The Dance of Subject and Object
Close your eyes and allow a mental object to arise – a thought, feeling, or sensory experience. Focus on it. Can the object continue to exist in consciousness without the simultaneous presence of your “I,” your ordinary self? Observe this until you are certain of the result. I think you will find an object cannot exist without a personal “I.” The object requires a perceiver. The “It” needs and “I.”
Now, try to imagine your usual “I” without the simultaneous presence of an object. Is it possible? Observe this for a period of time until the result is clear. I think you will find that your personal sense of “I” cannot exist without an object to cling to. It is either attached to an object or searching for one. An “I” needs a reference object. An “I” needs an “It.”
In these two mental experiments we discover that subject and object, “I” and “It,” are inseparable. They are as inseparable as wetness and water, or fire and heat. They need each other in order to exist. If you wish, close your eyes and observe that relationship once again to confirm this finding.
Now, try a third experiment. Close your eyes, still the mind. At some point an object and an “I” will arise. By withdrawing your attention allow your “I,” the object, or both to dissolve into consciousness. If you dissolve either one or the other will naturally dissolve as well. When neither is present notice what remains. Be still for a few moments in this nameless state devoid of subject and object. Let’s dive more deeply into these findings.
The personal “I” is not present at birth or early infancy. It comes into existence as the result of individuation and cultural conditioning. Early on this developing “I” is given a name, your name. That begins the installation in our psyche of a complex structure of beliefs, habits, reactions, fears, and hopes that shape and create our psychological self, replacing our natural self, over time, with a mentally constructed sense of self. Mistakenly and tragically, we come to believe that this fabricated self, this personal operating system, is who we truly are. We’ve replaced a simple natural awareness with an acquired and complex tapestry of memory, cognition, and sensory experience.
For a young child, before psychological development, the world is experienced through an innocent present moment awareness. In contrast, as adults, our world is experienced through memory, conceptuality, interpretations, and perceptual patterns. We no longer experience what is as is. The constructed world of “I” and object can never re-create the unchanging freedom, wholeness, and joy that is the perfume of our forgotten unconditioned simplicity – neither an “I” nor an “It.” Neither a subject or an object.
Unknown to our daily consciousness, we seek to re-experience this lost self in the transient and perishable objects of mind. The personal mind jumps from object to object, which is familiar to us as the busy non-stop mind. That is our usual life. What happens when the mind stops its relationship with mental objects, even for a moment? What happens when the mind becomes still? What happens when there is neither a subject or object, an “I” or It. That depends on your level of awareness.
There are two possibilities. If there is an unfamiliarity with the deeper self, the individual may experience a negative state of emptiness and nothingness. Our usual mental activity has ceased, there is neither subject nor object, and there seems to be a hollow nothingness. This void can be experienced as a painful abyss, one that motivates the arising, once again of a personal “I” and object as a mistaken antidote to psychological discomfort. This is the source of our constant grasping at objects.
The second possibility is quite different. If we have previously been introduced to or experienced the essential nature of mind, the still mind will be a treasure house of peace, serenity and the qualities of human flourishing. What is a disaster for those who are unaware of their true self is a boon for those who know the center of their being. These individuals welcome, cherish, and cultivate a still mind rather than running to the seeming antidote of objects and experiences. Here there is full freedom in contrast to the slavery to grasping and attachment.
I have shared these few words to enable you to reflect on and experience in contemplative practice the relationship between the personal “I” and an Object. We have discussed how the subject, our personal ego “I,” is constantly seeking objects/experiences to assure its security and avoid the seeming default groundlessness when subject and object disappear, even momentarily. What is most important is to recognize that what we, our “I,” truly seeks is the natural self, the effortless state of being and presence. We can say that what the seeker seeks is the source of the seeker and goal of all seeking – the true self.
When that is realized there is an end to outer seeking and clinging. Day-to-day experiences can be appreciated for their delight and connection without demanding of them what they can never deliver – a stable and sustained inner security, serenity, delight, wisdom, and freedom. Grounded in our inner truth we become masters of two worlds, inner and outer. We live our days from ultimate truth at the center of our being, allowing daily life to come and go as it will with in the spaciousness of wholeness and full presence.