AVOIDING DISSOCIATION
While reading Michael Singer's, The Untethered Soul, the writer claims we're not our thoughts or feelings. We're the one having thoughts or feelings, the conscious awareness setting behind these things. I submitted myself to plunging the depths of this claim in search of truth. I do believe there's some truth here, but there’s also the potential for great error.
First the truth: much of our inner dialogue is dedicated to maintaining the ego structure of our false selves, as I’ve explored in the past. As such, it’s vital we not identify with these thoughts, feelings, or sensations. They’re lies and are under no circumstances articulations of who we objectively are in Christ. That much is trustworthy and may be the extent of the message Singer is trying to convey.
However, if mishandled, this approach can lead to dissociation. Consider the following: I find myself at a juncture where the preponderance of my thoughts and feelings are products of the false self. I remind myself I’m not my thoughts or feelings and begin to unconsciously regard thought and feeling itself as being other than me and, by definition, false. I then conclude only the soul, the consciousness itself, is real. This a Platonic fallacy that runs completely counter to what Jesus embodied, embodiment being the salient idea.
The idea I'm nothing but a disembodied soul is wrong - utterly, completely, and destructively wrong. Thoughts, feelings, and sensations are part of the real and can be authentic expressions of the True Self. That's one of the messages Jesus' resurrection puts directly on display. There’s truth in embodiment, realization in embodiment – the materialization of what could only exist as a quantum waveform, a simple potential, otherwise.
So when I sought union with God as a disembodied soul, all I found was a lifeless void, a void my thoughts and feelings began to mirror almost immediately. There is no life there. I pursued this approach several years ago while exploring New Age spirituality, and there was a similar outcome. It winds up undermining the very sense of oneness the mystic initially perceives and seeks, disabling the very mechanisms required to make it real.
When it comes to the True/False dichotomy, the mind, heart, and body aren't the sources of the ego, but merely co-opted by the ego structure one assumes. That's where the soul comes in. The point isn't to abolish thought, feeling, or sensation, only unconscious expression of it. It's about integration of the whole being, bringing the soul to bear upon the heart, mind, and body. The False Self subsists on unconscious thoughts, feelings, and actions. Conscious awareness transforms them, rather than severs them. That is the key.
And how is the soul brought to bear in this process? It is the touchpoint of the divine, the part of us binding the seen and the unseen. In that regard, contemplation that fosters the free flow of God's infinite love is to be highly prized. Such contemplation is best experienced as pure awareness, decoupled from thought, but that decoupling is temporary.
Once this unitive communion is enjoyed, the soul, filled with God's love and light, reintegrates back into the whole, infusing thoughts, feelings, and actions with the divine imprint unique to one’s True Self in Christ. Then one walks in full consciousness, the soul fully aware of and informing the heart, mind, and body.