‘The source of the paradoxical nature of the self is as follows: whatever it is that is said about the self, there is something other which is not said which is tacitly presupposed. Thus if I say that the self does not – or for that matter does- exist I presuppose something which asserts the non-existence or existence of that which I talk about. In the philosophical discourse of modernity, modernism and modernisation we have characteristically, powered by individualism, an ego and an anothroprocentricity coupled on to an abstract universality. In postmodernism this coupling is rejected and displaced, but the bearer of the deconstructive discourse remains mysterious, unsusceptible to the reflexive situation.
Whatever the self is, it is clearly very important in contemporary society, being the bearer of legal, social and religious rights and responsibilities. It is ‘I’ who comes of age and marries, possesses and owns, votes and talks, loves and fights, is punished and rewarded, becomes ill and dies – an event which ‘I’ either do or do not survive. We live in a very egocentric world, curiously coupled with its abstract universality.
Here I argue that the self in the sense of the ego, separated from other selves and a world of objects (including emotional states) to which it is attached, is a ‘causally efficacious’ illusion. As (emergent) embodied personalities we do however, exist, but our existence is both dependent and limited. On the other hand, everything we do depends upon a transcendentally real Self, in essence unlimited, which is the ultimate source of our causal agency in the world. Moreover, all projects of human emancipation tacitly presuppose such a self. This ‘Self’ has no sense of self (and it does not even talk or think about itself), but uniquely displays itself in the here and now of spontaneous, loving creation.
Thus the ‘I’ in the sense of ego, that is ‘I’ which apprehends itself as existing separately from other ‘I’s and asserts itself against an object world, both of which may be regarded as afield for the egos play and manipulation, that ‘I’ is an illusion in the sense that it has no real object; just as a mirage is an illusion. But though an illusion, it is like a mirage, causally efficacious, and as such is real, that is, the illusion is real, though it remains an illusion ie has no real object. This is what I have called a ‘demi-reality’. This ‘I’, this little self, is however a property of real (non-illusory) embodied personalities. These are complex, relationally defined and constituted entities, themselves stratified, differentiated, and changing- constituents of what I have called relative reality. Underneath such embodied personalities is a transcendentally real Self which is the source of their causal agency and powers, and such selves are unlimited and absolute realities.’
~ pg 71 – 72
Bhaskar’s metaphor, the ego as ‘ mirage’, may reveal and may also conceal. There are many metaphors for the ego. I suspect there are as many metaphors for the ego as there are egos.
As a ‘clean language’ practitioner I want to share what some researchers in my field are doing with the pronouns I, me, and you. There may be connections between this practice and some of Bhaskar’s theory. These are some of the clean questions we use in our investigations.
Whereabouts is that ‘I’?
Does ‘I’ have a size or shape?
Where does that ‘ I ‘ come from?
What does ‘I’ want to have happen?
The subject often points to an area of the body and may have an embodied sense of that pronoun. Other pronouns (me, you, the person’s name, nick name) also have different locations, sizes, shapes and qualities. ‘Me’ is different from ‘ I’, which is different from ‘ you’ and there is often a different age reported. A wide range of intentions can be expressed by the ‘I’. Each of us has a different way of relating to our pronoun landscape which I would suggest is as unique as our finger print.
This more experiential investigation of the pronoun landscape supplements and supports some of what Bhaskar claims about the ‘demi-reality’ of the ego. The ‘I’ however is much more than just a convenient linguistic device or a center for ego gratification. The lived body operates in a world of actual events with multiple perceptions and perspectives to choose from. Without an ego it might be difficult to catch a bus or give some one a kiss. It has become a bit of a cliche in spiritual communities to bash the ego. I wish we could moderate the tone of these attacks on the ego and think in a fresh way about this topic. Destructive dissociation, rather than liberation, is usually the result of attempts to transcend the ego. This has been my personal experience.
Another concern I have is that the transcendental ‘real’ Self can be just another ego trip. Meditation and drug states can invite a person to believe this transcendental Self is the really ‘real’ Self. Having a pre given concept for transcendence we try to label our states and wonder if we have arrived at Enlightenment. This ascending current is really kind of comical if it weren’t so sad. There are meta-realities that one can visit ( deep sleep, trance, lucid dreams, art, athletics) and I believe such thrilling experiences can be and must be re-embodied into an ordinary sense of a conventional self. I prefer Enchantment to enlightenment. May we embrace the divine ordinary. Chopping wood and carrying water.
Bhaskar makes clear that we can’t live in a non dual state in this dualistic world. We can, he affirms, live in close proximity to the ‘ ground state ‘and this may be as good as it gets for most of us. Making this ‘ground state’ a permanent condition is probably okay if you live on a mountain top and have a lot of servants around to make you a cup of tea. I detect an elitist tone in so much of the condescending middle class gurus telling others to get over our egos. Bhaskar I believe is not one of these gurus. He is the real thing in my opinion and I love this book.
John – Amen, amen, and amen. <3
Glad you are enjoying the book with us, John. I like your comments.
Our previous ‘MetaReality and the Rhythm of Being” call focused around the question of what Roy Bhaskar means by his phrase, “the cosmic envelope”
Here is some of what he says about this:
“Let us talk about the universe as a whole. We are part of the universe, so we, in our ground-state – this is the state without which no other states could exist – must be constituted by what is ultimate and essential to the universe, at least in part. So what is ultimate and essential to the universe must also be ingredient in us. This defines part of our ground-state, part of our innermost being. Now your innermost being may be concretely singularised and different from mine, that is absolutely true, but whatever it is that we have, there is something we have in common, and that something must be what is fundamental to the universe or part of the universe as well, because otherwise you would not be part of the universe. But when you think about it everything in the universe, every being in the universe, also has a ground-state, otherwise we would not be in one universe. So each being in the universe has a ground-state. Let us imagine these ground-states of the universe, all connected, like beads on a string, bound, strung together. Let us see them as being connected in what I call the cosmic envelope. This is that envelope which connects the ground-states of all beings. Remember we are all connected and interdependent, bound together as parts of one universe, a uni-verse.” Reflections on Meta-Reality, p.140
We remarked that this reminded us of the beautiful Hindu imagery of a multi-dimensional net of the goddess Indra.
I had Indra’s gender wrong. This is very beautiful:
For the Huayan school, Indra’s net symbolizes a universe where infinitely repeated mutual relations exist among all members of the universe.[5]
This idea is communicated in the image of the interconnectedness of the universe as seen in the net of the Vedic god Indra, whose net hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Vedic cosmology and Vedic mythology. Indra’s net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels.[6]
Francis Harold Cook describes the metaphor of Indra’s net from the perspective of the Huayan school in the book Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra:
Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.[7]