The Divided Self

Modern psychology believes a ‘divided self’ is an ‘illusory’ self, separated from our ‘real’ self – it is a disorder. The popular view is that the self is the experiencer, and that there isn’t any experiences without the experiencer, the self. The disorder is acting out what we are not, and we therefore create a false self.

I once asked a psychologist, “What is normal?” She replied, “Normal is what is normal for that person.” So if people act out of character, then that is abnormal. If this becomes too exaggerated in the mind of a psychologist, then it needs treatment.

Of course there will be occasions when people do need help, but unfortunately in this modern life of stress, processed foods, added chemicals, it is more than likely that people cannot be themselves. People put on a social ‘face’ that is bound to crack now and again. Common sense tells us all this.

If only they meditated!

Buddhism would agree: there has to be an experiencer to experience. This is the same as saying, without awareness we would not be aware of anything. Psychologists are pre-supposing that the experiencer is pure and uncontaminated.

Through meditation, we recognise that the experience – or awareness/perception – takes place in the mind. We see that we identify with this experience so strongly that we call it the ‘experiencer’. We then notice that the mind is contaminated with thoughts and concepts: these act as a filter through which we experience everything. The ‘normal-for-that-person-experiencer’ is already contaminated with impure perceptions.

There is your abnormality!

And that is the normal for everyone. How abnormal we are will depend on how strongly we cling to those conceptual filters in the mind, which distort our experiences.

We need to take a subtle step back. This is what meditation is: it lets everything drop, into pure perception, pure experience, pure awareness, that is experiencing all this. The experiencer also drops, as that is a concept. There is merely pure experience. Or the divine, as it is pure. That is what we are.

What is realised through meditation

The division between pure experiencer and contaminated experiencer came when we lost pure perception. When we lost pure awareness and became distracted by contaminates which gave rise to obstacles which act as filters. The pure experiencer is primordial pure wisdom free from elaboration. It is the divine within.

The Divine is the eternal within us
and is based on truth,
while ephemeral concepts
are based on temporary illusions.

As we are not enlightened yet, we must accept this divided self, this separation of reality in unreality. Our confusion is our path. It is here that we can practise cutting through the contaminations. It’s like this: Divinity, Path, Fruition.

Divinity is our basic purity.
Path is our confusion about that purity.
Fruition is recognising that the confusion about our basic purity never existed.

Our conflict has always been that we have known this all along, in the back of our minds, but have been distracted…divided!

Now you are not…
… just keep remembering.

And it’s free – of contaminates, filters, and charges!