The Self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The philosophy of Self seeks to describe essential qualities that constitute a person’s uniqueness or essential being. The psychology of Self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one’s identity or the subject of experience. Religious views on the self vary widely. The Self is a complex and core subject in many forms of spirituality. Christianity makes a distinction between the true self that reflects God’s image and glory and the false self that is distorted through sin. Buddhism teaches the existence of neither Soul nor God. The world is empty of self, and so does a being.
The Self is there whether you admit it or not, but deeply hidden. Humans are not merely differentiated by appearances as the Self distinguishes one person from the next, even identical twins. We are born with it, although the knowledge or any consciousness of our own self begins to emerge 18 months after birth. When a child is born, the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself but the other: first his mother, and then others will join in. His world will continue to grow. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes.
The ego isn’t the Self. Ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others as well as a social need. Ego is not one’s real being. It does not know who he is; it simply knows what others think about him. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, he develops an ego that is sad, rejected, inferior and worthless. Some have an inflated ego, which makes them feel other people are stupid and not as good as them. A ‘healthy’ ego is more in sync with the reality and better fits into the society. Ego is always in search of approval and attention.
To understand the internal dynamics of the Ego in relation to the Authentic Self, we can look outside to the world in which we live, and then turn back inside.
In the everyday world we all know, Newton discovered the law of gravity and the laws of motion. In this world things are predictable and reliable, the universe is ticking along at a fixed pace within the clockwork predictability of an absolute time. In this world we can observe external phenomenon and determine what is happening by looking in from the outside. However, in the quantum world, substances are too small to follow Newton’s laws. Observation or measurement itself changes the state of the substances. This world follows the laws of Quantum Physics.
In the same way, when you go beyond the fence you’ve built around your ego where life is predictable and habitual, everything changes including you. You can no longer look in from the outside and let the external world define whom you are. There will be chaos, and an interim period when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are or where you are going, an interval when you’ll be lost and shaken. If you are courageous enough and don’t fall back to the ego but keep marching on, you will come near the hidden center within you that is called the Self. Then everything settles again. The chaos fades away and a new order arises.
From that hidden place, you’ll rediscover morality that isn’t imposed from above but instead comes from within, compassion that is for the common good of the human species, deeper understanding and appreciation of the human nature, and most significantly you’ll get in touch with your naked love and the deepest desire that vibrates your whole being. From there, the underlying need is no longer to please, conform and be accepted, but to unleash that hidden power and energy to live, laugh and love as your authentic self.
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Content partially credited to “Ego – The False Center” by Osho