This article is a continuation of the article “For many are called, but few are chosen,” which I ended by saying that I still had no answer to the question of why some people decide to walk the “narrow path,” while others resist for a long time and try to “bargain over the price.”
On the evening after I published it, I came across a passage in Alan Oken’s book Soul Centered Astrology that offered an answer to precisely this question. It concerns the well-known esoteric theory of the three stages of the soul’s incarnation and the evolution of human consciousness. Because I find this theory extremely valuable, I decided to present it here.
The Three Stages of the Incarnation of Spirit into Matter
According to this theory, the incarnation of Spirit into matter unfolds in three stages:
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Involution – the incarnation of the Soul into matter;
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Transformation – a shift of the dominant center from the lower self to the Soul;
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Evolution – the return to the Source.
These stages explain the “different ages” of human souls and the origins of individual differences in people’s interest in questions concerning the soul. There are people whose souls are still in the stage of involution, whose primary aim is to “anchor themselves” in the material world. Other souls are in the stage of transformation, when the “memory” of their spiritual origin begins to awaken and their life priorities, worldview, and goals start to change radically. Still others have already “taken the turn,” and their consciousness is now firmly established in the awareness of their connection to Spirit and to the Whole.
Incarnation is accomplished through the process of involution. Through its contact with the higher aspect, the Monadic–Spiritual Self, the Soul increasingly becomes aware of the necessity to manifest. For this reason, it sends an aspect of itself downward into the three lower worlds—the rational mind, the emotional nature, and physical reality. This aspect becomes the personality—the lower self.
Once the consciousness of this lower self begins to grow, it awakens to the source of life within the Soul, and in earnest the evolutionary process begins—the Path of Return. This Path is also known as the Path of Discipleship.
Most people are occupied with building a “basic anchorage” through which the Soul can be moored to the Earth, and therefore they are strongly attached to the material plane. Others, somewhat more advanced along the Path, consciously work to shape their physical, emotional, and mental vehicles for a goal that is sensed but not yet visible. This is the condition in which many people find themselves today. It is precisely during this period that we undertake various diets, exercises, disciplines, and efforts to love in new ways that are nevertheless essential to us. And often we do not know why. Our inner voice, our intuitive self, simply reveals to us that this is now our path—and we listen.
There is also a third group among us—the New Group of World Servers. This group, which now numbers in the millions and continues to grow, consists of men and women of goodwill who, through great work and effort, have succeeded in forging a stable connection between the Soul and the personality. Each of them has his or her own field of expression, a unique focus of creative activity that enables the individual to express the purposes of the Soul for the present incarnation. This purpose is always connected with service to humanity in one form or another. It is healing work, because it seeks to create greater awareness of the collective whole in which we all live and exist.
— Alan Oken
The Three Evolutionary Stages in the Development of Human Consciousness
Corresponding to the three stages of the Spirit’s incarnation into matter are three distinct stages in the development of human consciousness, namely:
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Unconscious unity
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Conscious duality
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Conscious unity
Unconscious Unity
In the state of unconscious unity, “the individual is completely identified with the personality and the world of the lower self.” This level of consciousness can be observed most clearly in primitive tribal societies, where everything that happens is dictated by the customs and traditions of the tribe, and individual expression is reduced to a minimum. Here, the individual is entirely bound to biological karma; emotional reactions are genetically conditioned, and the ways in which they are expressed and regulated are socially prescribed.
Such an individual takes everything personally, which is further reinforced by highly concrete and literal thinking. The lack of abstract thinking prevents the ability to step back and view oneself from the outside. Although this mode of self-awareness may appear overly primitive or alien to us, it still exists in the deeper layers of our psyche, and a highly critical situation can bring it to the surface.
Moreover, for a large portion of humanity this remains the dominant mode of thinking, which helps explain why socio-political phenomena such as National Socialism or religious fundamentalism still exist. Many spiritually awakened teachers say that humanity as a whole is still in its childhood stage of development.
Conscious Duality
The next step in the development of the incarnating soul is the state of conscious duality. This is the form of consciousness that an increasing number of people begin to manifest as they come to understand that they are “spiritual beings incarnated in physical form, and that spiritual aspiration is often in open conflict with material desires and biological patterns of behavior.”
In this case, the confrontation takes place both with other people whose views we do not share and with inner parts of ourselves that we dislike and would prefer did not exist (but do).
This state of inner and outer conflict corresponds to the beginning of the process of individuation in analytical psychology. Oaken compares it to becoming aware, for the first time, that you are participating in a film in which you occupy all the roles—those of the characters, the director, the screenwriter, and the producer. In the stage of unconscious unity, we experience the film as the only possible reality. When we enter the stage of conscious duality, however, we are able for the first time to observe ourselves from the outside and to assume the position of the inner witness.
It is precisely through inner conflicts and inner splitting that the conditions for the emergence of individual self-awareness are created, along with the possibility of development and change. This stage, however, is accompanied by numerous inner and outer crises.
Conscious Unity
After much suffering, we eventually enter the stage of conscious unity, which is “the state in which we live continuously in the awareness of our spiritual reality.” This condition of unification between the lower and the higher self leads to synthesis and marks the end of the constant inner conflicts in which first one side gains the upper hand and then the other.
Characteristic of this new state of consciousness is the realization that “the more we individuate, the more universal we become, and ultimately we understand that the individuating Self is the Self of the universe.” This “gives rise to many responsibilities in our lives, but also to great joy, because the individual has finally discovered the mission of their life—how to serve humanity—and the sense of alienation and isolation has completely disappeared.”
In the esoteric tradition, this is described as “the fusion of the earthly ego with the Soul,” and in Jungian analytical psychology as the emergence of the “transcendent function.”
The Three Crosses in Astrology
The astrological correspondence to the above idea of the three stages in the development of human consciousness and the incarnation of Spirit into matter is the theory of the three crosses in esoteric astrology—the Mutable, Fixed, and Cardinal crosses. This form of astrology represents a “soul-oriented approach” and takes into account the level at which an individual’s consciousness is functioning, because this determines how the natal chart should be interpreted.
The Mutable Cross describes an individual whose consciousness is still at the stage of unconscious unity; the Fixed Cross corresponds to a person whose consciousness is in the stage of conscious duality; and the Cardinal Cross reflects one who has already entered the stage of conscious unity.
The transition from conscious duality to conscious unity is a transition from a life dominated by the ego to a life fully governed by the directives of the Soul. This transition is the most dramatic, because it changes the direction of the turning of the wheel of human reincarnations—that is, it brings about a change in the way experience and knowledge are accumulated (astrologically provided by the different signs of the zodiac).
According to esoteric astrology, when the Soul is dominated by the personality (the lower self), the wheel turns clockwise—from Aries to Taurus via Pisces. When the reversal occurs and the personality becomes dominated by the Soul, the direction changes—the movement indicating the sign of the next incarnation proceeds from Aries to Pisces via Taurus (the rulers of the signs and houses also change).
The initial turning of the Soul within the wheel of reincarnation enables it to pass through a series of lives in which the primary motivation is the desire for material existence and subsequent incarnation: “This sequence of lives relates to the Mutable Cross, and its purpose is to provide the Soul with the necessary knowledge of earthly experience.”
The conditions for the first reversal of the wheel arise when a person enters the stage of conscious duality and desire begins to transform into aspiration: “The increasing tension of the polarity between ‘heaven and earth’ becomes strongly felt, and eventually the individual makes a choice regarding the nature of their life path.”
Once a person makes a choice in favor of “the life of the Soul,” although the wheel continues to turn in the same direction, the process of reversal begins—this is the phase of the Fixed Cross: “The purpose of the lives lived here is the revelation of the true purpose of Love.”
The experiences of individuals living under the Fixed Cross differ according to which signs dominate their natal chart. For predominantly earth signs, the expression of Love takes more practical and tangible forms. For fire signs, it manifests through creative and inspiring projects. Air signs express themselves through the effects of communication, information, and the creation of networks, while water signs do so through feelings and actions that nurture the growth of others.
Finally, the Cardinal Cross emerges, reflecting the individual’s complete commitment to the care of the Soul: “Once the individual has firmly established their orientation toward the Soul and Love merges with knowledge to become Love-Wisdom, evolution acquires a very specific focus, and in accordance with this the direction of the ‘turning of the wheel’ changes. It is then said that the individual ascends the Cardinal Cross and the wheel reverses, beginning to turn from Aries to Pisces via Taurus.”
When the Bargaining Takes Place
I believe it is now becoming clear why this theory gave me an answer to where individual differences in interest in and care for the soul come from—our souls are at different stages of their evolution. Among these stages, the most difficult is the stage of conscious duality—this is precisely where the bargaining takes place, where the greatest drama and resistance arise.
At the first stage, that of unconscious unity, there is no bargaining. Life unfolds in a way that helps us accept it as it is (see more on this in the article on the First Function of Mythology). There is no bargaining at the third stage either, that of conscious unity, when the processes of spiritual transformation have been completed and we have subordinated the three lower aspects of the personality (the earthly will, the lower mind, and the emotional body) to its three higher aspects (the higher will, the higher mind, and intuitive knowing).
Bargaining occurs at the middle stage of conscious duality, when “the direction of the turning of the wheel of reincarnation changes” and the resistance of the earthly self is at its strongest. Such a change is experienced by the ego as a psychic death.
In other words, “bargaining” is a psychic phenomenon that occurs while we are “taking the turn.” Its most characteristic expression is inner conflict, which in the Christian tradition is symbolized by the Crucifixion. In clinical psychology, this corresponds to various mental illnesses in which psychic contents begin to emerge from the unconscious that are opposed to our conscious attitude and cannot be eliminated through the power of ego-will. In Jungian analytical psychology, this transition is called “the shift of the center of the Self from the empirical personality to the archetype from which it derives” (the Whole Personality / the God within us).
And Finally, the Wheel Begins to Turn in the Opposite Direction
At first, it is extremely difficult for us to accept that on a supra-conscious level we ourselves have asked for everything symbolized by the archetype of the Destroyer to happen to us—death, illness, separation, and other forms of loss and suffering. Even when we are intellectually aware of this, we continue to perceive the manifestations of Spirit as something alien to ourselves, that is, as an external rather than an internal factor.
Over time, however, resistance begins to thin. Experiences of helplessness, confusion, depression, and anxiety gradually weaken the belief of the earthly self that it is the sole master of life. Suffering slowly dissolves ego-will, and in its place something new appears—acceptance of life as it is and a relinquishing of control; a new sense of meaning arises, along with an increased feeling of connectedness to the Whole and a desire to serve it.
The wheel of life, which has been turning in one direction for so many long, long lifetimes, finally comes to a halt and begins to move in the opposite direction.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
All quotations above are from Alan Oken’s book, Soul Centered Astrology: A Key to Your Expanding Self, and the illustrations are by artist John Pitre.
