Talking about the Grid
So, shall we talk about the Polarity Grid?
Yes, what do you make of it?
At first, I wasn’t sure, but it’s beginning to seem more interesting. Although, isn’t it a bit far-fetched to reduce the whole of man’s conscious experience to two dimensions? And why those two in particular, polarity and power?
The Grid says nothing about the particular experiences of an individual and so there is no question of reducing these experiences so that they are insignificant: they remain significant and valid for the person. The Grid merely invites a classification of our life experiences according to two variables, polarity and power, and the experiences remain available to us in all their infinite variety. But if we look carefully at our approach to life, our perception of the positive and negative underpins all our acts. We are drawn to things which give pleasure or satisfaction and we resist or are repelled by those which cause us pain. Between these two poles we try to steer a course in life. But continuous pleasure does not exist and pain also comes to an end. The absence of the one we call the other; when pain stops we are pleased, when pleasure ceases or is taken to excess we find that painful.
So why do you use the terms positive and negative? Isn’t it just the same as good and evil, pleasure and pain, or light and dark?
Perhaps we use positive and negative because they give us the most neutral terms for this polarity. Just as we know the poles of a magnet or the terminals of a battery as positive and negative, these terms give us a formal language or convention to explain more complex concepts such as Consciousness or Chemistry and other ideas which we touch on in the Project.
Isn’t it also a chart of good and evil?
Humanity has always argued over good and evil, morality and ethics, but, if we are honest, they are relative terms for us and we can only explore the relative against a fixed background. The Grid can accommodate such terms but we are also seeking to explore consciousness and polarity by seeing what is real within ourselves, what is permanent and true. We may do this without recourse to external authorities whose ethical conventions or notions of morality always vary according to prevailing cultural conditions and may even be degraded.
So I can use the Grid to explore what is really positive for me, what is true for me?
Yes, of course. What you will find is that everyone has their own elaborate description of what is negative in their life, but descriptions of the positive tend towards the same essentially simple expressions. Perhaps the positive is found in simplicity. So to have a Grid with an upper storey, where there is an invitation to be united in powerful positivity and to act through your realisation of what that is, appears to be a great endorsement of the sovereign good of creation. But it is not so simple if my positive entails your negative.
And the lower storey?
Well, negativity exists in the Grid – everything exists in the Grid – but having given it its own space we have the possibility of examining it without falling under its spell. We have the right to choose not to be negative: it is a fundamental right. That means that an individual can be free from negativity on this Earth.
That’s a big claim.
Is it?
I can see that negativity is a common feature of human conversation, of the newspapers and television. People seem so animated when they hear about some accident or have a piece of gossip to report. But to get free of all that … is it even possible?
Yes, it is. We do not stop to ask ourselves what the effect is of being a link in that chain of negativity – not only the effect on our personal life and relationships but also at the global level. What is the nature of the ‘climate’ which we create on the planet? Any serious person must accept the possibility that there is a collective responsibility for the condition of terrestrial life. There are imperfections, are there not?
There certainly are.
And if there is a collective responsibility then obviously we, each of us, make a contribution to that collective effect?
Yes.
Then what we are arriving at here is an assertion of the vital significance of each individual life and the great importance for each of us of our life expressions. It is something which we can all get involved in and not just leave to others. It is also perhaps worth noting that in the visible hierarchy on Earth there is nothing to suggest that the political leaders and potentates are aware of this essential question of polarity – even if they are, it is those among us who actually see the importance of this insight and act accordingly who are really doing something for humanity. We are then helping, to some extent, to mitigate the effects of planetary negativity which is fed by our mass indifference not only to human suffering, but also to the effects of our actions on the condition of this extraordinarily beautiful planet.
So this Polarity Grid may help to make us more aware of polarity at the planetary level, and at the individual level it could help us to avoid habits of speech and behaviour which tend to drag us down?
Yes, it can help us to see our condition and changes in that condition, and how we can make changes in our life. At times we must struggle against habitual negativity; but surely that is worth attempting?
Yes, it has to be. Shall we look at the Grid and how it might help?
Yes, where do you want to start?
Let’s see what happens with the first question, Where am I? Because, if I understand it, that is related to getting a fix on our current situation.
Yes, seeing ‘what is’.
O.K. Where am I? Does this mean now at this precise moment in time, or in my life in general?
The answer should be based not on the transient moment but reflect the ‘typical’ or established condition in your life. Of course, you will find there are layers to be explored. There is always fragmentation in our life and we would like to be more integrated, but you can only start from where you think you are. Just reflect on this and lay down a truthful marker. We choose our categories and that is where we begin. The Personal Polarity Assessment helps to structure our thoughts and presents a simple graphic showing where we are and where we want to be.
Well, sometimes I’m one thing and sometimes another.
Yes, there is variability over time and perhaps we need more consistency and stability in life. That is something to work on.
Some people might find that it’s difficult to know at the moment, and say something like, ‘I’m really fed up but when I get promoted … when we get a new house … when I retire.’
Yes, we defer to the future and yet we all want positivity now. Perhaps that very projection into the future is also something to work on and we would prefer to be collected in the here and now.
So I suppose there is also the backward look. ‘It’s tough at the moment but it used to be great … if only I could get it back … when I was young … when I was married/single/free/well off’ – or whatever.
These are descriptions of the past. Again, that very reversion to the imaginary past is also a condition we would like to change. The Grid can, of course, accept a multitude of different images of reality which we project for ourselves. This very multiplicity is part of the human condition and can be usefully explored. Nevertheless, we arrive at a single specific coordinate in response to Where am I?
Presumably the same considerations apply to Where do I want to be?
It is perhaps worth remembering that, although we might find answering the basic questions challenging, we do not need to agonize over our precise location at the outset. Although the Delphi Project can deliver a commentary on that particular location and a suggested route to follow, moving and growing in the Grid is more important than fixing ourselves precisely in the Grid for the first question. We find our level in due course and realize that that is not the end of the story but only the beginning: it is the adventure itself and the ultimate arrival and completion which is of supreme significance, not the exact location of our starting point. Now we have to realize that we are dealing with something serious: we are trying to find out what is real or true about our life story.
We would all be happier facing the truth as long as we intend to act from that understanding to get, if we can, movement and improvement in the Grid. We can only move from ‘what is’ and only you can identify your ‘what is’. An important feature of the Grid is that it is completely private. You are not obliged or encouraged to say what’s going on in your life which makes you put your mark where you do. You do not say what is going on ‘behind your mark’. Nor is there any attempt made to explore or analyze the complexities of our personal histories.
Why not?
We have been doing that for centuries with our competing schools of psychology and their endless variations on the talking cure. As we said earlier, negativities are legion and it is easy to lose your way in trying to unravel their different complex interrelationships. It is easy to become ensnared. But the positive is simple, unified and true, and the inner life is private, and rightly so, for at the heart of the inner life is the sacred on which all human values are based. We have, within, all the resources which we might ever need to deal with anything life throws at us.
So where does that leave us? Where are we now?
The second question requires us to state a goal or aim for ourselves which brings us into positivity if we are in the lower storey, or which strengthens or secures our positivity if we are already on the upper storey. Such an aim is a true aim. A false aim is a desire which, if fulfilled, sows the seeds of its complementary suffering – for example an aim with its fulfilment in Quadrant 1.
So what’s the next move? How do I get there?
How do I get there? is a version of the What should I do? question. We are often taught that we can know the answer to this question only if we have formulated positive aim. When we are young or uncertain we often find ourselves seeking an answer to this question from someone else or in a book, but we arrive at a point where we have to be more self-reliant and work things out for ourselves. ‘What should I do?’ can be replaced by ‘How should I be?’ Being precedes doing. By working on our state of being we create the preconditions for a certain level of event. To act from on high, from the highest motives, from love of the highest, is to know what to do. The main obstacle is the sense of being a limited person, cut off and separate in and from the world. Therefore, we can question that status by asking the truly fundamental questions ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I?’ which make us consider what it means to be a human being. By following that path honestly and sincerely the truth becomes apparent.
You mean, what is true about me?
Yes, you may find, for example, that you have many mental habits which reinforce a false picture of yourself. Then you can ask yourself, ‘What can I say about myself which is true?’ Again, persistence and earnestness yield great insights. You will uncover recurrent patterns of expression which amount to an invitation to the world to treat you in a particular way. What we think, feel and say about ourselves often determines how life responds to us through the actions and reactions of others. To become aware of the chemistry of your discourse is then very important. We think we can be angry and hateful inside but pliant and charming outside. Are we, for example, habitually producing negativity? Just to watch our speech is a powerful antidote to the more poisonous expressions with which daily life is diminished. It is no good repressing these negative emotions or attempting to hide them, because such hypocrisy just produces an inner talk, often resentful and violent, which obscures and distorts our relationships. For most of us, particularly when we are meeting with others to discuss something, this approach is a good and necessary starting point. To watch our expressions carefully and avoid the expression of negative emotions is to drain away the power of negativity.
Why should just watching help the situation?
Because if we are watching ourselves, then that which is watching in us, which we can think of as an ‘inner witness’, is closer to the profound reality in us which is wiser and more generous than the unreconstructed or unevolved ego (we might call this the false personality) which we attempt to impose on the world. That presence is a deeper part of us and also, paradoxically, a higher part of us and acknowledging its very presence modifies our inner chemistry. The witness within, by the act of attention, brings awareness to an aspect of our being. In the light of that awareness the false is revealed as false and cannot survive. Negativity is an attempted denial of our highest self, but it is always false – seen as false in the light of the witnessing consciousness it melts away like mist in the morning sun.
What immediate practical steps do you suggest?
We are driven by externals through our identification with our senses, and consequently we follow false gods in our life. It is not necessary to break abruptly the external obligations which seem to control and crowd in on our lives, but we do need to use every opportunity to keep some time for ourselves. Just stop. Read on a little. Be quiet and reflective, give yourself time to mull over these ideas and let the power of true expression work its way to the surface of the mind – as it surely will.
What then should I do?
You cannot depend on another to chart your life for you. That way all sorts of mischief lies: suddenly you are following one of life’s illusions, you have a guru or you are in a church or sect, or waiting on some organization – a government or charity, even the lottery – to ‘solve’ your life. It is your life, your condition is yours, and your coordinates are yours alone. But many others are moving on the same path so you will not lack for company. Now move, not necessarily through a physical act – although that might follow – but through an inner adjustment. Look deeply into yourself. You will discover the pearl beyond price.
It seems difficult; we must make great efforts.
One understanding of effort is that we must make efforts, even extreme efforts, until we acknowledge that effort is not the key to attaining that which is. For with honesty we will see that our successes and failures in life are often unrelated to effort or desire or will.
So what should I do?
Look at your Grid. Is it real? Is it your projection? What purpose does it serve? Just see it and be free.