Y.M. The mind.
O.M. If you say “I grieve for the loss of my father,”
who is the “I”?
Y.M. The mind.
O.M. Is the mind exercising an intellectual function when
it examines and accepts the evidence that the world is round?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. Is it exercising an intellectual function when it
grieves for the loss of your father?
Y.M. That is not cerebration, brain-work, it is a matter of FEELING.
O.M. Then its source is not in your mind, but in your MORAL territory?
Y.M. I have to grant it.
O.M. Is your mind a part of your PHYSICAL equipment?
Y.M. No. It is independent of it; it is spiritual.
O.M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by physical influences?
Y.M. No.
O.M. Does the mind remain sober with the body is drunk?
Y.M. Well–no.
O.M. There IS a physical effect present, then?
Y.M. It looks like it.
O.M. A cracked skull has resulted in a crazy mind. Why
should it happen if the mind is spiritual, and INDEPENDENT of
physical influences?
Y.M. Well–I don’t know.
O.M. When you have a pain in your foot, how do you know it?
Y.M. I feel it.
O.M. But you do not feel it until a nerve reports the hurt
to the brain. Yet the brain is the seat of the mind, is it not?
Y.M. I think so.
O.M. But isn’t spiritual enough to learn what is happening
in the outskirts without the help of the PHYSICAL messenger? You
perceive that the question of who or what the Me is, is not a
simple one at all. You say “I admire the rainbow,” and “I
believe the world is round,” and in these cases we find that the
Me is not speaking, but only the MENTAL part. You say, “I
grieve,” and again the Me is not all speaking, but only the MORAL
part. You say the mind is wholly spiritual; then you say “I have
a pain” and find that this time the Me is mental AND spiritual
combined. We all use the “I” in this indeterminate fashion,
there is no help for it. We imagine a Master and King over what
you call The Whole Thing, and we speak of him as “I,” but when we
try to define him we find we cannot do it. The intellect and the
feelings can act quite INDEPENDENTLY of each other; we recognize
that, and we look around for a Ruler who is master over both, and
can serve as a DEFINITE AND INDISPUTABLE “I,” and enable us to
know what we mean and who or what we are talking about when we
use that pronoun, but we have to give it up and confess that we
cannot find him. To me, Man is a machine, made up of many
mechanisms, the moral and mental ones acting automatically in
accordance with the impulses of an interior Master who is built
out of born-temperament and an accumulation of multitudinous
outside influences and trainings; a machine whose ONE function is
to secure the spiritual contentment of the Master, be his desires
good or be they evil; a machine whose Will is absolute and must
be obeyed, and always IS obeyed.
Y.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul?
O.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul?
Y.M. I don’t know.
O.M. Neither does any one else.
The Master Passion
Y.M. What is the Master?–or, in common speech, the
Conscience? Explain it.
O.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which
compels the man to content its desires. It may be called the
Master Passion–the hunger for Self-Approval.
Y.M. Where is its seat?
O.M. In man’s moral constitution.
Y.M. Are its commands for the man’s good?
O.M. It is indifferent to the man’s good; it never concerns
itself about anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It
can be TRAINED to prefer things which will be for the man’s good,
but it will prefer them only because they will content IT better
than other things would.
Y.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still
looking out for its own contentment, and not for the man’s good.
O.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man’s good,