while looking into their partners eyes.

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I’m not here to live up to your expectations and you’re not here to live up to mine
For I am I and You are You
. If by chance we get together that’s beautiful if not it can’t be helped.”

For a second reading, slowly, I ask them to pantomime their expression of the lines at each other.

I ask the group to express the ideas in the Transpersonal Gestalt prayer in the same way, nonverbally, with sounds and gestures to match the communication.

I do your thing and you do my thing.
I’m here to help you give up your expectations
And you are here to help me give up mine.
For I am you and you are me.
If by chance we get together all is beautiful;
If not, all is still beautiful.

After one reading of the transpersonal prayer I remind the group of the phrase: “I’m here to help you give up your expectations”, and request that they now do whatever they think would not be expected by their partners.

Kisses, hugs, flights, pushes and shoves, animal sounds, dancing, shouting and screaming and laughing rise and fall, and the session “feels” underway to me.

“When you are ready, at your own pace,” I suggest, “leave this partner, move physically to your own space, close your eyes and go inside”

Awareness of breathing:; awareness of feet on the floor; awareness of ankles and calves, knees and thigh, genitals, asses, abdomens, stomachs, chests, backs, shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, head, jaws, I, ears, noses, foreheads, browse…. The litany of body awareness smoothly and gently, culminating in putting consciousness at the very top of the head and then we get to a point about 1 foot over the head, floating over the crown chakra, free of the body! A guided fantasy: consciousness rises.

“Imagine yourself floating up to the ceiling, and through the roof: over the hotel and over the city, over the coastline and seeing in your mind’s eye United States. Then the entire country, then North America, the Western Hemisphere and the whole earth, shimmering, floating in space, blue and white and brown and green. Onwards and outwards, faster and faster, your imagination soars: the Earth and its moon coming into view: now outwards past the planets, seeing the entire solar system with its small red sun. Now leaving that behind dwindle into a small speck in the vast galaxy of our Milky Way. Then it further still until your mind’s eye encompasses what ever you can imagine the entire universe to Be.

And now the return trip: Faster than the speed of light, zooming in from the edge of the universe, homing in on our Milky Way galaxy, plunging down towards a tiny solar system that grows in size as you approach, sensing the pull of gravitation of the distant sun, rushing past the tiny outer planets of Pluto, Neptune and Uranus. Marveling at the rings of Saturn, wondering at Jupiter’s size, through the asteroids, hurtling past Mars’s reddish glow and faint canals, until Earth’s orbit
specks, then grows, and finally fills your vision with a blue green light and the energy of your home planet, Down down down — to a hemisphere, a continent and a coastline; to a city and a tall hotel, and a rooftop room; and through the roof and hovering: looking down at a sea of people and hovering; just above a head you call your own…. Ever so gently, ever so gently settling your consciousness back into its physical container, becoming aware of your limbs and torso, your weight, and the envelope that is your skin; aware of your breathing, aware of your life energy, and when you are ready, opening your eyes to discover your fellow voyagers.

Now, I am asking the group to be aware of each other as fellow explorers of personal space, both inner and outer. I invite them to mill around and to sense how it feels when another person enters their physical space, who they wish to get closer to and who they wish to keep at a distance.
I ask that each choose a partner with whom to share the exploration, and that each pair sit facing the partner, looking at the left eye, the right eye , or the “third eye” of the partner.

“Deepen your breathing, diaphragmatically, so that the breath fills your belly first, then your chest, then your upper lungs all the way up to the collarbones. Inhale and exhale in unison for a while and then let your breathing become natural as I share with you some ideas that have become important to me from Ram Dass.

“You meet another person and there are qualities in that personality which offend you and there are qualities which attract you. Some qualities seduce you — – some qualities repell you; some qualities sexually excite you, some qualities bore you. It’s only when you can see through all that… all your own desires, that you can see to where the other being is. You will do that when you’ve gone inside to see where you are — – beyond the things in you which attract you and seduce you and excites you and repell you. The journey inward, ever in deeper and deeper, and the deeper you get in, the more you meet truth”

“When you have quieted your mind enough and transcended your ego enough, you can hear how it really is. So: when you are with a candle flame, you are the candle, and when you are with another being’s mind, you are the other being’s mind.”

“When you clear away the underbrush, when you go back and back — not for the fun of it, or for the powers involved, but to go back to be who you really are, who you all are turns out to be spirit, turns out not to be matter at all.

NO MATTER, NEVER MIND.
NO MIND, NEVER MATTER.
Either way it works”

I ask the pairs to nonverbally say goodbye, to close their eyes momentarily and return to awareness of their breathing, centering within themselves.

“Now, please stand up, and begin moving around through the group, again being aware of others: aware of attractions and repulsions, now moving faster and faster and faster. Now slowing down to normal pace… now moving slower… now very slowly… now very slowly as if moving at the bottom of an ocean of thick warm honey”.

I am now asking the group to separate into the basic human polarity of the two sexes. I ask the biological males to move towards one end of the room and the biological females to move to the opposite end of the room, continuing to mill as before, aware of attractions and repulsions, likes and dislikes.

The unity of the group slowly pulls apart, like a living cell dividing for the first time, the strands forming together at opposite ends of the room, once again I ask them to choose partners and request that they sit facing one another as before deepening their breathing simultaneously and then relaxing to normal breathing while I read again from Ram Dass.

“In order to become a fully realized and being, you must delight in the exquisiteness at every single level. You must take joy in your maleness and your femaleness at the same moment that you realize that you are both male and female. It is that far out!”

“As you go out on the astral plane, you see more and more and the final thing you see in the world of form before you go into the formless and into total unity, you see the world of Yin and Yang, one of the highest planes in the world of form. But it is still duality, it is still polarization. There is God, there is man; there is good, there is evil. The world most everybody is living in most of the time.”

“The only way out of that is to take the poles of every set of opposites and see the way in which they are one, and if you can get into that place where you see the interrelatedness of everything and you see the oneness in it all. Then you are no longer attached to your polarized positions.”

“ Once again, say goodbye non verbally to your partners. Closing your eyes and going inside, returning to your breathing, experience yourself getting younger very fast. Let your body and mind relax and allow yourself to feel increasingly more open as the years fall away quickly. Now young adults, now teenagers, now children. Let your body softens and your mind soften; go into the most vulnerable and open places within yourself… see if you can rediscover what it was like to trust. Younger and younger… now as you curl up as infants, now as you go back into the womb, experience the total peace, total calm , total weightlessness, total comfort. And now, in whatever way is meaningful for you, go back in consciousness to before your birth.”

I pause for awhile, put on Tibetan bells music, and continue very softly, with long pauses between my words:

floating free timeless spaceless

everywhere and nowhere at once

void total blackness total whiteness

everything and nothing

“Now there is a vague feeling of expectancy in your consciousness, something momentous is about to happen, diffuse and general excitement mount as your energy level increases and increases until you experience the brightness/ fusion/ atomic totality of your conception!

And you begin to experience that the journey to another human birth is the journey of evolution.

Starting with a single cell, you experience yourself floating and dividing and floating and dividing, again and again. Amoeboid and formless at first, you grow and begin to move, flowing soundlessly through the fluid environment, changing and growing.
Now, the consciousness of a jellyfish: moving and flowing with the currents, being pushed and pulled.

Now the consciousness of an undersea worm, finding nourishment and excreting waste, moving mindlessly and blindly through the sea. Now the consciousness of a mollusk or a clam, an oyster or a scallop , a snail, an octopus, or a squid.

Now the consciousness of a crustacean: crab like or lobster like, or whatever creature emerges in your mind’s eye as suggestions arise.

Now, the consciousness of a fish: flat fish, round fish, swordfish, barracuda, some swimming serenely, some hunting for prey. Sharks being born and dying, eating and being eaten, swallowed whole or chewed up, swallowing whole or chewing up, guppies and flounder and pike and salmon and herring and tuna and all the images of fish you ever knew: swimming alone, swimming in schools, spawning young and fertilizing the eggs — – being the consciousness of fish, growing and changing and growing and changing.

Now the consciousness of amphibians: from breathing in the water to breathing in the air: frogs and newts and salamanders and toads.

Now the consciousness of reptiles: Turtles and crocodiles, alligators and dinosaurs.
Tyrannosaurus Rex and Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus and Triceratops; monsters with flashing teeth; lumbering giants in primeval ooze. Eating and killing and growing and changing and living and dying.

Consciousness races onward as frontal lobes grow, lungs replace fins, furs replace scales, and the embryo grows and changes and grows.

Consciousness of mammals: of platypus; of kangaroos; of cats and dogs, and bears; whales, porpoises and dolphins in the sea; bats in the air; elephants and sloths in the jungle;
armadillos and anteaters in the forest; beavers and woodchucks, porcupines and squirrels in the woods; horses and rhinos; deer and antelope, camels, pigs, and cows.

Now, onward with hands and opposable thumbs: lemurs and apes and monkeys… and finally, the time is coming: the changing and growing is ending. Your being throbs, and your rhythm changes and your environment changes and you are ready for the miracle of a human birth.

Inside the womb, once again ready to begin the adventure. Serenity at first, total support and then pushes, polls, contraction, relaxation, pressure and movement: the journey to birth begins.

Each of you discovers the mechanism of your birth. The ease of comfort or the pressure and terror. of the tensions and relaxations; the un-knowing of what lies ahead. Movement follows movement. Pressure on your head increasing… increasing… increasing until, finally, breakthrough: pulls, shoves , lights, cutting the cord, breathing, crying, wailing ……
you have been born!

You are an infant: crawling, crying, cooing, nursing.

You are a child: exploring, babbling, playing, learning.

You are an eight year old: running, growing, making friends. At this age, how do you react to boys? How do you react to girls?

You are a teenager: discovering the games of puberty. Remembering the trials and joys of the time. What games did you play? Are you a loner or a social butterfly? Are you a cheerleader or a bookworm? What about dating?

What changes now? Which of these teenagers do you find interesting? How do you approach them, or do you wait to be approached?
Act it out, my friends….play it out……your life.

Now you are a young adult: dating changes to mating for some, for others mating waits on careers.
Play it out……act it out….. Your life.

Now you pick your mate. Do you stay with one or do you choose another? Do you experiment with relationships?

Now you form families. You consider intentional families. You look around and choose those others you would like to share your space. You establish primary and secondary relationships, and when you have created your family, you sit down with them and begin to order your households.

Who does what? Who the cleaning? Who the cooking? Who the breadwinning? Children come and some of you discover that you really are more the children while others discover that they are the mommies and daddies. Act it out, play it out, here and now.

Act out some childhood scenes with these new families: re-enact the patterns of your homes. Grow and change and grow.

In your families, change continues: people get older, relationships change. Greater awareness of other families and sense of community develops as children grow up. Some seek new families, some stay with their original groups.

Time speeds up. Middle age: careers change for some, not for others. Aging … aging … Aging.

Now old age: retirement or still working? Older age, sickness and loss of powers for some. Creative hobbies for some. Senility for some.

Ready for dying? Are you ready to die? How do you die? Do you go off alone? Do you wish your loved ones near you? Do you cling to life or “go lightly into the light”? Ready for dying. Everyone dies. Let each of you prepare to die.

After death, who knows? Let me share a fantasy with you: as you slowly move with eyes half closed to form a large circle, symbolizing what may be the next evolutionary stage. Awakening to a new existence where you are a part of a new whole.

Stretch your arms overhead, drawing in the energy from the universe, reaching, reaching, reaching for new life.

Cross your arms over your chest, consolidating the energy into your being.

Raise your palms together, pressed over your breast bone, connecting heart chakra to hands.

Raise your palms together, pressed in front of your throat, connecting throat chakra to hands.

Raise your palms together, pressed in front of your eyebrows, connecting ajna chakra or “third eye” to hands.

Raise your palms together pressed over the crown chakra, and separating fingertips to form a cup to receive the energy.

Widen the cup so that your hands and arms form a chalice for the energy with your body as the vessel.

Again, cross your arms before you to consolidate the energy, and finally, radiate the energy out to the others in the circle.

Gather in the energy, and send it to other selves like your self, sharing the energy and transmitting it to the other parts of your Being.

(Playing the music of the Lord’s prayer, followed by “Let the sunshine”.)

The group is spontaneously swaying and moving to the music, pulsating with life and rhythm: now moving in and out… And finally dissolving into shouting, dancing, laughing, crying, eddies of life enriched humanity.

End of chapter 3

Chapter 4: Kindred Spirits

This Chapter includes seven selections by other beings whose message conveys yet other aspects of the “Transpersonal Gestalt” gestalt. Included are “Gestalt Be/ Attitudes” by Jean Lanier; “Who am I.” by Sidney Lanier; “The Nameless”,an excerpt from “Lord of light” by Roger Zelazney; “I am aLimerick” by Swami Anand Dinkar; “Esperanza”, an excerpt from Mother by Maxim Gorky and “For love of space” by Jerry Glenn. This is a futurist parable which ends the booklet with a vision of synergy between love and technology.
Finally, “This is our love song”, lyrics by Sarah Jane Bezar.

GESTALT BE/ ATTITUDES by Jean Lanier

BLESSED ARE THE DAYDREAMER’S FOR THEY SHALL FIND THEIR DIRECTION
BLESSED ARE THE AWARE AGGRESSORS
FOR THEY SHALL SAVE US FROM DESTRUCTION
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO CAN EXPERIENCE DISGUST
FOR THEY SHALL DISCOVER APPETITE.
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO CAN ENDURE THE IMPASSE
FOR THEY SHALL EXPERIENCE SURPRISE
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO LISTEN FOR THEY SHALL HEAR LIFE
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO CAN KEEP SILENT
FOR THEY SHALL SPARE US THEIR PROJECTIONS
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO ARE PRESENT IN THEIR WORDS
FOR THEY SHALL COMMUNICATE
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO LOVE THEIR NEIGHBORS AS THEMSELVES
NOT MORE, NOT LESS.

WHO AM I ? by Sidney Lanier

I am a person of material and spiritual substance
I am life and wisdom
I stand serene at my own center
I respect and nurture the God in me as in others
I will take my own space and move at my own pace
I give my energy permission to flow as it will in surprising and unexpected places
I am the other and the other is me
I know this only through being uniquely me
Taking for myself is as important as giving to others; it completes the gestalt of the primal act of life.

( reproduced with permission: copyrighted: Finca la Follenca, Malaga, Spain)

“The Nameless” by Roger Zelazney, Lord of light

“Therefore, I charge you … forget the words I speak as soon as they are uttered. Look rather to the nameless within yourselves which arises as I address it. It hearkens not to my words but to the reality within me, of which it is a part”

“This is the Atman, which hears me rather then my words. All else is unreal.
To define is to lose. The essence of all things is the Nameless.
The Nameless is unknowable; mightier even than Brahma. Things pass, but the essence remains. You sit therefore, in the midst of a dream.”

I AM A LIMERICK by Swami Anand Dinkar

I am what I am, I am that;
All l is one, I am it, it is me.
I am you, you are me,
I and thou, here and now,
How else can I possibly be?

ESPERANZA

“There will come a time I know when people will take delight in one another, when each will be a star to the other, and wHen each will listen to his fellow as to music.

The free men will walk upon the earth, men great in their freedom.

They will walk with open hearts, and the heart of each will be pure of envy and greed,
and therefore all mankind will be without malice, and there will be nothing to divorce the heart from reason.

Then life will be one great service to man!

His figure will be raised to lofty heights — for to free men all heights are attainable.

Then we shall live in truth and freedom and in beauty, and those will be accounted the best who will more widely embrace the world with their hearts, and whose love of it will be the profoundest; those will be the best will be the freest; for in them is the greatest beauty.
Then it will life be great, and the people will be great to live that life.

Excerpt from mother by Maxim Gorky

FOR LOVE OF SPACE by Jerry Glenn

Once upon a time there was an astronaut that happened upon an unknown planet of very interesting and nice beings who were very loving, but didn’t seem to have much knowledge. They didn’t know how to fly, they didn’t make very interesting food, their homes consistently needed repair, and they had to walk many miles to say hello to their friends since they didn’t know how to build cars trains or buses.

The astronaut liked these loving beings and they liked the astronauts, so they agreed to help each other. The astronaut set up a communications system to get information from Earth about how to build good homes, transportation systems, how to grow more interesting and different foods.

The loving beings were happy to learn earthly technology, but didn’t know what to give the earth people in return for this knowledge. The astronauts laughed and said “you have the greatest gift of all”

“what’s that?” they asked.

“the knowledge of how to love one another and live in peace”

loving beings were confused, for loving and living in peace was the easiest thing for them to do.

“True”, said the astronaut, “but somehow Earth people just never developed this knowledge very well.”

“All right,” said the loving beings, “but will earth people who lack this knowledge of love and peace be interested in giving their knowledge of technology for our knowledge of love and peace?”

“Not at first” said the astronaut. “The reason for exchanging their knowledge will be to talk with
extraterrestrials”

The loving beings seemed confused once again.
“My people,” said the astronaut, “are a very curious lot.” That’s why they invented technology. They invented technology to help them find things out, and the more they found things out, the more curious they got. So they will give you their knowledge in exchange for the privilege of talking to you.”

“Love for technology!” shouted one.

“Technology for love” corrected another loving being. And they all laughed and agreed to begin a new adventure with the earth people.

THIS IS OUR LOVE SONG by Sarah Jane Bezar

This is our love song that set us free
A special song of love for you and me
We have so much to share because we truly care
This is our love song and we are free

We’re in the sun again and skies are clear for us
A tender love we’ve found and we are now one sound
Fear kept us parted but now we’re one again
The love that joined us dissolves all fear.

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Ed Elkin, Ph.D. is an internationally known Gestalt Therapist and Trainer, working in the
human potential field since 1970. He founded Transpersonal Gestalt as an explicitly spiritual
variation on Traditional Gestalt.

He has resided in Maui, Hawaii since 1989 where he continues in private practice.