Anyone who has done any serious spiritual contemplation of self knows about the divided mind because they have witnessed it up close and personal. Anyone who was never done any serious contemplation of self and is human knows when their mind is in conflict because it is happening most of the time and they are suffering with it. Although I like to say that the Mind of the rest of Nature is more unified, we once watched a documentary of a
ringtailed Lemur (see video) struggling with leaving a dying offspring. The Lemur young cling to their mums, but this one was too weak to hang on. The lemur clan was on the move and Mum couldn't afford to get separated from the group. It was painful to watch her so torn between leaving the young one to die and moving on with the group, which she eventually did, but not without a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the baby and the group. Conflict can range from the muddleheaded and wobbly syndrome to extremely painful and poignant decisions to be made.
This example of the ringtailed lemur mum should remind you that decisions cannot just be made with the head. Heart and feeling are involved, and a depth of the unconscious that it is unwise for the conscious mind to overlook and override. Conflicts of the mind are not just surface tensions. Often the conflict is deep and its origins are unknown because they exist in another time or dimension. You only see it by its effects. One of the places I have had to work with "the conflicted mind of unknown origins" is with writing. I have had strange emotions emerge in the past when writing: depression, tiredness, a tendency to want to shut down, some deep, dark feelings that are probably of unworthiness and constitute self attacks. All I can say is that I must have missused the medium in a past life or had some horrible experiences as a writer! Working with writing now is beginning to loosen up some of the negative emotions that surround it, but it is by no means completely healed. The extent of it was made apparent to me back in '06 or '07. I was driving to the Dental School in Oakland and thinking about
Gary Renard and all the troubles he faced with the
ACIM community when he published
"The Disappearance of the Universe". Wondering where I stood energetically with the concept of publishing, I asked the Universe for a sign. I had in mind, maybe, a message on a billboard, crossing paths with a significant bird or animal, nothing too dramatic. I proceeded to the dental School, nothing happened, and I forgot about the whole thing. But, several hours later when I returned to the car, I found a window on the passenger's side bashed in. I still wasn't thinking about signs until about halfway home when it hit me "Oh My God!" (I wasn't into OMG then!) My first thought was "Couldn't you have made it a bit milder?" But it actually turned out to be milder than it sounds. Only the previous day, Charque had discovered a new junkyard around Tarentum and had been there to get a spare wheel for Felicity's car. He had also found a model of our car and returned home, telling me that we could get all the parts for our car that we needed. At that time a window was not one of them! So by day's end, we not only had a new window installed but several other parts as well which the junkyard had thrown in for free. Messages? I certainly realised that I felt exposed and under threat of siege with the idea of publishing, but that together, Charque and I, did have a vehicle and a way forward. The synchronicity of dealing with our daughter's vehicle was also involved and, at some level, we were all in it together.
The divided mind creates another phenomenon that Charque and I like to call "
the windshield wiper syndrome (see video)". You want something or someone; you go after it; it offers itself to you and you don't want it any more and retreat. You retreat from it untill it stops chasing you, and then you want it again. It is particularly apparent in relationships. You chase him; he runs. You back off; he chases you. She wants you; you want someone else. She finds someone else; you want her. Back and forth, to and fro. However, like your windshield wipers you never meet. "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" to quote
Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
More serious than "the windshield wiper syndrome" is the divided mind that attacks itself with illness and accident. Self attack is particularly apparent in autoimmune diseases where the body is literally attacking itself. It is interesting to note that self attacks of this kind do not just accompany a painful decision and life change, but that they can also occur when you have found a measure of happiness and contentment in life. A woman we once worked with on the phone had had a series of bad marriages and relationships, but when she found and married a really good relationship, she then proceeded to contract a chronic illness. Her unconscious would not give her the right to find love and be happy. Charque found the same pattern at work many years ago in a woman who finally, after years of drudgery, sought and found a job that she was much happier with. But then she proceeded to get cancer. Again, she did not give herself the right to a job she loved.
Polarities are as much a characteristic of the human mind as they are of the physical universe.
A Course in Miracles attributes all of your conflicts and problems to the root of your separation from God and The Big Universe and that you have chosen to take on physical existence in order to do just that i.e. separate from God. Christianity talks about "the fall" from God and from Grace. In less emotive and judgemental language,
Qabalah would call it "the descent into matter or physical form", which doesn't of itself have to create a divided mind, unless, of course, you choose to cut off from your soul and from
spirit. If you forget that "You ARE a soul and HAVE a body" and instead think that "You are a body", your mind will inevitably be divided and in conflict. Then, my friends, you have it ass backward. The way to heal this and unify your mind is to reconnect with your spirit. I don't believe that "God" or Spirit cares at all where in this vast universe or multiverse you are as long as you do not forget about Him/Her/It, as long as you remember your origins and your source. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". That is the "I Am" presence in you and in your lives if you choose to remember it. If you forget it, you will be very conflicted about who you are and about life in general. You will no doubt expend a lot of time and energy chasing to and fro after people and things you think you want, without allowing yourself to really have and enjoy them
