The Self
"Who Am I?"
Introduction
Defining The Self
To Know The Self is to know not just one's body, but also the entire world that is within oneself—the world of consciousness. This is the world of the Mind. And as we are the Mind, we are the world of consciousness. There is no separation.
As consciousness, there are many "inner" layers to The Self. For instance, every day we can perceive the activities of the Emotional Self and the Mental happening within. Realize that when we experience the world outside with our Physical Self, all the Inner selves are experiencing it too, reacting and giving us their perception of the same experience.
The more one develops their awareness, the more one can become aware of the subtler Selves, for instance, the Intuitional Self that is always guiding us with subtle messages.
In this day of age, it can be difficult for one to Know their Inner Selves because there can be so many distractions at any given moment to keep one's sight away from peering inwards. Notice how often people are in front of a computer or a phone. Everyone seems to be always finding things to do to occupy their free time. As a result, it can be very rare for one to even think about spending time to get to know the stranger within.
In this article, we will go on a deep journey to discover more about The Self, about who we really are.
The Self In Depth
Developing THe Motivation To Know The Self
In life, we can learn many things: we can learn things about the world or dive into subjects of our interests. By the end of your life, you may become an expert in a particular field or a jack of all trades. But, how much time do you think you would have spent learning about yourself?
Realize that living in a money-driven society, you will always be guided on a path of learning about things that can give you what you need to survive—money. Thus, throughout life, you will very rarely be encouraged to learn more about yourself unless you are surrounded by spiritual people.
Thus, to know The Self will often require us to take responsibility for ourselves because most likely there will be no one there to motivate and encourage us to be on such a journey.
The Journey Of Self-Knowing
To Know The Self, one needs to look into the darkness within, to explore what's happening in one's mind. The practice of meditation can help one to develop such Self-Knowing because inner-observation is in essence the practice of meditation.
And when one begins such a journey of Self-Knowing, one will no doubt face many confusions because one will gradually learn to see the world from a different perspective: with one's inner sight rather than one's outer sight.
The latter is the way that most of us have been taught to learn about the world: to study things that can be seen and touched, learning about their nature through their appearances. When we only use the Outer Sight to learn about ourselves, we will only be able to know ourselves from observing what we do in the world outside.
It's only when one learns about oneself by observing inwards that one develops another kind of Knowing—that instead of Knowing oneself as the culmination of one's appearance, behaviour, actions, one will begin to Know oneself as the culmination of one's reactions and beliefs.
And the more one looks inwards to Know oneself, the more one will realize the Infinite Potential within because that is the true nature of the Mind: whatever one believes, one becomes.
Path Of Creator
The Self In Relation To The Path Of Creator
To Know The Self requires one to directly experience The Self. And this is best done through the practice of meditation. It cannot be done through reading a book or hearing what other "gurus" have to say.
And as one journey within to experience the world that is The Self, observing the activities that are happening inside, one will encounter no doubt encounter the rising and falling of one's thoughts and emotions.
The inward journey into the darkness within thus can be quite disturbing and confusing.
One may even begin to question:
"Am I the Physical Body?"
"Or Am I the Emotions?"
"Or Am I the Thoughts?"
"Should I follow my thoughts or my emotions...or my Intuition?"
"Which part of The Self should I follow?
"Who Am I?"
It certainly can be confusing when one becomes aware of the inconsistencies that can happen within. For instance, one may want to pursue their dream job, but the Emotional Self may be dwelling in fear whilst the Mental Self is struggling to convince one to overcome their fears. All the Selves within can appear to row the boat in different directions!
But to clear the confusion of—Which Self is the Real Me?—one can simply realize that instead of trying to learn about the "Real Me", simply see that All is you, and the greater work will be to align the Inner Selves as One.
You Are Infinite Potential
Realize that deep down inside, your Heart knows the Truth that you are of infinite potential. But as you are of infinite potential, you have the ability to see your life experiences in various ways and form different beliefs about yourself.
Thus, the personality that you have created can stand in between the Knowing of your Infinite Potential. The personality is the beliefs that you have created that has limited your Infinite potential, for instance, the ideas of "what you should be and what you shouldn't be." The more you become attached to these beliefs, the more unhappiness you will experience because deep down there is no greater suffering than to Reject your True Nature.
Realize that you are like an individualized portion of the Infinite Light that has created all there is. And within you, are infinite spectrums of who you are. The more beliefs that you create that go against your True Nature, the more focus you will place on that particular possibility and ignore who you really are.
Thus, to Know The Self is to journey beyond the personality. And to do so, one must transform and release the beliefs that is keeping them away from Knowing their True Selves—these will be the limiting Ideas we have become attached to within that promotes us to Reject ourselves and each other.
The more one practices meditation and learns to put their thinking mind aside, the more one will be able to realize their Infinite Potential and experience the joyful moments in meditation when one is not attached to any ideas about oneself. As one develops this realization, one will naturally develop the motivation to address the limiting beliefs they have imposed upon themselves.
And the deeper one can develop that awareness, the deeper Self-Limiting beliefs one will discover. And with time, one will gradually realize that all suffering states of mind whether it is fear, anger, impatience, and so forth will all arise from our Self-Limiting Ideas.
Self-Knowing is Self-Acceptance
To know Oneself thus is a journey of Self-Acceptance because the more one learns of one's Infinite Potential, the more one will be able to accept all there is because there is really nothing that is not The Self.
The Self is all there is because it is of Infinite Possibilities
Self-Knowing is Self-Transformation
To Know Oneself is also a journey of Self-Transformation because the more one accepts the Truth of one's infinite potential, the more the inner fears and negativities will be transformed into greater happiness. How can one fear what one can accept? How can one be angry with what one can accept? Thus them more one Knows the Truth of The Self, the more the mind will be transformed.
Self-Knowing Is A Spiritual Journey
To Know Oneself is also a great Spiritual Journey because there is no greater question to answer than "Who Am I?".
That is why you have the potential to experience all possibilities of The Self, even possibilities of who you are not. To lose and remember oneself is the spiritual journey of ever-refining the Knowing of what The Self is.
And as you are consciousness energy in essence, you cannot be destroyed. Your body can, but not your spirit. Thus, this physical journey is simply a short stop on the greater cosmic journey of Self-knowing, a journey that you have participated in for many lifetimes already. Thus, to Know The Self is to use the time you have here in the Present Moment wisely. The more you can discover about the self-limiting beliefs you have within, the more you will discover the possibilities of The Self that you've always wanted to explore. And to transform and release these self-limiting beliefs will be the way to graduate the spiritual lessons that you have given yourself.
The more you release these self-limiting beliefs, the more you will be able to see that all is you.
Realize that right now, it can be difficult to see this because our outer senses have been designed to perceive infinite possibilities rather than to simply observe all as One. Thus, the destination is not so much about seeing the reflection of ourselves in everything around us with our outer eyes, but rather, to develop that Knowing from within.
Developing Self-Acceptance
How can one use this information that there is only One Self to accelerate their journey towards greater happiness?
Realize that to develop greater happiness, one has to address one's unhappiness. And to do so, one has to learn what one cannot accept in life.
Thus, if one finds that one cannot accept a person because of their arrogance, one can work towards accepting that person.
If one finds that one cannot accept a particular outcome, one has to work towards accepting what one cannot accept.
To learn the ways of accepting different things in life, one can explore the Catalyst section of this website.
When one knows that there is really only One Self, then this knowledge can help one to greatly accelerate their journey of Self-Acceptance because one will know that to truly accept a part of someone they cannot accept, for instance, the arrogant part of a person, one will have to accept that arrogant part of oneself because to the Deeper Mind, there will always be only One Self. So, if one is trying to accept the stupid part of themselves, one can accelerate the journey by learning to accelerate the stupid part of other-selves as well.
Thus, Self-Acceptance will always be more than just developing Acceptance in one direction—because all is The Self.
Next time, when you encounter someone that you reject, you can ask the following questions to develop greater Self-Knowing.
"What parts of them am I rejecting?"
And once you discover the answers, you can realize that you are also rejecting that part of yourself as well.
To understand this, you can realize that the cause of our need to reject others will always be caused by the attachment we have towards self-limiting ideas—the Negative Ideas that promote Self-Rejection.
These ideas can be understood as ideas that begin with "It is not ok.."
I.e.
"It is not ok for them to be arrogant"
And because there is really only One Self as all is The Self, the Negative Ideas can be simplified to "It is not ok to be arrogant" because it will apply to us as well.
So, realize that whatever you dislike in this world will always reflect how you are rejecting the Infinite Self. To the mind, everything is The Self whether it be a stranger, a desk, a plush toy, a piece of steak, and so forth.
So, what is The Self?
It's all there is!
Realize that there is really only One Self—You!
Know and Transform The Self!
Reading articles helps with understanding, but to transform the mind, one realizes the truth from experience.
For such an enlightening journey, the Self-Transformation Course has everything you will ever need!
