Dualism - part 2 (Majo John Madden, 1/10/08)

Perhaps the core principle of the Life Lived More Deeply approach is non-dualism - learning to notice the pervasive pull of our minds, emotions, even our bodies towards breaking the world up into separate and competing pieces. As we start to progressively realize and experience that all actually is one, and that we are totally connected with all of life, lots starts to change for us.

Dualism has its place. Recognizing the difference between ourselves and others - where does my body end and theirs begin, or where does my energy field (mostly) end - all this is crucial to our well-being and pure survival on the planet. It just doesn't work for us mere mortals to let that oncoming car merge with our energy fields, to embrace our connection with it.

The problem, though, is that our minds still in many ways function as they did in cave man times. Back then it truly was important to keep that danger/non-danger dualistic filter turned on most of the time. But today we truly have more options than that. Our physical survival -or even our emotional survival - are not actually threatened most of the time.

One definition (among many) of the ego is that it is the part of our minds that tends to drive the boat, largely by putting everything into categories or buckets - especially ones like good or bad, right or wrong, pleasure or pain. But the grand-daddy, the form of dualism that most preoccupies our minds, emotions and bodies after all these centuries of evolution is danger/not danger.

Since this particular dualistic filter or focus or preoccupation is not as moment-to-moment crucial or even relevant these days, we could actually turn it off some of the time - or at least move it to the back burner. But we mostly don't know how to do this - and the ego doesn't want to go. It wants to keep running the show - and feels that it needs to, that danger truly is lurking around all the time and that survival still is a crucial every-moment focus.

It's no use to do battle with the ego. It isn't going away - it will be with us as long as we are in a human body. And it would not be in our interest to have it go away. There will always be those speeding cars out there - or people who are physically and/or emotionally dangerous for us.

The trick is to find ways to first observe the ego and the dualistic bucket-dropping that it does so pervasively. Then, as we become more able to notice when the ego is trying to drive the boat, to increase our capacity to negotiate it back to that back burner.

It's not just this particular post which addresses this issue. This dance with dualism is the central focus of this whole blog and accompanying web site, and really of all the teaching, facilitating and coaching that I do.

If you find this whole exploration to be tedious, incomprehensible, too much of a pain in the butt - or just off track froem where you want and/or maybe need to focus your attention - this could be a good time to bail, to maybe wish all of us Life Lived More Deeply explorers well and to get back to business. If this exploration continues to feel useful to you, read on (or not).

There's lots more to come.