SUBDIVISIONS OF THE SELF

1. Besides having a physiological correlation with the central nervous system, the self can be psychologically and psychically divided, as I hinted above, into ego on the one hand, and mind and soul on the other hand, so that there is, over and above its physiological basis (in the central nervous system), a three-way subdivision between ego, mind, and soul, as, in other words, between conscious, superconscious, and subconscious, the latter being the emotional core of the self.

2. Thus the self, considered psychologically and psychically, is divisible between a conscious ego, a superconscious mind, and a subconscious soul, with the ego situated in-between what are in effect the psychocentric extremes of the self - namely, the superconscious mind and the subconscious soul.

3. Unlike the mind and soul, the ego has intellectual connotations by dint of its ability, in consciousness, to manipulate thoughts, as already discussed, whereas the mind should only be associated with the spirit (while still remaining distinct from what is, after all, a manifestation of what I am apt to think of as psychesomatic selflessness) and the soul, by contrast, only be associated with the emotional core of the self.

4. In fact, it is the soul which is truly of the self psychocentrically, because it strictly pertains to the self and not to either the self involved with the not-self intellectually, viz. thoughts, or the self conditioned by selflessness as spirituality, viz. sensational awareness.

5. Thus while the ego utilizes the not-self and is transmuted into mind by selflessness, the self can only tolerate so much selflessness before it opts to rebound from it and psycho-concentrically gravitate to what we call the soul, or kernel of the self, which is its emotional resolution.

6. Thus the self progresses, in overall terms, from its physiological mean in the central nervous system to its psycho-concentric core in the soul via its egocentric and psycho-eccentric compromises with the will of the not-self on the one hand and with the spirit of selflessness on the other hand - the former appertaining to power and the latter to glory.

7. It progresses, if you prefer, from id to soul via ego and mind, as from its instinctual basis in the central nervous system to its emotional core in the soul via intellectual and spiritual intermediate positions in conjunction with the will and the spirit, neither of which directly appertain to the self but, rather, to that which stands apart from it as not-self and selflessness.

8. For whereas the not-self is an illustration of somatic power, selflessness is an illustration of psychesomatic glory, neither of which should be confused with the physiological structure of the self as central nervous system, the psychological form of the self as ego, the psycho-eccentric content of the self as mind, or the psycho-concentric contentment of the self as soul.

9. But if the not-self and selflessness come in a variety of different guises, from metachemical and chemical with the objective elements of fire and water ... to physical and metaphysical with the subjective elements of vegetation and air, so too, I contend, does the self, since not only is there a gender divide between the objective and subjective manifestations of the central nervous system, but the nervous system, corresponding to the transpersonal self, can be phenomenal or noumenal, lower class or upper class, depending on whether it is of volume and mass or of time and space.