Which is Your True Self?

[godnotgod]

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.

Then your true self is not conscious?

 

[crossfire]

Then your true self is not conscious?

Who knows? (Pun intended!)

 

[godnotgod]

Who knows? (Pun intended!)

You stated that when you're not conscious, 'you' don't vanish. I suppose you mean your body does not vanish? And what do you mean by 'not conscious'? Sleep?

 

[crossfire]

You stated that when you're not conscious, 'you' don't vanish. I suppose you mean your body does not vanish? And what do you mean by 'not conscious'? Sleep?

There have been a couple of times in my life when I was totally unconscious for one reason or another (anesthesia or being knocked out.) Continuity of consciousness is not required for my continuous existence. Therefore, consciousness is not my 'Self.'

 

[SalixIncendium]

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.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same 'I' here. When I say "the witness," I am not speaking of the temporal 'I.' I am speaking of the 'I' that is what I commonly reference as the Absolute. I'm speaking of the 'I' that is the witness during a oneness experience. The witness is one with the experience...or more accurately is the experience, if that makes any sense.

 

[Thief]

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?

me.....myself.....and I

 

[godnotgod]

There have been a couple of times in my life when I was totally unconscious for one reason or another (anesthesia or being knocked out.) Continuity of consciousness is not required for my continuous existence. Therefore, consciousness is not my 'Self.'

And yet, you came back to conscious existence; that is to say, to individual consciousness, so something was still 'there' which worked to awaken you. But consciousness perse may not be 'my' consciousness. It may be non-local and therefore, universal, which most are not aware of as personal consciousness, ie 'I', obscures it.

But if, as you claim, that consciousness is not required for your continuous existence, then how do you know you exist if not for consciousness? And if it is not your self, then who, or what, are you?

Even though the TV set may go on the blink, the TV signals are always present. They do not have their origin in the TV set.

 

[godnotgod]

me.....myself.....and I

What is 'me, myself, and I' comprised of?

 

[godnotgod]

I'm not sure we're talking about the same 'I' here. When I say "the witness," I am not speaking of the temporal 'I.' I am speaking of the 'I' that is what I commonly reference as the Absolute. I'm speaking of the 'I' that is the witness during a oneness experience. The witness is one with the experience...or more accurately is the experience, if that makes any sense.

OK, but the 'I' that is the witness, then, is empty of inherent self-nature. And if it is the experience itself, then there is no agent of witnessing; there is only witnessing itself. There is no 'see-er of the seen'; only seeing itself.

 

[savagewind]

My true self is neither what you think of me or what I think of myself. It might be about what I would do in any given situation and that, I do not know.

 

[crossfire]

And yet, you came back to conscious existence; that is to say, to individual consciousness, so something was still 'there' which worked to awaken you. But consciousness perse may not be 'my' consciousness. It may be non-local and therefore, universal, which most are not aware of as personal consciousness, ie 'I', obscures it.

But if, as you claim, that consciousness is not required for your continuous existence, then how do you know you exist if not for consciousness? And if it is not your self, then who, or what, are you?

Even though the TV set may go on the blink, the TV signals are always present. They do not have their origin in the TV set.

And vice versa: the TV signals are not the TV, and no they are not ever present. Broadcasters go offline.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

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.

Whatever you are is what you are.

 

[godnotgod]

And vice versa: the TV signals are not the TV, and no they are not ever present. Broadcasters go offline.

You are pushing the metaphor beyond its limitation. But if That which is broadcasting itself as a temporal animated and conscious form called 'crossfire' is present when the broadcast ends, then ultimately, That is the non-temporal source of your temporal conscious existence, and the identity known as 'crossfire' is fiction, and your true nature is actually That. And isn't this transformation what Nirvana is all about?

So if, as you say, your temporal consciousness is not who you really are, then who are you?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I see it this way. Offline, it is harder to be oneself (unless you live in a culture where your self is defined by community; American culture is different so I never experienced self by community). Anyway, we are constantly being chameleons because we cant be are whole selves at work, school, even our family doesnt know EVERYTHING about us. The thing is, a lot of the time we can monitor our behavior and speech on the spot. So, our true nature is hidden by constant replay. Its human.

Online, its a little simplier to be yourself because you havw time to develop a full thought without needing to censor it because of body language and differences in others reactions known and unknown to self. With that, we can tell more into your true nature. Unless what you are posting is a fake you and dont know it, the nicd JW offline is inwardly hoping eveeyone comes to Jehovah by the words he choses that he would not otherwise say offline. Relationship with others (how close one is) also let us feel we can "get away" with being our true self because we arent responsible for what we say because we are only talking to strangers. Then we get upset when we break the rules. Fake selves dont need to defend
themselves.

It could be another facet of ourselves. Online I do talk a lot and do have stubborn periods. Not much different offline. Online I can be my reflective self, learn new things, and speak via my values that I find harder to do in person.

So, it really dependa on the person. I do believe we have multiple personalities in different environments and people we speak with. Some more true than others. Its human nature.

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?

Religion, from American culture view. Our trueselves are inherited with sin and our our heart, if we found god, inherited with gods blessings.

People are more influenced by negativity. Flight or flight. We remember intense experiences more and unless one has a positive intense experience (like god), mundane ones.

I dont see the inherited-sin view. I just find when people show tbeir true self, their essense, they are more alive. When they dont, its still their true self just its helpful for it to be addressed as we know the difference between spiritual sadness and spiritual depression.

 

[godnotgod]

...when people show their true self, their essence, they are more alive.

So what is the nature of one's 'true self', as compared to the 'fake' self, the self of Identification?

 

[Thief]

What is 'me, myself, and I' comprised of?

a ...self.....explanatory item

 

[crossfire]

You are pushing the metaphor beyond its limitation. But if That which is broadcasting itself as a temporal animated and conscious form called 'crossfire' is present when the broadcast ends, then ultimately, That is the non-temporal source of your temporal conscious existence, and the identity known as 'crossfire' is fiction, and your true nature is actually That. And isn't this transformation what Nirvana is all about?

So if, as you say, your temporal consciousness is not who you really are, then who are you?

Can't really pin it down without losing consciousness, so who knows? I can speculate, but speculation is just speculation. I can't pin down any one aspect of who I am that could be considered "The True Self," relegating all other aspects as "false." The throne remains empty.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There have been a couple of times in my life when I was totally unconscious for one reason or another (anesthesia or being knocked out.) Continuity of consciousness is not required for my continuous existence. Therefore, consciousness is not my 'Self.'

That sank in very deep after I had a seizure and blacked out for several minutes, because I was responding to my friend after I was done convulsing, but my active consciousness/observer self was not active.

 

[godnotgod]

a ...self.....explanatory item

No, it is not 'self-explanatory'. That's just saying that the self is the self; it doesn't tell us what the self actually IS. Do you see that your 'explanation' is that of the self looking at the self, so that there are now two of you? And what of the third self, which is conscious of the first two? And the fourth, and so on, ad infinitum? It's lunacy, for sure!

 

[godnotgod]

Can't really pin it down without losing consciousness, so who knows? I can speculate, but speculation is just speculation. I can't pin down any one aspect of who I am that could be considered "The True Self," relegating all other aspects as "false." The throne remains empty.

Heh...heh...you see, who, or what, is pinning down the self? It's the old problem of the ego trying to rid itself of itself, when there is no ego to begin with, as it is a complete illusion. The only thing we can do is to stop all mental activity, but even here, the ego tries to do the stopping, making matters worse than ever. Stopping the chatter of the mind can only occur when it is allowed to happen of itself.

Maybe, then, as the Heart Sutra tells us, 'all phenomena, including us, is empty of self-nature'. So if that is the case, and this can actually be experienced, then our true nature lies in that very emptiness, which Zen refers to as 'Sunyata'. So, you see, in this way of looking at the question, there is nothing that can be 'pinned down' that can be called 'the self', because there is no such thing called 'the self'. But something alive and conscious is still present. This can definitely be experienced first-hand. Something, or someone, is present and acting through what you think to be your 'self', but when looked at clearly, one sees that 'self' is a self-created principle, and is non-existent, as the Heart Sutra is saying. What we call 'self' is what we think of as existing in Time and Space, but the direct experience of Sunyata, ie 'Emptiness', is not in Time and Space at all, and so is not held in memory, and has no history. It only lives in this eternal Present Moment. As someone else pointed out a few posts back, we are not a self having an experience; we are none other than that very experience. We can see this to be the case when the subject/object split is finally merged in the mind; when there is no longer a self looking at itself, since there is no such self to look at, and no self that is looking. There is, IOW, simply and only the act of pure seeing, completely empty of self. Sunyata can neither be created or destroyed; it is The Unborn; The Uncaused; The Conditionless, and so, as Alan Watts put it: 'You are none other than the Indestructible Sunyata'.

What? The Throne? We live in a hierarchical Universe?