Three in One

The human being, modeled after its maker, is a three in one, a trinity in which there is unity, and this apparently paradoxical fact, which may perplex the rational mind established in a three-dimensional world but makes complete sense from a higher standpoint, helps us to understand and resolve several conflicts in both religion and politics.  

For example, it explains why there is both oneness (intrinsic if not expressed) and hierarchy, and also how there can be forms of mysticism that deny the reality of self and those that affirm it.

A human being is comprised of spirit, soul and body where spirit is the uncreated aspect of God that is our being, soul the created individual self, our quality, and body the outer form and appearance. Now the point is that these three together comprise the human being just as God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. You cannot separate them though they are different aspects of the totality. But at the same time there is a hierarchical order from top to bottom, inner to outer, and the totality should be seen in that context. Philosophies that do separate them, such as in their different ways do Buddhism and advaita, are incomplete. They have seen that the root of being is uncreated spirit, God in us, but they don't see that this is only part off the whole of what we are which leads them to deny or undervalue the rest, and particularly individuality. But individuality was the point of creation and why there is something rather than nothing. God is love and he sought to express that in relationship. What he creates is real, totally dependent on him but fully real in itself. Yes, in the context of our being, spirit is the most fundamental and truest part of us but it is not all of what we are, and you should not use its reality as an excuse to reject soul and body which are equally part of the whole. Indeed, without soul we could not individually know spirit, and without body we could not express it.

This is why I regard the Buddhist way as a preparation for the Christian way, or at least the Christian way in its higher sense of union with God. Nowadays many people brought up in our scientific, rationalistic, materialistic age turn to Buddhism or some form of non-theistic religion as the most sensible form of religion. It does away with that rather embarrassing anthropomorphic God. And its doctrine of not self makes a kind of philosophical sense. The ground of everything must be beyond the limitation and boundaries of the individual   which is clearly a veil on the deepest reality. So it is, but it's not that simple. Buddhism is, in fact, only a half truth, as is advaita which derives from it in that it was the Hindu response to the Buddhist challenge.

For reality is not the absolute alone but the absolute and the relative together, and the human being is not spirit only but spirit, soul and body together, a three in one.

Thus our spiritual goal is not to sink into Nirvana, the 'blown out' state, but to reach a full relationship with the living God, and the realisation of uncreated spirit can only be a precursor to this. It sets the scene in which that relationship can take place if one understands that disidentifying with the phenomenal world is not sufficient in itself but a preliminary to finding a union with the Creator. Of course, for that to happen one has to acknowledge him. To rest in Nirvana is, in a way, a refusal of the purpose of creation and birth in this world. I repeat, individuality was the very point of creation and so the rejection of it is a spiritual error even if it might be useful as part of 'skillful means', i.e. as a help to go beyond full identification with self which is also a spiritual error.

Three in one, hierarchy in unity, the one and the many, sameness and difference. This is the truth and isn't it so much more splendid than simply undifferentiated oneness? God is always more.  You cannot restrict him to the impersonal.  That would actually make him less than us. He includes and incorporates all we can conceive and, if a potential mistake of theistic religion is to limit him to existing outside us, as an object to us, the mistake of non-theistic religion is to ignore his personal or concrete aspect by focusing exclusively on the abstract impersonal. 

That mistake arises I think partly because of a confusion between the ego and the self.  The ego is the self as it manifests in three-dimensional consciousness and results from the separation inherent in unresolved duality. It is the self, which is not a phenomenal thing, squeezed into a phenomenal context.  That is why the elaborate Buddhist analysis and ultimate denial of the self is inconclusive. It only proves that the self is not a phenomenal thing. So it successfully dismisses the ego but mistakenly thinks it has also dismissed the self behind it of which the ego is a three-dimensional representation.  It has not done so. However its methods, techniques and philosophical reasoning are highly effective in showing up the emptiness of the ego. It can help us see through the illusions of the ego and detach ourselves from the lower self. The trouble arises when it throws out the baby of soul with the bathwater of ego.

For most Eastern mysticism, the individual is what negates reality, but a more inclusive understanding sees the individual as the whole point of creation. At the same time, the ego, which is that aspect of individuality that restricts itself to itself, is a barrier between us and God. We need to disidentify with that false aspect of our being but not make the mistake of rejecting the real part of us of which it is the shadow. Our spiritual make up is triple and all should be seen as parts of the whole for a full expression of being. This is why there is hierarchy even in heaven as I can attest to from my experience with the Masters.

Spirit, soul and body are the equivalent in the human being of the true, the good and the beautiful, and none of them can be denied. Note that it was the Ascension of the body which marked Christ's final act in this world.