The Self

Originally Posted by Narcissist

The concept of Asmita has some form of similarity with the sufism's concept of nafs (the egoistic self) . Or more precisely nafs-e-ammara (the inciting nafs).
According to Sufism in this state of spiritual being ; the main driving force behind life is the pleasure instinct .Some Sufis have described the nafs-e-ammara as the 'essence of all evil'.
But Yoga , I see , describes ego as a sense of false identity that occurs from confusion in terms of separating the mental self from the deep-rooted consciousness , the innate reality which is linked to the 'universal reality' . And thus yoga rejects any concept of subjective individual reality .

Ego in sufism is best portrayed through these verses of Rumi :

“Until one hair strand of your being you, remains
the business of vanity and self-praise, remains

You said, ‘I broke the idol of my mind, therefore I am free’
this idol ‘that you are free from your mind’, still remains”
Moulana Rumi

Loved the second quote!

Samkhya/Yoga defines five kleshas or (afflictions) of consciousness, all of which recycle energy back onto the individual (symbolically much like your avatar). The other three are raga, or raving for pleasure, dvesha, or rejection of pain and avidya, or incorrect discernment of reality. Seems like Sufism's onto the same thing. When I get a little more time I'll read up on nafs. I've studied a bit of Sufism, but I don't explicitly remember the term.

I think of it like this.

There's my body. Which is myself. Your "self" and your "body" couldn't exist without one another. The way the molecules inside of you arrange themselves and transmit energy all go along with the way your "Self" learned how to accomplish the end means of every one of those tasks. (Breathing, walking, etc..). There is no one answer. Everyone will see it a different way. We each make our own world, the "reality" is the combination of every person's individual world overlapping with any outside worlds. You percieve things the way that is easiest for you to understand. Buuut. I guess you could think of it like this. (Visual Thinking) Imagine your body. Now take a step inside your body. You'll find energy and information. Take a step behind that. There's a screen and a person watching it. On the screen is your entire self. What makes you, why you think things, anything and everything you. The person watching the screen is your self. Your self takes everything that has ever happened and will happen to you and by you and processes it before you actually do. I'm a horrible conveyer of ideas...sorry if this is just rambling

Originally Posted by Cole Majewski

The person watching the screen is your self. Your self takes everything that has ever happened and will happen to you and by you and processes it before you actually do.

Could you please elaborate it a bit further ?

To thy own self be true.

I have been on a journey for over a year trying to pin point exactly who this self was. I uncovered a whole new can of worms because of it and I was punished for the venture. The following which I was institionalized for expressing was my conclusion:

The the divine I am, a spark of which resides in me. Yes I can embody this understanding by explaining how it feels to me. I believe that we are some kind of mysterious energy channel that is kind of like a telephone. We are an instrument that spirits use to manifest into physical reality. Why do we keep looking for a self that has not been found. The harder we look the further away it gets and it becomes painstakingly difficult and impossible to stop looking because there has to be an answer.

Logically, as the mind helps to make sense of what our experiences teach us. I have formed the following conclusion. There is no self. Any self is a false self because that is the component in the body, which acts as a substitute in order to keep the body alive. Whatever emotion is felt. Is the spirit which comes alive in us. We want to replace fear with love because the spirit of love was the one which we were created. Hence, the word-to make love or lovemaking. So the true “I” that will allow the body to optimally function is when the heart is able to give and receive the most love with no hurt involved in the equation. My proof. I write. When I am in a different emotional state.

I am a different person. I am consumed by that emotion and that is who I am at that moment of time. When I go back and read something I wrote and I am not experiencing that emotion in the moment I am reading it. It seems like an alien or different person was in possession of me.

The best way I can explain it is. Each emotional feeling represents a different God or Spirit of our understanding during the present moment. For goodness sakes, one thing is true and that that is that No Man is An Island. Our spirit lives, the spirit of God rests within us. The very thing we dread and are tempted to resist is actually the means to God’s greatest blessings in our lives. Did curiosity really kill the cat?

Originally Posted by Narcissist

Could you please elaborate it a bit further ?

Yup.

I think of myself as a layer of a bunch of different selves all working together, individually, toward the same goal. The goal changes, the ways the selves work toward the goal changes, and the way the work together changes. Since this system is never stable, and is constantly changing, I figured there was a self behind all the independently working, yet always cooperating parts of my self.(Ex]Respiratory stuff, and other biological processes)

The next layer I figured was my sub conscious. The whys and whats for everything. What I think about things before I actually think about them. It lines everything up.

Last, the self that's aware of all the other selves, but is unknown to the other selves. It watches and observes everything my other selves have ever done. Every right, every wrong. Every action, every thought. It organizes and determines how I will respond to events and actions and thought and such.

Confusing. Makes my mind feel like it's in a tilt o whirl.

Originally Posted by Cole Majewski

Since this system is never stable, and is constantly changing, I figured there was a self behind all the independently working, yet always cooperating parts of my self.

Constant change is a property of the self and not the brain ? Is this what you're saying ?
But this is also explainable scientifically ; brains neural circuits are always changing and different neural connections are created every moment. A momentary expression of different activated neural connection is never the same. Varies every single moment. So how is self unique ?

The next layer I figured was my sub conscious. The whys and whats for everything. What I think about things before I actually think about them. It lines everything up.

Sub-conscious is different for every individual .For some it lines up things and controls their actual thinking processes and most of cognitive processes in general and for others it doesn't . Or you can say anybody who is fully consciously aware of his/her being is not controlled by sub-conscious and has greater free will than others . You can choose to ignore sub-conscious completely .So I think that it is kind of not related to the idea of self . But again that's just my opinion .

Last, the self that's aware of all the other selves, but is unknown to the other selves. It watches and observes everything my other selves have ever done. Every right, every wrong. Every action, every thought. It organizes and determines how I will respond to events and actions and thought and such.

This is the most controversial form of self. Some say that it knows what eternity is (No beginning No end to it since it is beyond the existence limited by time.)And also it is absolute unity (Hegel's concept of self) Some say it is God's spark and to seek the self is to seek the God.(kierkegaard's concept of self) . Others say that self cannot be known . We do not under stand ourselves at all and are completely ignorant of the relationship of self and life's experiences. (Nietzsche's view)
Its mostly like the more we seek the self , the more it gets away from us ! And consequently we deny the existence of it (because brain cannot rationalize our thoughts in this subject). To some the denial of self is actually the knowing of self ! (Sufism's concept of self).

Originally Posted by Narcissist

I have often wondered about this "self" . What is this ? Can anybody explain this to me ?

I think you will find Carl Jung's book 'Aion: researches into the phenomenology of the self' very interesting reading. As you may know, Jung considered the Self to be the archetype at the centre of man's universe of archetypes. As an archetype, it could never be fully and directly comprehended.

However, Jung took the position that, provided you acknowledge that something exists and provided that this something generates accessible, observable phenomena (e.g. dreams), it is entirely logical and scientific to study this material. You can then draw some tentative conclusions about what this something IS, based on what it APPEARS to be 'doing' and how it appears to refer to itself. Hence he titled his book researches into the phenomenology of the Self, and not researches into the Self.

^^
Yeah sure ; I'll give it a read once I have more time . If you assume the self as a separate entity or phenomenon , then it OK to observe it and draw conclusions about its being . All conclusions regarding the self have to be tentative and not certain or final .This is probably because the self (whether or not it is a separate phenomenon) is definitely an aspect or discipline of the phenomenon of living .

Originally Posted by Narcissist

^^
Yeah sure ; I'll give it a read once I have more time . If you assume the self as a separate entity or phenomenon , then it OK to observe it and draw conclusions about its being . All conclusions regarding the self have to be tentative and not certain or final .This is probably because the self (whether or not it is a separate phenomenon) is definitely an aspect or discipline of the phenomenon of living .

Keep in mind that the "self" was one of many facets of the psyche, including a variety of personas, the archetypes, the shadow and anima/animus.