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Main Index
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split into two within us. Then, for our whole life, we are tormented by the conflict between these two parts within us. Our whole life becomes an inner struggle. Desires forever assert themselves and the intellect forever asserts its own requirements. Then slowly and slowly, everything within us divides into two.
Psychologists say that we begin to look upon the part of our body below the navel as the lesser part of us not only because it is situated in a lower position but also because we think of it as inferior. We establish an identity with the upper half of the body and sever all connections with the lower half. We feel as if the lower part of the body does not belong to us and that only the upper half is us, the lower part gradually being identified with desire. Eventually, intellect gets centered in the head. This is why we recognise ourselves only by our faces.
The rest of the body we hide. Not from rain or heat or snow, but because we do not want to identify ourselves with any other part of ourselves except the head, where the intellect is located. It is an interesting fact that if you are asked to identify your body minus the head, you yourself will fail to recognise it. Our recognition is connected with our intellect only. The rest of the body we have cast aside as being a victim of our desires. This has produced far-reaching effects about which we shall talk later.
In this first sutra Lao Tzu says: "IF THE INTELLECTUAL SOUL AND THE ANIMAL SOUL ARE HELD TOGETHER IN ONE EMBRACE. THEY CAN BE SAVED FROM SEPARATION." If my intelligence and my senses are interlocked, no duality, no turmoil from contradictions, can form within me. But if these two are not amalgamated, if the intellect and the senses are divided and I destroy all bridges between them, the 'I' cannot help the disintegration that will occur within myself. This is the state of schizophrenia the psychologist speaks of, a state which exists in each one of us to some extent. When a person becomes too disintegrated within himself, he goes mad. We manage somehow to keep ourselves below the danger level. The scales balance precariously between sanity and insanity. We are embroiled
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