The Greater Self

The very first thing anyone ever said to me about Buddhism was that it says that the Ego is bad. And it is bad because it rejects the greater self.

I realise now that if you were to summarise Buddhism in a simple statement this would be it. In fact you could summarise religion and philosophy and psychology in its entirety to this,

Now what is so confusing about this statement that it is both hard to understand and hard to take on board?

I now believe that the key to this is that the True Self is not reflexive. The key feature of the Ego is that in its essence it refers to itself.

The "I" of the Ego is a self-contained entity which issues the self-reference. When we say "I am happy" this I positions itself within itself as a King within his Castle makes statements about the affirs of his castle. The whole thing depends upon a belief in a discrete bounded knowledge of a self that exists within the world.

But this is like a child playing with its dolls house and commanding a particular figure that it identifies with.

The Greater Self is not so discrete and graspable. In that dolls house analogy the child is the Greater Self that is manipulating the doll it identifies with.

Whatever we consider of the Ego we forget that the Greater Self is the one doing that considering, not the being that is considered.

It seems unnecessary to pull in SRH here, but we can never consider the True Self as a discrete entity because it is the one doing the considering. If Descartes had instead of doubting everything, had decided to consider everything he would have arrived at an identical realisation. The doubter cannot doubt that they are doubting. The considerer cannot consider that they are considering. There is only considering.

And this is where the Ego fails. When we say "I am considering" we are not the child considering, we are the doll in the dolls house that the child pretends is considering.

When we make discrete statements about the present we are always referring to a fake self, and Ego. And the reason is that what is really happening is that the Greater Self occupies that present moment and is the "thing" really behind what is going on. "thing" in quotes because the temptation when talking about the Greater Self is to make a doll called "Greater Self" and put it on display in the dolls house. The child is the Greater Self and it is too big for the dolls house so is always outside. This inability to actually grasp the Greater Self and put a proper boundary on it, is where all the problems occur for thought, conceptualising and text.

It has been put to me many times that the key to this door is to ask "who?" Who really commands the world? Who really has these thoughts and lives its life? In our dreams and thoughts it is easy we just superficially say "me." But "who thinks it is 'me'?" starts to come into the present moment and cause SRH problems. If we enter the Present fully as ask "who?" we see that there is no one, at least no one discrete that we can put a boundary around and separate from the world and other people. We see that the ego is fake. Its obviously fake cos after we are dead people remember that Ego and put our name on a grave stone or plaque and we live on. But like celluloid heroes we only live on because we were already dead. The living bit is separate from the Ego, it surrounds the Ego, it is the boundless space around the Ego, that while deluded and unclear on things holds onto the Ego instead of letting go of this fake entity and realising the formless and boundless nature of the True Self.

So the True Self does have a relationship with itself, but not discrete and with form. In fact so immediate that its actually pointless to say that. That relationship lies in the nature of the Present Moment as Present. The very presence of the Present Moment is the True Self. That boundless space in which--as Heideggar calls it-- Ontic things exist is the True Self that enables existence itself.

The thing then then which is difficult to grasp is that the True Self does not have a particular personality or identity. The key thing about Ego is that we know ourselves as one of many people. "That is me" we think. "I want this" we think. "That is mine" we think. This self is discrete, has boundaries separate from other things and has a particular identity as a separate entity. This identity has a personality that separates it from others. But this is all Ego. The True Self does not have particular identity, it has no personality and it is not separate from other Selves. In many ways it is actually not us at all. For the Ego it seems like a stranger. The child fully involved with the the doll in the dolls house imagines the doll looking out of the house towards themselves as a stranger. This is how easy it is to be a stranger to our self and not even recognise our self in the world of thoughts and imagination. Yet all the while the child is there completely unaffected by any of the goings on in the dolls house. This is how we are actually unaffected by any of the things we think or believe happens to the Ego. All this is fake. A mental construction. A dream. Once absorbed and attached to the world and the Ego we no longer know our self! This is why Ego is so fundamentally dangerous!

But through meditation and being in the Present Moment we can begin to look away from the doll and start be Be ourselves again, fully involved in what is going on not as the receiver of what is going on but as part of what is going on, as the game of dolls houses. The child no longer the subject of what happens to the doll, but aware of the game of playing with the dolls house as it happens. With what happens to the doll, not the receiver of what happens. The simple playing dolls houses is the True Self, not any of the dolls. This is why they say that the Self is empty - where is the child when they are playing dolls houses? There is just dolls and a house! Jung would say that the House in dreams is a symbol for, and represents, the self. But it only represents, just as a doll or the Ego are just representations.

It is worth noting that the child who is with what is going on in the dolls house is much safer than the one absorbed into a character in the dolls house, If a tiger were to walk into the room then the child would be with the tiger and able to respond. Entranced by the game of dolls house the child may not notice. So we see again how dangerous Ego is. Transfixed by our Ego we are not with the world as it happens. We see the world as things happening to a fake self--the Ego, like a movie. So when we think abandoning the Ego as dangerous we are missing the point. Unattaching from the Ego and not looking after and attending to the self may seem dangerous. Who will look after me if I let go of myself is the cry of every Right-Wing person and Capitalist. It is our own responsibility to look after ourselves is the West's mantra. The child moves a tiger into the dolls house. The socialists come to power in the dolls house. Oh no we are in danger we think. But this is only a fake copy of what is happening. The Ego cannot be hurt cos its not real. We don't care for the tiger in the dolls house that is threatening the doll, we care about the tiger in the room threatening the child! So being in Present Moment is not dangerous, although to our thoughts who attach to symbols and dolls it will seem.

And for reflexive completeness of course this entire text here, with everything it has said, and all the images and imaginations is just a game of dolls houses. I have set up my dolls, child, tiger and even Ego and True Self in a dolls house of words and manipulated them and played games with them. But all the while untouched by anything said was the True Self who was reading all this completely unnoticed! This is how the world distracts us from our true self, and yet the true self is not separate from the world. Our True Self just then was in the reading, or for me in the writing. And perhaps lies in the thinking that has started. Its always there in what is Present, no more and no less and inseparable.

So is True Self immortal is the question that is most pertinent to us. What happens to True Self when we die? Well this is a question for the doll in the dolls house that we identity with. The problem is that True Self is Present and you can't dissect it out of the Present to put in a jar and study. It doesn't need to be fed, it would just be the starvation. It doesn't need to be pampered to in anyway. It is the truth of what is happening right now. It is not fake. It is not a representation in words or in dolls. How can something that is only ever present be something that dies? When we are dying it is dying itself! When we are dead... well this is always a fake thing to imagine so is no concern to the True Self. In Present Moment there is no time, there are no thoughts of "what will happen" there is only happening. True Self is only ever happening, it is never happened or never to happen. If we are thinking like this we are still in the dolls house. And we still need let go of that doll, that ego, we call ourselves and be the thinking of those thoughts themself.