Are the Parts of Us Separate?

Up earlier than I wanted to be, I dragged myself out of the house and drove to the Airpark, bracing against the cold waiting to chill me to the bone. "Muffin," as my oldest son says when I complain about something frivolous. I had a calf-length down parka to keep me warm and began my walk.

My lungs breathed vapour in front of me for the first time this fall, and it meant something–I'm alive, the seasons have certainly changed, and I am still walking. How could I remain feeling grumpy walking in this sunshine, under this blue sky? I couldn't.

In the bright sunshine, I thought next of duality, or how life seemed to be constantly reminding me of two sides of a coin, the flip side of a decision, young and old, sunny and cold, and on and on, causing me to ask are the parts of us separate, even contradictory? A well-known quote goes deeper about how we humans contradict ourselves in “An Interview with God,” often attributed to the Dalai Lama. Originally, John James Brown wrote it.

“What surprises you most about mankind?”

“Many things. That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up, and then long to be children again. That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore health.

That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, and live neither for the present nor for the future. That they live as if they will never die, and die as if they had never lived.”

(John James Brown, “An Interview With God", www.wordsofjoy.com/james_brown_bio.htm)

How the parts of us show up to people around us while our inner selves remain hidden is a form I'm quite familiar with. I get it's a safety issue and maybe there's a lack of trust involved, but, really, what's the point? Am I really just afraid of being vulnerable? Let's go deeper into the duality between our mind and our body with these quotes from Professor of Moral Theology, E. Christian Brugger.

Do we see our bodies as raw material? Are they like as a sculptor’s marble, full of malleable possibilities for the creation of something beautiful? Or do we just wish to patch ourselves up a bit? Do we see our bodies as ourselves at all?

Each conscious person possesses a wholly unique awareness of himself — call it “self- consciousness.” It is consciousness of an inner life, of a hidden me, an unmediated and immediate awareness of the complex reality of my mental and emotional “world” inaccessible to all but myself. This “inner self” is experienced as a spiritual reality, not a bodily one; it can even be experienced as opposed to the body, as, say, when my mind wants to do something but my body is too weary.

(E. Christian Brugger, “Dualism, the Human Body & the Self: Incompatible Bedfellows,” New Oxford Review, November 2007. https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/dualism-the-human-body-the-self/

These thoughts from two writers express what I realized was one of my primary struggles throughout my life. My inner world was my sanctuary, rich and expansive with dreams and visions. When I wanted to check out, I began daydreaming by looking out the window and progressed, if I can call it that, to imagining I was in a very comfortable rabbit hole. My outer world was separate. It was walking, music, smelling the scent of a prairie sidewalk's petrichor, birthing babies, staying up too late because my mind demanded I explore an irresistible thread, but my body wanted sleep.

As I grew up, I felt less certain about the absolute separation of outer and inner worlds. In fact, one seemed to have a hold on the other. If I went through a traumatic time in my life and didn't take the time to process it, I inevitably got sick. I mean pneumonia to the point I couldn't walk five steps in a row.

My physical body, I learned after the fact, is a wise teacher slowing me down the hard way so I could deal with inside emotional stress and grief. This wise teacher warned me of impending illness by abruptly altering my desire for certain foods and drinks before my autoimmune disease. There had to be an intermediary between my outer and inner worlds. Could it be intuition?

Two hours later, my eyes were dry from reading different sources about the definition of intuition by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Jung. See what I mean? Down a rabbit hole! Enough reading, here's what I know about intuition. First, intuition is a sense that gives me information that is not physical in nature. For example, if someone I know hesitates when speaking to me, I may sense they have something to tell me but they're unsure whether they should tell me. Based on intuition, I might ask a gentle probing question to invite that person to share their thoughts. Intuition is valuable and helps me navigate life and relationships, but I don't believe intuition is the link between the parts of me.

Here's where my research and reading paid off, with thanks to E. Christian Brugger again.

Aristotle says ....the human person is not a duality of substances, but a unity of body and soul, the soul being the act, or actualization, of the body’s potential to be living and human. The soul is the body’s animating principle, that which makes it a living human body. Plato’s dualism says the soul is united to the body as a driver is to a machine. The body therefore is what it is apart from the soul (i.e., it does not owe to the soul what it is). For Aristotle, the body owes its reality as a living human body precisely to the soul.

Brugger, “Dualism, the Human Body & the Self.”

I have learned from experience that the mind and body are linked in a very intricate way. The real intermediary between the physical, emotional, and spiritual parts of us is the soul. But the soul isn't the overbearing overlord. It invites us to choose, and conversely, doesn't always spare us from the consequences of a poor choice.

So, are the parts of us separate? I say emphatically, no. I'm with the medical intuitive professionals who can see inside the body with an accuracy rate from 93 to 97 percent. Laura Alden Kamm is a medical intuitive, teacher, and compassionate being. She has proven her accuracy to be 97 percent and has this to say about duality.

As you develop your intuitive abilities, you will gain a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of all things and their systems of cycles. You will shed the limited perspective of consciousness that perceives duality and a three-dimensional perspective as the only true, hard reality.

Kamm, Laura Alden, Intuitive Wellness: Using Your Body's Inner Wisdom to Heal, (New York: Atria Books, 2006), 31, Kindle.

Intuition, then, is an ability that develops to the point where we understand how all things connect. Our physical reality is three-dimensional, perceived by our consciousness as reality; intuition is multi-dimensional, perceiving the reality of connectedness. It blows my mind, and I want to get to that place, but that's a discussion for another day. In answer to the question, are the parts of us separate? Yes, if one perceives through “the limited perspective of consciousness”, and no, if we develop our intuitive abilities enough to perceive “the interconnectedness of all things”.