Open-Secrets

Month: April 2008

  • Ipseity

    Ipseity according to the dictionary is: selfhood; individual identity, individuality. [from L. ipse, self, himself]

    The absolute is both my nature and my identity. Is the nature of the soul and her very identity. It constitutes her manifestations but it is also her depth and deepest essence. Alternatively, we can say the absolute is our true self, our objectively actual self. But it is also the nature of the soul. That is why we like to refer to the absolute as ipseity, for the word ipseity means both nature and self. To recognize the absolute as ipseity is a profound experience, for it is the self-realization of this dimension of true nature. A. H. Almaas

    Breathe into Being

    The Sufis say that existence came about because the Divine ‘Himselfness’ (Arabic: Huwiyyah, often translated as ‘Ipseity’ in scholarly works) breathed the Breath of Compassion, Nafs ar-Rahman, on the possibilities (Arabic: ayan-i-thabitah) that were latent in Himself.

    Be that as it may, the human soul is referred to in the Qur’an and elsewhere as a breath, nafs. (Interestingly, the word for spirit – ruh – also means ‘wind’). God moulds Adam with his two ‘hands’ and breathes into him His Spirit. And that part of us that is not moulded ‘clay’ (our materiality) is the nafs, the breath, our soul.

    According to some Sufi sources, there are seven gradations of the human nafs, ranging from the habitual, unreconstructed self of people who have done no ‘work’ on themeselves (the so-called ‘commanding self’, ‘Nafs al-ammarah’, which is really nothing but fragments of conditioning) through to the ‘completed self’, Nafs al-kamilan. – from James

    What would the Buddha say about ipseity? Is there self-identity in the absolute nature of the everything/anything

    Image by Amy Theiss – Ipseity 28

  • Timelessness – All Time – No Time

    Timelessness is NOW. Timelessness includes no time and all time. It is the moment that is always now.

    TimelessnessThe ordinary meaning of being in the now usually means pay attention to what is happening in this moment of time and space. It is usually directed at the content of one’s experience.

    Most of us probably had parents who harangued us at times to pay attention, to be here now. But those moments probably did not contain the sense of timelessnes – being beyond time. In fact, they most likely bound us more to the sense of time.

    Mystics and saints talk of timelessness, of how being in the now or the present moment transcends time. What’s interesting is that being in the now, in the timeless state, does not stop the dynamic movement of the universe or the phenomena of time. Things continue to happen in time and space, but one’s experience is more fundamental than time.

    Timelessness includes time. Time is of timelessness. Time and events are happening within timelessness, from timelessness.

    Many people, in fact, probably most of us, have experiences of timelessness, but we rarely stop to explore the experience in the moment – to really get curious about what is happening. If we do, our conditioning will automatically engage the linear mind in the exploration which brings us back into the realm of time.

    To explore timelessness, we need to be able to observe and perceive with awareness and presence without thinking, without engaging the content in a conceptual manner. This means engaging in a direct phenomenological exploration – what is happening right now without interpretation from the past.

    Timebandits

  • Sense of Identity

    Identity-selfWhat gives us our sense of identity? Some of the components of our sense of identity include:

    • Personal History
    • Body Image
    • Familiar Sensations
    • Thought Patterns
    • Patterns of Reactivity
    • Name

    Beyond the basic need for a sense of control, we are deeply driven by our sense of identity, of who we are. ‘I’ is a capital letter, denoting the importance we place on our sense of individual self. As Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Many social theories are to do with creating or preserving our sense of identity. – Changing Minds

    Of coures there is always the number of cards, accounts, bills, mail, and the like that are connected to our identity.

    But is all of this, in part or total, who we really are? What is our fundamental identity and how does that sense of identity differ from our day-to-day sense of identity?

    One of the most significant characteristics of the soul is that it can identify with the content of experience. It can take any impression, for example self-image, and make itself believe that that impression is itself. It can also take a part of the psychological structure and believe it to be the whole of itself. Identifying with an impression or the content of experience makes the self believe that it has an identity, and through this identity it then recognizes itself. Our personal history, constituted by our memories, comprises the basic content of our usual identity. This identification with the personal history provides a feeling of self-recognition, a sense of identity, or a sense of self. So in experiencing itself through the veil of memories, the soul not only loses sight of its primordial purity – its Essence – but also identifies itself through and with this veil of personal history. – A.H. Almaas

    Questioning the self or identitiy is a basic practice or koan in Buddhism – Who Am I?

    Don’t know? Here’s help

  • Self-Portrait vs Self-Image

    The reified mind operates in the world on self-images and the conceptional. The true artist is able to step into another dimension to produce a true self-portrait.

  • Good and Evil

    Came across this today in Your Soul’s Compass:

    We’ve defined the Soul’s Compass as an intelligence located in the heart that’s capable of perceiving and responding to the good. In Hebrew there’s a concept called yetzer ha-tov – the urge to good. Sometimes yetzer -ha-tov is imagined sitting on one shoulder, and yetzer ha-ra’ – the evil urge – on the other. We grow in wisdom through our attempts to inquire into, and ultimately transcend the tension of those opposite impulses. The function of the evil urge is to clarify the good, the true, and the beautiful by motivating us to orient to the visible fruits of Spirit in our choices.

    St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, was the Catholic dean of discernment. In the late 15th century, when he was born, discernment was indeed centered on distinguishing good from evil in the classical theological sense of whether a thought came from God or the devil. In the theology of Ignatius, which reflected the thinking of the time, the devil was thought to be a crafty creature intent on leading us astray who was separate from our own more primitive, instinctive desires and inclinations. But regardless of where the “evil urge” originates – most likely from our own inborn nature and conditioning – we can easily distinguish it from the action of our higher nature by the inner state it produces, which Ignatius described as desolation in contrast to consolation.

    – Consolation is a feeling of inner warmth, of being loved by and loving the Creator. A state of interior joy, consolation is characterized by a quiet mind and an open heart. One feels inspired, confident, courageous… held and supported by unseen but beneficent forces.

    – Desolation is a state of interior disturbance that Ignatius called “darkness of the soul.” Sadness, sloth, and separateness from God are its hallmarks. Today’s common maladies of burnout, depression, despondency, addiction and hopelessness are all symptoms of desolation.

    This is fine example of how authors Joan Borysenko and Gordon Dveirin bring wisdom from the past and from differing traditions to their open-ended inquiry into spiritual guidance. Your Soul’s Compass is a great blend of insight from the past and present into the question – What is Spiritual Guidance?

  • Disidentification

    PoppyI came across this post while looking into disidentification. The post, in part, has an exercise in disidentification. There are a lot of “I” statements in the exercise and then this paragraph:

    Through the process of disidentification you become more and more your own manager. You find yourself becoming more free from concerns about the expectations or judgments of other people. The self is the inner director.

    There is little in this exercise, as I see it, that involves disidentification. In fact, just the opposite it increases identification with an idealized self.

    Disidentification is a natural result of open-ended inquiry into the nature of the self. Who am I? What am I? Exploring my beliefs, attitudes and convictions is part of the process of disidentification.

    The process of disidentification often begins with a situation in which we are totally charged, reactive and identified with some self-image from the past. These processes are psychodynamic slices of a larger overall process for the seeker of true nature.

    This manager and director of the self mentioned above is the central identification. The deeper implications of disidentification are clearly seen in the Buddha’s questioning of the existence of self.

     

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