私密象征知多少？

摘自《灵魂永生》第十八章  

意识的各阶段，象征和多重焦点

在你们的种种象征中，具体物体是最明显的一种，正由于太过明显，你们完全觉察不出它们也只不过是象征而已。

在不同的层次，意识使用不同的象征。象征是一种表达内在实相的方法。当灵魂朝着某个方向前进时，它运用意识，通过尽可能多的象征，通过生动而多变的象征手法来表达内在世界。那么，每个象征本身多少都有意识、独特性和知觉。

就这样，灵魂不断创造出花样翻新的内在世界以供探索。而当灵魂朝所谓“相反的”方向前进时，它放弃了所有的象征，所有的表征，而以一种不同的方式运用意识，学着探索自己的直接经验。在它与感受之间没有象征介入，灵魂在一种“价值完成”中完善自己，这种价值完成是你们目前所无法了解的，即使了解也只是象征性地。

不论是醒是眠，这些努力都在进行。然而，你一旦意识到这些活动，就有可能在意识的不同阶段找到自己，甚至有时追踪自己的进展，尤其是通过梦境。在这一点上，你的身体是你最亲密，也是最明显的象征。

在大多数的意识层次里，你会用到身体的概念。当你在“出体”经验里离开身体时，你实际上是采用了另一个稍微不那么具体的身体，而这个身体接下来也将在更加不具体的层次里被更加不具体的身体所取代。“非有个身体不可”的概念是如此重要的象征，以至于在你们所有的宗教文学与转世故事中都抹不去它的影子。

在某一点上，“形体”的概念会和其他象征一同消失。其实，以你们的说法，在象征被创造出来之前曾有一个时期——这个时期与你们对实相世界的概念离得那么远，以至于只有在睡眠最受保护的区域里，任何关于它的回忆才可能被唤起。在你们看来，没有象征就没有“存在”，不过，既然你们是如此“着相”，作此推论也就再自然不过了。

死后的意识阶段仍然在与象征打交道，虽然在象征的运用上有更大自由，对象征的意义也有更深的了解。但在意识的较高阶段，象征已不再必要，创造的进行完全用不着象征。

显然，你现在还无法觉知意识的那个阶段，但你可以通过留心日常生活与梦境中所显现的象征，学着把象征与其代表的感觉连起来。你会发现某些象征在意识的不同阶段向你显现，而这些可用作你探索个人经验的“认知点”。例如，当鲁柏在梦中将要离开他的身体时，他常常会发现自己在一个奇怪的房子或公寓里，它们为探索提供了机会。

这些房子或公寓每次都是不一样的，然而这象征一直都是路标，指出鲁柏已到达意识的特定一点，并已准备好进入意识的另一个层次。每个人都会有某些表达同类含义的象征，且是高度个性化的。然而，除非你努力进行自我探索，否则你不会有意识地了解这些象征性的路标。

这类象征有些会跟你一辈子。但有些也可能在发生重大事件时改变特征，当这些无意识的熟悉象征发生改变时，会带来某种迷失方向的感觉。类似的情况也同样在你的日常生活中发生。例如，也许“狗”对你而言是天生喜悦或自由的象征，但看到一条狗惨遭横死的意外后，对你而言，狗代表的东西就完全不同了。

当然这是个显而易见的例子，但类似的象征改变也可能在梦中发生。这种情况下，狗的意外可能是一个梦中经验，却会改变你在醒时状态中对狗的有意识的象征性感觉。一个人可能以恶魔、恶兽，甚或完全稀松平常的无害物体来象征恐惧；但如果你知道自己的象征有何意义，那么这不仅可用来解梦，还可用作路标，指出你已进入了何种意识状态。

因此，在意识的不同阶段，象征都会发生变化，而且这些改变并无逻辑可言。但直觉性的创造会改变象征，就像画家改变他的用色一样。

Physical objects are the most obvious of your symbols, and precisely for that reason you do not realize that they are symbols at all.

At different levels, consciousness works with different kinds of symbols. Symbols are a method of expressing inner reality. Working in one direction the soul, using its consciousness, expresses inner reality through as many symbols as possible, through living, changing symbolism. Each symbol itself then is to its own extent conscious, individual, and aware.

In so doing, the Soul continually creates new varieties of inner reality to be explored. Working in the opposite direction, so to speak, the Soul divests itself of all symbols, all representations, and using its consciousness in a different way learns to probe its own direct experience. Without symbols to come between it and experience, it perfects itself in a kind of value fulfillment that you presently cannot understand except symbolically.

Now these efforts go on whether you wake or sleep. Once you are aware of these activities, however, it is possible to catch yourself in various stages of consciousness, and even at times to follow your own progress, particularly through dream states. Your body is your most intimate symbol at this point, and again your most obvious.

You will use the idea of a body in most stages of consciousness. When you leave your physical body in any kind of out-of-body experience, you actually leave it in another that is only slightly less physical. This in turn is “later’ discarded for one still less physical, but the idea of the form is so important a symbol that you carry it through all of your religious literature, and stories of hereafter.

At one point it will vanish with the other symbols. Now there was a time, speaking in your terms, before the making of symbols; a time so divorced from your idea of reality that only in the most protected areas of sleep does any memory of it ever return. It seems to you that without symbols there would be nonbeing, but this is a natural enough deduction since you are so symbol-oriented.

Those stages of consciousness that occur after death still all deal with symbols, though there is much greater freedom in their use, and greater understanding of their meaning. But in higher stages of consciousness, the symbols are no longer necessary, and creativity takes place completely without their use.

Obviously you cannot become aware of that stage of consciousness now, but you can keep track of the way symbols appear to you in both waking life and the dream state, and learn to connect them with the feelings they represent. You will learn that certain symbols will appear personally to you at various stages of consciousness, and these can serve as points of recognition in your own explorations. When Ruburt is about to leave his body from the dream state for example, he will often find himself in a strange house or apartment that offers opportunities for exploration.

The houses or apartments will always be different, and yet the symbol is always a signpost that he has reached a particular point of consciousness, and is ready to enter another state of consciousness. Each of you will have certain symbols that serve the same kind of purpose, highly individual to you. Unless you make an effort at self-exploration, however, these symbolic guideposts will make no conscious sense.

Some such symbols stay with you for life. Some in periods of great change may also alter their character, bringing forth a certain feeling of disorientation as these unconsciously familiar symbols undergo transformation. The same sort of thing applies to your physical living. A dog may be a symbol to you of natural joy, for example, or of freedom. After seeing an accident in which a dog is killed, then dogs may mean something entirely different to you.

This of course is obvious, but the same sort of symbol changing may occur within dreams. The dog’s accident may be a dream experience, for that matter, that then changes your conscious symbolic feeling toward dogs in the waking state. One person may symbolize fear as a demon, as an unfriendly animal, or even as some perfectly simple ordinarily harmless object; but if you know what your own symbols mean, then you can use the knowledge not only to interpret your dreams but also as signposts to the state of consciousness in which they usually occur.

These symbols will change, therefore, in various stages of consciousness. Again, the logical sequence is not present, but the intuitive creation will change the symbols much in the way that an artist might change his colors.

编译：   /Laujenny婷    美编：周周

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