As human beings, we find ourselves surrounded by the world of external objects, somewhat like a prisoner sees the walls of his cell and cannot leave it because the door is locked. The questions naturally arise: Why the objects appear to be external and different from us? Why we perceive ourselves "here" while objects are "out there"? Is there anything to it - some kind of objective foundation - or it is just a collective hallucination, which we inherited from our parents who, in turn, became unaware victims just like us?

It was my direct experience on several occasions that the sense of dividedness can be completely removed (and in fact, from that perspective, never existed!). In such experiences, the body and mind function as usual but there is a strange (especially at first) centerlessness of perspective, experience, and decision making. The centerlessness of perspective means that, although we are looking at things from a particular side determined by the position of our body in space, it somehow feels as if we are looking at objects from more than one side, although it is impossible to describe what are those additional aspects seen. The sensory input, although coming from the nerves located in the body, seems to trigger experience of things outside of it – as in looking at a person walking down the street we may feel as if it is we who are walking down the street, without any inhibition in the form of thoughts "This is impossible! It is just our imagination". This inhibition does not arise because of the naturalness of the new way of seeing. Although unusual at first, it is intuitively recognized as proper and soothing. There is no discontent to provoke frustrated thinking of the above type. When it comes to decision-making, it may seem that our decisions are made by somebody else who knows much better than our conscious mind what needs to be done at what time or, which is another way of putting it, that we are effortlessly making decisions for everything that is happening inside and outside. As another example, it is still possible to drive a car while being undivided (not recommended for first-timers), but there is no sense of controlling one's car. Somehow driving is happening all by itself. Alternatively, it is as if one is driving all the cars on the highway, rotating all steering wheels and pressing all brake pedals! This is quite perplexing for the mind - but is perfectly natural for experience - we could possibly get a similar feeling if we would became aware of all the processes happening every second in the body: how the blood circulates, how food is digested, etc. In most cases we are unaware of this - it happens naturally by itself.

After experimenting with undividedness, I tend to believe that the experience of being a separate self that is different from the external world, as if one is living in a little bird-house of one’s own head, is indeed a hallucination. It has no objective foundation, except a habit that we developed over the years while living in a society that teaches us to be responsible independent agents and encourages separation in many forms, such as accentuating differences between people, instilling competitiveness, protecting privacy, etc.

However, it may be possible to unlearn the sense of dividedness, or (perhaps even better) "see through" it to the point when it does not matter. Going back to the prisoner metaphor, unlearning means that we permanently break out of the prison, while "seeing through" means that we realize that, although the walls appear to be there, the door is unlocked (and in fact it was never locked, even when we believed it was!). Paradoxically, the sense of dividedness becomes itself undivided when it is seen that all the ideas and sensations that produce it have no foundation and therefore cannot imply fundamental separation. At this point, being divided or undivided, being in or out of the prison, are the same – a true freedom is attained, the freedom that does not try to protect and perpetuate itself. In summary, the "seeing through" option, although it may appear limited, is in fact great. It allows us to continue to live in the world as we did before without feeling like prisoners, and also help those around us to be happy and free in the same way.

When the sense of dividedness appears to exist in our daily life and on retreats, it is fascinating to experiment with it. It is interesting that one can feel so completely different (divided or undivided) while having the same sensory input and mental functioning. Somebody called this "divine perfection". A number of "practices" can be devised to explore the sense of dividedness. One such practice is to look at two objects (perceptions), one outside and one inside, and try to experience the essence of their difference. Is there something that makes, say, a thought about rain experientially different from, say, the sound of rain? What precisely are the experiential boundaries that separate the inside and the outside? Where are they? Are they sharp or fuzzy? If we experience something outside, can we at the same time experience it inside, or vice versa? Can an object move from an outside to an inside? Say, we see something outside, close our eyes, and immediately recall it? What is it that made something external appear internal? What if we get distracted - is it easy to go back to the sensation of the boundary - or do we need to remind ourselves, mentally, what is going on?

The following was found: (1) The major part of the difference is in the mind: we believe that our thoughts are inside and private while the sound of rain is outside and exists independently of us. We believe the difference between these two phenomena to be "objective" and verifiable by others. However, these beliefs are just stories describing how things are, which have nothing to do with the direct experience of pure thought and the pure sound of rain. In meditation, the stories can be temporarily suspended, and with them the major part of dividedness is gone. Yet there still remains an implicit separation. (2) This implicit part has to do with the ingrained habit of being an individual. The habit is reinforced in daily life, for example, when we think "These are just idle speculations! How can I experience the sound of rain as my own thoughts!" or "In spite of all these practices, I am still feeling separate and divided! Perhaps they simply do not work." (I am listing here my own typical responses. Yours may different.) The author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" comments: "That elemental sense of your own blind being will remain between you and your God" (Counseling, p. 173). The experience of ourselves as a little blind being hiding somewhere inside our mind cannot be eliminated by thinking or making effort because any attempt to eliminate it only works to strengthen it. However, when the conditions are ripe, it can disappear all by itself. It happens when we see the futility of trying, surrender our effort, and remain in quietude long enough for the undividedness to emerge. At this moment, nothing separates us from it - the vast Universe full of shimmering stars, each one of them a molecule of our cosmic body.

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Tad's comments

It seems to me that I am a separate self because I have a private locus of experience, ie my own sensations, thoughts and feelings. No-one else has access to these, and neither do I have access to the sensations, thoughts and feelings of others. I think that the boundary between self and not-self is the boundary of my private experience. What is inside it is mine and me, what is outside is not-me.

From my perspective - that of someone who has not passed through the gate - it seems that although you may feel "at one" with other people, their cars, and even the whole universe, this is merely a feeling, however powerful and wonderful it may be. However strong the feelings of empathy and identification may be, your consciousness does not gain access to the private experience of other people. So from my perspective, it seems that the experience of crossing over is purely subjective, because it does not entail an actual expansion of one's private locus of experience. It seems to me to be little more than the loss of feelings of separation.

You ask why we perceive objects to be 'out there' and ourselves to be 'in here'. My answer is that my private interior space is that of my thoughts, feelings and sensations, whereas the exterior space is the reality that gives rise to my sensations and which is outside my knowledge and purview, except in so far as I am given sensory experience of it. I guess you can retort that everything is in my mind, which leads either to solipsism or to the equivalence of the self with the universe ("the self and the world are not two"). I recall Whitehead saying that the world is given only once; not once out there and once as a representation in our minds. Yet I think that objective reality and the contents of my mind are two very different things, eg wishful thinking never got me anywhere.

You write that "we may feel as if it is we who are walking down the street." It seems to me that this is an illusion because you don't know what that other person is thinking or feeling. So it may feel like a union, but it is only a subjective feeling. There is no actual union in terms of feeling or thought. You say "it is as if one is driving all cars on the highway". I would counter that this is just a feeling - you don't actually see what all the other drivers are seeing, nor feel what they are feeling.

You compare the thought of rain with the sound of rain. This is a good example. The difference is that the thought of rain is a more or less hazy feeling that is not as clear, permanent, repeatable or consensual as the sound of rain. For me, these differences constitute the boundary - repeatability, inter-subjective confirmation, clarity, and a certain hard edge that external reality has (compared to my thoughts about it). It is much the same thing as comparing dreams to reality. There is no single element that can, by itself, distinguish a dream from an objective event, but repeatability, consensus and coherence, when taken together, are sufficient to make an unambiguous distinction.

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Alan again

I agree with you - and this is not a joke - I completely agree with you as far as reasoning is concerned. It is true that, according to our common sense, a separate self is a private locus of experience. This makes perfect sense and, if there is any doubt, we can ask others to confirm. However, if we watch ourselves thinking about it long enough, we may notice that our common sense is a set of stories or explanations about how things are. These stories are largely collective (with minor variations) and obvious after countless repetitions over the years. (I still remember how surprising and arbitrary some of the well-known philosophical principles appeared to me at the age of ten or eleven when my father explained them for the first time.) This is exactly how collective hallucination works, by repeated indoctrination - and this is exactly what crossing dispels, by seeing through it. When something is seen through, it does not disappear, our experience is the same - and yet different. We still have our private thoughts and in most cases cannot read the minds of others, but instead of dividing experience into categories (my experience, her experience, our common experience), we just experience. What can be simpler? This results in a feeling that all experience belongs to the universe without boundaries - although it is not formulated in this or some other way. It is amazing that we can have the same sensations and thoughts, but they have such a different interpretation! Even when we see the difference again and again, we cannot explain it. This is one of the most paradoxical things, a complete mystery that is nonetheless transparently clear.

Years ago I had an insightful discussion along these lines, in which one of my friends claimed that the viewpoint of the mystics is essentially that of solipsism - believing that only I exist while everything else is just a set of images in my mind. If this discussion was happening now, I would say that mystics do not have any beliefs - neither solipsism, nor any other theory. Beliefs and philosophical explanations are completely irrelevant for direct insight. At the time of the discussion, I argued that we should go one step beyond solipsism and say that even "I" does not exist. So ultimately there is some kind of selfless universal mind, which dreams up everything, including ourselves. (In fact, this is close to those mythologies, which describe the universe as a dream or play of God.) What transpired for me in that discussion, is that, philosophically, there may be no way to get closer to the mystery! As far as thinking is concerned, this is the end - even though we may continue thinking and constructing new theories every day. Crossing reverses the relationship between thoughts and experience. Before, we think about experiences. After, we can experience thoughts. It starts with experience, which includes both sensations and thoughts. It does not care what thoughts we have, and whether our thoughts are true or false. In fact, it does not separate thoughts from the rest - and in doing so avoids the conflict and doubt inherent in thinking. We can say that this is unfair - escaping from pressing existential questions into a fuzzy-warm mystical experience. To this the mystics would reply that it is we who escape into philosophy from the transparently clear mystery of life. So it goes:)