Glossary: I
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Id
The id forms the instinctual, mostly psychophysiological basis of the whole structure. The ego, which is mostly based on the id, is the part that comes in contact with the external world. It is formed by the process of contact with and adaptation to the environment, mostly the parents. The... more »
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Idealization
Grandiosity may alternate with, or be hidden by, an inordinate need to find persons to idealize. The need to idealize someone specific is normal, but it is a more desperate need for the narcissist, and is needed for the normal individual when the narcissistic constellation approaches conscious experience in the... more »
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Idealizing Transference
Our view parallels that of the Jungian analyst, Schwartz-Salant, who thinks that idealization can have a primarily defensive purpose, blocking painful or threatening feelings, "...or else it can represent the healthy mobilization of the positive Self in the form of projection: one's own better or potential qualities are transferred to... more »
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Ideals
The moment we posit a particular state as ideal, we also fall into the mode of comparative judgment. We are comparing where we are now with that ideal state. This becomes a fertile ground for the superego. The superego loves this position. This is exactly the gap it needs to... more »
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Identification
Identification with mental representations, or a psychic structure patterned by such representations, is the most fundamental cause of narcissistic disturbance. more »
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Identity
Identity is not the same as self. more »
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Identity Attachment
So the first level of attachment goes along with the first level of identity. It has to do with your ID cards. It is very clear that the image gets bigger the more cards you have. If a person wants to change his image he gets a different kind of... more »
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Ignorance
Learned ignorance has to do with our previous experience, the accumulated knowledge and impressions and influences from past experiences. We can understand and work through learned ignorance, which includes the beliefs and ideas we have accumulated from having lived. Our past experiences influence us in all sorts of ways. Much... more »
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Image
When an image is eliminated the mind becomes empty (of its content), clear, spacious and light. This is the experience of space, the mind with content, the nature of the mind. The darkness of mental content dissipates as the lightness and clarity of Space penetrates it. This is obviously a... more »
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Impeccability
To be impeccable at that moment is to do all that you can do to pay attention, to use whatever you have learned, especially at those times when you know you have a tendency not to pay attention. Your knowledge is not perfect, not complete, but you use what you... more »
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Impersonal Witness
As the Impersonal, one experiences oneself as a vast, dark, silent, emptiness. It is a sheer emptiness, boundless, infinite and absolutely silent. One experiences oneself as an emptiness that has no characteristic except that of being a totally silent Impersonal Witness. There is a stupendous vastness, an absolute silence, a... more »
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Impressionability
Our impressionability is both our boon and our misfortune. We are beings who can soar to unimaginable heights of freedom, creativity, and development, but can also plummet to the depths of suffering and degradation. We can be higher and finer than the highest angels, but can also be lower and... more »
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Individuality
The achievement of a separate individuality depends on two conditions: The establishment of a cohesive self-image. In fact, the sense of being an individual is nothing but taking oneself to be this self-image. In other words the individual is a mental structure constructed in the mind. Before this construct is... more »
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Individuation Narcissism
Individuation narcissism manifests as the need for support for individuation, and as the need for mirroring of one's skills and capacities, and as grandiose ideas about one's qualities, skills, talents, and accomplishments. One is narcissistic in relation to one's competence and capacity, as well as in relation to one's sense... more »
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Inertia
Our sense of self is based on fixed structures. In fact, the sense of self is itself a fixed structure. So our feeling of identity is ordinarily unchanging. Our sense of who we are has a conditioned quality to it, which means that we have a habitual tendency to experience... more »
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Infant Soul
At infancy the soul is coemergent with her true nature, but her discriminating and cognitive capacities are not developed enough for her to recognize her true nature. Such innate ignorance seems to necessitate some kind of development where the cognitive capacities can mature to the extent of being able to... more »
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Inner Journey
The inner journey is a passionate inquiry into our own soul, our own personal field of experience. It’s not enough to be passionately involved in a subject or pursuit that we are interested in learning more about; we have to be passionately involved in our own process. We need to... more »
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Inner Mother
We can say then that the Merging Essence is in a sense the "inner mother." In fact, all students in the process of inner realization relate to it as if it were their good mother. One of the main issues to be worked through is that of associating it with... more »
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Inner Realization
Inner realization is a process of shedding, of losing what one takes oneself to be, to ultimately become what one is, without need for any external support, not even one's mind. This description is not metaphorical; one actually experiences the disappearance of great realms of one's identity. As one goes... more »
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Inner Space
Inner spaciousness is the necessary step for the emergence of Being in the essential manifestation of support for nondoing. It usually manifests as an experience of Presence in a new form, which has the characteristics of solidity, immensity, immovability, strength, groundedness, definiteness, precision, and clarity. We feel solid, as immense... more »
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Inner development
The work of inner realization requires not only an external supportive context and environment but also the development of an inner vessel, the internal context for the journey. Some Eastern traditions conceptualize this as the inner mandala that constitutes the totality of the personal field of experience; the corresponding notion... more »
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Innocence
So if you continue to perceive reality without knowing it, what is that? It is mysterious. Because we believe our dead world, our dead mind, we are afraid of this innocence. This innocence scares the hell out of us, scares the hell out of the person in the mind, because... more »
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Inquiry
Inquiry is a dynamic functioning of our consciousness, of our soul, that has to be flexible, responsive, and playful for it to be truly intelligent. It has to be inspired by intelligence and informed by understanding. As you inquire, you need to use your intelligence, and you need to apply... more »
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Insecurity
Of course all the myriad manifestations of narcissistic insecurity arise as certain ego identifications are dropped in the process of inner realization. Our unlimited hunger for love, money, admiration, power, insight, even inner development and enlightenment, come to the fore, and we see that they are continually generating fear and... more »
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Insight
Now let’s try to identify what that thing is, if there is something there at those times of insight that gives you that conviction, that certainty; something that makes an insight have more truth than just an ordinary perception of your state. In the experience of insight, isn’t there more... more »
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Instinct
There is a very close connection between the structure of the ego and the functions of the instincts. This means that for the personality to let go and for its identity to dissolve, the individual must deal with the issue of survival because it is underneath the functioning of all... more »
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Instinctual Drives
The heart exists at the level of the human soul rather than at the level of the animal soul. And unless the instinctual drives in the animal soul are confronted, they will confine -- and ultimately control -- the human soul and heart. One way that the instincts manifest themselves... more »
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Integration
This is what I call then integrated identity. Personality, Essence, Supreme, body, mind, are all one identity operating without a split. Then you are simply ordinary. You are not someone who is working on himself. You are someone who is just living. You do what you do without feeling that... more »
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Integrity
Being honest and sincere means confronting our inner experience and our outer life in a truthful way. Being sincere means not lying to ourselves, not rationalizing, not comforting, not postponing, not bandaging difficulties. Being sincere means grappling with our life and coming to terms with it with a sense of... more »
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Intelligence
How can we understand intelligence on the essential dimension, as a manifestation of Being? We first go to the Absolute, the essence of our Being. The absolute essence of Being is complete in all ways, perfect in all possibilities; it is completeness and perfection in a total way. It implicitly... more »
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Interference
If you try to do anything other than understand the situation, your effort will be a blockage, a resistance, an interference. You cannot make yourself grow; you can only cease to interfere. You cannot make yourself happy; you can only stop your judgments. Growth and expansion are natural; they are... more »
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Introjection
In time, the external coercive agencies become internalized. This is done through the process of introjection and identification, in which the coercive agencies become part of the internal structure of the child. In other words, the child psychically takes in parental demands, and they became his or her own. We... more »
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Intuition
Therefore, information can leak out from the unconscious not only about emotional complexes but also about the Essence. This is why we have intuitions sometimes about Essence. The unconscious knows the Essence. All of the knowledge is there, but it is not available to consciousness. And intuition is a way... more »
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Ipseity
The absolute is both my nature and my identity. Is the nature of the soul and her very identity. It constitutes her manifestations but it is also her depth and deepest essence. Alternatively, we can say the absolute is our true self, our objectively actual self. But it is also... more »
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Issues
You see, when you have an issue in your life, the point is not to get rid of it; the point is to grow with it. The point is not just to resolve the issue; the point is to grow through resolving it. So, in many ways you can see... more »
