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"Saints and mystics have tried for thousands of
years to teach us how we are trapped in a delusion
about who we are. This delusion inevitably brings about suffering, and
eventually a crisis that can only be resolved through a collapse, a surrender,
and an opening to a state of being
beyond previous self-limitation. You are not a "flesh-encapsulated ego"and
lasting happiness can never result from
pursuing the ego's agenda." -
Charles
Eisenstein
"One method for bringing about bodhicitta, the
aspiration to attain highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings,
is Exchanging Self for Others. In this method we work at recognizing how
dependent we are on others for all we have. We contemplate how the homes we
live in, the clothes we wear, the roads we drive on, have all been created by
the hard work of others. So much work has gone into pro- viding us with the
shirt we are wearing, from planting the cottonseed to weaving the fabric and
sewing the garment. The slice of bread we eat had to be baked by someone. The
wheat had to be planted by someone else and, after irrigation and
fertilization, had to be harvested and then milled into flour. This had to be
kneaded into dough and then baked appropriately. It would be impossible to
count all the people involved in providing us with a simple slice of bread.
Even our personal virtues, such as our patience and ethical sense, are all
developed in dependence upon others. Through this train of thought we come to
recognize how dependent we are on others for all we enjoy in life. We must work
at developing this recognition as we go about our everyday lives." - Dalai
Lama
Self is defined
as:
Personification; embodiment.
Of the same character
throughout.
Of the same material as the
article with which it is used.
One's consciousness of one's own being or identity; the
ego.
One's own interests,
welfare, or advantage: thinking of self alone.
That which the immune system identifies as belonging to the
body.
The total, essential, or particular being
of a individual; the
individual.
The
essential qualities distinguishing one
individual from
another;
individuality.
Hence,
personal interest, or love of
private interest;
selfishness; as, self is his whole
aim.
Having its own or a single nature or
character, as in color, composition, etc.,
without addition or
change; unmixed; as, a self bow, one made from a
single piece of wood; self
flower or plant, one which is wholly of one color;
self-colored.
The
individual as the
object of his own reflective
consciousness; the
man viewed by his own
cognition as the subject of all
his mental
phenomena, the agent in his
own activities, the subject of his own feelings, and the possessor of capacities and
character; an individual as
distinctly individual; a being
regarded as having personality.
Self is
united to certain personal
pronouns and pronominal adjectives to express emphasis or distinction. Thus, for
emphasis; I myself will write; I will examine for myself; thou thyself shalt
go; thou shalt see for thyself; you yourself shall write; you shall see for
yourself; he himself shall write; he shall examine for himself; she herself
shall write; she shall examine for herself; the
child itself shall be carried; it shall
be present itself. It is also used reflexively; as, I abhor myself; thou
enrichest thyself; he loves himself; she admires
herself; it pleases itself; we value ourselves; ye hurry yourselves; they see
themselves. Himself, herself, themselves, are used in the nominative case, as
well as in the objective. "Jesus himself
baptized not, but his
disciples.'' - John iv. 2.
A small, dynamically typed object-oriented
language, based
purely on prototypes and delegation. Self was
developed by the Self Group at
Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Inc. and Stanford University. It is an
experimental
exploratory programming
language. Release 2.0 introduces full
source level debugging of optimised code, adaptive
optimization to shorten compile pauses, lightweight
threads
within Self, support for
dynamically linking foreign functions, changing programs
within Self and the ability to
run the experimental Self
graphical browser under OpenWindows. Designed for
expressive power and malleability, Self combines a
pure, prototype-based object model with uniform access to state and
behavior. Unlike
other
languages, Self allows
objects to inherit state and to
change their patterns of
inheritance dynamically.
Self's customising compiler can generate very efficient code compared to
other dynamically-typed
object-oriented languages.
Self is used
in the formation of innumerable compounds, usually of
obvious signification, in most of
which it denotes either the agent or the object of
the action expressed by the
word with which it is joined, or the
individual in behalf of whom it
is performed, or the individual
or thing to, for, or towards whom or which a
quality, attribute, or feeling
expressed by the following
word belongs, is directed, or is exerted, or from which
it proceeds; or it denotes the subject of, or object affected by, such action, quality, attribute,
feeling, or the like; as,
self-administeredself-assured,
self-avowed,
self-aware,
self-knowledge,
self-reflection,
self-assuring, self-condemnation,
self-consciousness,
self-observation, self-respect, self-help,
self-sacrifice,
self-confidence,
self-regulation,self-deception,
self-protective,
self-determination,
self-destruction, self-abandoning,
self-contained,
self-abnegation, self-evident, self-abhorring,
self-interest, self-absorbed,
self-discipline,
self-accusing, self-focused, self-adjusting,
self-sufficient,
self-balanced, self-preservation,
self-boasting, self-realization, self-canceled,
self-chosen,
self-redemptive, self-combating,
self-balancing, self-commendation,
self-condemned, self-conflict, self-conquest,
self-contradictory,
self-transcendence,
self-alienated,
self-constituted, self-pity, self-consumed,
self-denial, self-contempt,
self-control,
self-criticism,
self-imposed,
self-deceiving,
self-delusion, self-denying,
self-serving,
self-aggravated,
self-destroyed, self-described, self-disclosure,
self-deprecating, self-depreciation, self-deception, self-display, self-defense, self-dominion,
self-correcting, self-doomed,
self-determination,
self-educated, self-elected,
erected, evolved and ejected, self-expectations,
self-blindness, self-exalting,
self-dealing,
self-excusing, self-expression,
self-imprisoned,
self-exile, self-assertion, self-fed,
self-obsessed,
self-fulfillment,
self-govern,
self-conscious, self-harming,
self-enforcing, self-helpless,
self-humiliation, self-idolized,
self-inflicted, self-congratulation,
self-improvement, self-instruction,
self-reinforcing, self-invited,
self-judging, self-justification, self-loathing,
self-loving, self-maintenance,
self-centeredness, self-mastered, self-government,
self-nourishment, self-perfect, self-perpetuation,
self-designed,
self-pleasing, self-promotion,
self-praising, self-preserving,
self-assurance, self-questioned,
self-regulate, self-rule,
self-relying, self-dramatization,
self-restraining, self-regulating, self-revelation,
self-assertiveness, self-ruined,
self-reliant,
self-satisfaction, self-starting, self-support,
self-sustained, self-sustaining, self-stopping,
self-tormenting, self-troubling,
self-trust, self-tuition,
self-upbraiding, self-valuing, self-worshiping,
self-satisfied,
self-warming, self-medicating,
self-survival,
self-righteous,
self-proclaimed,
self-policing and self-identity,
self-replicating,
self-existent,
self-congratulatory,
self-image,
self-aggrandizing,
self-operating,
self-enrichment and many
others.
"Spiritual intelligence acquired in the process
of experiential self-exploration has the power to override the scientistic
worldview of materialistic science while effectively acting as a remedy to
counteract the dogmas of organized religions." - Stanislav Grof
"Man will become better
when you show him what he is like."
- Anton
Pavlovich Chekhov
"If we are to succeed in the development of a true
science of the Absolute - one that enables us to overcome the quandaries and
aporias of current thought - we must first overcome the ego itself. The shift
in consciousness that comes about from the death of the ego alone is capable of
revealing the ultimate horizon of the Real." - Shunyamurti
"Ego consciousness or
self-consciousness is
understanding what you believe you
know of reality is
limited to, firsthand, your personal experiences
and, secondhand, empathetic
experiences through
sharing life with others.
All that you believe you are
is your idea/concept/image of your self - your
self-conceptualization.
To
activate the process of psychic expansion requires the dispersion
of
certain existing materialistic
ego
structures and
belief systems.
Dispersion of ego
structures is necessary to
free oneself from the bonds of acculturation - ie. conditioning through
social control,
propaganda, entertainment ,
branding, etcetera. The dispersion
of ego
structures has also been
termed spirtual ego death
and the attainment of the state
of egolessness.
Ego is
conditioned by socially ingrained
information
which has shaped our opinion of
who we are, our self-conceptualization,
the conceptual idea/image of self that
resides in our conscious, our
subconscious and our memory.
Most people relate to reality through
expanding circles of relationships - self, mate,
family, friends, neighbors,
co-workers, community, state,
nation - with their own
ego seeming to dwell at the
center of it all.
This innate,
culturally inbred tendency, a
paradoxical mixture of truth and illusion,
is a phenomenon we must be
able to comprehend fully. It is
true that reality
seems to expand outward from each individual
ego's point of reference, but it is
an illusion to see that point of reference
as the center of the universe.
This is an
illusion not easily dispelled.
Self-centeredness is an archaic trait, rooted in territorial
animal impulses and
ignorance of
reality beyond the tribal area of experience. Most ancient tribes thought their
tribe was at the center
of the universe, and they were the chosen ones.
Even
today many people across the face of the
Earth think their ethnic
group is somehow more unique,
more special than others, or their nation is superior in
historical cultural richness
or their
brand of religion is the only
brand of religion worth considering.
Projection stems from
self-blindness.
Most people are
unaware of their negative traits,
because they are
subconsciously skilled in
psychological euphemism.
Misers see themselves as stringently
thrifty.
Jealous people see themselves as being
justifiably protective,
guarding against intrusion into what they consider
rightfully theirs.
A selfish person thinks
in terms of realistically taking care of number one,
projecting
unworthiness onto anyone in need of compassionate giving.
Vain people look in
the mirror and see well deserved self-esteem and
self-assurance.
Lust and
sexual exploitation are usually seen by
the perpetrator as the uninhibited sexual
adventures
of a superior person not obligated to common
moral guidelines.
Sanctimonious
religious people of every sect,
blind to their own
hypocrisy,
see themselves as holier
than all the "sinners" around them.
Corporate executives and
businessmen see themselves as
elite power
holders
with no need to pay heed to the negative
consequences befalling fellow
humans.
Politicians blind
to their own shadows project
their repressed flaws and deceits onto
foreign enemies.
To withdraw
projection is to acknowledge that many attributes projected outward belong to
oneself.
Self-knowledge
or ‘enlightenment' demands expansive
perception and
annihilation of delusions and
illusions.
Self-knowledge can ignite the
experience known as "ego
death" and spiritual rebirth.
To be able to perceive your own ego from a
more objective perspective,
you have
to become familiar with areas and abilities of your mind
that ordinary consciousness is only partially aware of
-
subconscious depths and selfless states of consciousness.
Self-observation is a
foundational aspect of self-knowledge.
Periodically pause to take note of what you are thinking about, the quality of your
thoughts.
Useless
fantasies, daydreams, futile
longings and meaningless meandering change the direction and quality of most of
your thinking. The mental discipline of
periodically saying "stop," and observing your thoughts, can develop into an enriching practice to
help you gain a significant degree of mental control. To bring about a change from habitual
energy-wasting thought activity to constructive
directed consciousness is an
essential element of
the process of spiritual
awakening.
The bottom
line is the basic necessity of cultivating a state of constant vigilance, so
that one does not succumb to a delusion of
awakening, or escape into a
traditional religious or theosophical belief
system, or get snagged into some ego
enhancing cult, "-ism" or "ology."
A foundational
element of
self-knowledge is to
thoroughly know your positive and negative
psychological traits.
The
positive traits are those which help you keep a
grateful commitment to the
quest,
despite hardship,
fear, or
collective pressure.
"With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from
the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans, and
berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength
from them, too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a
greeting of thanks." - Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address
The negative is anything
which may sway you away from commitment. Negative traits can be subtle and hard
to detect, because they are often seen in a positive light by
the collective - vanity
perceived as justified
self-esteem, selfishness as
prudence, lust for prestige as
healthy ambition, greed as necessary
self-assertiveness.
The path of self-knowledge is undertaken
as a way to arrive at authentic
"gnosis tes hodu",
knowledge of
God,
insight
into the very soul of nature."
- adapted from Lew Paz, Pushing
Ultimates
"In
the intense mystic altered state,
rationality connects
with a radically freed and innovative
imagination to form 'vision-logic' - a powerful mode
of cognitive processing. Vision-logic enables you to feel, comprehend, and see that the
ego's power to control is
not really its own conscious
source, but rather, a result of a deeper level of
control that entirely precedes
conscious control.
This deeper control thrusts forth
conscious control
from a subconscious place that is beyond the
ego's control. Ego death is not only a feeling of
cancellation of ego's need to control, but a
rational understanding of the
way in which the ego's actual
control can never be as the ego
experiences it." - Michael
Hoffman
The Tree Unaware of its State
A man cut
down a tree one day.
A Sufi who saw this taking place said:
'Look at
this fresh branch which is full of sap,
happy because it does not yet know
that it has been cut off.
Ignorant of the damage which it has suffered it
may be
but it will know in due time. Meanwhile you cannot reason with it.'
This severance, this
ignorance, these are the state of man.
Farid al-Din Attar of
Nishapur
"Turn thy sight onto thyself,
that thou mayest find God
standing within thee,
mighty, powerful and self-subsisting." -
Bahá'u'lláh
"If you
really want to know yourself, you will search out
your heart and your mind to know their full
content and when there is the intention to know,
you will know. Then you can follow, without
condemnation or justification, every movement of
thought and every feeling as it arises; by following every
thought and every feeling as it arises you bring about
tranquility which is not compelled, not
regimented, but which is the outcome of having no problems, no
contradiction.
It is
like the pool that becomes peaceful, quiet, any evening when there is no wind;
when the mind is still, then that which is
immeasurable comes into being." - J. Krishnamurti
  
"Praise to that happening, over and over!
For
years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing
of the arm, that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of
dangerous fear,
free of hope, free of mountainous wanting." - Rumi
"When all things are seen equally the timeless
self-essence is reached."
-Hsin Hsin Ming
"Every once in a while we run into people who are
still firmly embedded in modern technological society yet who have cast off its
hurried, anxious, alienated mindsets and adopted a more easy-going, playful
attitude toward life. Often this happens after a major illness or other
personal calamity reveals the vacuity of former ambitions and preoccupations.
They say, "I stopped taking life so seriously," or "I came back to
what's really important."
Yet despite not taking it so seriously, they
are not detached from life.
They are not passionless or indifferent,
but if anything more involved and more fully engaged in the moment, because it
is precisely the anxiety of modern life that removes us from the moment, that
makes us feel we cannot afford to "be here now" - to fully engage in whatever
we are doing.
Another thing these people say is, "I stopped taking
myself so seriously," pointing toward the original source of modern ugliness,
suffering, and anxiety in our misconception of self."
- Charles
Eisenstein
"The act of selecting a self out of memes is a
conceptual bricolage which produces a persona." - Edward Wilson & Wes
Unruh
Reaching self-actualization
is not a matter of all-or-none,
but a never-ending, gradual process of
self-improvement.
Even so there is a clear demarcation between
self-actualized individuals and
emotionally
conditioned individuals still laboring under the spell of
power and wealth.
Self-actualized individuals have typically moved beyond the need to
fulfill basic desires including physiological needs (the literal requirements
for human survival), personal security needs (living in freedom from fear) and
social needs (have felt a sense of belonging and acceptance at some extended
period during their lifetime) to a realm of higher needs based on morality,
creativity, naturalness and the establishment of an
understanding of
reality as it actually is. Self-actualized
individuals are not young. Reaching self-actualization typically takes at least
a half century of living experience.
Self-actualization is a process
that occurs simultaneously both on conscious
and subconscious levels but is begun by
conscious effort. Some of the traits of
self-actualizing individuals may appear to be
contradictory at first glance.
Self-actualizing individuals wish to make the most out of their lives
and embark upon a the course that is most
likely to lead to the fulfillment of that goal. In
American social culture this seems to
be a contradiction in that
individuals that wish to make the most
out of their lives are expected to make a lot of money. There is a clear
demarcation between those that have attained self-actualization and those who
believe they have actualized self when in
reality they have only actualized the basic desires
of the ego.
Self-actualizing individuals are not
only open to new experiences but eager to learn
new skills, examine new ideas and garner new
understanding even if it
does not fit into their existing schemata of
reality or
contradicts previously held
opinions and attitudes. A general reason for this
openness is that self-actualizers are attracted to the
unknown, rather than afraid of it, as they
find the unknown a vast mysterious
landscape where new discoveries lie just around the next bend in the river or
over the top of the hill.
Due to this trait alone in general
self-actualizing individuals have an accurate perception of
reality.
In
contrast to emotionally conditioned individuals
self-actualizing individuals do not tend to deny, repress or deform perceptions
in order to make them fit preconceived notions or prejudices. As a result of
the denial of self-delusion
self-actualizing individuals experience no
contradiction between what they
feel on a intuitive subconscious level and what they
think on a conscious rational
level. (They have escaped spiritual
corruption.)
Even though self-actualizing individuals appreciate
newness there is a tendency to enjoy and re-experience well-known stimuli in a
new way termed by Abraham Maslow as freshness of appreciation or what
Daniel Gilbert would describe as a
re-setting of the hedonic thermostat.
A self-actualizer experiences beauty,
joy, awe and
wonder in simple unadulterated
natural experinences such as "stopping to smell the roses"
thus finding joy in the moment. Typically the
sense of beauty, wonder or
revivification a
self-actualizer experiences is triggered by
ordinary objects or situations familiarly connected
to previously enjoyed experiences such as
"stopping to smell the roses."
A self-actualizer finds revivification in
nature, in children, in music, in mechanical work, in
preparing a savory meal, in learning something new or in the validation of a
previously unproven hypothesis. For the self-actualizer these spontaneous
feelings of awe and
wonder at times become so intense, that they
may be termed mystical experiences - a
glimpse into the workings of the vast mysterious landscape of the
universe.
The behavior of self-actualizers is generally characterized by
naturalness. They do not tend to wear
masks or play roles, or feel inhibited or restricted in their
thoughts, feelings and actions.
Self-actualizing individuals are unconcerned with what people
think of them as they are realists who
understand that they have
little to no control over what others
think of them or feel about them. Their
naturalness is expressed by their
general creativity, which in the most part is not
specialized in a single talent.
Self-actualizing creativity consists in holding a generally playful attitude
towards problem-solving and self-expression which automatically assumes that
the conventional and traditionally accepted methods are not necessarily the
best or only way. This applies to the intellectual domains of
art, science,
philosophy, religion, theology as
well as to everyday tasks such as gardening and
cooking.
This lack of inhibition
or tension may be understood by a self-actualizing individual's general
attitude of acceptance of nature, people as they are
and self as it is - flaws and all. They do not feel unhappy, anxious, ashamed
or guilty because of
apparent constraints or shortcomings
they cannot change, especially anything that is entirely out of their
control such as the weather,
physiological processes, the natural workings of
nature or the legislation being passed to serve
corporate interests.
A self-actualizing individual is concerned
with the discrepancies that exist between social
cultural conditions of what is and what might be. They may loudly proclaim
their dislike of economic conditions,
political reality and
social cultural conditions they find
distasteful as they realize that although they can not change
nature they can change the hearts and minds of
critical thinkers.
A
self-actualizing individual's intrinsic stability allows them to maintain
relative serenity in situations of social upheaval, economic disaster and natural catastrophes -
volcanoes,
hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts,
global warming,
extinction of life, .
Self-actualizers have a well-developed system of
personal moral values aided by unbiased
perception. They typically do not vacillate or hesitate between alternatives as
they are confident of their capacity to solve
problems quickly and efficiently. In situations of uncertainty self-actualizers
prefer to postpone a decision rather than make a premature one thus allowing
time for the subconscious to sift the remaining
ambiguities.
In general self-actualizing individuals will focus on a
problem or task outside themselves rather than daydream, fantasize or otherwise bemoan their personal
existence.
This task may become
a general "mission" to which they devote their
life. Working on accomplishing this task is what a
self-actualizing individual enjoys most tending not to separate work from
leisure. Self-actualizing individuals enjoy solitude and detachment to pursue
their interests. In certain situations they may be exacerbated into
stubbornness, absent-mindedness and shortness of temper especially if they feel
distractions are undermining their
concentration.
We might summarize their attitude towards problems as
follows: they have the patience to endure the things
that cannot be changed, the courage to change the
things that can be changed, and the wisdom to
distinguish the ones from the others.
Self-actualizing individuals
relations with other people and the
social culture are characterized first
of all by their autonomy. Self-actualizing individuals do not really need other
people, they make decisions for themselves, without having to rely on the
opinions of others or on
conditioned rules, conventions and values imposed by
the directors of the social culture. Their opinions are generally independent of the
American social culture in which they
live, and they pay little attention to social conventions, though they will
superficially respect them if transgressing the rules of conduct brings about needless conflict.
Self-actualizers have a general feeling of
empathy and kinship towards humanity as a whole. They tend to have
a democratic character structure being friendly towards everybody,
especially towards children while not quickly rushing to harsh character
judgements.
Self-actualizing individuals are willing to listen to, and
especially learn from, people of any class, race, age, religion or ideology,
without being inhibited by prejudices and pre-conceived notions.
Self-actualizing individuals are capable of more intense and profound
interpersonal relations than other people, though
they are highly selective about which people they relate to, preferring those associations which allow
spontaneous contributions of new knowledge. The
intimate friends and lovers of self-actualizers are in general close to
self-actualization themselves. Self-actualizing relationships are characterized by extreme sincerity,
self-disclosure and intimacy, by the
dropping of all defense mechanisms.
As
American social culture is based on
the behavior and values represented by
the corporate conglomerate controlled mass
media which the majority of
Americans
have been conditioned to
believe is simply looking after the best interests of
America it is quite apparent that self-actualizers
form a very small politically disenfranchised
minority. Most of the majority have difficulty
understand self-actualizing individuals since they behave and
think in a quite unique and unconventional manner.
In particular it is difficult to categorize them along one of the many
dimensions or polarities which are typically used to describe ordinary
personality types and behaviors: their behavior is somehow selfish and
altruistic at the same time - what they like for themselves is in general best
for all.
Self-actualizers when making errors in
judgement will be faster to admit the
error and rectify the error
if such rectification is possible. The detachment and unconventionality
self-actualizing individuals exhibit may be interpreted as discourtesy, lack of
respect or affection, as hostility or negativity and in some instances as
depression.
A self-actualizing individuals unemotional and clear-cut
decision-making in the treatment of others, e.g. in cutting off unsatisfactory
relations, may seem cold but is in actuality a
blessing for both parties. Self-actualizing individuals
philosophical, unhostile sense of humor, makes
them look rather serious in the eyes of many people.
Self-actualizers
many times give the impression of a superior, flexible intelligence that scares
many people as those people are unable to predict what to expect from them.
In what Abraham Maslow calls
transcendence of dichotomies self-actualizing individuals often refuse
to chose between two seemingly
contradictory solutions perfering to search for
a way of solving the problem by synthesizing the
advantages of the two alternatives.
This capacity for "dialectical
synthesis" is perhaps the characteristic which most fundamentally distinguishes
self-actualizing individuals from non self-actualizing individuals and also
that which makes it difficult to situate them in one of the conventional
psychological classifications of personality types.
- adapted from Francis
Heylighen's anaylsis of Abraham Maslow's theory of
self-actualization
Keep Your Dragon in the Snow
"A self -proclaimed "dragon hunter" went into the mountains to trap a
dragon. He searched all over the mountains and at last discovered the frozen
body of an enormous dragon in a cave high up on one of the tallest peaks. The
hunter brought the body to Baghdad. He claimed that he had slaughtered it
single-handedly and exhibited it on the bank of the Euphrates.
Thousands of people turned out to see the dragon. The heat of the
Baghdad sun started to warm up the dragon's frozen body, and it began to stir,
slowly awakening from its winter hibernation. People screamed and stampeded,
and many were killed. The hunter stood frozen in terror and the dragon devoured
him in a single gulp.
Your lower self is like that dragon, a
savage tyrant.
Never believe it's dead; it's only frozen.
Always keep
your dragon in the snow of self-discipline.
Never carry it
into the heat of the Baghdad sun.
Let that dragon of yours stay always
dormant.
If it's freed it'll devour you in one gulp."
-
Rumi
"The ethical self-disciplining of the ego-mind and
its impure desires is the necessary first step in establishing both clarity and
community." - Shunyamurti
"Our deepest satisfactions come from
what we have made of ourselves. Making
something of life requires being allowed to make
mistakes, learning from them and - over
time, with false starts -
working our
way into valued
places through our work, our
families or our communities. This is what produces
self-respect, and self-respect is indispensable to happiness. The catch is that self-respect must be
earned. Earning it requires the freedom to act and
taking responsibility for the consequences of one's actions." - Charles
Murray
The
individual commonly sees
selflessness as the
loss or subjugation of the self, I or
ego.
This is not what
true selflessness entails.
True selflessness is an abandonment of
ego.
Abandonment of
ego does not mean a
loss of self physically, but a
loss of all the concerns of the
ego.
Concerns of the
ego are those
things we wish to occur, those
things also known as desires.
The common
ego judges how happy,
content and at peace it is with itself
on the
ego's success in achieving the
ego's goals based on the
ego's desires.
In developed countries
desires required to exist - food, shelter and companionship - are
typically fairly easy to fulfill.
Once requirements for continued
existence are met then all
other
desire is simply window dressing for the
ego.
Ego, freed
of desire, lives happily in contentment
and enjoys inner peace within 'itself'.
Compassion comes to the
ego freed
of desire as an
ego freed
of desire
feels the pain of
another
ego in distress and
empathizes -
naturally.
Selflessness must not be
confused with self-sacrifice.
Americans hold a
double-standard in regards to death.
Although citizens must refrain from planning and committing acts
resulting in violent
death, 'bad'
death, the state feels no such compunction.
The
state must therefore create ‘good'
death.
Untimely
death through violence is glorified in the
movies, on television, throughout mass
media as well as in the speeches and writings of those wearing patriotic
stripes as a necessary ‘evil' to forward the goals
of the ‘good'. Under this condition
self-sacrifice in the service of
the state is seen as an acceptable choice - a
heroic choice for the ‘good.'
Death is expediently accepted at the
societal level as the populace continues to
believe that the
current sacrifice of young
human life is a means to a ‘good' end.
This sacrifice of life is
no different than in the past when the human
sacrifice was the
virgin thrown into the
volcano or the
children to Moloch in Gehenna.
Sacrifices are made to assure the
continuation of the existing
societal power structure.
Virgins were
sacrificed to appease Pele, who lives in
Halema'uma'u crater - the summit caldera of Ki-lauea. Children were burned
alive to appease Moloch in the Valley of
Hinnom. (Think Apocalypto! Population reduction method!)
Now
it is the young American soldier
sent to Afghanistan and
Iraq to appease
Mammon, thrown into a maelstrom
created by the syndicate of the soulless in the worship
of Mammon. The
young American soldier is the modern
human sacrifice. For his or her sacrifice the
broken hearted parents receive an Award Certificate for the Purple Heart
Medal.
Death is acceptable as long
as one willingly sacrifices oneself.
But can such a one be considered a willing
sacrifice if that one is not
aware of the
reality?
The reality that they are expendable pawns of the
syndicate of the soulless in the
service of Mammon!
"In short,
despite the enthusiastic embrace
of self-esteem, we found that it
conferred only two benefits. It feels
good and it supports initiative. Those are nice, but
they are far less than we had once hoped for, and it is very questionable
whether they justify the effort and expense that schools, parents and
therapists have put into raising self-esteem.
After all these
years, I am sorry to say, my recommendation is this: Forget about
self-esteem and concentrate more on
self-control and self-discipline. Recent
work suggests this would be good for the individual and good for society - and might
even be able to fill some of those promises that
self-esteem once made but could not
keep."
-Roy F. Baumeister, a professor at the department of
psychology at Florida State
University.
"A generation has come of age on the
belief that a positive mental attitude will carry the
day. Far from helping his disciples the empowerment guru, for example Oprah
Winfrey and Dr. Phil McGraw, do them a disservice by making them "think positive" about a situation in which the odds of
success are exceedingly low.
High self-worth is
actually a marker for negative behavior,
as found in sociopaths
and drug kingpins.
Even in its less
extreme manifestations, confidence may easily be
expressed in the kind of braggadocio
-
"I'm fine just the way I am, thank
you" - that stunts growth, yielding chronic failure.
You cannot have a life plan predicated on the
belief that everything is equally achievable to you - especially if that same
message has been sold indiscriminately to all comers.
In the grand
scheme of things, knowing one's limitations may be even more important
than, knowing one's talents. "
- Steve Salerno
"Wow, what a revelation: Self-help advocates put
unrealistic notions in our heads, not unlike infomercial peddlers, preseason
sports prognosticators, internet porn stars and presidents who lead us into
war. So what else is
new?" - Patrick Breen
selfishness
"He who is full of himself,
never
imagine that he will ever hear the
truth."
- Saadi of Shiraz
"Self-justification is worse than the original
offence." - Sheikh Ziaudn
"We are born with the seed
of our own death. From the moment of birth, we
are approaching this inevitable demise. Then we must also contemplate that the
time of our death is uncertain.
Death does not wait for us to tidy up our lives.
It strikes unannounced. At the time of our
death, friends and family, the precious possessions we have so meticulously
collected throughout our lives, are of no value. Not even this precious body,
the vehicle of this lifetime, is of any use. Such thoughts help us diminish our
preoccupation with the concerns of our present lives. They also begin to
provide the groundwork for a
compassionate understanding of how others find it difficult to let go of
their self-centered concerns." - Dalai Lama
"Selfishness in all its forms seeks the benefit
and inflation of a self rendered artificially small, a self which is in fact an
ideological construct.
Our selfish behavior is only
superficially so; actually it conflicts with our true best
interests.
Chief among such behavior is that which ruthlessly
maximizes the perceived benefits of the skin-encapsulated ego. Limiting our
destructiveness is not a matter of reining in our natural selfish impulses; it
is a matter of understanding who we really
are.
When we do not know who we are, of
course our selfishness cannot benefit our true selves. Hence, the endemic
misery in our society among winners and losers alike." - Charles
Eisenstein
It is much easier for the human ego to see and
criticize the faults and
mistakes of others.
By shifting the focus
from within to
without the contemplating ego,
inflated with self-righteousness, is able to overlook its own
faults and shortcomings
while concentrating
on the errors and mistakes of others.
"The indifference to the plight of others and the
supreme elevation of the self is what the corporate state seeks to instill in
us. It uses fear, as well as hedonism, to
thwart human compassion." - Christopher
Lynn Hedges
autistic = a tendency to view life in terms of one's own needs and
desires
"With Time Warner cable the
world revolves around you."
advertisement on CNN in Los Angeles @ 10:20
on April 25, 2007
"The irrational nature of addictive
consumption leads many
Americans
to focus on the self to the exclusion
of community." - Donald O. Mayer
"As men remain
isolated in their absolute individuality, enjoying all their
natural liberty, recognizing no limits to this
liberty but those imposed by fact and not by
right, they follow only one law - the law of natural egoism." - Mikhail
Bakunin
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This web site is not a commercial web site and
is presented for educational purposes only.
This website defines a new religious
ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification
of reality outside personal experience has created a populace unable to discern
propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an
international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt
version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any
group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due
to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of the religion
aptly named The Truth of the Way of Life - a rational religion based on reason
which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no
church buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to
develop a personal relation with God through the pursuit of the knowledge of
reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the
human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are spelled out in
detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to
their religious beliefs in America is considered a “hate
crime.”
This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary
the intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the
international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The
international corporate cartel already controls the world central banking
system, mass media worldwide, the industrial military entertainment complex of
America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of
self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization
is based on cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a
gun.
American social mores and values have declined precipitously over
the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more
power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general
through mass media by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed
into the population through prior mass media psychological operations. The
results have been the destruction of the family and the destruction of social
structures that do not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a
perfect world. Through distraction and coercion the direction of thought of the
bulk of the population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the
corrupt international elite that further consolidates their power and which
further their purposes.
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their writings, showed the capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational,
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