Split Man

The icon of ‘Indecision’

 

 

 

BUDDHISM IN IRELAND
The bodhisattva Gautama prior to leaving home

The Split Man
Victoria's Way, Ireland

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Split (Hu-)Man sculpture symbolizes the awful mental and physical state of the dysfunctional because undecided human (here represented as a 30 year old male). He (or she) is in bits because unable or unwilling to decide how to dedicate, indeed sacrifice (and after 30 life becomes a sacrificial act,* or so said Jesus) his (or her) life completely to one goal (that is to say, to oneness, as in kaivalya of Patanjali’s Yoga), consequently unable to create and experience (meaning to realize) his/her true self. Failure to make that goal an actual reality, thereby failing to increase one’s survival capacity, results in unhappiness, indeed depression. Achievement of the goal, meaning: increasing one’s survival capacity, is signalled with happiness, i.e. elation.**

 

   The Split (Hu-)Man wants, indeed needs to die (i.e. to his or her fragmented, hence incomplete past). She/he needs to return to her/his original state and so to her/his essential self which serves as template for her/his life purpose to be made an everyday reality. It’s the 100% application of purpose, i.e. as act of self-sacrifice, that leads to the experience of the true self (and SELF, so Vedanta) and which is signalled with rapturous happiness.

 

The Split Man is failing to apply his creative thrust - hence is depicted without a penis -, and it’s killing him. If and when the Split Man decides and begins to apply his (or her) creative thrust then true creative interaction starts and the awesome sense of participation in and @oneness with the universal creative process (Brahman to some, God to others) is experienced.

More….

 

The Buddhist version: Siddartha’s departure

 

**… See my book ‘How to make and fake happiness’

 

 

*... Note the infamous Irish quip: “Up to 30 a sucker, thereafter a spitter.”

 

See also: Crucifixion

 

 

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