Each person has many masks, many selves...they are not the essence of who we are...why do we cling so tightly to definitions that separate us...
Cynthia F. Davidson, from the Wisdom Wheel Self card
The Law of the Self is about identity and our sense of it. Think about everything; from your ego self, to your subconscious and your Higher Self, sometimes referred to the godself. Which deserves to be capitalized, as Self?
On the spectrum of 'Know thy self', where are you? A 10, with full Self knowledge?
How can you better know yourself?
Does this sound 'selfish'? Why?
For the next 10 days, make Self your watch word.
Ask for wisdom about Self, first thing every morning, and last thing every night.
Write the word Self down, on your mirror, in your journal, on a rock or a Post It note.
Talk about the Self and identity with friends and family.
Experiment with the mental, emotional, physical, sensory & spiritual aspects of your Self.
Look for news stories that demonstrate it positively or negatively.
See what happens when you invite Self Awareness into your life.
Share what you learn with us.
(For a set of Wisdom Wheel cards visit our website www.thewisdomwheel.com)
Here are some wise words from those who've paid attention to the Self.
The less humans chose to know of the Self, the more base
they remain.
Hyemeyohsts
Storm in Lightingbolt
The greatest fatigue of
the day, and of a life may be caused by the effort, by the tension necessary to
keep the same self through the continual temptations to change it. We want too
much to be someone. There is not one self. There are not ten selves. There is
no self. ME is only a position in equilibrium.
Henri Michaux, Plume
To the emptied, waiting, dis-identified ego…some thing
special happens. Some one comes. Psychologically we describe this as… being taken
over by a greater subject. Jung calls it the break-in of the Self upon the ego,
moving the ego over, away from the center of things. One’s psychic universe is
radically rearranged, so that the unconscious can now get in. Consciousness is
opened for good…the sense of I-ness…opens onto the unknown and lives
comfortably with it.
Ann
Belford Ulanov, The Wisdom of the Psyche
Of all our infirmities,
the most savage is to despise our being.
Michel de
Montaigne, The Complete Essays
It took millions of years, to build this unique center of consciousness, this I-am-I, this small distorted viewpoint experiencing all things from the inside out. Individualization is a great and necessary step on the spiral path of evolution, but the time must come, when separations will give way to unity, to cooperation and fusion with all-consciousness.
Evelyn Eaton in The Shaman & the Medicine Wheel
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Anais Nin in The
Diaries of Anais Nin (multiple volumes)
The territory of the self is a vast, unexplored and
prohibited geography…our experiences, feelings, insights, understandings are
often off-limits. Often we are imprisoned inside ourselves…actually living in
exile outside ourselves. One of the basic conditions of contemporary life is
the unfulfilled longing of the self for itself.
Deena
Metzger in Entering The Ghost River
The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur
very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other
loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
Soren
Kierkegaard in The Sickness Unto Death
Our instincts and
appetites are better guides, for a healthy life, than the advice of other human
beings. People are fun, but not quite as serious or trustworthy as nature is…
The self’s responsibility is to achieve rapport, if not rapture, with the
giant, cosmic other.
John Updike (1932 – 2009) American
author, books include Self-Consciousness
and Rabbit series.
Women are taught to embrace other people at the expense of
the self; men are taught to bolster the self, often at the expense of others.
It is hard to get it all in balance.
Harriet
Lerner in The Dance of Intimacy
Identity would seem to be the garment with which one
covers the nakedness of the self…it is best that the garment be loose, like the
robes of the desert, through which ones’ nakedness can always be felt…This
trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change ones’ robes.
James Baldwin in Another
Country
The spirit is the
true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.
Self is a generic
word for God, Goddess, Tao, Higher Power and Spirit.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.
Far from being selfish, finding my own self
was fundamental because that’s the only part that can relate first hand to God.
Mary Morrison, a
teacher of gospel studies, in The
Feminine Face of God
Somewhere,
underlying the facets of self and how we view the self in relation to the manifest
world… is the spiritual reality of inner self.
Behind the dreams of self is the real self… an inner, unchanging self.
This is what we seek in the mystic search... the center, the self at the very
center of being… the calm, inner self, around which our very lives swirl and
change. In our search for this balanced and whole self-awareness, we are drawn
to differing ways, each with its own reality.
Chokecherry Gall Eagle in Beyond the Lodge of the Sun
There is nothing
noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to
your previous self.
Hindu proverb
Meditate deeply,
and thou shall find there is nothing thou canst call ‘I’. The innermost result
of all analysis is the eternal divine. When egoism vanishes, divinity manifests
itself.
Ramakrishna, Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna
(A new Law goes up each 10 days. Stay tuned & participate in the discussion by commenting below. Thanks.)
