Chapter 9
The Ever Elusive "I"
from the book Breakthrough Consciousness
by Sharon Janis
Fare forward, you who think you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark. . .
-T.S. ElliotWho am I?
This is one of the most interesting questions we can ask ourselves. This question is primordial. It is the foundation for all of our knowledge and experience. The elusive "I" is so integrally related to our experience of the world that it is impossible to experience reality separate and free from the effects of the observer, the creator, the perceiver, the giver of meaning, the "I".
Clearly, the subjective world of a deeply deluded schizophrenic is quite different from that of a well-adjusted person. The world of a child is quite different from that of his parents. The condition of the subjective experiencer is completely reflected in his world. It is therefore of supreme importance, when looking for higher Truth in this world, to ponder this question, "Who am I?"
This simple question sounds as though it should have a reasonable answer. Usually we are able to ask what something is and receive a satisfactory answer. So then, who am I? Who or what is this entity that is referred to as "I"?
"I" am my personality, my body, my actions, my job, my environment, and my expressions. "I" is what I am, what I feel, what I do, what I know, what I see, what I think. And although we generally use the term "I" to refer to those personality traits that reside in or acts through the physical body, the truth is that I am even a great deal more than I am aware of.
Now wait a second . . . if there is an "I" that exists, and another "I" that is not aware of the fullness of this first "I"; that mans there must be two "I's"! Then who am I who is realizing this and seeing the other two? Ahah! There must be three "I's" . . . at least that's how many I can see . . .
We think of our personalities as being one complete entity which can then be scientifically and psychologically divided into many different units and sub-units, based on various theories. We have Freud's structural and topological theories, Jungian dream and archetypal postulates, Self-actualization, neurolinguistics, divisions of the psychic instrument according to certain Indian philosophies, and many, many pop-psychology divisions of personality, often used in an attempt to gain more control over ourselves and our environment.
We generally define that which falls into the category of "I," as whatever moves and acts through our physical bodies. This definition is reasonable to a mind that seeks simple, visible, easy delineations and definitions. It is also a very egocentric point of view.
Our physical bodies are connected to great many conscious levels that we are not even aware of. Alternately, there is a great deal that we think of as our personality that seems to be independent of the physical body. The use of the physical body to define the boundaries of our personalities is therefore faulty and undependable. In truth, that which we call I is more like the flow of a river, with new waters ever moving through it, changing the banks and boundaries of the river bed even as they flow through. Personality is much more fluid, complex, and elusive than we have acknowledged through our psychological texts or our self-images.
Because our internal maps and templates of the world literally conform the reality of the world to their own rules and boundaries, maintaining a limited concept of ourselves as being simply the set of habits and concepts we may be experiencing in a particular moment actually keeps us from moving into new understandings and spaces of consciousness that are hidden from our view, though potentially available to us.
We fall for the big lie of limited identification, and arrange our lives and experience according to it. Then we propagate the continuance of this lie of limitation by teaching it to the children following in our footsteps. "You're lazy". "You're so smart". "You're a good boy". "You're so cute". "You'll never amount to anything". "You're a dreamer." Even though so many conflicting inputs impinge upon the developing consciousness of a child, the main thread is this "template of consistency," this kind of limiting self-definition that they are an individual, confined to the boundaries of their personalities as defined by others. Such thinking does not allow for the recognition that each of us is, indeed, composed of countless levels, aspects, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors -- even, you might say, many different mini-selves.
Think about your own life. Think about how you act and feel when you're playing with children, when you're teaching someone who is eager to learn from you, when you encounter someone who thinks you're an idiot, when you feel the power and light of your own greatness shining through you, and when you feel confused or upset. The kind of consistency we would like to ascribe to ourselves simply does not exist. Our responses to the very same situations can vary drastically, depending on our personal state of consciousness at the time. You could almost think of personality in terms of the interpersonal dynamics of a group of people, with different members, or aspects of personality, guiding the decisions and actions of the group at different times -- with a certain power of autonomy, but more or less subject to the approval of the group or whole personality. Decisions are based on the judgments a personality system has been taught, the experiences it has had, memories of mistakes and good actions it has taken in the past, and most importantly, the limited self-view of who the I is and what kind of behavior would serve to maintain this self image.
We know that our brain is a biological system, similar therefore to the other organs in our body. It is made up of many different cells, each with their own set of functions. The cells come together to form tissues, the tissues form different areas or sections of the brain, and all the areas come together to form the brain itself.
It is also possible to think of personality, of our mental, emotional, sensory and expressive personality, as being a biologically organized system. Therefore, in their own way, the mind and personality systems may also be composed of organized areas, which can then be broken down into the many tissues and cells, all the possible categories and divisions of the components that make up the total experience we call I.
There are so many ways, so many theories, and so many viewpoints through which we can explore this I. A complete list of the potential divisions within one personality would have to be infinitely dimensional and beyond our comprehension. We therefore use filtered descriptions and metaphors to enable us to conceive of ourselves. These representations or personality maps can be especially useful if their inherent incompleteness is recognized, and if they are only applied to circumstances where they are appropriate.
We use such maps to organize our interaction and experience with our world. This is how our brain takes in, interprets and remembers information -- through internal representational templates, through words and pictures. Different maps yield different worlds and different conceptions of personality and potential. An expansion of the maps people have access to results in an expansion of their world -- which conforms to new viewpoints or beliefs. We are what we think we are; thus these representational systems are not only important in our world -- they are our world.
The word personality has gone through certain revisions during recent scientific fluxes and movements. "It's more than whatever we used to think it was," is a recurrent theme of recent personality and neurophysiological studies. "There's something under us," is another. Freud drew a picture of layers -- a linear hierarchical map -- and called the surface layer our conscious mind to cue us in to the relative viewpoint through which his map was valid. And this map has been very useful in allowing us to organize parts of our experience that were previously ignored due to a lack of context through which to view or explain them.
However, even as we use Freud's map with all these different levels of consciousness and unconsciousness, or at least after we are done using it, we must keep in mind what it is and in what way it is to be used. These maps should not be clung to through habit, fear or laziness, or we will be stuck in our limited worldviews, our limited concepts of who and what we really are, forever. The divisions and templates presented in science, psychology, spirituality and other expressions of information can be climbed as ladders, which are left behind as new levels of understanding with other ladders are reached. If you keep climbing the same ladder, you can't ever see past the detail on its rungs.
Looking at the different parts of our personality is fine if we maintain openness to the potential for many different maps and types of division. Nevertheless, to try to organize all of these different maps and theories into a more cohesive, textbook style overview is difficult, perhaps impossible to do with two-dimensional thinking. Theory A could be considered as a part of theory B, and theory B is somewhat related to theory C, but then theory C is only a small portion of theory A -- and also of B in another respect; and then there's theory D which contains all of both theory C and theory A, but doesn't have any place for theory B.
There is the ego, id, unconscious, right and left brain hemispheres, astral bodies, archetypes, emotional centers, and countless other aspects of the personality that have been delineated in one representational system or another. Some fit well together, others do not. But we are losing a great deal if we are only willing to take in ideas and information that fit comfortably into whatever theoretical maps we have already placed our belief in. We have to be able to think freely and open our minds to new possibilities. This is conscious evolution.
The key to every man is his thought.
Sturdy and defying though he look,
he has a helm which he obeys. . .
He can only be reformed by showing him
a new idea which commands his own.
- Ralph Waldo EmersonOnce again, the metaphor system of holographic theory could be useful here in our attempts to expand our concepts about personality and its composition, how so many different divisional systems can live together happily as "one person". With holographic theory we could still deal with the individual maps as patterns which are manifest from the source or whole of personality, without any one pattern negating the existence of any other. New information, for example, could be described as being distributed holographically throughout the many different kinds of personality patterns, so that one experience is recorded within all of the patterns and intersecting aspects of the self that it forms "interference patterns" with.
Thus, one hypothetical, objective experience is recorded and stored simultaneously as different patterns and representations throughout the whole of the personality system. Some of these patterns are similar to one another and bundled together; others are not. One single experience can be recorded and represented in many very different ways throughout our multi-layered experiential systems. Some of the representational images created by one particular experience can be traced back to the experiential sources, others cannot.
We could think of these massive patterns of our personality as being made up of cells which are each made up of other cells, which are made up of other cells, and on and on. And all of these cells of personality are connected multi-dimensionally to one another, and contained within and throughout the same space of consciousness holographically, by similarities of content matter, purpose, and connections to other patterns. These cells form the tissues of our personalities -- our personal traits, tendencies, viewpoints, habits, and experience of the world and ourselves.
When you are in the simple position of watching a cashier ring up your bill in a store, for example, this experience is being recorded and reacted to on many different levels, and in many different ways throughout your personality system, according to the different functions and memory information contained within its various conscious and unconscious personality cells. You may not even be paying conscious attention to the process, but in this meaning-filled dance of existence; so much is going on!
Cells or patterns that contain mathematical interest or ability, for example, will form interference patterns with mathematical aspects of the experience. The more mundane conscious patterns will be mirroring and checking the cashier's calculations. Other less consciously accessible patterns might even be recording the sequence of digits, while yet others might be performing even more complex processes with the series of numbers coming in. Who knows on what levels the communication processes of energy exchange take place?
This is a difficult concept to accept -- that the random numbers of our grocery purchases might have some profound meaning on another level of this manifestation. However, if we shed our egocentric limitation and look at what we already know about the complexity of nature and natural phenomena, it is conceivable that nature is well enough organized that even seemingly random numbers that are communicated through the shopping process may have meaning or communication on another deeper or different level of interaction. This entire universe is an outburst of purpose, meaning and organization, far beyond our perceptive abilities and limited worldviews.
The different patterns of cells that make up our personalities can thus be thought of as connecting with different corresponding levels or ranges of consciousness in the so-called "world around us."
While the mathematical-based functions of our brain systems are mirroring the calculations on the cash register, another aspect of ourselves that is connected within our psychic tissue to these mathematical functions, may be wondering if that girl is going to make a mistake. "I mean look at her -- she looks like my dishonest cousin Jane. And she can probably tell from my clothes and purchases that I'm wealthy -- I'd better make sure she doesn't try to rip me off like that other cashier did seven years ago . . ." etc. These thoughts may arise within the brain system, even without our conscious awareness!
Our minds go on and on, narrating, interpreting and giving meaning to the experiences before us, often without our knowledge. In this one example, so many memory, image, discriminative, emotional and projective systems have come together as the myriad of neuronal connections flash throughout the many areas of our brain system. All, some or none of this inner dialogue about the cashier may reach conscious awareness -- the set of patterns that currently makes up our surface self. If the girl does make a mistake, however, some of this unconscious chatter may be released and manifest into conscious thought, as it becomes connected to, enfolded within, and manifest through the activity of the surface self, our conscious personality experience of the present moment. It is also possible this cashier is able to subconsciously read our thoughts or frame of mind about her through our body language and subliminal speech and other patterns. Think about this -- we may be having countless conversations every day without ever knowing it.
An example of how a piece of information can be disconnected from the awareness of our surface self is revealed in the case of repressed or forgotten memories. Information can be forgotten or disconnected from our conscious memory experience for a variety of reasons. First of all, there are space-saving mechanisms implemented in the brain processes to keep what little attention span we have free to experience and continually create our present reality. If recorded information, information that has been taken in by our sensory or other systems, has no imminent use within the surface self, it will often not reach conscious awareness at all. Much of our subconscious information can be elicited by questioning or hypnosis, but some are so deeply hidden as to be lost forever to our conscious minds.
Listen to the sounds around you right now. Perhaps your attention was so focused on trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about, that you were completely unaware of any of the auditory stimuli entering your perceptive system. However, if the sound changed, or if a new, meaningful sound such as your telephone ringing or an alarm was added to the existing background noise, your attention would again be drawn toward the sounds around you.
For example, you might be standing next to someone on a subway, without any conscious recollection of the person. If later you are shown a series of photos of men and asked which one was next to you on the bus, you might find that you are able to access some memory about the fellow, enough to choose the right photo. On the other hand, perhaps you will not be able to bring the specific information into your conscious memory systems, but you might have a feeling, an intuition that it seems like it could have been this one guy. We receive many promptings from our brilliant, all-knowing unconscious minds, though we may label them intuition, extra sensory perception, a hunch, messages from angels, or as the voice of God.
The passage of time and the addition of other, new information can also affect our ability to access certain memories. They, you might say, become more deeply enfolded within the total memory system and require more, or a specific kind of energy, to recreate their particular hologram of information within our conscious awareness.
So this cashier who resembles (has some multi-dimensional similarity and connection to) thousands of other people you've encountered in your lifetime -- such as other brunettes, cashiers, young women, people with blue eyes or similar tone of voice, etc. -- sets off or releases energies from the personality cells that contain memories or recorded information about all these people. And if she looks very much like a particular set of memories that is prominent in your system -- perhaps her hair style or dress pattern is the same kind your mother wore when you were six years old -- then even if you don't consciously acknowledge this connection, certain changes will evolve within your personality system and be expressed through your surface self, as the patterns that contain these memories resonate and connect with the present experience of the surface self. And here you thought you were just paying for some groceries.
For example, a regression of some kind might occur within your being, although it may not be obvious to anyone watching, or even to yourself. This cashier resonates back to a time when you were six years old. Perhaps you will begin to use certain words, patterns of speech or other mannerisms which you or your mother used during that time. Or perhaps certain repressed memories will be recalled -- either right then or some time afterward. Though this is all going on beneath conscious awareness, this process may even affect your external behavior toward the cashier and also her behavior towards you, since on a deeper level her personality systems and cells are perceiving, translating, resonating, and responding to your subliminal communications to her. This hidden dance of subconscious communication and interaction goes on every moment of our lives.
Memories can also be withheld from conscious awareness if they are intense, negative, or traumatic. Psychologists often blame such traumas for neurotic or abnormal personality defects or behavior. Thus, these traumatic events, though not accessible for direct observation by the surface self, nevertheless are enfolded within and act through the surface layers of behavior and action. These hidden traumatic memories connect with other tissues or ranges of consciousness that connect with our conscious experiential selves, but there is no direct memory connection. They affect us without our ever knowing they even exist.
If these negative experiences and energies are intense, strong, large, or numerous enough, they may form large tissues or sub-personality patterns of their own, similar to the patterns that make up the different aspects or sides of ourselves that we are familiar with as the components of our multi-faceted personalities. The divisions between various tissues of personality can become hardened, blocking the free flow of information from one area to another.
These sub-personality patterns formed by traumatic experience, may then become a storehouse for dark desires, memories, thoughts and other qualities that are not acceptable to or consistent with the surface self as defined by the surface self. Just as a tumor uses our own cells to create essentially a foreign object, a separate creation within our bodies, in the same way, the repressed, toxic memories born of intense traumatic events can create a sort of personality tumor within our own psychological structure. These tumors, made up of the cells of personal experience may even develop an independent kind of consciousness; an independent awareness buried deep within the tissues of our acknowledged awareness. And in some cases, these sub-personality units may see us even if we don't see them.
I know only myself as a human entity;
the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections;
and am sensible of a certain doubleness
by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another.
However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism
of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator,
sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you.-Thoreau
This process, which goes on to varying degrees in all human personality systems, is most noticeable and obvious in cases of MPD, Multiple Personality Dysfunction, in which the hidden, conscious sub-personalities which were originally created as storehouses for experiences too traumatic to be integrated into the conscious personality system, become strong enough to dominate and take over the expressive and experiential systems of the surface self for various amounts of time. Such cases could have several contributing factors and causes. Perhaps these people have very weak and fragile surface selves, due to the experiences that caused the dissociation in the first place. Perhaps the traumatic event created a flood of hormones and other chemicals in the body and brain that allowed the dissociation to happen in the first place.
It appears that all of the people who have developed this condition of multiple personality had certain very intense and difficult experiences when the dissociations first took place -- so these sub-personalities were almost allowed to take control due to an inability of the surface self to deal with the situation.
The important thing to realize about diseases such as multiple personality disorder, is the fact that they are shifts in what we consider normal, and are therefore full of potential breakthroughs in understanding normal experience. It is not that MPD patients have somehow developed an entirely new organizational system of personality. Theirs is a dysfunction within the system that is already there. Nevertheless, their aberration gives us a grand door through which to view the norm.
Every person has experienced some kind of fragmentation or multi-dimensionality within themselves. When we are doing creative work, we may be reflecting one kind of personality. When we are hanging out with friends at a party, we may have another. When we are deep in contemplation or prayer, yet another. When a person drinks too much, often they act very inconsistent with their normal behavior. Sometimes someone is in a confidant, bright, happy mood, and sometimes the same person suffers from low self-esteem and depression. Yet we don't say these people are split or abnormal. In fact, we don't even usually acknowledge the amazing palette of colors each person expresses with, except to occasionally point out that someone is in a good or bad mood today. We have all subconsciously agreed to maintain the illusion of consistency.
Once there is a certain degree of misalignment in the personality system, and once the person is not able, for one reason or another, to fulfill the necessary functions of acceptable behavior, then we suddenly place them in an entirely different category from the rest of us. We therefore lose the opportunity to use this slight variance in what we have become so accustomed and therefore blinded to, to glean an insight on the underlying structure of personality in general.
Multiple personality dysfunction is the perfect example of this. What is the difference between a person who is considered a multiple personality and one who is considered normal? Memory. Simply memory -- consistency. The difference is that these people are not able to function properly in their lives because all of the multi-facets of themselves, similar to the multi-facets we all have, are not communicating with one another, are not storing their memories in the same shared place. We normal folks do have at least enough access to our general memory archives to fulfill the necessary activities that our society considers as normal.
Although I was in an upset, bad mood yesterday, I can sit here now in my happy, uplifted state, and still remember the events that happened yesterday while I was in a funk. In this way, we remember enough to allow us to interact with the world around us in a guise of stability and continuity. And even when we don't really have a good memory of what happened at an earlier time, such as when we drink too much at a party and do not quite recall being driven home, we don't get too concerned about it. Even if our behavior when we were drunk was completely unusual and opposite from our normal behavior, we allow the phenomena to pass under the label "I was drunk," without too much introspection as to who was acting through us.
If we really looked at the situation of being drunk, acting out of character, and retaining no memory of events the next day, we would also be able to catch a glimpse of the same kind of personality or mind organization that is alluded to by the porthole of multiple personality dysfunction.
It is important to be able to distinguish and become conscious of our many sides or aspects. It is when we are unaware of something that it takes us over like a bogeyman, catching us off guard and acting contrary to our intention. This is when a man loses his temper and beats his wife. This is when a straight-A medical student jumps from his dorm window. This is when people live unconscious, unfulfilled lives, never really aware of or able to explore their own potential.
The understanding of this multi-faceted nature of personality is extremely important. It can break through our incorrect, limiting views of ourselves, and allow for incredible breakthroughs in our talents, abilities, health, emotional state, relationships, etc. It is also an important path on the journey toward conscious evolution. We are amazing, multi-faceted "normal" personalities, and with this awareness, the divisions between the aspects of ourselves, and even what we consider to be divisions between you and me become blurred.
Next we can look at some of the shocking facts that have been discovered in studies of people suffering from multiple personality disorders. These things have been documented in quite a few studies, but have been practically ignored by society in general because they just don't fit in with our worldview of what is possible. So we just tuck them away in a pocket labeled unexplained abnormal behavior, and never really get to reap all of the benefits that could be ours if we could expand our concepts enough to realize that we too have the same types of experiences available to us.
One personality of a multiple might be terribly shy, while another might be endearing and charming. Another might be a party animal, while another might be very prudish. So far, we can accept these things because we ourselves have gone through many personality and belief changes during our lives. But then things get stranger. One personality is an incredible artist, while the other cannot draw a thing. One has eloquent writing skills, while another can hardly print her name. All of these different things can be taking place within one person.
Then things get even stranger. Often the therapists who treat multiples will find themselves in dialogue with many different voices from one patient -- female, male, childlike, etc. Neurologist Christie Ludlow of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke tested this phenomenon by making high-tech voice prints of various multiple personality patients. The spectral analysis confirmed that the sub voices within one multiple personality patient were indeed very distinct.
The brain waves of multiples were also mapped, again showing striking differences between the different personalities within one multiple. Actors were also tested as they intentionally took on different moods and personalities, but their brain waves did not lose their consistency.
One woman suffering from MPD actually has three menstrual periods every month, one for each of her identities. A multiple can have one personality that speaks a foreign language fluently, while another cannot understand that language at all. Some multiples have been found to require different prescription glasses for each personality. Others have experienced allergies within some personalities and not others. One identity may be able to drive a car, while the other cannot. One may have certain athletic abilities the others do not have. All within one person!
The implications of this information are astonishing. Although our consistency of personality and experience is what keeps us officially sane or normal, it seems that this consistency also binds and limits us, keeping us from discovering and exploring our own power. We cannot imagine having the mental power to be able to have three menstrual periods each month just because we want it that way (though God knows who would ever desire such a thing!). We womenfolk have always considered this once-a-month physiological process to be more or less an automatic, unchangeable function of nature. And here, because of a person's delusion that they are several individual people, this entire physiological standard is bypassed. This shows the power of our belief systems.
One personality may be terribly allergic to a particular substance while the others are not. This means that if we could only discover and comprehend the mechanisms at work here, through this abnormal example, and apply the new information to our personal world view of our own bodies and minds, we could then throw away our allergy medication and stop the awful effects of allergies, and perhaps many other diseases, through a change in our own belief systems.
One personality may be a genius while the other might be quite stupid. What if there is a genius hidden behind every slow person in this world, hidden from our view as well as their own? What if we could access the infinite creative talents, language, knowledge, and other skills that are hidden right now within our own being? What if we could walk right up to a piano, understand that there is somewhere inside of us a "person" who knows how to play beautifully, and sit down to play a full concerto from memory? Think about the idiot savants, able to draw the most amazing, perfect pictures although they can't perform other, much simpler actions. Or they may remember strings of numbers perfectly, while remaining unable to answer a simple question. These too are cases worthy of our investigation and contemplation, as they point to the same kind of personality organization as do the multiple personality cases.
One interesting correlate to multiple personality syndrome, seems to be a certain high level of intelligence, talent and creativity, at least in some of the personalities. Many multiples are great artists, musicians, or even actors. This also clues us into the benefits that could be had by our understanding the mechanisms at work here. We could become, in a sense, unlimited. We could be freed from all the limiting concepts, "I can't do this," "I don't know how to do that," "I've never been good at that," "I've always reacted this way," "That always makes me sick," and on and on. So many concepts that have gone into the creation of this illusion of consistency.
If we could break free from the ropes of all these concepts, self-fulfilling prophecies, and self-propagating beliefs, then with that one small shift, our entire lives could change. So many difficult things in our lives could become suddenly easy. We would stop sneezing and sniffling every time we walk through a field of flowers. We'd stop struggling to try to generate a good idea for our work. We'd stop depending on other people to do things we could do just as well -- if we only knew we could. We just have to click our red shoes together three times, and we get to go home . . . where all things are possible.
Personal reports of how the dissociation occurs in multiples can shed some light on how this aberration manifests, and help to illumine observations that might also bring useful information for our own self-knowledge and growth.
Chris Sizemore, the multiple personality whose story was documented in the book and film "The Three Faces of Eve," describes her first remembered dissociation in her autobiography. It was during her first direct encounter with death. A man had fallen into a ditch and been cut to pieces by the machinery he fell through. It was a very gruesome sight, and Chris (Eve) was standing right in front of it. She closed her eyes, and then all of a sudden found herself standing on another hill watching a redheaded girl who was standing where she had been just a moment ago. This redheaded girl represented the dissociative personality that had risen up to take control of the situation. Perhaps the red hair was a symbolic incorporation of the bloody scene.
Other dissociation experiences followed for Chris. One time her mother cut her arm and told Chris to get her father. Chris became very upset and hid in the hay crib. From there, she could see the same girl run out to get her father. These are both experiences where the conscious, surface self was unable to handle the situation, and literally left the situation by leaving the body. During these times, the sub-personalities that took over gained an independence and control, which cleared the way for future dissociations.
Using the model of memory alluded to by this experience of dissociation, but extending it much farther, it is possible that although you may not have access to the specific memory information, everything you experience on the many levels of your consciousness, is recorded somewhere deep within your personality system.
When you interact with another person, the patterns of personality that contain similar mannerisms or qualities to theirs, resonate to their present actions, and are released and connected to them through your surface self. Thus, we begin to understand the power of the company we keep, as every word, every action, every movement we encounter is stored within our own beings.
Everyone has many kinds of sub-personalities, or sides to their personality -- pure and good, kind and compassionate, bitter and angry, childish and selfish, and on and on. All of the processes that go on within our beings, whether physical, mental or emotional, consist at their deepest level of vibration, of the spanda or universal energy, manifesting as that particular state. And just as an unstruck guitar string will begin to emit its note if another nearby string of the same frequency is played, so our instruments of personality, with their infinite number of strings and vibratory levels, also resonate to that which comes before us, and leaps out from our being to join its kindred vibration. We are being ever changed by our environment, and we are constantly changing our environment as well.
Social interactions therefore involve a sharing or enfoldment of the participants' personality patterns within each other. This may also explain one reason why people often take on mannerisms of others as they spend time with them or focus their attention on them. It may also explain, in part, the fluidity of a single personality within different situations and with different people.
So, when looking through this map, a person's personality systems are not a single, definable entity, nor are they cut off from everything and everyone around or outside of their physical bodies. The same kinds of connection that exist between the sub-patterns that form one person's personality can exist between different people's personality patterns. Just as all of the little personalities, habits, tendencies, and qualities inside of us come together to make that great, elusive "I," in the same way, all of us "I's" come together to make the great one consciousness of the human race.
We are all connected to one another through interaction, interference and enfoldment, and are also contained within each other, and within whatever each of us is contained within . . . We are connected to one another on deeper levels, outside of time and space. Therefore, it is possible for us to communicate or interact with one another independent of our surface interactions.
Other people's personality patterns are stored within our own patterns, as is all other information that enters our system -- within many different contexts throughout our personality system. Since all aspects of other people are contained within our own cell patterns, these people's identities and personality patterns are enfolded within our own personalities, and we in theirs. It's all the same one pattern, the same undifferentiated consciousness that has manifested upon its own screen as all these forms.
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