All This Talk About Self

Spiritual literature is riddled with talk about self. No wonder. “Who am I?” is the most perplexing question arising from self-awareness. Even more perplexing are the many levels and degrees of self put forward in spiritual literature. We hear about everything from the true self to the false self to no self. Granted, a self-aware human being is a complex structure, but this tendency to posit so many selves only leads to further complication. So let’s see if we can simplify things a little.

The so-called lower self, false self, or egoic self is really just the higher or true self in a state of confusion.

This confusion stems from imagining a self that is solid, defined, separate, and permanent, when in fact; our true being is quite fluid, completely beyond definition, and intimately connected to everything. Self is impermanent, but merely in the sense that it is always evolving, always becoming. Impermanence simply means that nothing remains as it is. Everything, including self, is in a constant state of transition. Embracing spiritual evolution is about moving with this flow.

All this language about self comes into play in an attempt to explain an experience of expanding awareness. In other words, as our awareness of who we are becomes more expansive, confusion dissipates. We experience ourselves as more fluid, less defined, and completely connected. When this happens, the so-called false self experiences itself exactly as it really is. This does not mean a new, truer, self has appeared. It just means self is no longer confused. There is a big difference in how we understand the spiritual path when we realize we are not trying to access anything other than the fullness of who we are.

Again, in order to explain the vivid contrast between the experience of our being as small, stuck, contracted, and confused, and the experience of our being as expansive, vibrant, open, and enlightened, we come up with concepts like the lower self and the higher self. But these concepts can be misleading. We might conclude that we have to transcend, squash, get rid of, or otherwise beat into submission this lower self, when in fact, there is no lower self. For that matter, there is no higher self. There is only pure being having alternating experiences of confusion and enlightenment.

Confusion occurs when we are not fully aware of the wealth of the inner kingdom in pure being. Enlightenment occurs when we realize what we have always been. This realization of the inner kingdom is a living, vibrant experience. Both enlightenment and confusion occur on various levels and degrees, although a fully enlightened being would no longer experience any confusion at all.

In the end, the most reasonable thing we can say about self is there is no self and there is only self. It is all pure being experiencing.