Lack of Unity in a Man
P.D. Ouspensky, in his magnum opus “In search of the miraculous”, refers to ‘lack of unity in a man’ as one of the chief problems of a human being as described by Russian mystic George Gurdjieff. This books primarily captures the main concept of Gurdjieff’s teachings. To elaborate on this point, Gurdjieff points out that a man is never the same all the time and in fact can changes from time to time with the change in stimulus (among other things). A man known has ‘John’ to the world is of course John as a personal identity but with this person there are many other persons namely Peter, or Michael or Thomas to name a few hidden within him. The hidden personalities emerge on situations and impulses suitable to them. John may want to go on a dieting and he makes this plan with Thomas, who handles the portfolio of making new plans. But on a certain day upon receiving a stimulus of his favorite food, Peter may just take over and go on binge eating thus sabotaging the plan of dieting. This can be seen in other activities too where we often do not end up doing what we had the set code in first place ( Parents losing cool on little children despite making promise to themselves each day not to get angry is just another example of this). A man is never the same and consistent. Every stimulus or desire or fear has its own caliph inside us.
If a man can do a detailed self-observation, he will be able to notice the presence of many fragmented parts that run the show. George Gurdjieff also states in the book that on one day a man may be willing to offer his last piece of bread feed the hungry and then at some other day he may even tear the shirt of someone else. This happens because there is no unity or integrity inside a human being.
Many Sufis have also pointed at the same truth in a different way by saying that “man is a crowd”. It is indeed conditioned differently by different voices of society, political propaganda, religious propaganda, moral values, parental advice, professor’s advice or wife’s sound bites and so on. Then you have to add his own ambitions and fears to the concoction, thus making man a very complex fragmented being lacking that unity needed for making his life blissful and serene
While altruism is all good for virtue signaling, in reality a man cannot change the world but a man can only change himself. For a spiritual seeker or seeker of eternal truth, it is thus very important to change himself till he reaches a point internal unity. Then a gate opens to a new dimension of living in peace and harmony. Meditation on a mantra (provided one understands how to use it) or attention based meditations like Vipassana can help man in achieving this integration. The non-duality led methods of self-observation are also very good devices in this regard
I am reminded of the brilliant words of Mikhail Naimy from his “The Book of Mirdad” to sum up this piece
“God, be refuge from the woes of I and be my guide to the bliss of I”
The undivided I is the blissful I.