As our child attempts growing up we have had to learn how to separate from our parents (in particular, our mother, as we were originally joined with her body)

As our child attempts growing up we have had to learn how to separate from our parents (in particular, our mother, as we were originally joined with her body). This is sometimes called the process of “The Child Within”. The development of our ego was basic to this process, and thus it is important that as a young person develops a “healthy ego”, which means, good boundaries, solid sense of self, good self-esteem, and so on.

Problems with ego-development are, however, common, and often make it difficult for someone to embark on a self kindfulness path, because we cannot begin to go “beyond” the ego if we have not first developed it in a healthy fashion. This is why many who begin to work on themselves in order to heal and try to integrate old wounds, forgive parents or siblings, come to terms with their family history, their self-esteem, and so on.

Failure to come to a reasonable degree of healing with our past (in particular, our family roots), and with our basic sense of personal identity, increases the likelihood of falling prey to the “sublimated child within”. That is, venturing into mindfulness practices and beginning to confuse altered states of consciousness that can arise from such practices with early-life memories of “oneness” (like being merged with what was around us), along with an abandoned sense of responsibility, precisely because we desire to relive our childhood in a way that we think will get us what we didn’t get back then.

Meditational states of mind do indeed include a sense of “oneness”, but they do not abdicate our basic sense of identity. We do not lose the ability to recognise our own name, and thereby successfully answer the phone or reply to an email (for example). More to the point, we do not abandon responsibility, and all the areas of life in which that is important.

Likewise, concerning the role of “rationality” our reality path, there is also much confusion. Child Within states of being (deep connection with others, or life, or the universe, deep peace/joy, etc.) appear non-rational, which can lead to the belief that all rational states are therefore non-meditational.

From there, it is a short leap to assuming that all non-rational states are therefore meditation. This however ignores the fact that meditational states are different from rational states. That is, the “oneness” felt by a child is not the same as the “oneness” experienced by a mature, responsible adult. The former is more a state of “fusion”. The latter is a state of deep connectedness in which the ability to use the mind (or personal identity) is not lost.



The main difference between ordinary rationality, and the rationality of meditation, is that in the latter there is less identification with thought. It’s not that the mind becomes non-functional or somehow disappears, it’s rather that we come to recognise, more and more, that we are not our thoughts, anymore than we are our body. But recognising that we are not the body does not mean that we abandon the body, mistreat it, or pretend that it is not real (or “not spiritual”). Likewise with the mind.