The Two Halves of Life

An Exploration of the Two Approaches to Life ...

Your Freewill & Meta Teachings

“One cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie”

—C. G. Jung

Introduction - The Two Halves of Life

Carl Jung, the distinguished Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, first popularised the phrase “the two halves of life.” What did he mean by this phrase and how does it tie into the quote above? Using this metaphor, this essay will explore a concealed process in life, which is not well identified and explained within our current culture, which presents an account of a natural development in human maturation and evolution.

In brief, the two halves can be characterised as first moving out and exploring the external environment which surrounds us and establishing our worldly or external life. Eventually, after many years (or less often, when it occurs in our youth), this leads us to some critical and life changing event, which either leads to illness or depression and an early death, or opens up a hitherto obscured inner landscape, which is enigmatic, unknown and ill-defined. If we choose to delve into this domain, we turn inward, away from the external world, and the second half begins. Both halves are journeys. The first half is finite, establishing structure, form and diversity, leading to organised pluralism. The second half is infinite, breaking down all conceptualisation and duality (often called plurality or multiplicity), leading us back to the unitary source, which as new-born infants, we arose from, and were familiar with.

The term half in this context, refers to separate stages which are not necessarily proportionate in years. It is best represented as a metaphorical circle, spread over many lifetimes, where the first half is the outgoing journey, and the second half is the return journey back to the beginning.

The First Half of Life (FHOL)

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

The FHOL concerns moving out and establishing an earthly or worldly identity, which is typically brought about by being educated by one’s culture, building a career, acquiring friends, finding a partner, making a home, having children, and achieving success (not necessarily in that order). This is done by either following the rules, or playing the game, in one’s own inimitable style. Ostensibly, one is founding an ego-structure (ego), human personality or ‘small-self.’

Some of us are more successful at doing this than others. Either way, to a lesser or greater degree, it necessitates pushing our energy out into the world; an action we believe prevents it in all its, unruliness, bizarreness and uncertainty, from dominating, controlling and overwhelming us. Generally, the more we the push-out against the world, the more we believe that we are able to dominate it, and the safer we consider we will be. One could say there is a direct correlation between the force of our personality and the success or stability we achieve in the world. This process can be characterised as building one’s ‘first half house;’ we move out into the world, building the empire, citadel (or hovel), of the self.

The Second Half of Life (SHOL)

“Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable” – Richard Rohr

The SHOL takes us in an entirely different direction altogether; it invites us to stop looking out and instead to begin gazing inwards, behind the mask of the persona. Often after all the successes of building our FHOL house, we realise that we have not yet found what we were initially looking for. The victories turn out to be hollow, the highs are short lived, and the collection of toys, amusements and distractions, just do not seem to cut the mustard anymore. It appears that the law of diminishing returns begins to set in, and we have to consume more than twice as much as before, just to stand still. By this time, the exuberances of youth have begun to fade, and our available energy and hunger begins to wane. The phrase over the hill starts to resonate in our psyches, and the mid-life blues can set in. Our appetite for life can diminish altogether if we are not too careful. And then a crisis emerges out of the blue and knocks us off our feet. We are shocked that such things can happen, but a small voice inside reminds us that it has been coming for a while – we have just been ignoring it, for fear of its implications.

Crisis, What Crisis?

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity.” ― John F. Kennedy

The crisis can be devastating; a loss of a job, the breakdown of an intimate relationship, the loss of a loved one, an accident or long-term illness. In a sense, it does not matter what it is, as long as it gets our attention and delivers its message: your life is not working - something needs to change. At this point, there are two choices; sink or swim. If we let the situation completely engulf us, allowing its apparent negativity to defeat one, then the slippery slope of growing old and enfeebled, depression, prolonged or terminal illness, chronic grumpiness and an early grave, beckons.

The other option leads to the SHOL. It starts by realising that the crisis is not actually a crisis as represented in the traditional FHOL of life sense, but a call to evolve. It is asking one to realise that the FHOL house is actually built on shifting sands, which was never going to last. Moreover, it was just an illusion constructed by our egos. In actuality, it is our ego. The FHOL house, by its very nature, was self-centred, fashioned to protect the self we think we are, from the scary world beyond. The higher we build its walls, the more secure we feel. This means trying to make sure that we are always right, and the others are always or mostly wrong. External validation of our brilliance or importance becomes our elixir of choice. It creates separation, breaking the world into fiefdoms of diverse sizes, which we compare ours to. Victimisation is the dark torrent which constantly threatens to flood our house if we do not repel it!

The SHOL begins when one sees a truth that was always shining brightly from within; that there is something beneath the apparent diversity of the world, which holds it all together, and we are an integral and inseparable part of it. When we realise that the reality, we perceive is the way it is, because our beliefs have defined it so, we comprehend that we need to adopt a new way of understanding the world and its inhabitants. When our suffering begins to mount and the pressure to grow becomes intolerable, we are forced to break the confines of our FHOL house, to such an extent, that eventually we must raze it to the ground, and start all over again.

Falling Down & Standing Up

“And falling's just another way to fly.” ― Emilie Autumn

The first stage of the SHOL is typified with the falling-down process; where we find ourselves face down in the dirt again and again, totally humiliated, tearstained, and utterly embarrassed and shamefaced. It is also known as the standing backup phase. You may fall-down ten thousand times, but if you arise every time, you stand-up ten thousand times! As long as the count is balanced, you are still in the game. The determination to succeed at any cost, homed in the FHOL, now serves us to rise up, brush ourselves off and begin the process all over again, wondering what the fuck just happened. Slowly we learn that the limited-self ego structure (the Separate-Self), so beautifully fashioned in our FHOL journey, is actually causing us to fall over again and again.

So, every time we fall down, instead of resisting its lesson, and pushing back against the issue, as we did in the FHOL, we learn to let it go altogether, not through suppression, or projection, but by fully accepting and surrendering into the feeling it brings up. This takes immense determination and daily practice, until it becomes the default approach. If we resist, then suffering increases, pressure builds, starting with anger and resentment, moving through sadness into despair.

Fortunately, we begin to realise that our true identity is are not our limited egos. In actuality, our true identity has been hidden from us up to that point - we are essentially extraordinarily powerful beings, who have the capability to change ourselves beyond all recognition. The Separate-Self has been suffering and declares that it cannot continue with the way things are. It learns that pressing the reset button of suicide, is just a short-term palliative, which eventually in the cycle of life, death and re-birth, drops one right back in the same position, just one life further down the line. It discovers that it has to face itself head-on, accept its limitations, and has to commit to growing and evolving. Something deep from within begins to emanate a knowing that everything is going to work out if we just stay the course.

Somehow this silent knowing imbues us with a faith in the process of falling down, seeing it as a purgative and purifying action. It becomes apparent that the harder we fall, the more FHOL sense gets knocked out of us. Yes, it can feel like we are dying - and in a way something within us is moribund; it is the limited Separate-Self, which built the FHOL house.

What enables us to stand back up again and again, is the remembrance of our pure-hearted innocence, which is a metaphor for the ever-present, always and everywhere connection to the essence of our absolute identity, which is forever calling to us. It whispers silently to us to be patient, invoking the knowing that everything is thriving impeccably. It reminds us that this is the perfect setup, uniquely designed for us to let go of all that is holding us back from being our authentic selves.

Essentially, we are falling into the mystery of our own true self. The Separate-Self of the FHOL, cannot pass through the mystical gate into the domain of the enigma of Wholeness (which is not really a place at all). This is because its entire structure is founded on plurality, distinction, desire and attachment, which places itself at the centre, ruling by personal decree, as if it is the god of the bible. The Separate-Self has constructed a limited virtual model of reality, which is the summation of all our desires, attachments and dislikes, which conditions our every thought, emotion and action. The Separate-Self attempts to elevate itself selfishly above all other egos, so that it can be safe and secure. That is achieved by dominating without genuine compassion, humility, grace or love. This includes all the false promissory simulations of positivity, which it offers consciously or unconsciously, as tactical and strategic opportunities to co-opt, kotow and manipulate, to its own advantage.

The destination of the SHOL of life requires us to let go of our FHOL house, to surrender every concept we have about ourselves and the Kosmos that we were apparently living in. This requires us to submit freely, without regret, into the most excruciating process of accepting every shortcoming, imperfection, flaw and fault that we have, without blaming another, the government or our genes. As Jung further stated, “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the SHOL is going inward and letting go of it.” Our suffering, which results in falling down, then becomes an absolute necessity that pushes us forward in the SHOL task, so that we can grow. The FHOL task has built a container that is strong enough to reach the final destination; it just needs to be purified of its old contents, which has kept us from hearing the call within.

Eventually the ego agrees to evolve itself, because it knows it has no other option, hoping that it will grow into the higher mind, or Buddhi. This term refers to intellect, wisdom and the power of the mind to understand, analyse, discriminate and decide. It helps us to unite the lower mind with the higher consciousness, overcoming its weakness, attaining evenness, calmness and one-pointedness.

Meaning and Purpose

“Meaning makes a great many things endurable—perhaps everything. No science will ever replace myth [the communicator of meaning], and a myth cannot be made out of any science. . . . [Myth] is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth; rather it speaks to us as a Word of God.” – CG Jung

The FHOL is spent in the outer world, where the meaning provided by of our culture is predominately at play, which we may wish to add to, or amend, in a collective endeavour. In the second half we turn inward, away from the collective, putting away worldly pursuits, for a deeper personal meaning and purpose. To undertake this journey, we have to sacrifice everything that we hitherto held so dear. Attachments hold us in the outer world of the FHOL house. When we explore the reasons of why we have attachments, eventually we find that we need them to make us feel good and secure, to keep us continually occupied in the pursuit of pleasure, to keep us from the terrifying silence and apparent emptiness within us. The SHOL task takes us straight into that emptiness, without a guide, following only intuition and faith. Of course, we have the wisdom available in the scriptures of the mystics, saints and Yogi’s, offering invaluable commentaries on the process - but we have to take the journey alone.

In this endeavour we are seeking greater meaning and purpose, both of which are conceptual in nature. In tandem with the two halves of life, there are two paths of evolution that run directly through them called: growing up and waking up (Ken Wilber). Growing up involves stages of maturation that all humans go through automatically, as they develop any major capacity or intelligence (e.g., cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, moral, aesthetic, musical, kinaesthetic, etc.). Essentially, it is the mind based, overarching belief system, which we adopt to comprehend ourselves and the universe we perceive (simulated reality). In its highest form, it is a rational, logical, all-encompassing, self-consistent, and open-ended description of Wholeness. Waking up is entirely different altogether; it is not a discursive, conceptual mind-based operation, it is directly experiencing Wholeness in the moment, free of the past or future, without thinking about it whatsoever. Waking up is becoming the witnessing consciousness behind thinking, beyond the mind. The moment we think about the experience, we move form waking up into growing up. The moment we stop thinking, we return to waking up.

When we look out of our eyes, hear a sound, feel the chair or ground beneath us, smell a scent, the witness is the entity within us, which is experiencing the sensation or feeling. When we think a thought, the witness is the entity that is perceiving the flow of mental constructs. Erroneously, the Separate-Self assumes that the mind (which is really just another metaphor for the ego) is the witness; but this is an illusion, which the ego attempts and mostly fools itself with.

Stages of Growing Up

“Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.”

- Chili Davis

Growing up has various stages as follows:

• Archaic: (Zero person - <1% of US population, evolved >100,000 years ago) - It is animal survival, zero-dimensional consciousness, which is not yet individuated or self-aware, but is experienced as totally identical with the world. The individual is totally immersed in the world, incapable of extricating itself from it.

• Magic: (First person - < 20% of US pop, evolved <100,000 years ago) – Egocentric ‘me’/’I want it now’: tribes, clans, and gangs, which are superstitious and principally interested in safety/survival. Events, objects and persons are magically related; symbols and statues do not just represent those events, objects and persons, but are those same objects and persons, without distinction.

• Mythic Literalism: (Second person – approx. 40% of US pop - evolved <12,000 years ago) Ethnocentric, represented by organized religion, which is conformist, driven principally by good and bad - objects and persons are woven together into mythological stories, which provide coherence based on the discovery of the rhythmic recurrence of natural events, and the inner reflections on these experiences in relation to those events.

• Rational: (Third person world centric - 25% of population, evolved < 300 years ago) - Scientific in nature, data-driven decision-making, based upon logic and reason. The mental structure relates using linear logic to events, objects and persons.

• Pluralistic – (fourth person – multiple perspective centric 10% of US population, evolved 50 to 100 years ago) - This is the sensitive self, who is individualistic and idealistic, concerned with more than the group that they live in, or the rational perspective it provides.

• Integral – (universal centric - 4% of US population, evolved < 30 years ago) - These individuals are autonomous, with high levels of integrity, characterised by inclusiveness, sustainability, effectiveness, which includes and transcends all previous levels, with flexibility, attuned to the greater whole.

Interestingly, we can note that 65% of the US population is at mythic literal developmental level or less, which if extended worldwide, rises to approximately 70-75%. Presumably at points in the past, say the beginning of the 20th century, which exclude integral and pluralistic (as a whole), this could have been as high as 85-90% of the worldwide population.

As one can see, as consciousness grows up, it moves from zero person with no dimension which differentiates it from the world, successively through 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th person, to universal centric level (n-∞). In each of these stages, the ego or small self is evolving, from selfishness to selflessness, from egocentricity to uni-centricity, from finiteness towards infinity. In other words, the ego is growing towards the higher-self.

Simulated Reality

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: infinite” - William Blake

The FHOL can we equated to living inside a reality simulated by ourselves, in accordance with our previous conditioning from birth to the present moment. Our estimation of our personal: cognitive and social status, meaning and purpose, outlook, and level of happiness/sadness (emotional continuum), is determined by that conditioning. These attributes shape the subjective reality that each of us lives within. That reality favours, maintains and attempts to expand its own prosperity, in conflict, opposition or cooperation with other parallel simulated realities of all others. This simulated reality is the Separate-Self – it makes possible the plural perspective, which differentiates the Kosmos into separate perceivable objects, including itself. It is self-referential, recursive, and limited, established to filter out the infinite and potentially overwhelming flow of information and stimulus of Wholeness. Aldous Huxley wrote about “mind at large” in his famous work Doors of Perception, where he stated that “Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment and leaving only that exceedingly small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful. According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large.” Interestingly there is a network in the brain called the default mode network (DMN), which “seems to be the best candidate that we have for the biological underpinnings of the sense of self,” explains Robin Carhart-Harris, a researcher with Imperial College’s Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology.” The DMN is a large scale brain network of interacting brain regions known to have activity highly correlated with each other and distinct from other networks in the brain.

Language as Surface Detail Symbolism

“I have to create an object which resembles the tree. The sign for a tree, and not the sign that other artists may have found for the tree.” - Henri Matisse

As we grow up, we begin to realise that language is purely symbolic in nature; its constructed metaphors only signify pluralism, which it is only describing the surface detail of a deeper reality, which can only be experienced in waking up mode. Language cannot describe what is experienced in waking up, it can only point to it. The problem arises when we mistakenly take symbols for real separate things, instead of perceiving them as just symbols. We see a tree and have forgotten that before we knew the word for tree, the tree (for us) did not exist as a tree, it was just an undifferentiated blob. Language differentiates and shapes the world into our personally generated mentally virtual realities.

Growing up moves from identification with objects (including the mind and body), towards identification with the subject that witnesses the objects. Language is understood to be discursive objectivity, which ultimately becomes obsolete, until the primary experience is objectless altogether. Growing up gradually fathoms and aligns itself with the belief that plurality arises from a single universal source (Wholeness), which is non-physical in its nature. The Separate-Self realises that its hitherto defined egocentricity, is nothing but an illusion of that plurality.

Through growing up we begin to find ultimate meaning and purpose, and we commit ourselves to the supreme sacrifice, of letting go of everything that it has spent so much time constructing and defending – which is none other than its Separate-Self. We are compelled through our suffering, through our pain and loneliness, to undertake the SHOL journey.

Waking up experiences have founded and fuelled all religions. The level of growing up of the waking up experiencer and those individuals that he subsequently told, have determined the interpretations and descriptions of those experiences, which have led to the establishment of the religion itself, its ceremonies, practices and beliefs. If one has a mystical waking-up experience but has an inadequate growing-up context to explain or understand it, then its meaning can be easily misinterpreted and misrepresented. For example, a mythic (ethnocentric) individual might interpret a mystical waking up experience as the supernatural act of a separate God, which is instructing them to undertake some action, to protect its “chosen group.” A rational or scientific person might deduce that philosophy and mathematics is the language of a Deistic God, permitting his creation to govern itself through natural laws, as derived by the scientific principle; while a pluralistic/postmodern person might recognise that we all share a single interconnected awareness known as ‘consciousness.’

Waking up experiences are neutral in nature, without form, content or structure. It is only when our mind/ego kicks in, attempting to explain or communicate the experience, does conceptualised meaning emerge, which is limited to the level of growing up.

Waking up and growing up are intimately intertwined and entangled within each other in a glorious double helix; it is the Shiva and Shakti dance of the masculine and the feminine, the left and the right side of the brain, the rational/logical and the trans-rational/logical, the linear and the non-linear, the local and the universal. Ultimately their duality will need to be transcended, when waking up and growing up finally unite into Super Integral, single being-centric (witness self,) which is non-dual unity consciousness, the goal of the SHOL.

Transcendence

“Not creating delusions is enlightenment. “- Bodhidharma

The SHOL is the steppingstone towards transcending our simulated realities. Beyond the confines of the limited Separate-Self, is the mystical open-ended infinite and universal domain, which is what Deepak Chopra calls the “Meta Reality,” or what the Hindu’s call “ultimate or supreme reality Wholeness).” When one has woken up from the “dream of the spell-bound ego,” one ascends into the infinite realm of pure unadulterated consciousness, which has and will always be, exists everywhere simultaneously and makes up everything. Growing up is the handrail that leads the confined ego to the edge of the limited human mental world of the mind and asks it to jump into the infinite monolithic emptiness, of nowhere, no time, and no-thing (Wholeness). Waking up fully is the supreme test; we are being invited to open our celestial wings, let go of the attachments to the secure and safe structures, which have kept us rooted to the ground and take flight into the infinite potential of unfettered creativity, unencumbered imagination and unrestrained wellbeing and unlimited abundance.

Summary & Conclusion

“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” - Lao Tzu

Without the need to create a more or less lofty comparison of the two, second-halfer’s (SH’s) are quite different in their outlook to first-hafler’s (FH’s); they are traveling in different directions, with entirely different destinations. FH’s only perceive plurality, and are busy building FHOL houses of the self, in pursuit of safety, security and self-aggrandisement. Their personal meaning and purpose are limited by that perspective. SH’s on the other hand, through the continual grace of their acts, have been called home – they have begun to identify themselves with Wholeness and are seeking unity beyond the confines of the: physical universe, life and death, time and space, mind-body or culture.

SH’s have completed their FHOL houses, and have developed a robust and healthy ego, with a strong disciplined will, which acts as a container for the SHOL. They have determined a purpose, which may perhaps last beyond their present lifetime, whereby the self-centred, plural and separate contents of their FHOL container will need to be purified; this is achieved by honouring the whole through selfless acts of kindness, compassion and humility to all others. SH’s central prominent level growing up belief, is that there is but one actor, playing all the parts of all sentient beings in the great and infinite game, so that it can subjectively know itself. Therefore, the highest path is that if the Bodhisattva, who vows to free all sentient beings from suffering, so that they can cross to the shore of self-realised liberation. This vow is made no matter how much effort or how long it takes, because all others are none other than parts of the whole (the single actor), to which that person (as part of the whole), is ultimately committed to.

SH’s level of growing up, commensurately assists them in releasing the FH contents (negative, limited beliefs and emotions) of their container, strengthening it further through, meditation and contemplation, to make way for the high frequency energy that will begin to circulate within it, which eventually illuminates their light bodies. Only when all selfish acts of this and all previous lives has been balanced, and the individual is wholly prepared to relinquish its last small-self-identification, will the individual be fully prepared to enter into the pantheon of self-realisation and free themselves from the cycle of death and rebirth.

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