Open-Secrets

Tag: false self

  • Loss of Self vs. Self is Lost

    No-selfLoss of Self – What does it mean? What is lost? Is the experience similar to being lost?

    Buddhism and other non-dual teachings say there is no self to lose. Others say the self is an ontolgical reality that has various levels or degrees of manifestation including those bound and confined within the world of object relations and conceptualization.

    Many are seeking the True Self. Do they want to lose the False Self and find some notion of a new and improved self? I think this sense of wanting to find or be a true self is an inherent dynamic within the soul for authenticity, to be what one really is.

    It’s the concept of that “one,” the individual consciousness, that is in question here. The biggest misunderstanding, as I see it, is conceptualizing or reifying the notion of a true self according to one’s current belief structure.

    The challenge of “spiritual experience” is that it is mostly co-opted by the ego mind. Experience gets categorized and filed according to the past, the familiar and the comfortable.

    Loss of Self at the ego level is mostly terrifying as the mind interprets this as actual death or going insane or some other existential disaster.

    In fact, the experience of loss of self is liberating if one is able to relax into the experience. This involves letting go of the compulsion of staying one step ahead of one’s experience.

    Free-falling into experience as it unfolds without the immediate need to control or understand is challenging. What seems to help facilitate the process is a sense of loving curiosity that is more centered in the heart than the head.

    Looking at the world today, I can only see loss of a few zillion selfs as a positive thing. Indeed, the world might improve overnight if we forget the past and let the self go.

    Does loss of self mean loss of identity, loss of control, loss if the individual? What are your thoughts – experiences?

     

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  • Ego Development

    Development of the Ego – sounds like a constuction site project and in many ways it is. There are foundations, structures, images (facades) and much more that seem similar to a housing project – and why not – when all is said and done a person lives within that structure – most are shut-ins, fearing to venture outside of their ego development (ego identity).

    Although many things are known about ego development, there is still much to learn.

    Ego development, as defined by Jane Loevinger, who developed a model to illustrate human personality development, consists of the changes in mental processes put in place by the self or ego (one’s self-image or sense of being) to make coherent meaning of what is happening as it experiences day-to-day life. Therefore, one could say that the ego is a meaning making machine, engaged in constantly organizing and reorganizing everything it sees, feels, hears, touches, senses, thinks and tastes. It does this to create and recreate a human viewpoint – your viewpoint. This is the individual perspective which each human can rely on to approach the enormous job of living life. Our egos work tirelessly on our behalf making our worldview out of the barrage of conflicting information that we are immersed in everyday. – Paul Marko

    A Google search on Ego Development shows almost 500K returns. Beyond the students of psychology and researchers who would be searching?

    Knowledge of ego development is invaluable for those on the spiritual journey. Ego development results in ego identity – what many spiritual seekers refer to when they say – false self.

    The true self that is sought is the self that exists free from identification with the ego and it’s structures. The “false self” does not need to be destroyed and we don’t need to engage in some holy war with it. Simple curiosity and understanding will allow the false to disolve and what’s true to remain.

    Understanding ego development helps this process along.

     

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  • Narcissistic Injury

    NarcissismNarcissistic injury is one of those loaded psychological terms. In fact, all things narcissistic seem to be. I think that is because the word narcissism or narcissistic is generally used to describe pathology and not the over-arching reality that everyone with an ego (everyone) is a narcissist.

    Narcissistic defenses are present to some degree in all people, but are especially pervasive in narcissists. These defenses are used to protect the narcissist from experiencing the feelings of the narcissistic injury. – StudyWorld

    Ego identity, the false self, or whatever you want to call it, is fundamentally a case of mistaken identity. The “I” or “me” involved in this case of mistaken identity is self-centered and self-promotional.

    Narcissists cannot love others because they don’t love their TRUE self. They “love” a fiction – the FALSE SELF. They are full of feelings of inferiority and self-loathing and they are very sadistic and self-punishing when they incur a narcissistic injury (when they “fail”). You can’t love others if you do not love yourself. Moreover, narcissists do not understand what it means to be human (i.e., they lack empathy). To them other people are bi-dimensional, cartoon, cardboard cutouts, or, at most, an audience. Others are FUNCTIONS, INSTRUMENTS, EXTENSIONS. They, therefore, cannot be loved for what THEY ARE but only for WHAT THEY PROVIDE. This is no real love. Sam Vaknin

    Narcissistic injury can be understood at a more macro level to be the wounding that occurs from not being seen or not being heard. Narcissistic injury, when experienced at its root, is the most painful wound in the soul – the wound of disconnection from True Nature.

    The narcissist says, “I exist.” A narcissistic injury is you showing him that he does not exist in your life. Kicking him in the teeth and telling him he is a jerk is not a narcisstic injury– because he must therefore exist.

     

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