I.  Emotional Transcendence


True, deep philo-sophia is not a set of beliefs or a sophisticated intellectual game or speculation about the meaning of life, etc., etc., but a deeply experiential practice that systematically leads a person to true happiness.

The wisdom that Philosophy loves is the wisdom of life itself, of how to live so as to be happy. Only philosophy in this sense can teach us how to live this way. So we love the wisdom that philosophy guides us into in order to find a sure and reliable way to be happy.

Therefore Philosophy, the love of wisdom,  is a practical matter, a necessary endeavor if we are to realize our true natures and be truly happy.



The philosopher Spinoza had a way of talking about the love of wisdom that clarifies what it is in practical human terms, and how it works to make us happy.

He wrote that the central focus of philosophy is rightfully in the place where we really live, where we are moved to action, i.e. in our emotions. This is where we feel life, feel alive, and either suffer or experience happiness.

His central idea is that the emotions that cause us pain, suffering, confusion, addiction, self-sabotage, changes of fortune and all the seemingly never-ending ups and downs of life, could only be brought to the service of our true happiness if we were able to find and use an emotion that is stronger and broader than any of them. This is the idea of a sort of "trump card" of the emotions.

He defined this "trump card" of the emotions as "the higher intuitive intelligence's love of Life Itself."  (This is a very loose translation of what he wrote, but one that I believe contains his essential meaning.)



This is not abstract. We all have the feeling of Life Itself inside us, in our direct bodily experiencing, and we can find it and let it unfold once it is merely pointed out to us.

The love is a "higher love" because emotionally we experience it as feelings of pure love, pure joy or pure contentment rather than as individual limited love experiences.



The "higher intuitive intelligence" means the following.

It is "higher" because its scope goes way beyond the formal operations level of linear logic. It is "intuitive" because we access it by sensing it directly rather than by thinking about it or imagining it. And it is "intelligence" because it involves the intellectual activities of discrimination and discernment.



So, the love of wisdom that unfolds happiness in us is really a highly discriminating direct intuitive love of Life itself, as we find it in ourselves. This special kind of love unfolds the natural ecstasy that is unconsciously in us waiting to come out.

And it is this natural ecstasy that is the emotional "trump card" that brings the energies of all the emotions into alignment with our natural state of happiness. This is because the feeling of ecstasy is much more powerful than any of the other emotions and so we become less and less swayed by them.



In deep Socratic dialogue this direct intuitive love of life is reached through the contemplation of beauty. This means that in DEPTH Dialogue we focus on beauty, on what gives us pleasure in our internal experience. Socrates spoke of a "ladder of love" that led from ordinary experiences of beauty to the most transcendental sublime experiences of pure beauty in and of itself.

By focusing on beauty in our internal experiences, we evoke in ourselves the natural pleasure of Life in us. The more refined and sublime our experience of beauty, the more this internal pleasure becomes ecstatic. This is the way that DEPTH Dialogue finds and develops natural ecstasy, "trump card of the emotions."



This "trump card" not only brings ecstasy. It brings higher levels of functioning in all areas of life, with the freedom, joy,  power and higher creativity that result from living this way.

This is because in loving beauty with the higher intuitive intelligence, we go to a higher level of creativity where we go beyond the restrictions and limitations of the formal operations level of organizing our internal experience. In doing this we enter into the world of higher creative play beyond the dramas (i.e. conflict- enactments) of the lower levels. The formal operations level and below it are the story world of linear thinking, experiencing and telling.

(You can review the section on Overview for more explanation of the levels.)



The dramas of the story world are what Socrates called the illusory images on the wall of a cave, the shadowy world of mirages and hallucinations in a consciousness that is not self-realized.

Self-realization brings you out of the cave of illusory images, dramas and stories, into the realm of pure beauty, full creativity and transcendental awareness. This is the realm of true freedom, happiness and power from within. The story world is the realm of suffering and limitations caused by a hallucinating consciousness. Story-telling and the dramas of life (internal AND external) end with Self-realization. Deep true creative play begins.



In the normal course of life and learning we go from one level of development to the next in an orderly gradual fashion. In achieving the formal operations level of linear logic and dramatic story-telling we quite naturally leave behind the naive and innocent childish world of pure sensory awareness, pleasurably streaming bodily sensations, and childish magical thinking.

This abandonment of the bliss of childhood is necessary for full achievement of adult formal operations thinking and experience. What also happens, which is also necessary, is that we put up mental and emotional defenses against returning to the previous levels.



While these actions are necessary for normal development, and even though the adult formal operations level is a great achievement, giving us much greater freedom, clarity and power, with this achievement we are left with a (mostly unconscious) sense of nostalgia for the sweetness of the former childhood bliss, that innocent ecstasy of pure creative play unrestrained by adult obligations and responsibilities.

This pushes us to seek that former unrestricted pleasure of childhood and childish magical thinking through forms of regression, i.e. through drugs, mysticism, "new age" philosophies, meditation, romance, "back to nature," addictions of all kinds, self-immolation in a cause of some kind, self-sacrifice, etc. etc.

(In ancient symbolism this was called the Dionysian way, after the Greek god of wine and orgy, Dionysus.)

But this regression to bliss is at the cost of the power, clarity and freedom that is to be had at the formal operations level. Following the pull into regression never works. It is always "spacing out" in one way or another - a lower level of functioning, not a higher one.



The other factor that pushes us is the wall of defenses that naturally build up in the course of achieving the formal operations level. These defenses are usually quite extensive and generally quite painful when touched upon or transgressed. (This is one reason why people seeking bliss through regression often need strong drugs, or strong mind-manipulation to get to their intermittent peak experiences.)

We are talking here mainly about infant and young child separation anxiety, and also disintegration anxiety. Accompanying this are (mostly unconscious) feelings of rage about the pain we experience, and a deep sense of grief for what we feel we have lost.

These feelings happen to some extent in the transition between all levels. These transitions are all like births, so we experience separation and feelings of disintegrating in relation to the former level of integration. Education and nurturing help us go through these successive "births" more easily.



The drive of the defenses against regression, at the formal operations level, is to block out all tender and sensual feelings from childhood and to fully identify with the formal operations mode. This can happen either by identifying with the aspect of rational linear logic, or by identifying with the masculine aggressiveness of dramatic story-telling, which translates into acting out conflicts.

(In ancient symbolism this was called the Apollonian way, after Apollo, the Greek god of intellect, power and detachment.)

This way doesn't work either. Obviously, it doesn't get us "back to the garden" of childhood bliss and magical dreamlike imagination. It takes us further away from it. But it also doesn't take away the nostalgia for the bliss and the magic. It only manages to exaggerate the feeling of emptiness, of something missing deep down inside. (All of this is mostly if not entirely unconscious.)



These two tendencies themselves (toward regression and mysticism or toward narrow rationality and blocking) are natural events in the course of development. Each leap of development from one level to the next is pushed by an inner dynamic tension that sets up a vital need for transcendence to the next level. These two tendencies create the necessary dynamic tension impelling toward transcendence of the formal operations level.

At each level up to formal operations human culture has developed ways and means of guiding and helping others to make the transition to the next level. This is through imitation, education, family life, the institutions of society, etc. etc. This has even been formalized into general theories of psychological, moral and experiential development.



However, this is not the case once we get to the formal operations level. Because there are no structures of guidance and education to help with transcendence to levels beyond formal operations, we find ourselves generally stuck in one or the other of the impelling tendencies. As with the former levels, the dynamic tension in these tendencies happens by itself but needs guidance in order to play out fully into transcendence of the particular level.

Deep inner Socratic Dialogue was known and practiced in the Ancient world. It is the guidance needed to help with the natural transcendence to the levels beyond formal operations, i.e. to levels beyond regressive mysticism, beyond the narrow and limiting restrictions of rational linear logic, and beyond the aggressive conflict-enactments of linear dramatic story-telling.

DEPTH Dialogue is the revival of that guidance and help.

(In the ancient world this was called Dialectic. It is the transcendent way to higher and fuller functioning beyond the Dionysian or the Apollonian formal operations strategies. It is true transcendent psychotherapy,  "care for the soul" (in classical Greek, therapeaia for the psyche) into full self-realization - going beyond the fruitless and deluded formal operations psychotherapy strategies of caring for the emotional pain dramas of the world of imaginal illusory phantoms.)



What is needed, and what happens with DEPTH Dialogue, is for the clear, developed, powerful formal operations intelligence to meet the abandoned innocent childhood tender and sensual feelings, in a way that is neither regressive nor blocking and defensive.

This is a huge leap. No method or practice of modern psychology, education or cultural influence has been able to provide any help in this. It is unknown territory in the modern world. This is because all the assumptions, principles and practices of the modern world are firmly rooted in narrow rational logic or in regressive mysticism.

Some, like Freud, have gone near the territory but then retreated. Some, like the philosopher Nietzsche, have dived right in, without the skills or the sensitivity that is required, and have gone stark raving mad. Others have followed their lead but then simply retreated in the usual fashion back to mysticism or linear rationality.



As noted above, the philosopher Spinoza provided the guidance in what needs to be done to go the the next levels. It is the exercise of the "higher intuitive intelligence's love of Life Itself." Socrates called this the "ladder of love" that leads to the sublime ecstasy of pure beauty.

Although Spinoza pointed the way, he did not give details. Socrates gave the details, but we only have a dim record of them because our source for this is Plato's Dialogues, which obscure the deep wisdom because they are story-dramas (coming from the dramatizing formal operations level of consciousness.)

DEPTH Dialogue has come from following the direction that Spinoza pointed to, and using this to open up a deep understanding of the real inner dynamics that Socrates used in his deep conversations with others about their inner lives. It looks beyond Plato's dramatizing to Socrates' real and true love of the pure beauty of Life Itself, and connection with others in that love.



DEPTH Dialogue, as the modern revival of deep inner Socratic Dialogue, helps with the resolution of the impelling dynamic tension at the formal operations level so as to bring about transcendence to levels beyond that, by skillfully activating and exersizing the "higher intuitive intelligence's love of the pure beauty of Life Itself" that Spinoza pointed to and Socrates played with.

This meets the conditions mentioned above for the skillful, sensitive, meeting of the discriminating intelligence with the abandoned childhood tender, sensual inner feelings. When the intellect that was developed at the formal operations level to transcend childhood magical thinking turns to the sensual, tender feelings of the beauty of Life Itself in you, with love and devotion, it transcends its separative and aggressive stance and becomes more sensitive and intuitive. This is what happens in DEPTH Dialogue.



Love and Devotion are the keys here. The intellect is no longer used as a separative and cutting, aggressive instrument. Rather, it takes all the power, incisiveness and clarity it developed in reaching the formal operations level and turns it toward sensitive and intuitive love and devotion for the feeling of Life Itself, experienced as beauty in its many forms and appearances.



Symbolically, this is Sophia - a goddess, a feminine aspect of life and experience. Sophia is Wisdom, but not wisdom as some sort of abstraction but as the beauty and deep feeling of Life Itself that inspires deep rapturous love and devotion.

Intellect, a masculine aggressive tool, through love and devotion to Sophia, is thereby transformed into "higher intuitive intelligence," an instrument of devotion, a sensitive masculine lover. Intellect (masculine) comes to be in love with and devoted to Sophia the Wisdom of Life(feminine), and their love relationship produces ecstasy, transcendence and deep transformation to higher levels of experience and functioning.

(The Eastern equivalent of Sophia is Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, the object of devotion for gnani, the higher intellect. The symbolism means the same.)



The result of this union of higher intelligence and the deep wisdom of life is neither a mystical regression nor a defensive drama of linear story-telling. It is a mode of functioning that goes beyond the whole formal operations mode, just like formal operations went beyond former childish ways. It is the re-union with the lost bliss and magic of childhood while retaining the full power, clarity, rationality and freedom of adulthood. It is the transformation into truly intelligent deeply ecstatic sensitive intuitive creative play.



The wisdom that results in true happiness, then, is the practice of consciously and intelligently choosing the higher intuitive love of Life Itself, through the contemplation of inner experiences of beauty. This results in the natural ecstasy that is the "emotional trump card" that transcends all other emotions.

DEPTH Dialogue is the practice of philosophy in the above sense. This practice is very skillful and detailed, newly rediscovered and made available here for the first time since the era of Socrates.



And it is very important to note that the leap to higher levels, into full Self-realization, is no different in kind or more difficult than the transition between any of the previous levels. It is a simple awareness, a realization.

It is really no different than when a child first realizes that mommy still exists even when he can't see her. This is a huge leap for him, but we easily see that it is just a simple realization. The same is true for full Self-realization. It is just as easy and simple.

Anyone can do it, especially when guidance is provided. But first you must know about it or you don't even look for it. DEPTH Dialogue tells you about it and then shows you where and how to look.



The core factor in the practice of DEPTH Dialogue is a type of inner creative play that evokes both love and fun feelings within your bodily feeling of Life Itself.  It is a very subtle, skillful and sensitive way of activating the "higher intuitive intelligence's love of Life Itself." This is a powerful deep feeling experience.

The dynamic meeting and blending of these four factors (i.e. creative play, love, fun and bodily Life-feeling) results in a powerful activation of natural inner ecstasy - the "trump card" for all the emotions.

Creative activation of natural ecstasy is the practice of the Wisdom of Life which is the deep Socratic Philosophy - the unfolder of true happiness. This is what the Love of Wisdom is truly all about.

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Go back to the The Heart Of It.

Go to the next topic, True Self Knowing.