The real you - discovered at last!

As regular readers know, for some time I've been annoyingly fixated on the question, "What is the real you?" In other words, what part of us is ultimately real and lasting?

If you listen to nondualist mystics like Eckhart Tolle, you get the impression that the real you is an impersonal witness, pure awareness stripped of all personal characteristics. On the other hand, a great deal of channeled information suggests that the personality does endure even after the physical body has been left behind. F.W.H. Myers' classic book on evidence for the afterlife is even titled Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death.

So ... what survives? The personality, or an impersonal observer?

In some ways, neither prospect appeals to me. The personality has too many unattractive elements; it doesn't seem like something we'd want to lug around for all eternity. Imagine being shackled to our fears, resentments, and disappointments forever!

At the same time, the impersonal witness leaves me rather cold. I'm inclined to agree with C.S. Lewis, who argued that personality is actually a higher development than the impersonal, and that people who imagine God as an impersonal force - an "energy field," say - are actually making God something less than human, rather than something more.

Well, it seemed I was between a rock and a hard place. But last night it occurred to me to take a look at the Bible and see if I could find any clues to the answer there.

I should say that I'm not a Christan and do not turn to the Bible as an infallible source of knowledge. But I do think that many of the Biblical writings reflect a high level of spiritual inspiration. No doubt the writings of other major religions do, as well, but I am much more familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition than with any other.

In any event, I opened a little pocket Bible I had lying around and, after a little searching, remembered a famous passage from 1 Corinthians. A tribute to love, it is often recited at weddings, though the love in question is really agape, or brotherly love, rather than romantic love. It is one of the most quoted passages in the New Testament, and I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it before:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13:4-7; NIV)

Now, when I read this, I felt I had stumbled upon the answer to my question. I think that the real you, the part that lasts and deserves to last, is precisely described by this passage. The highest parts of ourselves are the parts that endure the longest, while the lesser parts are gradually cleansed and removed. It is somewhat analogous to the process of purifying pig iron. The iron is heated so that impurities come to the surface; these are removed, and then the iron is heated again, and more impurities float free, and so on, until finally the brittle pig iron has become hardened steel.  

Note that while love is not ego-driven, it also is not impersonal. You could have ten people in a room, all of whom have loving dispositions, and yet they would all be distinct individuals. The refinement of the personality to eliminate egoic impurities does not result in the absence of any personality at all. On the contrary, it results in a more elevated personality.

If we take the description supplied by St. Paul and invert it, we have a good description of the ego - by which I mean the lower aspects of the self. The ego is impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, proud (arrogant), rude, self-seeking, easily angered (irritable, touchy, thin-skinned), and resentful (likely to hold a grudge). The ego often does evil (it lies and misleads) and has no interest in the truth (only in perpetuating itself). The ego harms us and others, mistrusts everybody, inculcates hopelessness and victimhood, and is more likely to quit in disgust or despair than to persevere.

Basically, the ego fears, and because it fears, it also hates. And hate, of course, is the opposite of love. When we hate, we are being unspiritual. We are giving in to our lowest aspects, rather than our highest.

I'm not saying that egoic qualities disappear immediately upon making the transition to the next life. I don't think they do. But they will disappear eventually, leaving not a void of personality but a rarefied personality that thinks, feels, and acts in accordance with Paul's description. 

This, I believe, is the real you. It is personal but not narrowly egocentric, distinctively individual in its character but selfless in its moral action. In the trials of life, this part of ourselves may glimmer only dimly now, but someday it will shine with brilliant light. Or as Paul puts it just a few verses later:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

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P.S. A good follow-up to this blog post would be the channeled book Testimony of Light, by Helen Greaves. The book covers the idea of the further spiritual progress that we undertake in the next life.

Comments

[william]

“The iron is heated so that impurities come to the surface; these are removed, and then the iron is heated again, and more impurities float free, and so on, until finally the brittle pig iron has become hardened steel.”

This is an excellent analogy about the process of our evolution of consciousness.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

From my point of view this is a very good description of love. But the purest of love would not easily anger but show compassion. Anger any anger is based in ignorance that reveals itself as a form of fear. Compassion looks beyond anger and has understanding. Only in a dream state was I allowed to see the relationship of compassion and understanding.

Compassion is able to see the underlying reality of experiences and those demonstrating compassion are able to have compassion (purest form of love) for the person that is not demonstrating love towards self or others. I.e. like anger. Compassion is a knowing beyond knowing that the person demonstrating anger or hate has much to learn and the lessons may be harsh. Truly a person capable of demonstrating compassion would show only love for all those that are doing evil deeds. As Jesus stated father forgive them they know not what they do.

Compassion for a person like Hitler would be demonstrating the highest form of love. Perfect love would never anger but only show compassion, which is love demonstrated towards others and self.

Could it be that St Paul did not state that love does not easily anger? Maybe he stated love does not anger and a small additional word was added like “easily”. After all the Christian doctrine needs a God capable of anger to send a savior to earth. Just a thought. Much of humankind has a need at this time to give God many human traits such as anger.

As Dr. Hora would state anger is a form of interaction not Omniaction. Anger is based in less than perfect awareness. Can we state that infinite Oneness has less than perfect awareness? Anger is based in fear and perfect love cast out all fear.

Now for infinite Oneness to express itself in infinite life forms; yes indeed it must manifest itself as less than perfect awareness. Ignorance is not the enemy for without ignorance we do not exist as separate entities from this infinite Oneness.

[dmduncan]

Odd coincidence Michael. I also did the same thing, with a pocket bible, orange cover. It wasn't my bible and it was marked just a little before that quote. I had been thinking that we try too much to intellectually understand the mystery at the expense of other things, and that is one reason I came back to Christianity. Not to any denomination, but to the example of Christ on the cross, and what that means. And when I opened the book I read:

"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."

"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing."

I Corinthians 13:2, 3.

[Art]

If you haven't read or heard of the Phillips translation of the Bible you might want to check it out. I really like it.

http://www.ccel.org/bible/phillips/JBPNT.htm

[Hope Rivers]

All we need is LOVE.

Hey and here's that song of HOPE spoken to me, that I added to a topic here many many months ago for those who may remember its context.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=SLY7yI1xV-M

Great post Michael, your in my prayers.

[Hope Rivers]

For those who dont, I spoke of President Obama ;-)

[irh]

If there is in fact, "mind" outside of the body, I'm inclined to believe it's far closer to the F.H. Meyers, et al model than the Tolle/Singular Mind theology for sure.

I think the very BEST evidence that there is in fact some sort of continuation, would be decimated completely if the Avidanta philoshopy was correct - as in the end - all of the communications we've discussed here would be completely falsified. (the content and characters of those conversations anyway)

I can't really think of anything that would support, from an evidential standpoint that there is ONLY mind upon passing- as that seems to me, after a bit of personal exploration - not only a depressing thought - but also - really purely subjective opinion to boot. To sort of wallow in potential dangerous waters, it's similar to the argument on here a few days ago - in the end, some sort of mediumistic/veridical information supplied from "the other side" has to be more compelling proof of something - than a personal transcendental experience that implies one interconnected conciousness alone.

Interestingly - if you follow the writing and philosophy of Ken Wilber - he came pretty close to death about a year ago - and wrote about it - and described the sort of Tolle state of "big mind" being all that there was - the witnessing but non identification of his seperate egoic self, etc - very interesting to read - but ironically, probably MORE significant, is that it seems to support his whole 40 years of writing from that specific world view.

Who knows - but my money is on Fred Meyers. (and Marcel Cairo..:-)

[Michael H]

"When a soul finally gets out of the three jars of bodily delusions," Master continued, "it becomes one with the Infinite without any loss of individuality. Christ had won this final freedom even before he was born as Jesus. In three stages of his past, symbolized in his earth-life as the three days of his experience of death and resurrection, he had attained the power to fully arise in Spirit."

Excerpt from http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/books/ay/43.html>Chapter 43, Autobiography of a Yogi.

This short statement perfectly encapsulates the difficulty of communicating spiritual truths. There is no way for anyone to grasp, on an intellectual level, the idea that they will eventually discover that they are both one with the infinite and an individual aspect thereof.

Understanding Tolle, Yukteswar or Syd Banks has nothing to do with the intellect. It has everything to do with experiencing what they are pointing to. And once someone has experienced what they are pointing to, they understand that they can't possibly express it accurately themselves.

Everyone is on their own, until they realize that they never really were.

[Teri]

I love this post, MP, except for one thing...

Just 'agape', MP? What about *enthusiasm*, for example enthusiasm for this blog? Must that fade with time too?

[Michael Prescott]

"Understanding Tolle, Yukteswar or Syd Banks has nothing to do with the intellect."

This may be true, but I have two problems with this kind of statement. First, St. Paul probably had spiritual experiences at least as profound as those enjoyed by Tolle et al. So why are Paul's conclusions less valid? Second, if the truth cannot be communicated in any way, if it can be apprehended only by direct experience, then it is not of much use to me.

[Michael H]

I didn't intend to imply that St. Paul's realizations were less valid than anyone else's, MP. I've no doubt that his experiences were genuine and profound, and the quoted passages from Corinthians is Paul at his very best.

[dmduncan]

I was raised as Catholic, and didn't much like it. Found Ayn Rand as a teenager and thought Objectivism was the answer. It wasn't. I argued against God as an atheist until I realized I could not honestly be an atheist. I found Buddhism and appreciated its wisdom and its depth. But all the gods, all the devas, are hollow to me. I am not one for sitting in church and listening to people preach, and I am not part of any religion. And I am not one who can quote the bible back and forth, and I am nobody's savior that they should fear my judgment. But for me, Christ on that cross, represents something, some hope, some kind of love, that has nothing to do with ideas and of figuring out in my mind how the universe works and where I fit into all of it. I've done that for so long and it leads in circles. It bypasses all of that, and it tells me that maybe I can bypass it to. Maybe I want to know out of ignorance, because I am disconnected, and when I am connected it will not be because my ideas are more accurate than the other guys, but because there is a connection that maybe those ideas get in the way of. I feel that connection more when I face the mystery of that cross.

[william]

“but ironically, probably MORE significant, is that it seems to support his whole 40 years of writing from that specific world view.”

It appears our beliefs can influence our perception on the other side at least for a brief period of time for most people. And beliefs can even heavily influence our perceptions on the other side if we stay earth bound.

I never have been a big fan of Ken Wilber as his writings are very intellectual for me at least and from my point of view reworded Buddhism. But I have not read his material for years so he may be writing about different material or ideas now.

“it becomes one with the Infinite without any loss of individuality.”

This is an interesting statement as I suspect individuality may still be something less than being that that is. We are dealing with infinite here. Think of the number of individualities in infinite. Ok I know infinite. Two schools of thought on this one. I lean in the direction that at some point individuality becomes that that is. I.e. pure awareness.

I personally don’t believe that this so called enlightenment or awaking is the end of the road but only a step towards advancement in our evolution of consciousness. Identifying with this oneness does not give us the creative abilities and intelligent vitality of this oneness. One can experience this oneness without being this oneness.

“Second, if the truth cannot be communicated in any way, if it can be apprehended only by direct experience, then it is not of much use to me.”

Maybe intellectual knowledge of a truth precedes experiencing a truth. Example if someone dwells entirely on the Christian doctrine that one is saved by belief only and not consciousness development this may hinder their progress. Also it can work the other way and intellectual knowledge based on beliefs can lead to intellectualism and this surely could hinder one’s progress in consciousness development.

Jesus appeared to have the most problems with the religious intellectuals of his day.

[Stephen Heyer]

I don’t know, personal experience more than anything else inclines me towards the model that goes brain, soul, spirit, with mind as some emergent combination of all three. The soul, while perhaps also an entity in its own right, is more or less the personality we wear in this life, it sort of wraps over the spirit. Oh! And maybe you can have more than one soul.

Ever seen the movie “The Mask”? That’s a very good interpretation of that kind of soul into the material world.

The spirit is perhaps an actual spark of God, or somehow comes from God.

Incidentally, I started off as a pretty complete scientific materialist, as was my father. However, personal experiences such as the very strong ESP that ran in my family and out of body experiences where I observed things that I later found had happened as I was observing them, along with a few really strange experiences where my consciousness seemed to contract back into the spirit, have left me sort of thinking there might be something in the brain, soul, spirit model.

I might add that these experiences started, and opinions were formed long, long before this sort of thing was popular knowledge, at least here in small town Australia. It was a long time before I found books that showed that I was not the only person to have such experiences.

Then there’s the body of light so maybe there is no such thing as a spirit without a body, but there is a “subtle” body made of something else (dark matter anyone?) the soul/spirit can move to. Doesn’t sound much like our Western religions, in fact, sounds disturbingly Matrix.

[william]

“Then there’s the body of light so maybe there is no such thing as a spirit without a body, but there is a “subtle” body made of something else (dark matter anyone?) the soul/spirit can move to.”

Yep, there may be no such thing as space as we define it. That would go along with God being all and all even literally speaking. What we call dark matter is really unknown matter to us. Maybe God is everywhere even all of space. This dark matter may be just other dimension’s we are unable to see due to our vibration level.

The math shows we see about 6% of matter. It should be interesting for future generations to discover degrees of that other 94%. I have always felt science and religion will come together some day but not anytime soon.

We humans tend to hang on to our paradigms in spite of the evidence. We especially see this phenomenon in politics and religion and I must say even in economic beliefs.

[Larry Boy]

"There is no way for anyone to grasp, on an intellectual level, the idea that they will eventually discover that they are both one with the infinite and an individual aspect thereof."

Even some schools of Buddhism seem to share this view. I don't know where I read it, maybe in Philip Kapleau's "The Three Pillars of Zen", but there was some talk of Buddha being a personality of his own even after he attained complete enlightenment.

The holographic paradigm may be able to explain how we can be one with the whole and still part of it at the same time. See Michael Talbot's "The Holographic Universe".

Personally, I tend to think that the idea of an enduring self ultimately is an illusion. In the end, everything is connected and I don't see how you're supposed to draw a line between one consciousness or personality and another if you do not contend that the limits are illusionary.