Self Law #3

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. 

Cicero, 51 B.C.

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.)