From Self…To SELF
A Psychologist’s journey from acculturation to spirituality
I am myself. You are yourself. We all know who we are.
Don’t we?
I used to lecture on the development of the self…from the foetus, indistinguishable from its mother, through to the recognition of self in a mirror at about 18 months, the I who can reflect on the me. A great little experiment was to surreptitiously put some lipstick on the child’s nose. If when they looked in the mirror they touched their own nose, and not the mirror, one could infer they knew that they were looking at themselves. With maturity comes the increasing depth, breadth and complexity of self concept, plus the associated development of self-esteem.
I wrote a chapter, quite well received, and published in a Psychology textbook about self-esteem and dyslexia. I explored fully the relationship between acculturation and self. When lecturing to first year undergraduate student teachers I used to ask them to imagine that they grew up in isolation on a temperate island, with all their physical needs magically cared for, and animals for company.
I would then ask them ‘Who would you be?’…the true answer being that without language or human contact to foster communication and social development they would bear no relation to their current selves, but instead be hairless primates.
Psychology’s entire understanding of self, certainly in the 20th century, was based solely on socialisation.
It is only now, years later, that I realise I was unknowingly feeding my poor benighted students a singularly blinkered view of self…although, to be fair, I wouldn’t have had a job, and certainly wouldn’t have had anything published, if I had introduced the idea of a Higher Self, a self with an unbreakable connection to God, as the true core essence of the human being.
In some ways the human self is comparable to the Holy Trinity of Christianity…except instead of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, we have Body, Mind, and Soul.
No, I’m not referring to Freud’s Id, Ego and Superego…it’s different.
Father, Son and Holy Ghost are usually conceptualised in a fairly simplistic and concrete way, and I don’t want to explore that further here. It is the idea of three in one however that captures what the self truly is.
It is a unit, no one aspect can exist without the other two…
Is one aspect more important? Is there a hierarchy? Yes, there is. The real self, the You who is You is…The immortal soul.
To clarify: you do not ‘have’ an immortal soul…you ARE an immortal soul, and You have your mind and your body in order to live in manifest reality. Your mind and your body are your vehicle and mode of communication.
You are an immortal spirit. Immutable, in essence unchanging, as You are in a permanent relationship with God.
You are a filament in the tapestry of creation, “part of the fabric and matrix of life operating in time and space” …and yet here you are, alone, eating, sleeping, being, doing, feeling and thinking, here, right here and now.
See your fingers? They belong to you, and when you touch one, it’s on its own, but it has no agency until your mind commands it. Your mind is who you generally identify with…but you couldn’t do anything with just your mind. You need your body to carry out your intent. Many, maybe most, people think that’s it…or …they think, maybe I have a soul? Maybe I should try and develop spiritually? You cannot ‘develop’ spiritually because your spirit is immutable. What you can do however is find how to connect your mind with your spirit.
Imagine an ornate silver spoon covered in tarnish. You cannot ‘develop’ the silver of the spoon. It is as it is. But by cleaning and polishing it you can discover and reveal it.
You must! It is what you are on earth to do. You are here to recognise your true nature as an immortal spirit, not just to live in the pursuit of happiness. You are far far greater than you can begin to imagine, and you have been here on Earth thousands of times. I know, you really can’t believe you could possibly be that wonderful. I struggle to believe it too. We think, hang on a minute, I’m pretty sure I’ve committed all of the seven deadly sins at some time or another!…Hmm, yes…oh dear …all of them…often.
Here’s the thing. You committed all of these when you were only responding to your everyday mind, and the demands of your body. If a toddler can’t walk properly, has tantrums, demands sweeties and has countless accidents…is that because he is an evil little pest, or because he is just a young child and cannot be an adult.
Are you angry with him ? …well you might be a bit annoyed…but you know he can’t help it and you love him with all your heart…and you just want to help him develop. You know he will always be joined to you, a part of you.
You will always be joined to God, a part of God. Within You, the greater You, there is an unbreakable golden thread that tethers you forever to God. Nothing, NOTHING, can break that thread, certainly no sin you commit. God is relentlessly reeling in that thread until you are ready to leave Separation and join him. It may take a thousand lifetimes, but he will NEVER drop that thread NEVER. You are HIS.
