Which is Your True Self?

[Scott C.]

Suppose you're an easy going guy offline, but a real perkle-squatting tiger in online debates? Many people would say your perkle-squatting tiger self is your true self coming out, but is that so? How would you determine whether your easy going offline self wasn't your true self coming out but your perkle-squatting tiger self was? Why couldn't it be just the other way around?

On what basis do you decide what is your true self and what isn't?


BONUS QUESTION: Why do so many of us seem to assume that, when a person displays negative behavior, that's their true self -- even if they mostly display positive behavior?



Personally, I think people do have a true self -- in so far as people (and others) often enough recognize when they do something that is characteristic or not characteristic of them. I also think we each of us "contain multitudes" as Walt Whitman expressed it. We each of us have multiple selves that tend to vary with circumstances. And they can be contradictory. In some circumstances, we can be habitually generous. In some circumstances we can be habitually stingy. None of us, so far as I can see, are a consistent and coherent whole. Yet, for all that, there are still things we now and then do which are not characteristic of us in any sense. Such as when we are stingy in circumstances that we are normally generous in.

I'm not sure what "true me" means. The true me I think is a good person who cares about others. But the true me has weaknesses which at times overule the better part of my nature. I might be kind most of the time, but lose my temper and get rude at other times. If I lose my temper once every six months, it's not fair for someone to think "Ah, there's the real you that you've been hiding all of this time", as if to say the "calm me" is a false front of the true angy me. Patterns of behavior show the "true us" I think.

 

[godnotgod]

I am Brahman, 'you too are that' (Tat twam asi - Chandogya Upanishad), since every thing here is Brahman (Sarvam Khalu Idm Brahma - Mundaka Upanishad)) because 'What exists is one, there is no second' (Eko sad, Dwiteeyo nasti), no, no, no, not in the least (Nasti, Nasti, Na Nasti Kinchana). This I is totally, absolutely non-exclusive.

This 'I' is an illusion, a play of maya. Brahman is, in reality, the Universal Self, playing itself as the individual self in time and space, ie the 'jiva', an illusion, which is why, in Buddhist thought, it is said: 'If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him!' IOW, there is no such 'becoming'. The jiva that 'becomes' Brahman, and the seeker that 'becomes' Buddha, are illusions, and vanish upon the awakening to one's true nature. You cannot become that which you already are; you can only awaken to its reality.

 

[godnotgod]

so here you are.....on the stage, under the lights
and then later .....out and about doing other things

same guy?

yes you are

Knowing the difference between the Persona and the one who projects his Persona keeps you out of delusion. However, most of mankind is living a fiction, convinced it is their true self. They are dreaming, thinking the dream to represent reality. Jungian psychology refers to this masked self as Persona and Shadow.

This 'dreaming self' is many times referred to as being on the third level of consciousness known as 'Identification', or 'Waking Sleep'. It is what we call our 'everyday reality' in which most people think themselves 'awake'. However, like the second level of consciousness, the sleep-dream state, it too is a dream, but one of a higher caliber, and requires further awakening to a yet higher level of conscious awareness, the Fourth Level, called 'Self-Transcendence', or 'Self-Remembering'.

 

[godnotgod]

My true self is the observer. That part of me which displays behavior, offline or online, positive or negative, is the actor which is driven by the ego self.
.

If that is the case, then where, or what, is your true nature? "The Observer" (of the observed) is just another subject/object split that the mind is creating, in which there exists an 'I' that is doing the observation, and the mind is a self-created principle. IOW, is there really an 'observer of the observation'?...or is there simply and only observation itself, without an agent of observation? One is in duality, the other in Oneness.

 

[Thief]

Knowing the difference between the Persona and the one who projects his Persona keeps you out of delusion. However, most of mankind is living a fiction, convinced it is their true self. They are dreaming, thinking the dream to represent reality. Jungian psychology refers to this masked self as Persona and Shadow.

This 'dreaming self' is many times referred to as being on the third level of consciousness known as 'Identification', or 'Waking Sleep'. It is what we call our 'everyday reality' in which most people think themselves 'awake'. However, like the second level of consciousness, the sleep-dream state, it too is a dream, but one of a higher caliber, and requires further awakening to a yet higher level of conscious awareness, the Fourth Level, called 'Self-Transcendence', or 'Self-Remembering'.

have seen.....What Dreams May Come.....

starring the late ....Robin Williams

 

[12jtartar]

Suppose you're an easy going guy offline, but a real perkle-squatting tiger in online debates? Many people would say your perkle-squatting tiger self is your true self coming out, but is that so? How would you determine whether your easy going offline self wasn't your true self coming out but your perkle-squatting tiger self was? Why couldn't it be just the other way around?

On what basis do you decide what is your true self and what isn't?


BONUS QUESTION: Why do so many of us seem to assume that, when a person displays negative behavior, that's their true self -- even if they mostly display positive behavior?



Personally, I think people do have a true self -- in so far as people (and others) often enough recognize when they do something that is characteristic or not characteristic of them. I also think we each of us "contain multitudes" as Walt Whitman expressed it. We each of us have multiple selves that tend to vary with circumstances. And they can be contradictory. In some circumstances, we can be habitually generous. In some circumstances we can be habitually stingy. None of us, so far as I can see, are a consistent and coherent whole. Yet, for all that, there are still things we now and then do which are not characteristic of us in any sense. Such as when we are stingy in circumstances that we are normally generous in.

Sunstone,
Here is something I heard thatmakes a lot of sense to me. There are two parts to our personality, one is Persona, which is what people see of you, how you act in public, the second is called Anima, which is what you are inside, or how you act when you are alone. Many people put on a different personality when in public, and they know that people are watching, and the person they are when alone. You could call this two-faced. If you want to please God, you must bring the two different personalities together, so that your Persona and your Anima are alike, as much as possible.

 

[godnotgod]

Sunstone,
Here is something I heard thatmakes a lot of sense to me. There are two parts to our personality, one is Persona, which is what people see of you, how you act in public, the second is called Anima, which is what you are inside, or how you act when you are alone. Many people put on a different personality when in public, and they know that people are watching, and the person they are when alone. You could call this two-faced. If you want to please God, you must bring the two different personalities together, so that your Persona and your Anima are alike, as much as possible.

That's kind of comical, in light of how the Hindus see it, and that is that God is hiding within all its forms, hiding within you and I as the characters lost in Identification we play in life, in a cosmic game of Hide and Seek. When spiritual awakening occurs, you discover who you really are, and that is your divine nature. It's not so much that God is pleased, but in the state of Absolute Joy to return to it's true Self.

Are you sure you don't mean Persona and Shadow?...'Persona' being how we want to appear in public, and Shadow that part of ours psyche we don't want others to know about. It is the Shadow that is the most dangerous, the classic example being the national Shadow of the German people that Hitler foisted upon the Jews, namely the Shadow called 'untermenschen', or 'sub-human'.

"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet"

TS Elliot: The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

 

[SalixIncendium]

If that is the case, then where, or what, is your true nature? "The Observer" (of the observed) is just another subject/object split that the mind is creating, in which there exists an 'I' that is doing the observation, and the mind is a self-created principle. IOW, is there really an 'observer of the observation'?...or is there simply and only observation itself, without an agent of observation? One is in duality, the other in Oneness.

Good point.

Oneness, as I see it, is in the understanding that the observer and the observed are one; both are two aspects of the witness.

 

[Thief]

ok.....just stop and think about it

my...."I"......depends on......."you".......?

nope

 

[godnotgod]

ok.....just stop and think about it

my...."I"......depends on......."you".......?

nope

Yes, and that means they are inextricably intertwined as One, just as your five fingers are connected to your one hand.

 

[godnotgod]

Good point.

Oneness, as I see it, is in the understanding that the observer and the observed are one; both are two aspects of the witness.

OK, but is the witness also an aspect of duality, as in 'the witness of the witnessed'?...or is there simply 'witnessing', sans an agent of witnessing?

Deepak Chopra describes the spiritual experience as 'the merging of the observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation into a single Reality', So to say that there exists an 'experiencer of the experience' is a fabricated conceptual framework of the mind. There is only the experience itself, and you are that experience. It's sort of like saying 'It is raining', where there is no such 'it' that rains; there is only raining. The subject/object split in the mind is healed.

Once it is seen that there is no agent of the action involved, that there is only the experience itself, the question then arises: 'who, or what is having this present experience?' It's a bit unnerving, actually. There is some presence other than the 'I' you have become so familiar with. 'I' is simply not there for a few moments, until Identification kicks back in.

 

[Thief]

Yes, and that means they are inextricably intertwined as One, just as your five fingers are connected to your one hand.

But the other five fingers are connected to the OTHER hand

and it is written....
Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing

 

[godnotgod]

But the other five fingers are connected to the OTHER hand

and it is written....
Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing

God plays a mean game of Hide and Seek. You simply will not accept that you are God, pretending to be Thief. There is no ''Thief over here", and "God over there", no 'self and other'. You're IT, pretending not to be IT, on purpose. That's how good the game gets.

You keep looking for a Miracle 'over there', when the Miracle is in the Ordinary, right under your nose.

 

[Thief]

God plays a mean game of Hide and Seek. You simply will not accept that you are God, pretending to be Thief. There is no ''Thief over here", and "God over there", no 'self and other'. You're IT, pretending not to be IT, on purpose. That's how good the game gets.

You keep looking for a Miracle 'over there', when the Miracle is in the Ordinary, right under your nose.

it's not an illusion

there are 7billion more copies wandering around

 

[godnotgod]

it's not an illusion

there are 7billion more copies wandering around

Yup! God loves variety. He is pretending to be every single one of them, all at once, while deliberately forgetting who he really is. This is called 'playing the game to the hilt', poker-faced even. Why, just look at YOU. Stone Cold.

 

[Thief]

Yup! God loves variety. He is pretending to be every single one of them, all at once, while deliberately forgetting who he really is. This is called 'playing the game to the hilt', poker-faced even. Why, just look at YOU. Stone Cold.

not buying it....

this life is a learning experience
not point in forming cognitive and reflective spirit
only to have each turn to dust

 

[godnotgod]

not buying it....

this life is a learning experience
not point in forming cognitive and reflective spirit
only to have each turn to dust

...as does your learning.

Of course you deny it: denial that you are none other than the divine nature is part of the game of Hide and Seek.

 

[Thief]

...as does your learning.

Of course you deny it: denial that you are none other than the divine nature is part of the game of Hide and Seek.

so....you make stuff up.....call it a game.....

and then call it reality

 

[godnotgod]

so....you make stuff up.....call it a game.....

and then call it reality

Didn't God 'make up' 'the world' out of sheer Nothing, and then called it 'reality', and then woke to find it but a dream, to awaken to the True Reality behind the dream?

'First, there is a mountain;
then, there is no mountain'
then, there is"

Take a closer look, Thief, but leave your baggage behind first.

If you are not the divine nature itself, then who are you?

 

[crossfire]

My true self is the observer. That part of me which displays behavior, offline or online, positive or negative, is the actor which is driven by the ego self.

That said, I don't really make a distinction between my online or offline behavior. I'm as much of an ***hat IRL as I am here.

I see "The Observer" as being the passive yin aspect of consciousness, with the active aspects as being the yang aspect of consciousness. Am I my consciousness? When I lose consciousness, I don't go *poof* out of existence, so consciousness is not my self.