The I, The Me, and The Prime Directive

Many of my meditation students ask the same question, How do I quiet the chatter in my head when I'm trying to meditate? Part of the answer is to focus the attention or mind on a specific thought, image, emotion, object, or sound, and to continue to refocus each time the mind strays. In time the mind will yield to the discipline. It is also important to occasionally take the time to analyze the chatter in your head whether you are trying to meditate or not. Of those approximately sixty thousand thoughts that we think each day, there are two categories of thoughts that should be sifted out and evaluated. Before we discuss these two categories of thoughts we have to understand the concepts of the Masculine Principle of Mind (the I aspect of self) and the Feminine Principle of Mind (the Me aspect of self).

The Mysterious Dr. M. and I were recently discussing one of our ancient Ancestors, the great Egyptian scholar and teacher Hermes who proposed that each individual has a Masculine and a Feminine Principle of Mind. The Masculine Principle of Mind is active, conscious, voluntary, spontaneous, objective, and idiosyncratic (unique to each individual based upon their unique set of experiences). It is the intra-active aspect of the self. The Masculine Principle of Mind is ever present but always unseen by others. It is expressive but speaks and acts through a emissary. The Feminine Principle of Mind is passive, unconscious, involuntary, and subjective, the social and interactive aspect of the self. The Feminine Principle of Mind is the emissary of the Masculine Principle of Mind and it engages the world of experience at the request and according to the directions of that aspect of mind. The mind of every male and every female has both of these aspects of the self that we experience as the I aspect of self and the Me aspect of self. Many of the problems of modern male-dominant societies emerge from the false dualistic idea that males are exclusively masculine and females are exclusively feminine, and never the twain shall meet. This notion sets the stage for internal dissonance and the constant, stress inducing chatter between the I and the Me, the Masculine and Feminine Principles of Mind innate to each individual.

The I aspect of self is the part of you that wills your Me aspect of self to act along certain lines. The I aspect of self is responsible for directing and shaping the experiences of your Me aspect of self and of anticipating the consequences of your actions. Your I aspect of self is (should be) in control. Your Me aspect of self is the intuitive, creative, generative, unconscious problem-solving, and social aspect of self. The I aspect of self observes how the physical and social worlds respond to the Me aspect of self, and then makes adjustments in your actions and presentation of self in order to protect your Me aspect of self from the things Dr. M. describes throughout the Handbook (and especially in Chapters 3 to 19). This idea becomes clearer as soon as you begin analyzing the chatter in your own head. The chatter is mostly a conversation between your I aspect of self and your Me aspect of self and it tends to fall into one of two categories of thought (chatter).

The first category of thoughts to which you should pay attention is I-Me chatter, the chatter that contains sentences and thoughts that begin with I and end with Me, and that contains self-evaluation in between. "I like this look on me!" "I wonder if this will work out for me!" "I love who I am (I love Me)!" "I hate myself (Me) for ...!" (Note: You don't always think in complete sentences but the sense of the I and the Me is always present in I-Me chatter.) The words that are thought between the I and the Me in the I-Me chatter can empower you with confidence, infuse you with a sense of the beauty in and around you, and lift you to heights of personal joy and spiritual bliss. Or, the words you tend to place between the I and the Me in your inner dialogue can plunge you into the depths of self-derogation. Remember the statement, "I think, therefore I am" ("Cogito ergo sum" - Rene Descartes). To analyze the first category of thoughts you must listen to your chatter and answer the question, 'what do I think I am?' ('What do I think of Me?') In other words, 'how to I feel about Me?'. That is the content of much the chatter in your mind. It is your Masculine Principle of Mind that is responsible for controlling the content of the I-Me chatter. As Dr. M. clearly points out in the Handbook, the content of the I-Me chatter must itself emerge from some source and have something that is feeding it.

The second category of thoughts to which you should pay attention is the I-He/She/They-Me chatter, the chatter that begins with I, ends with Me, and has a He/She/They content reference in between. I should say that often the I part of the thought remains in the background. Sometimes we think, 'I believe he insulted Me'. But too often we think, '...He insulted Me'. 'I wonder if he(she) like me?' I wonder if he/she/they are mad at Me because I ...' 'She made Me so angry, I could have...!' (In reality what happen is that she did something and I allowed Me to get angry over it, and in my lost of control I could have...!') This second category of thoughts has to do with your Me aspect of self, your Feminine Principle of Mind, making subjective and intuitive evaluations or judgments about how other people are responding to you, acting towards you, or what they are thinking about you. This is the interactive aspect of the self. It is the aspect of your overall self through which you engage the world. "Though you may see Me, you can never truly see who I am." Correct or incorrect, these evaluations or judgments about how the world sees Me can create powerful physical, mental, and emotional changes, and are a second source of much of your mind's chatter and your stress.

It is negative content in both categories of thoughts that create the kind of annoying and disturbing chatter that challenges you in meditation, and most important for my intended message in this Post, it is this negative chatter that challenges your desire and ability to live a harmonious existence and to Create Peaceful Space. This negative chatter provokes your Fight-or-Flight Response and all of the consequences of the stress associated with that response as Dr. M. points out in the Handbook. Choosing to align your life with the Prime Directive is a way of reducing the negative chatter by rising above the perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, actions, reactions, and predispositions that precipitate the Instinct of Self-Abasement (or Subjection) and the Emotion of Subjection or Negative Self-Feeling and their corollaries. (see the Handbook, Chapter 19)

Let me leave you with a thought about our children and the consequences of bullying as an example of the power of this inner dialogue. Open your mind and heart to the children who are being bullied right now. But don't think about the actual moment of their experience. Painful as it is, that is not the worst part! Instead, think about the chatter in their minds as they lay their heads on their pillows tonight trying to go to sleep, trying to escape the negative recordings playing over and over in their minds. Think about the I-Me chatter and the I-He/She/They-Me chatter that has driven some of our children to take their own lives. The Prime Directive has a place in solving this and other problems and so does the knowledge of the Masculine Principle of Mind and the Feminine Principle of Mind, the I aspect of self and the Me aspect of self. Will you share that knowledge with someone?

Living in alignment with the Prime Directive

is a choice to which everyone should be invited!
You have been invited!

Create Peaceful Space! 
Trust Your Process!

Peace, Love, and Health!