Essay #34:  Individual vs. Universal Mind

If so, then why does ‘mind’ endure
And make its many choices?
To what end did I prefer
One over many voices?

‘Mind’ endures because of the constriction of Universal Mind primarily due to physical incarnation.  However, the forces which divide Universal Mind into a multiplicity of ‘minds’ are not physical only.  Attachment, aversion, and various forms of ignorance are capable of spawning separation and division without a physical manifestation.  One could say that the physical body itself is a representation of the activity of these forces manifesting on the physical plane.  They can well exist in a purely mental, emotional, or spiritual form as they certainly do even amidst their physical manifestations.  Nevertheless, here on Earth the primary delimiter of ‘mind’ is the physical body and, by extension, all the physical paraphernalia that are identified with it.

Without physical bodies, we would be inclined to head in one of two directions.  Either we would be inclined to merge with whatever other awarenesses we encountered or we would be inclined to seek physical incarnations in order to substantiate our differences and create further conditions for the fires of the mind to run wild.  In the former case, we would be motivated by the wisdom that sees all differences between so-called “persons” as contingent upon such qualities as the de-localization of awareness, mental and emotional histories, and physical or bodily characteristics themselves including, for example, gender, height, weight, hair color, and so on.  Such wisdom does not perceive the merging of de-localized awarenesses as either loss or gain but rather what naturally happens when the delimiters of Universal Mind are removed.  The gain—if it can be called that—is the removal of any artificial boundaries separating Universal Mind from itself.  This is not true gain because here 1+1 does not equal 2 but 1.  That is, the return of Universal Mind to its primordial undivided nature does not carry beyond what Universal Mind forever is in itself.  To awaken from sleep does not carry us beyond what waking was the day before.  It simply returns us to what waking is.

A simple thought experiment can help reveal the true undivided nature of Universal Mind and afford some insight how divided mind arises and endures. Consider the difference between looking at your foot and feeling your foot.  In looking at the foot, it is reasonably possible to see it as something other than yourself or as not belonging to yourself.  For example, a person standing or lying close to another could indeed mistake the other person’s foot for their own or theirs for the other’s.  The “puppy pile” children sometimes make together offers ample opportunities for this as body parts are stuck this way and that through the pile.  We can easily imagine that a child looking down from above could have trouble picking out his or her own foot from the ensemble.  However, were someone to reach in and pinch that foot, he would almost certainly be able to localize and identify the feeling of the pinch as “his foot.”  During the moments that the child is unable to identify his foot from others by looking, all the feet are just feet.  They are all equally “his” and “not his.”  This is akin to the way that all qualities and aggregates exist in Universal Mind.  There is absolutely no possessiveness and no attribution of individuality.  By comparison, the pinched foot spawns separation and a sense of self precisely because of the quality of aversion—or quite possibly attraction—that arises in concert with the sensations or feelings.  Such a quality spawns mind or “ego” as a defender or protector.  Mind acts to imagine a boundary delineated by the body part and then mobilizes either to expel what is perceived from the imagined boundary (i.e., with aversion) or to retain it within the boundary (i.e., with attraction).

As we move back and forth in this thought experiment between the experience of feet simply as feet and the experience of one foot felt as “mine,” we can begin to get some sense of the origination of separation, individuality, and “self” as opposed to Universal Mind.  If we imagine a moment in the puppy pile when all the children are equally unable to tell their own feet from those of the others, then we closely approximate the apprehension—in this case of feet—by Universal Mind.  When we imagine the intrusion of some form of aversion or attachment into the pile, precisely then do we see the arising of mind in separation from Universal Mind, of bounded ego in contradistinction to pure Universal Awareness.

The objection may be raised that the physical boundary was already in place before the ego and that the ego merely arose in response to that boundary and in its defense.  The foot—according to this objection—already belonged to some boy or girl before it got pinched.  The pinch, in fact, confirms the pre-existence of this physical boundary precisely because it is felt only in a foot belonging to one boy or girl and not in several feet, nor do other boys and girls feel the pinch that the one does.  It is important not to overlook the force of this argument nor its widespread acceptance nor its influence—and the influence of arguments of its kind—in enabling mind to endure.  For it is so broadly and deeply held that the mere occasion taken here to question it will no doubt be met with a response of astonishment and incredulity in most readers if not by a suspicion of insanity toward anyone who might question it.  Nevertheless, we will affirm it again without hesitation that individuality cannot exist without the qualities of aversion, attraction, ignorance or some combination of the above.

It may seem fine to say that the foot already existed as a body part belonging to an individual before the pinch was applied.  However, this in no way addresses the conditions that gave rise to the origination of individual body parts in the first place.  The thought experiment as stated was carefully designed to leave out of account the play of time and to admit no influence of applied chronologies in the apprehension of Universal Mind.  Hence, the experience of Universal Mind is best grasped as that awareness which holds all body parts and everything physical as belonging to itself, or, more precisely, as belonging to no self at all.  The imagined experience of the pinch simply makes felt the contracting influence of aversion and attraction in spawning ego or mind and likewise separation and individuality.  To argue that the foot already existed as separate before the pinch is to apply a chronology which intrudes into the experience of the thought experiment in a presumptive and disruptive way but does not invalidate it.  For when pushed to re-experience Universal Mind chronologically—that is, in the context of time or what came first and what later—we are drawn down from a simple thought experiment into a much more profound and challenging insight.  Most persons, unable to follow, will simply conclude that “individuality came first, and the ego with all its likes and dislikes, second.”  Nevertheless, the inability to sustain an insight does not falsify the insight; it simply prevents the bearer from apprehending the truth.

Here the insight which takes account of the progression of time is that separate bodies and body parts would never have arisen if not for the presence of the fires of the mind which spawned them.  Even now there are some humans—rare as they may be—who do feel the pain of others as their own and every bit as acutely.  This phenomenon is more frequent among identical twins than among most other human types.  It is no accident that in identical twins we have an individuality that is closest to what philosophers call “a distinction without a difference.”

In their case pain—and the aversion to it—is sometimes held conjointly in a way that does not foster further separation or individuality within the pair but rather affirms their identification and oneness with each other.  Thus we can trace the absence of individuality and separateness—at least relatively—back through the absence of the effect of aversion to produce it.  We could carry this insight back into our thought experiment and perhaps at least begin to imagine a child feeling the pinched foot in a way similar to seeing all the feet as his and not his.  Perhaps the original way of experiencing pain was to experience it simply “as pain” whether it was localized here or there.  This is apparently how some identical twins experience pain.  This is pain experienced prior to aversion, or at least prior to aversion at the level which triggers separation and individuality.  Interestingly, the pre-existence of “separate bodies and body parts” apparently does not give rise in some twins to any sense of separate egos or aversion towards one another as “the cause” of pain.  It is quite possible actually to conceive of other humans who have very different body parts but with respect to certain pains or pleasures seem to hold no difference from one another.  Such persons in fact exist.  Some are called “empaths.”  The common thread in the experience of all such persons is that with respect to that part of another with whose pain they identify, they do not separate from it as “not their own.”  Rather, they see no separation and regard it precisely as a part of themselves.   They regard it, in other words, with an awareness akin to Universal Mind rather than just their own mind.

These examples are not beside the point of the chronological argument.  For the harder we press the chronological issue, the less we are actually able to discover meaningful differences between humans.  If we rely on the Theory of Evolution to examine our ancestors, we come to the conclusion that the farther back we trace our lineage, the simpler do the organisms appear from which we arose.  Science also reveals that simpler organisms are unmistakably given more to the welfare of their clan than of themselves as individuals.  Self-sacrifice is never an issue among simple organisms if it means survival of the hive or collective.  In the case of many such organisms it is questionable what “physical individuality” even means or whether it is not a psychological projection from the viewpoint of our own highly developed individualism.  Perhaps the true individual is the hive and not the bee, to take one example.

Where we do find the most distinct physical differences is precisely where we also find kindling one of the three fires of the mind.  To continue with the current example, the wasp who stumbles unfortunately into the midst of a bee hive is met with the most vociferous aversion.  It is immediately attacked and stung to death in a dramatic demonstration of the arising of differentiation, individualization, alienation, separation, and destruction.  For humans, those body parts we become most averse to or attached to are the ones that provoke either the strongest sense of separation or harbor the deepest feelings of individuality and identity.  To choose one of innumerable examples, many blacks have come to prize their hair in a variety of signature black hair styles as a proud symbol of their cultural identity and personal individuality.  For many whites, these same hair styles have historically been the focus of strong aversion and often served as the basis for shunning and separation, if not for violence.

Going back in time strips away all such differences, by the evolutionary clock. Or we are left with individuals who are distinct but not different.  Significant difference depends on a sense of separation, whether separation of one individual from another or separation of one hive or clan from another.  At the deepest level of insight we simply find no motivation or cause for separation without one of the fires of the mind.  Universal Mind continues humbly unabated until one of the forces of division ensues.  And division by nature occurs only when one part of an unbroken whole is either pushed away from another part (by aversion) or pulled way from another part (by attraction).  In either case perforce the third fire of the mind, that is, ignorance, is often operating precisely because of the belief in improvement implicit in both attraction and aversion.  The truth is very simple.  Under the gaze of Universal Mind nothing improves both because nothing needs to improve and because nothing can improve.

Aversion arises and spontaneously Universal Mind is drawn down into separate minds.  The same thing happens with attraction.  And the process and its endurance is masked many times by ignorance or the belief in improvement.  These things just happen.  There is no ultimate answer to the question why they happen any more than there is an answer to the question why certain waves arise from the sea.  We cannot say why they happen.  But we are able to trace their patterns, observe them, and come to know them better. Through them we are also able to gain a greater sense of the behavior of the ocean as a whole.  Make no mistake, the ocean remains unfathomable, but our knowledge of it nevertheless grows.

It is one of the perennial mysteries also that Universal Mind is ultimately beyond man’s grasp but his knowledge of it can grow daily through careful observation of the waves of mind that emerge from it and echo through his experiences and our world.  We come to know the ocean not as a whole but through the individual waves we experience in which it is reflected.  Likewise, we cannot know Universal Mind wholly or completely, but rather through all our experiences of mind observed in a way that reveals its reflection in them.  This property or manifestation of Universal Mind in absolutely every occurrence of mind is what is known in Buddhism as bodhicitta. 

Bodhicitta manifests in individual mind.  However, because in its nature it is a reflection of Universal Mind, it aspires to benefit all beings and does not take refuge in individualism.  Rather, it seeks to transcend the fires of the mind that spawn individuality in the first place.  Bodhicitta represents the most enduring form of mind because it most closely approximates the primordial and eternal truth of Universal Mind.  Lesser forms of mind such as averse mind, attracted mind, and ignorant mind endure relative to the conditions that created them.  These conditions are observable, and such observation affords us the opportunity to trace the wave of mind from simple bodhicitta into averse mind, attracted mind, and so forth, and back again to bodhicitta.  Thus it allows us to reclaim our original wisdom and progress toward enlightenment.  This is what the Buddha taught.  It is the point of all Buddhist mindfulness practice as well as other practices within Buddhism.