The Vertical Brings Us to Erotic Adulthood. When we speak of Eros, we must speak of the concept of horizontal or vertical access. Horizontal consciousness is a type of extrinsic, everyday consciousness that seeks pleasure in novelty: new experiences or acquisitions. Vertical consciousness is rooted in the interior world; it is being in touch with something eternal, silent, and filled with presence or sentience. The latter is what confers meaning, richness, and truth to life. Spiritual forms are designed to demonstrate how to get vertical access—ultimately, how to access the present moment.
Until now, we have lived almost as exiles from ourselves in an attempt to conceal the hidden reality of who we are. We have internally attacked the dynamic aspects of vertical power: desire, creativity, surrender. We have split off from ourselves and, as a result, have drawn a line that says “Do not enter” down the center of our world. Good/bad, profound/profane, order/chaos, self/other. We live with the conflict of this split until, perhaps from inspiration or from desperation, we choose to enter ourselves.
It is humbling because entering the vertical realms can often bring us face-to-face with the fact that our most cherished concepts and beliefs—while they are in perfect adherence to the laws of the world of appearances—are entirely out of alignment with the deeper laws of nature. We are brought to a place where we witness this dissonance, and must now
Our inner conflict shifts from feeling the pull into the vertical world and trying to resist it, to seeing what lies inside and trying to reconcile it with the external world. It is a life’s work, a balancing act.
We discover that what is most revered in the world of appearances is a violation in the interior world that is rooted in interdependence. The differences are often diametrically opposed.
The ability to engage intellectually while holding an objective stance is a signifier of power in the world of appearances, but it is experienced as archaic, ineffective, and demonstrably slow in the interior world where much more rapid and streamlined methods of knowing exist. In fact, some truths can only be known through the interior approach. While the interior faculties of insight and intuition may use the overrated intellect to substantiate what we discover, we can and must dispense with it for a period of time in order to gather accurate knowledge.
For example, the capacity to withhold, then formulate, then present, then perform a report of one’s interior condition as the preferred method—over honest, immediate, and real-time truth—proves clunky and ineffective.
