The concept of self is one that has gained considerable traction in Western psychological and integrative religious domains in the past hundred years. When we say "self" we take it to mean something beyond ego and body, a sort of "true" being. That such a concept has remained elusive and ever out of reach indicates something improper about our investigations of it. "I need to *find* my self," is something one hears very often in today's society, but such a statement seems absurd. "Find?" Where is the self found? Where ought one search for it?
Though this idea has gained increasing spotlight today, it has been a consistent part of mystic traditions all around the world. Sufism, a mysticism marked by a dance of love with God, has long provided a blueprint for the "discovery" of the self: “I searched for God and only found myself. I searched for myself and only found God.” – Rumi. That Sufis have been persecuted by Islamic authorities and have kept their personal doctrines secret should not surprise those familiar with mysticism. The critique posed by mysticism against traditional forms of religion is, in fact, not a critique as such, but, a *differentiation*: an order of the development of higher consciousness.
Eastern traditions have likewise articulated similar ideas as the Sufis in relation to the discovery of the self and the attainment of enlightenment: that one finds themselves *within*.
Further elucidation of these various traditions could be provided, but much has been written by others. The purpose of this page is to articulate in both neurological and philosophical terms what I believe both the self and it's "seeking" to be.
On my page Enes' Study of the Brain and Mental Disorders I articulated a concept of the development of mind/self in relation to the development of religious consciousness. Here, I would like to expand on such ideas.
A signpost of the development of self/mind/religious consciousness Stage I: Unity (Pre-self-consciousness)
Stage II: Division (History, projection, seeking)
Stage III: Witness (Integration)
As a recap, God develops from One, to a tension of Two, to a Witness of Three. This third stage is particularly important and let us investigate all of these three stages in more depth in terms of the self and its "discovery."
Oneness with God historically is a containment within the system of being. There is no self-consciousness that can apply itself to itself in order to differentiate self and non-self: God and not-God. The conception of time here is, at best, cyclical: day and night, life and death, etc.
With the development of self-consciousness, a differentiation of "self" from Nature/God, a twoness emerges: a divide between man and God/nature. This original split is the reason for man's up to the present internally divided soul, the, as it were, "two souls in his breast" (Goethe). This movement from union with all things to a separation from nature can be understood through the fall myth and creates "history" as the gap between divide from God and reunion with Him.
This original division between man and God is the basic reason for the possibility of a "seeking" for God. With the creation of institutional forms of religion, the split between man and God was made concrete, and with the early development of mystical traditions, God was sought after. History, in one sense, is the searching for God within and without. All human action can be basically understood through this dialectic: seeking for God and, all the more often, hiding from God.
The Messiah as a Western concept is a deliverer, a fixer, a healer, a unifier - such a concept is only possible if there is something to be unified, that is, something "broken." The original fall from the Garden is the expression of the inner division of man from himself, that is, from God, and the concept of the Messiah is later development that articulates a vehicle through which union will occur within time.
The Eastern world has no comparable Messiah in terms of a particular ethnic tradition, though new age concepts of the maitreya exist. “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” - Buddha
For me, the development of self is itself a historical phenomenon that must be understood in and through this developmental view. It appears to me that the ever-present and increasingly dominant seeking of self in this modern we have all but externally dominated and subjected has made it so that all external doors of salvation are closed and one is forced to look within. For me, the self is not so much a discovery as a process.
In the first age of consciousness, we can say that there is a union of self with reality. In the second age of consciousness, there is a divide of self from reality, a nostalgia for what was once lost. In this divide, culture and human creations that seek as distraction from God are created. When Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, thus separating themselves from God by self-knowledge, they cover themselves up and hide. For me, most of human culture is a collective covering up and hiding, artificial gardens of eden where thought is repressed so that there is an appearance of oneness which is in truth merely repression. This is why I am enthused about Andrius' lifelong project of creating a culture of investigation, a culture which is dynamic, inquisitive, curious, non-dogmatic, and growthful and I hope to be able to contribute to this essential human project.
The warning against knowledge in many myths is a point to investigate. Oedipus learns of the truth of his actions and blinds himself. Prometheus steals the power of fire, illumination, and is thus punished for eternity. Adam and Eve eat from the tree and thus fall from God. In my view, these myths are not so much warnings as illustrations of the necessary consequence of an increase in knowledge: a fall. What I once knew comes crashing down as a result of new knowledge, and those who do wish not to face this blind themselves to themselves. Though the cost of knowledge is death of the old...how can something be reborn without dying?
The history of mankind and most individual human development can be understood within this second stage of religious consciousness: the tension between self and reality, self and other, self and non-self, self and God. The seeking of the self is itself a consequence of knowledge of its division, and fall is not merely physical birth, but spiritual birth. Existential crises can force a person to reconsider their entire view of reality, and only until a person has separated themselves from prior forms of identification does the search for self, that is God, begin. Historically, it is my belief that the number of people engaged with this seeking of self, that is, this seeking of God/Truth/Self, has consistently increased. In the modern West, the collapse of all former cultural and spiritual forms of religious identification, although containing the threat of nihilism, enable new life on the other side of the abyss. A tree whose branches would like to reach heaven must descend its roots to hell.
Moreover, the period of the tension of opposites for the individual conscious of some inner division, appears as a progressive development of projections of the self into the external world. Jung wrote that the until "you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate." The idea here is that an individual, unable or on the path towards their self, projects their self into the world around them. That is, projects the object of desire in some form or another onto people, vocation, money, relationships, etc. The God within is made external. The basis for therapy is becoming of a mirror of the therapist so that the individual can reclaim their projections.
On the matter of therapy, the fact of its development is a key study. Where were therapists in societies prior to this? Is it the case that man was not in need of therapy? What is therapy? In short, therapy is the assisting of an individual to come to a meaning of life. In pre-secular societies, the dominance of therapeutic ideologies such as institutional religion alongside the presence of spiritual therapists (priests) made it so that the therapeutic function was fulfilled by default. The unrooting of these therapeutic ideologies through secularism (the presence of many ideologies) has increasingly returned the burden of becoming God to the individual. This is the positive value of collective disintegration.
Modern relational suffering, communal dystrophy, political divides, etc, etc can all be understood through this dynamic of projecting the self outside of the self, the seeking of one's affirmation outside of oneself, a seeking compensated by intuitional structures of religion and mystical sects for those with consciousness beyond their present day.
A plethora of modern literature and art can also be understood in the context of this ever collectively intensifying search for God. In fact, a study of art proper, demonstrates the essence of the artistic consciousness: separation from the collective which begets a securing of immortality for oneself. The distinction between the mystic and artistic personality I will discuss on another page.
What then does the end of this search look like? This brings me to the third stage of religious consciousness and the final stage of Self: the witness of the Three.
As an individual increasingly projects the divided part of the self outside of themselves, the world increasingly becomes a mirror. They cannot see others: only themselves. In and through this mirror, an individual can come to an awareness of the pattern of their behavior, that is, the pattern of collective human behavior: the projecting of God into Other. And when recognizing this pattern, increasingly work towards integration: unification of the divided self.
This phase is the witness of the Three because it is the recognition that one is not a tension of opposites, that there are no contradictions. It is, in neurological terms, the development of the Saliency Network and greater integration of the opposed first and second networks: the DMN and the ECN. This forms a basic three mind theory that articulates a developmental trajectory for the formation and integration of these three minds, a beginning point and ending point, and a processual in-between. Time is the period between division and reunion. This is why Christ is the Beginning and the End: history, the division of self, comes to a close in Him. This is also why every man is God, contains God, both is and continually becomes God. The union of non-duality (the first mind) and duality (the second mind) is made possible by the third mind, and the union of all three is God. Being and Becoming Unify: this is Self, Mind, and God.
The study and search for the self makes itself increasingly simple for us from this perspective. The method is made increasingly complex because of the identification, attachment, repression, and projection of the fragmented mind that make up one's personal history...but this is a necessity of development. There can be no end to history if there was no history. In Plato's Republic, the city *is* the psyche. And thus, as a fragmented self, we are a fragmented mankind. The Second Coming is the collective integration of man, the becoming of God. To know oneself is to know God, and knowing oneself is an eternally unfolding project.
The integrated mind has no external anchor as its mediator - it mediates itself. The burden of this is correspondingly high and intense, and thus it takes quite some time for an individual to construct a foundation of their own to stand upon. Of course, every foundation collapses so that a more cogent foundation can be built, and once this pattern of recurrence is integrated, one gains the ability to walk on collapsing ground, that is, walk on water.
These form cursory and inchoate articulations of some ideas. My present aim with these ideas is a developmental metaphysics of selfhood expressed through religion, psychology, and neuroscience.