Four disciplines for thinking about why body and spirit, man and God seem separated*:

(To translate this page, see translator,below in the footer.)

*Webster's definition of Separate includes: divide, distinguish, disassociate, fragment, non-dependence, discriminate, stand apart, disconnect

In the book TheDragon'sTreasure I present the idea that the separation we all experience between ourselves and everything else—including God— may just be an illusion. Experience tells us that the separation is real with plenty of "hard" evidence to prove it. What if you were to discover that the sense of separation was a product of your neurological system, social agreement, and the physics inherent in the electromagnetic relationship between atoms, and if you could get beyond these realities—which you can't—you would see that there is no real separation?

If you could suspend the evidence of your senses for a moment you might see that your ego—the part of you that you identify as being you—and your Spirit, or Soul are connected, you could experience the unity you long for.

The use of dreams toward the reunification of the seemingly separated Soul and Ego are discussed in TheDragon'sTreasure.

As part of the discussion in the book I share some thoughts on how the society within which we live not only contributes to this illusion of separation but often sustains it. But how did the experience of separation happen? Though that's probably far too complex a question to answer in any context let alone the context of this website, I'm extending that discussion beyond the parameters of the book in the all too short monograph below. Feel free to contact me and add your views to the discussion.

Theological

Genesis:

¹First God made heaven & earth ² The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. ³ And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. ⁶ And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." ⁷ And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. ⁸ And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. ⁹ And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so.

In short, out of nothing, the named became something.

Also in Genesis is the Bible story where it is told how Adam and Eve took a bite of the apple of the Tree of Life and became conscious, that is to say conscious of self. This resulted in them becoming something separate from God and the world. Thus the "Fall" (Genesis 3) was from unconsciousness—as in I can't see my own nakedness nor am I aware of death—toward introspection and consciousness—as in "Oh my God, I'm naked and I'm gonna die!" Many theologians see this story as an allegory for the explanation for why man became a separated being—something that dies while the spirit lives on. Adam and Eve became separate when they hid from God and when cast out also became separate from everything else for now they were aware of being another object in a universe of objects. But if this is an allegory, what happened historically that Genesis may be reporting on, or is it just an explanation for what is?

Theologian Marcus Borg suggests that many biblical images when not taken literally lend themselves to the idea of the transformation of separation. For example the old testament story of the the Jewish return from exile can be seen as a parable for the the reconnection of the the self (very Jungian). He also suggests that the concept of Sin is but hubris, or self-centeredness that separates us from our true nature. The word "Salvation" one of the primary concepts in the Christian religion (and roughly equivalent to the Buddhist concept for sudden enlightenment and transformation—Satori) can really be defined as "transformation" that includes such things as the liberation from bondge (psychological bondage, or as Borg suggests, the "Pharaoh in our heads".) from the Moses story that then opens us to the reconnection with our true nature.

According to Borg, much of the bible is about transformation and reconnection and that such words as repentance and redemption have been misunderstood and misused e.g. repentance means to go beyond the mind that you have (to open yourself up. To turn towards your true nature. To turn towards God [if you believe that all is God, both within and without. If you believe that you are separate from God, then ignore this whole monolog].) whereas redemption is to liberate you from the slavery of your ego, super-ego, or the "Pharaoh in your head."

Could the 27^th century BCE Sumerian story of Gilgamesh where he is unable to attain immortality after he has gained knowledge from the fountain of wisdom be another Adam and Eve allegory? Had the separation been felt even then?

When the poet Agathon gave host to a symposium in the 5th century BCE, Plato wrote it all down in a philosophical text of the same name—The Symposium. There were several characters in this story among them Socrates and another poet by the name of Aristophanes. Aristophanes related the story of why people who have fallen in love claim to feel "whole."

He tells the story of how mankind was at one time in 'doubled' bodies and how the tried to scale the heights of heaven and to attack the gods. Zeus would have destroyed them with a thunderbolt except that he would then lose tribute. So, instead, he split them in half and made them less powerful in their separation. Ever since, mankind has been trying to find his other half in order to feel whole again and to recover their original nature.

In another part of the world during the 5^th century BCE in China, the philosopher Lao-Tsu began his first chapter of the book of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching—The Book of the Virtuous Way—with his own version of Genesis:

The Way that can be told of is not an unvarying way;

The names that can be named are not unvarying names.

It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;

The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures*,

each after its kind. (chap. 1, tr. Waley)

*The 10k things is often Taoist (Buddhist and Hindu as well) shorthand for all the possible opposites or phenomena (According to Taylor, J., The Living Labyrinth, 1998, pg. 85).

To name anything is to make it something, before then it was nothing.

In Chapter 3 of the Tao Te Ching Lao-tsu speaks of reunifying the body and soul that has been separated through physical ambition, knowledge—that blinds him to a truth thus limiting his ability to distinguish what is precious and not—and desire—that can blind a person to his essence.

Lao tsu depicted as a Taoist god by Daode Tianzun (click on picture to enlarge)

Rumi, the 13^th century Muslim mystic also spoke of the separation and reunification of body and soul:

Perceiving Oneness

The cause of narrow mindedness is multiplicity:

the senses are drawn in many directions.

Know that the world of unification lies beyond sense:

if you want unity, march in that direction.

The Sun, which is spirit,

became separated into rays through the windows

which are bodies.

When you gaze on the Sun's disk, it is one,

but one who is screened by his perception

of bodies is in some doubt.

Plurality is in the animal spirit;

the human spirit is one essence.

Inasmuch as God sprinkled his light upon them,

they are essentially one.

His light never really separated.

Click to enlarge

Separation may have become a bigger deal when humans no longer saw themselves as part of the whole of nature, but in dominion of it—a typically western Christian idea. Before the monotheistic religions that came out of the Middle East many tribal cultures were animistic and seeing themselves as related to everything in their environment and with their dead ancestors surrounding and interacting with them all the time. To them the past was in the present and there was only the present for the concept of change wasn't part of their world view.

Another form of separation may be, as the 13^th century Sufi philosopher and poet Rumi said, that by naming ourselves as God's servant, we have created a separation from him and us.

"The man who says Ana 'l-'abd, "I am the servant of God" affirms two existences, his own and God's, but he that says Anā l-Ḥaqq, "I am God" has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says "I am God", that is, "I am naught, He is all; there is no being but God's."" —Rumi

As said earlier, in a way when we name anything, we separate ourselves from it.

"If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything." —Rumi

 According to the Upanishadsof the first millenium BCE, Aiman is the bridge between the eternal and the temporal. Over that bridge, there crosses neither day nor night, nor old age, nor death, nor sorrow. Atman is real, true, and has continuity. It is the universal self. Who we are is never separated. The separate self is illusory. The individual self defiles (makes itself unclean, or impure as in less than its essence) itself when it says, "This is I" or "This is mine." It causes the illusion of separation. We are all part of the Oversoul, the all-pervasive soul of the universe. To the Hindu no one is born and no one dies, however there is a separation between the illusion of the body (and what is of the body) and the essence of who we are. The body dies, we don't.

In Buddhism there is no self, no separation. Adherents attempt to be self-less. Suffering comes from the separation from the One—self-centeredness is thus the root of all suffering. To Buddhist followers the soul and ego are one.

In the book, TheDragon'sTreasure I ponder whether the body as personified by the ego and the soul are united expressions of the One thing.

The Taoists call this the "Great Separation" and tell a story of what caused it that is similar to that of the Garden of Eden story of the Abrahamic religions. Following a Taoist view of creation imagine for a moment that you are on your back looking up into a space with no clouds, clear and blue, empty of anything, but itself. Imagine seeing a bird fly through this empty space. What happens to the emptiness? Does not the nothing now become a something? Something creates another something which creates yet another something—an act of continuous creation.

A universe comes into being by the act of a bird flying into an emptiness and creating a sky. Reality is a Wonderland, only we have not just entered it, we are of it, we are it! You and I may have stepped through the mirror or dove down the rabbit hole long ago, the moment we chose to be of the body. We created a universe when we were born and as we stepped into it we too were created and are creating. When we are looking at what we've done, we are looking at ourselves—that which looks is being looked at.

Tao or God?

The Tao—The Way—Likened to the Western concept of God. This God likened to a thing apart, an object, the amalgam of all objects. This God, something to aspire, the Tao, the what is.

The Tao reflects what we are, the Western God reflects what we are not. The Tao, true nature, the God of the West a nature beyond. Reality, unreality. One is a reflection of the mind, while the other reflects the spirit.

One a mirror, the other a projector. The will of man, or the will of nature. One wholeness, the other separateness.

One of seeing, the other of veils. Emptiness or shadows.

God or Tao? or God/Tao?

Both can be found in the Being. Both can be found in the silent spaces—between words, between ideas, between thoughts and feelings, beliefs, rituals and dogma. Both are of the Void and cannot be found in the noisy mind of man. God/Tao is one, it is the mind that has turned God/Tao into a separate.

So what do we do with that?

As it is with God, it is with the Tao: Don't turn Being into Doing. To do so is to lose the spirit—the essence of what we are.

"We have to discover in that East something ancestral in ourselves, something we must bring into the light before we can appease a religious instinct that for the first time in our civilization demands the satisfaction of the whole man."

W.B. Yeats

Unity already exists in the Spirit, but not so in the Being. All of life seems to be about the unification of what appears to be separate. In reality everything is interdependent. What seems independent is quite dependent. What we project as being outside ourselves is in itself interacting with us as we are with it. The very fact that we can see it, smell it, feel it means that it is interacting with us. We are not independent of what we perceive. Our perceptions are also a product of our own internal interactions—our beliefs, past experiences, points of view and neural networks. In the Buddha way there is no independence, no separation.

Cosmos Mandala (Indra's net)

Found on the website for the Dharmapala Thangka Centre.

(Click here to enlarge.)

Separation and reunification/reconciliation of the opposites have been perennial themes in the theology, cosmology and mythology of mankind for quite some time, but most seem to begin anywhere from 4 to 4.5 thousand years ago, why? What happened that the myths, mystics and poets might be trying to explain?

 ‎"The archetypes of myth are manifestations of the nature of man in accord with the nature of the universe. Interpose, before these, ideas derived from man's limited knowledge of the world, and we have then a system of rational thought. In dream the rational mind becomes aware of impulses of the larger nature, of which it is itself but one organ."

Joseph Campbell

The separation of man from him/her self and the rest of creation is not limited to just the corporeal, but of course is experienced between his body and spiritual self. It also shows up in a much more profound way in that there is now a separation between the feminine and masculine aspects of God as perceived and responded to by humankind. In short, for most people on the planet, God is perceived as a masculine God, split off from its feminine aspects (see the hidden meaning page titled Sophia).

The consequences of this split have been catastrophic and without reconciliation of this self-imposed dichotomy we will lose our ability to remain on this world. The world will survive, but it will do so without us. This is not conjecture, and is not meant to scare, but only to inform. You, the reader, are responsible for what you need to do to bring the feminine back to the stage.

Physical

We can carry this idea of physical separation further when we realize that our bodies are covered by skin that separates us from our outside environment and each other. Carrying this even further, matter in our universe has the same polarity as all other matter. When like charges meet, they repel each other. Thus we cannot walk through walls and we don't sink through to the gravitational center of the the Earth. Our atomic charges repel each other and keep everything neatly separated.

At the risk of vastly oversimplifying current theory, the field of Quantum Mechanics—where things inhabit a world smaller than the atom—there is a theory that everything exists as potential until something comes along and collapses this field of potential, this everything, into a single thing, or a something. As soon as that happens the thing becomes separate from the field.

There is also something labeled Superpositionality that suggests that something exists (at least at the quantum level) in every possible position of space/time until something fixes it into some place or time. Things are everywhere and in all time until the field of Superpositionality is collapsed at which point a separation is created.

Though the theory seems to hold up in the micro world, there is no evidence that the same thing happens in the macro world*, but given that you and I and the computer I'm using to type this paper are fundamentally made up of these subatomic particles, might there be a heretofore-undetected effect?

*Roger Penrose, PhD (Oxford Physicist) and Stuart Hameroff, MD (Anesthesiologist at the University of Arizona) think that there may be a quantum effect at the macro level through certain cellular microtubuols that cause a quantum collapse when a certain quantum gravity (don't ask) is achieved, and consciousness is created (consciousness being pretty macro world affecting). Though their theory has yet to be confirmed through rigorous experimentation, there have been some positive results on some experiments that seem to be pointing in the right direction (for more on this read Beyond The Bleep, by Alexandra Bruce, the Disinformation Co. Ltd, New York, 2005, Pgs. 69-83, or Google the Penrose-Hameroff Model). These sources are a little thick for non physicists like me, but can give you some idea of the theory that they call "Orchestrated Objective Reduction."

If I read this all correctly I could write my own book of genesis and say, "that in the beginning there was everything, everywhere and everywhen until something intruded and created a massive separation." Physicists call this the beginning of time, or T=0 and everything since has been an effect. The point being that if T=0 is true then there was nothing that came before it, thus suggesting that T=0 is "first cause," or Creatio ex nihilo—creation from nothing. This brings up some rather interesting philosophical and theological possibilities, don't you think?

Socio-cultural

Julian Jaynes, author of Origins of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind[1], promoted this idea that before the 2^nd millennium BCE human beings had what he called a bicameral mind—two minds in one. One of these minds went about the every day business of survival while the other made prophetic commandments as though from god.

Each person had their own personal relationship with this giver of advice and in effect it created the illusion of many gods. The language of the day included this experience and reinforced it both socially and to the extent that language creates the neural structures, to the brain as well.

At around the 2^nd millennium the mind began to function as one. What happened?

Prior to the 2^nd millennium there existed for most of the period we label the Neolithic, small mostly tribal villages with poorly developed social stratification. They were simple and egalitarian in nature with simple agrarian/hunter-gatherer economies. But as the agrarian cultures grew in population and the hunters became domesticators there was increased instability both socially and with respect to their vulnerability to diseases. Also as these people began to urbanize, their need for resources began to outstrip the communities' ability to provide.

Within approximately the same time-frame the known world experienced the Dawn of the Empires, such as Mesopotamia, Greece and Egypt. These highly organized communities required vast amounts of resources and therefore the need for increased conquests of the lands that belonged to their more Neolithic neighbors. During the two thousand years leading up to the modern era societies collapsed at frequent and alarming rates. This disrupted social-cultural equilibrium and caused mass migrations that in themselves broke down the cultures and created survival stresses in need of a more flexible brain response system than the bicameral brain could accommodate. Self-awareness may have been the solution, according to Jaynes. Therefore, "consciousness and self-introspection may have become a neurological adaptation e.g. man became aware of himself as a separate agent from his gods. Stripped of the agent of a personal deity he may have been forced to look outside himself for the answers. But who do you trust for these answers?

One of the best ways we know when determining the efficacy of something is to see how many others are using it. Thus the gods whose residence were outside of man began to proliferate. This was consistent with the way things had been when there were an abundance of god's in residence inside people, but eventually people found greater and greater solace in one god and didn't have to put up with the capriciousness of a multi-god system.

Psychological (Are we wired for separation?)

When Carl Jung[2] speaks of the "Individuation Process" he is talking about the process that human beings go through to become a whole, integrated individual, or personality. It is as though the unconscious breaks into the everyday reverie of the ego and offers the fragmented self, unity and wholeness. It does this in order to move the individual from the ego toward the Self in order to create a new center of the psyche. Though Jung believed that this process was especially strong in the second half of one's life, he would also agree that it was an ongoing process since early childhood.

But where did this original separation come from?

Jean Piaget[3] pointed out that up to the age of two years children use the world as an extension to themselves—there is no separation between they and everything else. The separation is an effect of the developing brain through what Piaget called symbolic thinking, or the labeling (or naming) of things outside themselves. In this story the world of a two-year-old child is no longer an extension of her self and she becomes separate and increasingly self-aware, just like Adam and Eve— the child has been cast out by her own awareness of the Garden of Eden. After these early developmental stages the conscious and unconscious brain seem to dance incessantly, yet softly around the process of reunification for the purpose of attaining a balance between ego and Self.[4] It is only after adulthood that the dance becomes more urgent in nature and the unconscious mind begins to intrude ever more rudely on the dance floor of our lives. (There, I think I've exhausted that metaphor!)

Whether we listen or not, the unconscious mind will continue to intrude, sometimes with disastrous effect. Some psychologists suggest that some mental health diagnoses such as Schizophrenia and some neuroses may be caused by this internal battle between the ego and the unconscious mind. Both Carl Jung and R.D. Laing[5] suggested that some "diseases" could be the brains' way of trying to heal the conflict within itself.

Disciplines such as Alchemy also fascinated Jung because he believed that the practice of Alchemy was an allegory for the process of the unification of the opposites he spoke of regarding the individuation process. He seems to have believed that much of, if not all of what we do is about healing the separation inherent in all of us.

Psychologically we create the sense of separateness when we objectify something—that is to label it, or to point to it as being "not me". We do this with God as well, when we point to a God outside ourselves and say "not me"—we objectify God and reinforce the sense of separation from the divine. We seem to ignore the entreaty that the kingdom of heaven is within us and not separate from us as in something to be attained. We already have it if we could quiet our minds and peer into our hearts.

When we blame—ourselves, others or circumstances—we create separation. When we act as victim, or a slave to circumstances we create what the Greeks called diabolos, the 'divider'. When we judge others or ourselves we create division. When we act as though we are not part of something, that we are different, or better/worse than someone else, we cause separation. In short, We are the separators!

When we think of ourselves as just being our body, with its persona or ego, its thoughts and ideas, beliefs and memories we objectify ourselves and thus everyone, and everything, else.

Please note: Identifying with the body has an ultimate cost—we die! All objects come to an end e.g. they die. When we objectify ourselves, when we become attached to the identity of the body, then we will die.

Can death happen if we identify with something not of the body, not of the ego, or personality? What if you were more than just your image, or your parents image, or your friends and colleagues image of yourself? Think about it!

Dreams are often an attempt by the unconscious realm of our minds to bring about the unification of our opposites—to end the illusion of separation. Dreams are the inner wisdom of our true nature speaking to us. Dreams encourage us to turn about from the external and to look toward the internal. In Hebrew teshuva means to turn about the externalized and objectified being toward the inner being. We cannot see or hear the truth from our inner selves while we remain in the separated illusion of the external world.

In TheDragon'sTreasure the process of the unification, or reintegration, or reconciliation of opposites in order to create a personality centered between Ego and Spirit, incorporating the best of both is discussed at length. Such things as dreams, fantasy and meditation are offered as a means towards this reintegration, or healing, if you will.

WARNING! I might point out a conundrum—believing anything I've written can seriously effect your ability to discover the truth! Years ago I read a book by Sheldon B. Kopp entitled "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." What was being said is that one can use the ideas of others to lead them to discovery, but the process of discovering and what you discover as well as the meaning it has for you in your life is all yours. Do not use what I have written as a guide, because I cannot guide you on the road you are traveling because I'm not on your road.

"Belief" can be an impediment to discovery. Belief is like standing in one place and thinking that you can see all that exists from that vantage point. It is like being in a windowless room with an eye-sized hole cut into one wall and told that when you stand back a couple of feet from this hole, all that can be seen is all there is to reality. How silly! Yet this is what we do when we give over our minds to a concept, a singular interpretation of the meaning of a religion, or its scriptures. And I'm not leaving out those of you who consider yourselves Atheists or Scientists. I'm not leaving out anyone who acts as though they have "The Answer." Enlightenment doesn't mean you have "The Answer."

Belief is just another barrier between you and a truth—your truth and the truth of others and the interplay between them. Many a good person has cheapened their contribution to the world by being stuck in their beliefs.

I'll take it another step: Belief is not about adhering to a literal "Truth" it is actually about the giving of your commitment to someone or something. The word means to "be-love". But if stuck in it, one needs to "repent" (open one's mind to something beyond its current position) and allow for "salvation" (transformation, enlightentenment).

Isn't it funny how the actual definition of these words transforms the meaning of their biblical and religious symbolism? Linguistic literalism (the unexamined belief that something is true regardless of its unsupportability) has damaged the world's understanding of virtually every religion and mythology and helped to entrench the separation of mankind from his true nature.

I posit that all the religions and mythologies have been pointing toward the ineffable experience of our spiritual nature and that once these concepts have been institutionalized, or literalized, the power of the metaphor (allegory or parable) has been lost and that this loss has caused us to lose the point. Many religions teach us to view the meaning of our lives and our position within it from a single vantage point defined by the church, the pastor, our families and communities with little or no room for our own input. Shifting points of view, or including other vantage points, is usually discouraged. So the whole point of "repentance" is lost as is true "salvation", or enlightenment. How sad!

Beliefs are not truth—they are things of the mind and thus imaginary.Try not to hurt your self and others with your beliefs. Beliefs cut off enquirey and wonder.

"We can starve as much from a lack of wonder as we can a lack of food."

Ted Andrews (Animal Speak)

Want to know more? Buy the book

I know that sounds crassly commercial, but it is the point. The website is designed to enhance and highlight the content of TheDragon'sTreasure. Together they provide a much richer experience, the combination being of greater value than each alone—a synergy if you will that enhances the gestalt.

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