a commentary on the spiritual life
Beyond Me
This item originally appeared at TZF’s “The Gazebo” feature.
If I can think of a thing, then clearly, whatever it is, it will fit into my mind. And if it will fit into my mind, then it is too small to be Real. That’s why, to see truth, Truth, truly, I have got to get beyond my mind, beyond myself, beyond “me”.
Here’s a question: Is the body born without a mind? — without any thought, any memories, any feelings — by which I mean emotions — clearly, even a new-born body has sensory perceptions. Although, is the mind the source of sensory perception — Ouch, that’s hot! — or is that something else’s area? (I guess it’s too late to start paying attention in high school biology class.)
If so, then it seems the mind is created after birth, through experience — the experience of living, the input of others. At first, I suppose others are perceived by a child as simply extensions of his or her self. When an infant opens its eyes for the first time, presumably, from its perspective, everything it sees is itself. But eventually that is altered. Instructions, however well-intentioned, like “I am the mommy, you are the baby” manufacture a sense of separative self. Wide-eyed speechless awe at the enormity of it all is, bit by bit, replaced by “I am me, not you, not that”.
I suppose the residence of that separative perception is the mind. In fact, that sense of separative identity may be the whole of the mind. Everything else we think, remember, anticipate, may be just variations on that theme. But if we exist before the body is born (whatever exactly that means), then we exist before the mind is produced. In which case, the mind is not even close to who or what we truly are. It is simply a tool. An operating system. It works in this environment (crashing from time to time, like other operating systems), but it is limited to this environment.
Now, the question becomes, what would this environment look like if I could see it without the operating system, without all the prejudices, limitations, lenses, self-justifications, guilt, desire, fears, regrets, and so on that compose the mind. What if I could see this reality right now just as I did through the eyes of this body the first moments after its birth!
Is that Self-Realization? Seeing without the mind? Being without the mind?
