The False-Self, Healing

"This was also the point in my life when I became a master at masking my true thoughts."    --an unknown blogger

Simple Mindedly browsing though some blogs, I came upon this curious and very honest statement, "this was also the point in my life when I became a master at masking my true thoughts..."
How many of us relate to this? One guesses very many; it seems that one of our many fears is that we will not be accepted as we are, that we apparently see ourselves fearfully as a certain type of monster. While there are those rare individuals in every society who rub against the grain, some who are evil, for most of us this is a fear we face each and every day.

Recalling the words of R.D. Lang, "every man is involved whether or to the extent to which he is being true to his nature." The false-self as Lang views it is the complement of an inner, spiritual self, if you will, which is occupied with maintaining its identity and freedom by being transcendent, unembodied, and thus never grasped, pinpointed, trapped or possessed.
Its aim, writes Lang in his book, The Divided Self, "is to be a pure subject, without any objective existence. Thus except in certain safe moments, the individual seeks to regard his existence as the expression of a false-self, not himself.

 In spiritual terms, this is devastating, and it is very common. How often do we encounter the "fake" smile and the yawn which quickly follows it? How often do we feel divided, yet proceed with the response that is expected, even when it feels untrue to our deeper self?
And how often must we force ourselves to comport an attitude which we don't feel yet believe for social reasons to be obliged? In some societies these behaviors are usual and expected; societies in which the group is more valued than individuals frequently demand this behavior; one learns, 'a smile often hides a frown.' And in these groups, this behavior is normative.

Yet here in the West, often there is the sense of a dis-connect with the self and others. We are afraid to say who we are, or what matters most in our short lives; maintaining this stance may lead to a sense of grief, depression or loss over time.
As Lang expresses the situation, having an identity for the self, a private identity and another identity developed for the consumption of others is at times functional, and also may be at times non-functional leading to a sense of dis-reality, a feeling of not being real, a fake.
While living one's truth is not always easy, healing the self, gaining a perspective beyond the solution of the "false-self" is very healing to a soul; the soul seeks its original wholeness.

The false, divided self is like a child, eternally small, anxious, weak and not responsible for what happens in any given interaction. This is because a feeling arises that it wasn't truly me who did those things--it was someone else. Alternatively, there is a sense that one may do things--but only to a point-- because the truer, inner self would not go that far, or allow those thoughts or behaviors--would they? So it's not me.

The end point of many spiritual traditions is to encourage the maturity of the individual, to acknowledge the rightness of all creation, individuals included, so as to bridge the gap, with the clear knowledge, the belief in the harmony and rightness of matters to each one.
This existential dawning of both 'false' and true, undivided, self is widespread across today's societies; writers as diverse as Henry Fielding, Kierkegaard, Sartre, D.H. Lawrence and Carl Jung have acknowledged its role in the modern world. It is becoming a constant theme as societies settle into an industrialized, group identity. This leaves little room for the self, so you then must carve a whole one.

You Can't Go Home Again

"Simple persons live within the happiness of their inner world."--   Transformation  by R. Johnson

In most every spiritual tradition there is a sense of growing maturity, a ripening of the self into what some call satori, enlightenment or salvation, among other descriptions of this experience. Author and Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson discusses this in his book, Transformation.

He writes there are three levels of consciousness. They are universal the world over, yet in industrialized societies the progression of these experiences is made all the more difficult by our very advances in book learning and complex societies. The level of all mankind, endowed to each of us by nature is what he describes as 'simple consciousness,' followed by 'complex consciousness,' the "usual state of educated Western man, and an 'enlightened' state of consciousness, known only to a very few individuals."

Enlightenment, Johnson reckons, comes to very few men only after much work and training by highly motivated individuals. He recounts a simple story to illustrate these notions: 'the simple man comes home in the evening wondering what's for dinner; the complex man comes home pondering the imponderables of fate, and the enlightened man comes home wondering what's for dinner.
"Simple man and enlightened man have much in common, including a direct, uncomplicated view of life, and so they react in similar ways."

The difference between them is that the enlightened are conscious of their condition in ways that simple persons are not. Complex persons, however, are often engaged with worry and often live lives marked by anxiety.
Writing Walden Pond, 19th century author Henry David Thoreau writes about his experiences and those of others he knows. He chronicles the complex, Western man's attempt to regain a sense of simplicity in their life.
Gandhi urged India in an earlier era to retain its domestic simplicity; his urgings were largely ignored. Today when one travels to India we are often aware of the tremendous poverty, illness and wants of her citizens. All true. However alongside of these ills is a clear and abundant sense of joyfulness. There is a happiness among large numbers of Indians in their daily lives. Johnson writes of his experiences there, "I was witnessing the miracle of simple man finding happiness in a rich, inner world, not in the pursuit of some desired goal.

Simple persons live within this happiness of their inner world, no matter what the exterior circumstance may be. Those of enlightened conscious also know this and live with an attitude of happiness which bridges their inner world with objective facts, a connection the Simple person does not or is unable to make.
Many a Hindu learns that the highest worship is to simply be happy. On the other hand, complex persons often live in their sense of anxiety and dread, trapped between nostalgia and anticipation of what may come, a fate that mostly eludes ones' grasp.
Despite this, complex consciousness is so highly valued by Westerners that nothing is thought to be too great or expensive in a bid "to gain freedom, self-determination and choices," wrought by his expanded perception writes Johnson.

Traditional Indian society, he observes, is based "on a caste system that allows only a few superior individuals," Brahmins, the chief caste to gain consciousness. The lower castes are less concerned with enlightened minds or methods. This keeps the vast majority of Indians in a state of their natural given, simple consciousness.
For once on the path to enlightenment, many will make significant gains before meeting frustration warned Carl Jung, Johnson's mentor.

Jung noted that once one has left the innate state of simple consciousness for more complex states, one can no longer turn around to retrace the steps of the path from where one has come. Quite simply, he believed that on the path to consciousness, Complex persons may meet with stresses and frustration from which they cannot retire. In other words, Jung believed, one can't just go home again to an earlier simplicity and peace you once knew, in recognition of a certain loss of innocence.

Myth and Society

"Myth is not the same as history."
--Joseph Campbell

Writing in his book Pathways to Bliss, renowned Mythologist Joseph Campbell, makes note of several salient points applicable to modern thinkers. He states "myths are not inspiring stories of people who lived notable lives....Myth is transcendent; it goes beyond the visible, known world. Seen as true guides, myths are highly instructive to today's thinker. They not only act as a guide to the moon and the stars, but to the heart, to artists, and thinkers of all stripes. "In our society of fixed texts and printed words, it is the function of the poet to see the life value of the facts round about, and to deify them, as it were, to provide images that relate the everyday to the eternal."

While some manage their everyday existence without the benefit of images, others see this a necessity. To them, without myth, the world is a painful, flat, plane of sameness without the spark of image. Fire seeking ground, "we are all manifestations of mystic power," writes psychiatrist, Karlfried Durckheim. Shaped in our mother's womb, then, myth is a function of this mystic, powerful, life wisdom. Borne to us, alive within us, the symbols of eternal mankind pour into the fields of time and space. An energy that originates beyond the realm of powers of knowledge, of intellect, the energy of myth flows, bound within each of us--in this body, in this person.

In the modern, critical, scientific world, the mind, the power, the transcendent can become bound up in concept, temporal tasks, even to the extent that illness is the result. We are out of center, if we even knew it at first, and illness is sometimes the result. Blocked from this source, life-force, you are left with a final, factual world view. A view that doubts, that does not believe what it cannot now see, what it cannot now hear. Myths point to something beyond themselves; myth is not allegorical, rather it transcends the known to the unknown. It is the place of dreaming, the world of muse. "Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his or her name is." When you have done so, you realize the inspiration of a god or goddess.

Myth means to live for all time, not in the name of material goods, achievement or status in the known world. In a fast moving, modern world, myth which thrives on a slower paced lifestyle is exchanged for everything moving fast, very fast. Technology propels forward, an ever increasing consumerism. It knows no bounds; swallowed up whole, we find ourselves without myth, the valuable guide of the collective wisdom throughout the ages. Writes Campbell interestingly, "Roman Catholic monks and Buddhist monks had[ve] no trouble understanding each other." They recognize the transcendent; that the best, most important thing can't be told. It must be experienced. Jesus, the Christ said that to find the Way, it is necessary to give up [material things] what you own and follow, because things, he knew, don't last.

Anthony Gittens, a monk of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, writes in his book, Come Follow Me, about this new, transcendent way which Jesus and others before him proposed:

The Jesus Society

Leave everything behind, take nothing for the journey; risk, trust onto other people, respect them, find acceptance, seek out community, say yes to the kingdom--

Jesus, the Christ, says in his society, there is a new way to live.

You show wisdom, by trusting people;
you handle leadership, by serving;
you handle offenders, by forgiving;
you handle money, by sharing;
you handle enemies, by loving;
and you handle violence, by suffering;

In fact, you have a new attitude toward everything,
toward everybody.

Because this is a Jesus society, and you repent,
not by feeling bad, but by thinking differently.
--written by Rudy Wiebe

The I, the Me, Meets the West

"We have the concept of a "two story" psyche in the west."
--Joseph Campbell

In the view of Joseph Campbell, there is a very divergence of thinking between the East and the West. The thought of a 'Self,' or its absence in the East is possibly the heart of the matter in his view. The subconscious and the unconscious is what Campbell asserts constitutes the idea of the psyche, or the self in the Western mind. "Down below lies the unconscious, while the conscious individual is above." According to others, the I or the Ego is that function which relates an individual to reality as an empirical measure. Ego relates in terms of personal judgments and opinions.

In terms of spirit, traditional churches in the West emphasize personal responsibility for one's own actions; in the East, the focus of Asian religious training tells the adherent to cancel the ego. Why? In simple terms of a society, Asians are to behave in ways dictated to them; there is a strong sense of a dharma, or doing what is one's life work or destiny. "When you turn to Asian systems, and read law books, from India or China for example, it is startling to the Western reader what is proscribed for those who don't follow the rules. Sun-Tzu in The Art of War said, for small faults, there should be great penalties; then there will be no great faults."

Thus the idea of a punishment " fitting the crime" is largely lacking. Since the development of an Ego, or an I is not encouraged, Asians come to adulthood often with a different sense of responsibility. The value of the community is ever important, and individuals often wish not to be singled out for either praise or punishment since this differentiates them from their group.

Like many Asian faith ideals, the Judeo-Christian instruction is towards canceling out the ego, the I. The Christ exhorts his followers to give up all of their personal possessions to come follow him. In doing so, they join into a community that likening to Asian ideals, demands and values obedience to a authority outside of, and higher than the individual self.

The fundamental ideas of a Heavenly Order should be the model for what is life on earth, and that the society is to reflect that same celestial design, may be thought of as the "Great Harmony." If this organization, this society, is successful, then all comes together in one great unit of wholeness. In this system says Campbell, "the sun should not wish to be the moon."

Each person born into the heavenly design has a role, and should not wish to be anything else. His birth is the determining factor for his character, his role, his duty and all other social actions which he may undertake as a member of the community which sustains him. On this point, Asians are often told, ordered, commanded; education is to train one to his proper role.

Alternatively in the West, there are thought to be moments of personal discovery, personal choice and learning. These make conditions for choices which individually and collectively affect individuals in many of life's most intimate moments such as choice of housing, marriage, child bearing, or leisure. Asians do not always make these choices as mature adults. "Responsible citizens in these places are those who perform their jobs perfectly." The society is already defined for them. The ego is erased.

When the buddha said to cancel the ego to cancel suffering, when the Christ exhorted his disciples to believe as he did about the rightness of your Father in Heaven, both are pointing towards an absolute truth, an absolute, transcendent reality based not upon values of the everyday, realities of the world--East or West.

Thus the mere accident of a self, an ego or a psyche is secondary and quite incidental. All that matters is that which supports the Kingdom as the community sees it. "Identity with the transcendent is one's essence."