Sunday, May 17, 2015

More on the dichotomy of ego and soul..

More on the dichotomy of ego and soul 


All the previous posts in this 'spirit' series were attempting to answer one singular question; as what 'entity' of  man was expected to live on earth and life ? Whether as his 'ego', the inevitable mode in which he has to start the journey, or as his higher'entity'/self, that is usually called the soul, which is directly linked to one's spiritual, or metaphysical root ?  

Can we logically, sensibly assume, or even prove that man indeed has a root,original entity,that is different from his socially originated self, usually known in Freudian-psychology, ego ? Is man expected to live as his ego only during his life-tenure, or nature/existence expects him to seek, find and live with altered self-identity, and altered realities thus experienced ? 

We could dig deep into ontology, to seek to know how entities actually originate in human-terms. It is easy to recognize that, the status of 'entity' could NOT be bestowed to anything without its being related to something already known ! Something unrelated to anything, that stands on its own, is existentially improbable,impossible and incomprehensible in human-terms ! Here, many may ask how we, men, started recognizing ourselves as some kind of an initial entity, EGO ? This central question is taken-up below for a detailed discussion. It was not our entities that originated first, but that of the world, or the SPACE for the ego to exist, by relating to which we were able to create our 'primary'self-entity- the ego.

Ego identity, when empirically analyzed thoroughly, will be revealed that, it was the result of a smartly planned ploy of nature to originate independent knowing entities exclusively out of man's social life, and the total life experiences, or the 'world' realm acting as a SPACE, or canvas. For me to know and 'own' my preliminary entity, or to attain the status of an empirical ego- a public reality- nature has schemed it to be achieved on the very practical-principle of,  'you are, hence I am', at least at its inception stage.

If more simply put, when I give an empirical status to the 'other' on the very strength of  my being a perceiving subject, and he being an 'object' of my senses, he, in-return, reiterate the much needed reality of my entity ! I am sure he is there as an object of my senses. That confidence ensures me too that, I being a similar object before his senses, I too necessarily am real ! Thus, our ego entities are mutually provided objective statuses, claimed by all as real, on the strength of our collective inter-subjectivity. ( see a more detailed account of how Ego emerge, from link: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/2013/08/thinking-understanding-it-as-internal.html)

The depth of our egos is, thus skin-deep only, for all theoretic and practical purposes ! When the predominant other, or others are not there in our lives to ascertain our entity and reality, we, and our world-realities ( self as an object before the world ) cease to exist. See how a lover gets totally lost when his/her loved one abandon him/ her ! How empty the lives of men and women will turn when their loved ones leave them by death, or on other reasons !

It reiterate the base principle of the origin of entities; ie, the entities as we know each other is something that originate out of our relating with some other thing in existence, here, the existence of others in the world ! Here the 'reality' that each one of us 'ties'  or relates oneself to, is the 'world' filled with other men ! World is the arena where I am real for you because every one see me there, and respond to me, repeatedly reiterating the fact that I am real !

This is absolutely true with regard to each one's self as known to others, and also as the only one reality and entity that I am able to project before the society that go only by OBJECTIVE realities.But, when one's life gets filled with the totality of life's multi-faced experiences, a secret 'self' known to oneself alone also takes birth within most of the human-beings. This sense of self is often beyond the world and 'others', that at the initial states of my self development, was its exclusive cause and ingredients. I start recognizing me as a unique entity under the sky,with keen sense of what my ego is, and what this secret self is,known only to his/her deep inner. This awareness of one's 'secret self' is the beginning of man's spirituality, an awareness that, one is beyond one's ego and the world realities.

The 'self' that I could make the general world get to know is only my social identity, my objective identity, my empirical and civic entity.But in deeper inter-personal relations, ego of both vanishes, and they unite as their entities in the wider-realm of existence ! They both realizes the ecstasy of getting freed from the EGO state ! In real romantic-love, or deep inter-personal other relations, or at deep spiritual encounters, man always reach/recognize such state of his/her own being. It is not recognizing a different entity within us,but we 'transcend' ourselves as different beings.

This proposition might startle and question the stand of most of world-religions;who believe that SOUL is another separate BEING/Entity alive within every man, from birth.Realizing it, or recognizing it as the the celebrated SELF-REALIZATION, the coveted spiritual-goal in every religion ! We need to have a serious deliberation on this point. 

We all know how our science was able to fix the 'objective' reality of the world we live in, by explaining every criterion of such objective-aspect empirically. But, we also know that,to create such empirical reality, science had first assumed our existence as 'entities' who are capable of empirically seeing,hearing and understanding everything else in the world ! She also had drawn a thick line above the sticky explanation about our understanding of time and space.If we fail to believe  these explanations about time and space,  a great vacuum will emerge, as to who we are, and about the 'entity' as we live in the world. Exactly similar to the reality of our-own personal entities, the entity of the 'world' we live in, as a conceptual space, too was the product of our inter-subjectivity, as thoroughly explained in our blog: http://selfandworldblogs.blogspot.in/

We know that, for ascertaining our reality, first we had established the reality of the other, who in turn has provided the reality to me, and then that of this world where you and me live, believing in the explanations of science. But, we must realize that, science has created the realm of measurable and countable world based on man's various, purely speculative stories and assumptions about time, space and matter. This link: http://argumentsagainstscientificpositivism.blogspot.in/ will provide many details on the very thin lines that science had drawn  to carve-out a realm of measurable and sensible reality for our practical consumption.

Is there, or can there be any reality beyond our ego world, that we could relate ourselves to, and have a no-non-sense core self unlike that of the relative entity, ego ?   


1) The shadow and real analogy: Above question is similar to asking whether there will always be a real-thing behind a shadow ? The answer to the above question is as hard a fact, as it is in the reality question behind the shadow. Yes, with-out something real, there can not be a shadow !

Now, how could man be certain that,there is something real behind our ego centered self-identity? By the power of sheer-logic ! Logic, as Bertrand Russel had ascertained, is always relating or identifying the item in question now to something already known in the past. If one is convinced about the total relativity of our ego identity, like in the logic between shadow and real, one could easily be convinced of the reality of man's core-root something too.

Then there arise only the question of 'knowing' and identifying oneself with such core-essence, or reality.

2) There is no sense in assuming senselessness of life !: There is a huge difference between 'being' and 'not-being', that every thinking person could imagine and grasp. Man is, (Being) and that is why he is able to understand and recognize this huge difference !More than the fact of one's being, the most intriguing fact is that, he ' knows' its huge-difference !  Nature might-have waited for millions of years till she attained this kind of a unique understanding and recognition from one of her 'life-units'-man- for the above unique and unprecedented grasp ! It was man's recognition of 'existence' as a distinct phenomenon, in the state of non-being ! At this recognition, he feels a great sense of unity and participation with existence ! 

A moment to moment burning awareness of a reality behind the eye-lids, whereto he actually belongs to, and from where he actually originated from !

The real urge most of us experience to seek-out this core-seed,or the urge for REALITY whatever it may be, is also an evidence that no one can write-off easily ! Like many urges of body and mind that compel us to fulfill, this spiritual urge too, must convince us that, yes..the urge indicate the real existence of the target, or the object of such urge. It is so real, and this urge was the root cause behind whatever is spiritual about man, in human society. Science says, the source of such urge is ego's anxiety to relate it to something eternal, and its neurotic wish to survive the sure and certain-death !

The above two opposite views have only one sensible solution to end it; that of answering the serious question, as to whether man can ever know of any thing beyond what he routinely creates in mind ? This question is taken-up in a very serious note, at our work: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/

 When thinking about this unknown link or relation with that unknown realm of our existence, a distinct and different entity naturally emerge in each one of us,as explained in some-detail, in one of the above paragraphs, or such a new entity takes birth ! Beyond the empirical entity of us as our egos, obtained by our simple relating it with our known co-existent beings around, the irrefutable reality of the unknown portion of that reality, NATURALLY links each one of us with such unknown root, providing each one of us a distinct new entity, on the same old principle of the emergence of realities by linking, or relating ourselves with some already known 'other' entity or reality. Here, the existence of a realm beyond the known and empirical is obvious, on the strength of its irrefutable experience !

3) Understanding MIND as an image-making ( Kaleldoscopic) device: For realizing the reality of such an ORIGINAL entity behind the EGO, another plausible route is REALIZING the absolutely SUBJECTIVE nature of our thought-realm;thoughts always create a 'frame' of a certain reality for us to respond to. Whether we are temporarily responding to particular person, a particular situation, or a more permanent frame like one's base armor apropos his life, all are self-created FRAMES of mind,against which we respond, or react. If is with a person, we are responding to our mental frame of what and who he is to us; not what he thinks of himself as his real frame, his real stuff. In the case of situations too, more than what is objectively real in the eyes of a third party ( again he uses subjective frames here, to arrive at such 'objective' pictures !) what one always respond to, or react to is his subjective frame of mind of the situation !

In a nutshell, mind can not ever free herself from making infinite ( subjective) FRAMES of mind, in a non-stop act, at every moment of wake state, ALL SUCH FRAMES, pure synthetic produces of herself ! Mind is there to produce thoughts, ie. images of past and future situations, men and women,reasoning, conclusions,wishful thinking,remorse,rage against those who insulted her,God and salvation what not !

But what if the self realizes this monkey act of the mind one fine morning ?

She can definitely become smart, and be aware of this monkey business.What if she consciously put a stop to this monkey business, fully realizing and being ashamed of such act ?  Mind gets stopped of the thought business ! The business of producing synthetic thought products and frames comes to a stop !

What will happen next ? Mind realizes that, still it is there,blank but fully aware of her-own past business of producing non-stop thoughts. Without producing synthetic thoughts too, she realizes that, her infrastructure is there, definitely linked to the FORCE, ENERGY or ORGANIZATION that had kept such arrangement and even the awareness about such unique arrangements. Won't such state of mind, free of the synthetic thought-producing act, be considered a realm or a mode of mind that remain directly linked to whatever is outside the SYNTHETIC acts of mind ? The entity here is not an EGO as she stands unrelated to world and thought realm of mind. By our all known forms of logic and other truth finding tools,we will be forced to conclude that, man indeed could detach himself with his mind, and still remain fully aware of his very forceful moments of awareness and understanding that runs over and above his sense-mind tools !

Why can't we accept this realm, this state of entity of man his soul realm ? It is mind only that transcend or transform itself into a different shape and form, very similar to male-gender's sexual-organ that gets transformed into an altogether different sexual organ when the moment of need arise !

It becomes this mystery entity that originally link us, or relate us with whatever is the actual source of the whole.While we clearly perceive a line and a boundary of that object or reality with which our ego is related, the object or reality with which we are connected is boundary-less and timeless. This oneness with such a timeless and space-less reality that we are linked, naturally bestow each one of  us with a new entity, by the strength of our being related to it naturally and obviously, without need of  any doubt for assigning the status of SOUL to this entity !

The very special fact about such a SOUL-entity is that, we could never reduce it under some kind of objective narration and explanation, because each soul is uniquely related to the whole, like a particular cell of the body uniquely related to its whole, the human-body ! We know that, man created the concept of 'objective' reality of the world with the sole intention of generalizing observed facts into easily classified groups. It is similar to all the sons and daughters of a person are 'citizens' for the govt, but each one is a unique entity for his/her father and mother ! Each individual is unique, and also his/her relation with the parents.  

At this level of self-knowledge, or self-identity, life suddenly turns a great participation, with a never before felt great responsibility. Life turns-out to be a unique opportunity, ending the earlier view of a certain 'victim-hood'. The inevitable unity with whatever life is, engulfs every one at this kind of relating the self with whatever is beyond the ego. The most important feature here might be the shift of the centrality of the ego; while ego used to look-around at whatever was life around it, in the new dichotomy, the soul experience existence NOT its being at the center of its experience, but it turns existence itself, and could perceive the ego as an external something, bewildered and perplexed. The bird is out of the cage now, in the open ! Ego suddenly breaks like an egg, and lose its centrality and previously felt sense of self !

While ego identity is purely synthetic, the deeper entity of each human-being is authentic and real. For not having an explainable description of this base 'entity' should not be a disqualification about it, as what is describable is a public fact, relation or object. Here such original entity of each person will not qualify for an objective status, in the sense that objective facts are such facts that could be understood by one and all the same manner. For each person, his fact of existence is an exclusive affair, or a contract of nature with him alone, not at all 'shareable' with that of any other person. It is like the uniqueness of eyes. Ears and Nose will never be able to compare themselves with Eyes, as all the three are unique organs, with unique faculties !So, calling or understanding 'soul' as a collective noun is a totally wrong-idea. The new entity thus formed was the natural destination of ego; we would better identify this deeper self as the end-purpose, or the natural destination of ego to reach. The building-up of first the ego, and then its getting transformed into a know-er of a higher realm,seems to be was the ultimate end purpose of life. Ego, like a pottery from a the potters wheel, emerged from the potter's wheel like organization of the World ! Then it attained a distinct status, by relating itself to a realm other than the purely temporal world ! Here, an entity gets born, a know-er in real sense, who gets awareness about the very theme of life, having been in the world and relations, and finally turning something real and separate, the ultimate sacred purpose of nature !

Now, the crucial question; is man expected to evolve beyond ego in his tenure of life? 

Evolution in the Darwinian sense is familiar to all of us. He said, nature will continue to evolve living-beings to be best fitted for physical survival on earth.This will involve his ever improving ability to preserve and use 'information' too. It talks about man's ability to save the limited supply of energy and resources on the planet, and survive for long. Darwin's theory does not recognize man as a spiritual being, and need of 'existence' ( as a sensible,mind whole)  to have an intellectually ( read Spiritually ) evolved man.

To defeat the all physical and no spirit stand, what to be first proved is that, it is man's intellectual prowess that has seen him survived so long ! Is there any hidden variable that supports life beyond man's efforts ? Is success directly proportional to man's physical and intellectual toil ?

If one looks very closely at the process and progress of man's life, it will be observed that, his sense-of self, or ego is merely a 'false-participant' in the multiple experiences spurting within him. These experiences are caused by specific-energies directly 'driving' him to act, both physically and mentally. The role of his so called will power, basically an 'intention', too will be seen as an inherent 'drive' that always pushes him to move ahead. Please see a detailed write-up on man's 'existential' drives that almost works like Newtons laws of motion, at link: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.in/ .Therefor, the myth of his intentional efforts to survive through, and attain success might fall-flat ! He is only an agent who 'feels' a synthetic, or even false 'ownership' of his life ! The aspect of his undergoing, or more correctly, 'experiencing' life would turn to be the end purpose of life.

Now, why man is set in existence to undergo life experiences ? The logical answer would be, to see him through as an knowing 'entity', a role and status that is un-natural to set ready-made. For the emergence of a true and independent sense of self, as a knowing being or entity, it was best to create fit circumstances, so that such entities emerge independently, without their knowing beforehand that, their independence was indeed preset, with pre-purposes. The unique idea of nature was to give birth to  knowing and experiencing entities, almost from a make-belief and synthetic realm called life ! Please see following link that delves deeply into the why question of existence: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.in/

What such a conscientious nature gains from having mechanical, or pure synthetic entities on the above lines?
By all sense, NOTHING, except in the role of baby-hood and child-hood in the life of every human-being as steps to turn fully matured adult ! Think of the day when these synthetic entities one-day grow-up and mature to realize the very synthetic nature of their substance they had so-far been living with, and then wake-up to realize their substance and nature beyond their synthetic selves ? Such movements, by all sense that man could think and grasp,  would be the destined and much desired goal of nature !!! It would have been the fulfillment of the secret aim and goal of nature !!! Entities emerge, with natural grasp of their ultimate essence,,and a natural glimpse of their relation with the whole etc.etc !!!

Therefore, without any doubt, it is not very difficult to grasp such sensible goal of nature, in having truly enlightened and awakened human-beings ! Such awakening or realization could be the ultimate destiny of every human-being ! Yes... it is naturally destined that, man is expected to grow beyond his 'ego' identity,and realize his real essence, and relation with the 'whole', ie. the existence in her true nature and color.

Whatever is the routine nature of events and turn-outs in life, thus, might be aimed at achieving the above one and only goal of nature !

If the real goal of nature is the emergence of fully-enlightened and knowing beings, having developed their unique relation with their source, it should help us to answer the toughest question of all; whether man survives death ? Considering each person's uniqueness in existence, it tends to be quite possible that individuals and their entities might survive death ! We know that, matter is not an ultimate stuff with which man is made-off, but a realm into which life has been creatively designed into. If it is not matter that the ultimate stuff but enlightenment and knowledge, there is no logical inconsistency in supposing that, we might survive beyond death !

Posted by : Abraham J. Palakudy: An independent mind,spirituality and metaphysics researcher, form the non-profit sector.
www.conscienceofthesociety.com
contact us: conscienceofthesociety@hotmail.com, or ajoseph1@rediffmail.com

Twitter: Voice of Philosophy@jopan1







  

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