The Filters of the Source
Let us examine the whole process of communication in a little more detail.
First an Experience occurs. This could be internal or external, verbal or non-verbal. This Experience is represented by a Flower because it is raw and unfiltered.
The first Filter of the Source translates the raw Experience into thoughts, concepts. The Source is represented by a square because he supplies the Criterion for the Filters.
The second Filter translates the Thought or concept of the Experience into words or action for transmission. This is the Message.
A circle represents the Message because they are raw words which limit and smooth out the Experience.
Note that the Experience has to go through two Source filters to create the Message. And we haven’t even gotten to the Receiver yet.
This Chart for the Receiver is similar to that of the Source. The Message, which includes the appearance and behavior of the Source as well as the verbal content, is a raw Experience for the Receiver. This is why a Flower surrounds it. This raw Message must first go thru a filter which turns the Message into something individual for the Receiver, i.e. gives it personal meaning. The mental constructs of the Receiver determine the type of boxes that the raw Message will be put into. For example the Message could be put in a ‘funny’, ‘informative’, ‘boring’, ‘exciting’ or ‘unintelligible’ Box.
Once the Receiver has internalized the raw Message, then she must externalize the Message in a Response. This is the second filter - yielding the second Message - which is an approximation of the first Message, which was already an approximation of the original Experience. The second filter turns the internalized experience into a message that someone else can understand. For instance if the Receiver is communicating to a child they might frame their Message differently than if they are speaking to an adult - women possibly different than men - older different than a teenager.
Four Filters from Experience to Message to Response
The following diagram is an abbreviation of the above process. It is easy to see that Source and Receiver, both have two filters - one that internalizes the Experience and one that externalizes it.
The Source must first translate raw Experience into personal meaning thru his personal filter and then must translate this meaning into words that will be understood by the Receiver. The Receiver must first evaluate the verbal Message/Source complex and then must translate the Message thru his own mental constructs in order to communicate the message to a 3rd Party.
The above diagram is further abbreviated into the diagram below. This representation shows us to be the single person that we think we are, when in reality we consist a multiplicity of parts.
The above symbolism represents the simplest scenario of communication, an experience transmitted from one Person to another and the response. Note that despite the simplicity there are four filters of distortion.
Let us reduce our symbolism a little further.
This diagram indicates that the initial free form Experience is conceptualized into words inside the Source - then communicated to the Receiver - who first internalizes the Message and then responds.
This diagram could be simplified yet again.
Note that the circles represent the word translations of the original raw Experience. The Experience must go thru the four filters for the information to be transmitted and responded to.
Cultural Conditioning clogs the Filters
The Criteria of the Filters are based in cultural conditioning and personal experience.
While it would be nice to say that they are a sum, in reality they are a mixture.
This representation illustrate that even the mental formations used to organize and give meaning to the raw Experience are generally derived from one’s surrounding culture.
True Freedom and the Spiritual Master
Indeed perhaps one goal of the spiritual Master, M, is to strip away the Cultural Conditioning from the Experience. This is what is called the Direct Perception of Reality.
This is true freedom. As long as one is subject to involuntary behavior due to social conditioning, one is a slave and a victim of these unconscious patterns.
The main issue becomes cleaning the filter so that Being can Experience Reality directly rather than thru the screen of Cultural Conditioning. This filter cleansing leads to true freedom. Reiterating, once again, this is the relative ability not to be a victim of an emotional reaction to Cultural Conditioning.
The Filters of the Spiritual Master clarify rather than obscure
On the topic of the Spiritual Master:
While there is a tendency for the transmission to become clouded rather than clarified as it passes thru the many filters, the filter of the Master has the potential of clarifying rather than clouding. The Master can understand underlying messages that even the Source might not understand.
As a common example, the Mother Master might understand that the underlying message of the fussy child is that they are hungry or tired. Thus her response would be to feed the child or put them to bed, rather than spank them for crabbiness. On other levels the Music Master might answer the question that the Student should ask rather than answering a trivial question that doesn’t need to be responded to.
Or the Spiritual Master will understand that communications based upon the quest for status, money and power are rooted in the illusion of the Person. Instead of participating in these delusional assumptions, he will attempt to transcend these misguided polarities by bumping the Source to a higher plane. He will respond to a shallow Message by sinking it to a deeper level.
The Lowest Level or the Propagandist obscures the original message - adding layers of delusion. The Average Person transmits the original message with all the illusions intact. The Master strips away the delusions from the original message. The position of the Master is difficult to attain because the only way to strip away external illusion is to be free of internal illusion.
This is what this book is all about - How to deconstruct the verbal reality.
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