Radical Uniqueness
March 22, 2008 by Chris
Two recent posts by Pablo and Katinka have addressed a similar idea.
I’d like to talk more about the idea of crucifying our material selves. Generally, I’m curious about the range of attitudes towards not only the physical body, but the embodied self, the personality, the ego (which also relates Katinka’s distinction between self-confidence and letting go of the self).
Granting that in reality the traditions are more subtle than this, we can nonetheless see a tendency to diminish, perhaps even demonize the ‘lower’ self. In Gnosticism the body becomes a prison, in theosophical circles there is abundant talk of transcending the ego.
I don’t experience my body as a prison. To me it provides opportunity (in the same way any limitations are necessary for creativity), incarnation is a gift, even with the body’s weakness, vulnerability and inevitable collapse. Same with my personality. Metaphysically, I believe my spirit choose this body and self, and its legion flaws, intentionally.
If the entire manifest universe is the ultimate One coming to know itself, then the ultimate aspiration for each of us, for every moment of manifestation, is to be fully our self.
Let me be clear. In the vast, concept defying, vastness of time and space, there will be only one You (insert your name and defining story here). Your atma-buddhi-manas is eternal, but the particular form it chose to take here and now is utterly, radically unique.
That uniqueness includes, essentially, your temporal, embodied self, your body and personality. To negate that is to negate the motivation of manifestation.
The subtlety comes from the fact that we are layered beings. The question, then, is where to locate our uniqueness. I’ve done some incredibly selfish, mundane, harmful and indulgent things in the name of ‘following my bliss’ and ‘being true to my self’.
I keep coming back to Krishna talking to Arjuna about the chariot, where the horses are the senses and the chariot is the body. It isn’t a matter of getting rid of the horses and the chariot, it is a matter of who is guiding them.
This is why theosophy is so important. It gives us a model of the self that can help us identify who, or what in us, is really responding.
To play on the Easter theme, Pablo is correct to say we must crucify our materials selves, but the message is also that this material self is reborn, not discarded. Our eternal, spiritual self acts through our temporal, physical/emotional self.
Chris
Govert
Pablo
latebrake
mitdyob
I have no idea what Pablo means when he says we should crucify the material selves. Sorry Pablo. Even Jesus didn’t actively crucify his material self: life did that to Him. I’ve always taken the crucifiction to stand for the sorrows that life brings us. We can take on more responsibility and with it more sorrow, or we can try and cushion ourselves from sorrow and take on less of a cross. The crucifiction is about letting your sense of ego go - our pride, self-pity that sort of thing - and ultimately about transcending the material to experience the eternal.
A bit of psychological terminology may clarify things a bit here, perhaps. In psychological parlance our personality is that in us which lasts throughout this lifetime. For instance: however much I may have conquered my shyness (everyone seems to say I have, so its probably true), I’m still an introvert. Being an introvert is part of my personality. That is just one of the tools I have to work with. It says something about how I am in crowds, what kind of parties I like, how I process information and so on. It is one of those limits you talked about above.
I think we usually don’t use the word personality that strictly. When we talk about transcending the personality, we often mean transcending our conditionings - which is one of the things Krishnamurti talked about a lot. For instance:
Hi Folks,
I was talking using Christian symbolism and imagery. But if we want analyze more deeply this subject we have to use the Theosophical terminology, which I find the most accurate and clarifying one (granted you know the meaning of the terms).
I’ll send a new post to deal with it.
“The question, then, is where to locate our uniqueness”
We are always already radically unique, for we are historical beings with each their own historically formed understanding of one’s self, historical situation and responsibilities.
But this uniqueness gets snowed under under the many ways of understanding and its accompanying concepts that we appropriate inauthentically from our teachers and peers in the phenomenon of “mass consciousness” or “the they.”
On top of that we as Westerners, with our insufficiently questioned tendency towards philosophical, scientific and theological “objectiviation” and control, might even be more prone to overlook the radical unique historical nature of the selves that we are, for this objectifying tendency, as a matter of its intrinsic nature, can never understand this uniqueness, let alone letting it be.
Even theosophy succumbs to that tendency.