There is a felt sense of separation that runs beneath the activities of ordinary life. It is so constant that it is rarely noticed as anything at all. This sense of separation expresses itself as desire, a reaching towards what is lacking, and as fear, a resistance to what threatens. Between them, seeking and resisting account for much of what a mind thinks, feels and does. But when examined closely, we find that these are not what the separate self, or ego, does; they are what the ego is. The ego is, as such, an activity, not an entity.
This week’s instalment covers from the section break on page 189 through to the section break on page 191, following these two activities to their root and to the recognition in which they are laid bare.*
*(The page numbers indicated here each week refer to the original publication of the physical book – they may vary slightly from more recent versions, owing to the publisher’s design modifications.)
The Activity of Separation
Before the ego can be understood, it has to be distinguished from the finite mind, with which it is easily confused. The finite mind is a temporary and apparent localisation of the universal mind, or infinite consciousness. Infinite consciousness localises itself, or seems to localise itself, as a finite mind by rising in the form of perception. It is our perceiving faculties – seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling – that seem to localise us, and the body is an image of that localisation seen from a third-person point of view, the point of view of the individual.
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