Sunday, November 22, 2015

the real self

"At the heart of Merton’s spirituality is his distinction between our real and false selves. Our false selves are the identities we cultivate in order to function in society with pride and self-possession; our real selves are a deep religious mystery, known entirely only to God. The world cultivates the false self, ignores the real one, and therein lies the great irony of human existence: the more we make of ourselves, the less we actually exist."
— Robert Inchausti

5 comments:

  1. But who, what and where is the "real" self?
    Because ones self-presentation goes through three cycles every day, and furthermore it changes during the "waking" state depending on what arises in the "world out there", or when confronted/modified by the inherent stress of having to deal with both other human beings, and objects too.
    Is it the left-brained thinking "self" that you dramatize i the presumed "world out there" or what we call the "waking" state, which is actually a form of zombie-like sleep-walking.
    Is it the very fluid and plastic "self" that creates and participates in the multiple states of the dream world?
    Is it the formless and wordless witness consciousness that we enter into in state of deep dreamless sleep?
    Or is it a state of uncaused radiant being, or everyman's samadhi ( Sat-Chit-Ananda) which is always already prior to "waking", dreaming and sleeping.
    www.consciousnessitself.org

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for the link! This website is the closest expression of my individual beliefs that I have found. http://www.consciousnessitself.org/

      Delete
  2. It appears that if you continue to question the way you are questioning you yourself arrive at an answer.
    Respectfully,
    Anbazhagan

    ReplyDelete
  3. I believe we are the awareness of everything, an infinite, eternal experience which has existed forever, and that no one has given us nor can anyone take it away. While I am certain that a God or any number of gods may exist, I also believe that the human experience cannot ever define any god. So my answer to myself is to experience the freedom of awareness, which experiences being human as only one of an infinite set of points of view. Why we think the human experience is the only one is a mystery to me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Something is mystery to you.Something is belief.
    Why believe? Why not just be the awareness!
    One would influence many!

    ReplyDelete

Palm Sunday

  Image: "The Mystical Boat", by Odilon Redon On Palm Sunday we reach the quayside.  A great ship is fretting at the moorings, sai...