What follows are a series of declarative statements about the nature of consciousness and the guru archetype. They are meant to be provocative rather than definitive, and to serve as probes to further investigation.

Consciousness as form/structure = duality as ego and archetype.

Psychic energy has the nature of self-awareness. For most if not all human beings, the total field of psychic energy is divided into at least two parts -- the ego and/or "I-sense" (the circle of consciousness) and the not-ego or "not I" (which includes everything outside the circle of consciousness).

This conscious-unconscious dichotomy is often called "dual mind", and it is the dynamic reality in which most people find themselves struggling and suffering, yearning and achieving.

The I-sense of other people may be as unconscious to me as the darkest secrets of God -- but that is one aspect of the unconscious with which I can easily enter into direct relationship through empathy, understanding, mutual respect, and love.

Psychic energy which is deeply unconscious -- or completely unavailable to the I-sense -- is always in a mediated relationship with the I-sense via the archetypal images and synchronistic phenomena, which are recognized by their powerful fascination and their ability to overwhelm the conscious mind. Even a completely dissociated and isolated ego will inevitably project its lost energy upon archetypal images and symbols.

Many people instinctively seek an awareness which completely transcends the I-other break, high and low, personal and transpersonal...including the dynamic of birth, death, and rebirth. We generally have a religious faith that non-dual awareness of such an all-inclusive kind exists and that it has been definitively embodied in persons such as Jesus and Buddha.

We recognize Jesus and Buddha as human beings who transcended or stepped completely beyond the divided field, into unassailable non-dual awareness, transcending the entire energy-dynamic of the psyche of existence.

Our hope is that others like them are here among us now -- people who embody this total-field awareness and who have the impulse and ability to guide us out of our imprisonment in the "illusion" of ego-and-archetype, or I-sense and other-sense.

Paradoxically, the image of a messiah who has the power to teach and communicate transcendence of ego-and-archetype is itself an archetype. That is to say, the saviour-teacher (called "guru" in some traditions) is a figure that appears in the divided field of psychic energy, just as any other archetype appears to the ego. But uniquely, this archetype is said to be a door, or opening, beyond ego-and-archetype, beyond the I-other state into the image-transcending state where consciousness realizes its inherent undivided and formless Nature.

Like all archetypes, the saviour-teacher or "guru" archetype is recognized first through projection or transference -- the mechanism by which unconscious contents are found as people or objects that fascinate us and hold our attention. The saviour-guru archetype has been called the ultimate archetypal fascination -- a living symbol, appearing in human form, that contains and communicates the highest (or deepest) transcendental state.

Tradition (and our own intuition and experience) tells us that relationship with a person who truly embodies such profound non-dual awareness is relationship with the inherent Nature of Being itself, beyond ego and archetype, and beyond the phenomenal world.

Entertainers and politicians: the guru archetype without transcendence.

The dynamic of the divided psyche is such that the ego-archetype duality can have tremendous energy. In fact, the dual-mind of ego and archetype has been the governing dynamic of human society for thousands of years. Indeed, the entire mass of unconscious psychic energy is, for most people, found via archetypal projection.

Archetypal myths and archetypal authority figures are the principal organizing symbols in the dual mind of the world. Originally these myths were necessary to give purpose and coherence to fragmented and undeveloped collective awareness. But, in the view of many who have "cracked the code" of the archetypes, Nature intended them to evolve and ultimately be sacrificed (or sacrifice themselves) as individual awareness and democratic intuitions awoke and matured in the populace.

As history has proved, those who take the role of archetypal authority figures are mostly reluctant to become a sacrifice to the democratic principle, preferring to enjoy and exploit that authority role as long as they can.

To put such behavior in perspective, let's call these role-players "politicians and entertainers". Politicians and entertainers are people who are skilled in exploiting and manipulating the energy dynamic of ego-and-archetype. These false authorities take their power from the nature of dual mind. They learn to reflect the unconscious archetypes that the ego projects, even to utilize the sorcery of synchronistic phenomena, and thus gain power over the ego consciousness of individuals and groups.

Thanks to the large-scale influence these misguided authorities have acquired, one is encouraged from childhood to believe in and support their existence...and to doubt one's inherent transpersonal strength (or Spirit) which the wisdom authorities were originally intended to reveal, support, and awaken.

It is exactly as if we were put under a spell by these archetypes, and live out our lives completely in response to their threats and suggestions and their approval-disapproval game. For even without their mendacious teachings, ego will helplessly project all that is unconscious upon them (which is why inferior individuals can establish themselves in archetypal roles; and once becoming idols of the mind, these inferior individuals will do everything they can to hold and perpetuate those projections.)

On the positive side, the possibility of transcendence itself is first found via projection. Real authority, or wisdom, is first found via projection. The projected idea of transcendence is a principle reason spiritual teachers are attractive to spiritual seekers. But all others unconsciously seek the same salvation...and the religious hopes of whole populations inevitably become embodied in politicians or entertainers or military leaders...or even in an employer or idealized sexual partner.

Quoting Jung's thoughts on the projection transference of the saviour archetype.

Projections of an archetypal nature involve a particular difficulty for the analyst. Each profession carries its respective difficulties, and the danger of analysis is that of becoming infected by transference projections, in particular by archetypal contents.

When the patient assumes that his analyst is the fulfilment of his dreams, that he is not an ordinary doctor but a spiritual hero and a sort of saviour, of course the analyst will say, 'What nonsense! This is just morbid. It is a hysterical exaggeration'. Yet, it tickles him; it is just too nice. And moreover, he has the same archetypes in himself. So he begins to feel, 'If there are saviours, well, perhaps it is just possible that I am one', and he will fall for it, at first hesitantly, and then it will become more and more plain to him that he really is a sort of extraorindary individual.

Slowly he becomes fascinated and exclusive. He is terribly touchy, susceptible, and perhaps makes himself a nuisance in medical societies. He cannot talk with his colleagues any more because he is -- I don't know what. He becomes very disagreeable or withdraws from human contacts, isolates himself, and then it becomes more and more clear to him that he is a very important chap really and of great spiritual significance, probably an equal of the Mahatmas in the Himalayas, and it is quite likely he also belongs to the great brotherhood. And then he is lost to the profession.

We have very unfortunate examples of this kind. I know quite a number of colleagues who have gone this way. They could not resist the continuous onslaught of the patients' collective unconscious -- case after case projecting the saviour complex and religious expectations and the hope that perhaps this analyst with his 'secret knowledge' might own the key that has been lost by the Church, and thus could reveal the redeeming truth. All this is a subtle and very alluring temptation and they have given way to it. They identify with the archetype, they discover a creed of their own, and as they need disciples who believe them they will found a sect.

The same problem also accounts for the peculiar difficulty psychologists of different schools have in discussing their divergent ideas in a reasonably amicable way, and for a tendency, peculiar to our branch of science, to lock themselves into little groups and scientific sects with a faith of their own. All these groups really doubt their exclusive truth, and therefore they all sit together and say the same thing continually until they finally believe it. Fanatacism is always a sign of repressed doubt...

     --from Analytical Psychology, Its Theory and Practice, Lecture Five.

Like Jung's fallen analyst, a politician or "famous person" upon whom such messianic expectations fall may easily become possessed by the archetype, not only believing himself or herself to be the longed for saviour-leader, but actually suffering a massive inflation of the ego-complex, in which the archetypal energies enter unintegrated and explode consciousness. You have not seen true hubris until you have seen a man fully possessed by the messianic projections of his followers!

This can be very much like a primitive "demonic" possession, or "loss of soul", and it invariably leads to bizarre and archaic relationships. Characteristically these unbalanced relationships will incarnate the master-slave archetype, which itself is a form of the pre-human duality of dominance-subservience.

Disaster inevitably follows from such a situation. Freedom and salvation are never found in blind participation in the energy dynamic of ego and archetype. In fact, even when the guru archetype is truly present, and the door out of duality is standing open, it can only be passed through in a moment of awakening consciousness.

The modern messiah as the archetypal "Big Head".

The "problem" many of us have with the new messiahs who have surfaced in our time, is that we accurately perceive them to be classic dualistic role-players, ordinary human beings who have inflated and lost themselves in the projection of the guru archetype rather than truly awakening to it and serving its real function.

We see a "Big Head" who wants to lord over "little heads". That is, we see a situation of dual-mind that is only interested in perpetuating a state of dual mind, in which the "guru" persists forever as an archetype to be worshipped and served.

There is no doubt our view comes from a characteristically democratic suspicion of self-proclaimed authority figures. Westerners don't like despots, especially religious despots. And, in recent decades our worst suspicions have been confirmed, over and over again, as one after another of these "messiah-gurus" has self-destructed into powdered clay.

Fortunately, our democratic instincts are on the mark: The simple truth is that enlightenment, realization, or transcendence is not about the perpetuation of any archetype or archetypal situation or any duality of any kind. It is only about consciousness awakening to its non-dual nature!

And that means that archetypes are not perpetuated, but continually dissolved in expanding awareness. The guru function is not about carrying the projection of an archetype (including the guru archetype) -- it is about breaking the projected power of the archetypes, destroying transference, and pointing to the non-dual nature of awareness...from the beginning. That is the sublime teaching of the real Guru.

One reason Buddhism is finding such acceptance in the West, in my view, is that its essential teachings are in perfect accord with the politics of a democracy. In a democracy the object of projected power is periodically "removed from office", and energy is returned to the electorate. Thus the electorate continuously is given the opportunity to recognize itself as the source of the psychic energy that animates its leaders. It is as if our politics "points to the nature of the mind".

Western gurus must be willing to sacrifice themselves to the awakening of the Self in their followers.

As I said above, if one is to give in to the projection of the guru archetype upon a particular human being, the intuition and realization of the guru as one's own Nature must be there, from the beginning, and throughout the process of growth. It does no good to have it presented as a promise of something to come later, after aeons of devotion to an archetypal Other.

Non-dual mind must emerge from day one, and become the engine that drives the relationship between guru and disciple. Otherwise all you have is another form of false religion, or entertainment, or politics -- dual-mind projected upon a fascinating and powerful Big Head, who in turn taxes energy from "little head" and acts to keep "little head" forever "little".

The followers of Big Head never attain enlightenment, because Big Head is not interested in being transcended! Big Head only wants to contain and own little heads. Big Head wants to be Big Head forever -- an idol floating in infinity.

Take a close and discriminative look at any guru to whom you are attracted. Examine the teachings, which may be full of the talk of non-dual realization and yet also full of the pompous dynamic of Big Head talking down to and dominating little head. Examine the actions and behavior of the group and its leader, and ask yourself whether anything of a transcendent kind if going on there.

If you are already part of a group, examine your own psychological dynamic, and the needs and expectations that are being "fulfilled" by your participation in the group. Have you abandoned the democratic principle and handed over control of your life? Have you signed agreements which commit you to a subservient loss of energy? Have you merged with "group consciousness" and lost your sense of individuality? Have you abdicated any of the rights granted you by the larger society in which you live? Are you living for a yet-be-fulfilled and always-retreating promise? Does your Teacher appear to you as a fantastically powerful being, someone you could never match in wisdom and genius? If you feel love for this being, is it a love which constantly reminds you of your unworthiness, your littleness, your failure, your insignificance, and your powerlessness?

If your answer to any of the above questions is "yes", I would suggest that you are a prisoner of an archetypal transference. If such transference has not been broken by your teacher from day one, then I would suggest that your teacher is a false teacher, an unenlightened man or woman who enjoys stimulating and feeding upon the energy of transference. Such a person can help no one, and in fact will only hurt everyone with whom he/she becomes involved.

Yes, Dorothy, please notice the man behind the curtain. Beyond the duality of ego and archetype, you will find no authority outside yourself.

Elias