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advice
April 2009 
What's the best piece of advice you've received from a friend?
Posted on Apr 19th, 2007
by 
maryw
maryw
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for April 19, 2007:
"Embrace the false self and allow it to become your teacher."
--Susan Komis, pastoral minister and staff member of Contemplative Outreach Int'l.
For Christian contemplatives, the false self is the unreal self, a "pseudo entity" that we manufacture out of the ego. Characterized by a sense of separateness and self-sufficiency, it is who we imagine ourselves to be. It is also inherently needy and fragile -- since its existence is tenuous and incomplete, it fears there is never enough. Thus the false self constantly needs to:
-- justify and validate itself
--work to manufacture and concoct itself each day
--defend and protect itself
--look to the outside world for happiness
--avoid pain at all costs; seek comfort and escape
--assert itself -- sometimes through arrogance, anger, and judgementalness
--reinvent itself
Earlier in the spiritual journey, when we are confronted with those first disconcerting glimpses of our false self, we are tempted to berate it, to push it away, to despise it -- even to "punish" it in some way. But, as contemplative teacher Susan Komis pointed out during a recent mini-retreat on the works of Teresa of Avila, the desire to "get rid" of the false self is simply another aspect of the false self itself -- its need to perceive itself as moving forward and "making progress" -- to become a better (yet still false) self. If we act on the need to improve or punish the false self, we only end up clinging to it, reinforcing it, and strengthening it. The false self does not have the power to "destroy" itself.
Susan's suggestion, based on St. Teresa's teachings in her book The Interior Castle, is to simply cultivate awareness of this false self in action -- gently, without judgment, without blame or chastisement, seeking nothing other than a clear-eyed view of this aspect of the human condition. In doing so, we can actually develop a friendly relationship with it -- and allow that relationship to teach us humility, patience, and compassion for this facet of ourselves (and others), recognizing it as temporary and ever-changing, and trusting the ongoing spiritual transformation that we may not be able to perceive from our present perspective.
Paradoxically, we "let go" of the false self by hearing it and embracing it -- ever so gently. In the light of Love, it slowly dissolves . . .
--Susan Komis, pastoral minister and staff member of Contemplative Outreach Int'l.
For Christian contemplatives, the false self is the unreal self, a "pseudo entity" that we manufacture out of the ego. Characterized by a sense of separateness and self-sufficiency, it is who we imagine ourselves to be. It is also inherently needy and fragile -- since its existence is tenuous and incomplete, it fears there is never enough. Thus the false self constantly needs to:
-- justify and validate itself
--work to manufacture and concoct itself each day
--defend and protect itself
--look to the outside world for happiness
--avoid pain at all costs; seek comfort and escape
--assert itself -- sometimes through arrogance, anger, and judgementalness
--reinvent itself
Earlier in the spiritual journey, when we are confronted with those first disconcerting glimpses of our false self, we are tempted to berate it, to push it away, to despise it -- even to "punish" it in some way. But, as contemplative teacher Susan Komis pointed out during a recent mini-retreat on the works of Teresa of Avila, the desire to "get rid" of the false self is simply another aspect of the false self itself -- its need to perceive itself as moving forward and "making progress" -- to become a better (yet still false) self. If we act on the need to improve or punish the false self, we only end up clinging to it, reinforcing it, and strengthening it. The false self does not have the power to "destroy" itself.
Susan's suggestion, based on St. Teresa's teachings in her book The Interior Castle, is to simply cultivate awareness of this false self in action -- gently, without judgment, without blame or chastisement, seeking nothing other than a clear-eyed view of this aspect of the human condition. In doing so, we can actually develop a friendly relationship with it -- and allow that relationship to teach us humility, patience, and compassion for this facet of ourselves (and others), recognizing it as temporary and ever-changing, and trusting the ongoing spiritual transformation that we may not be able to perceive from our present perspective.
Paradoxically, we "let go" of the false self by hearing it and embracing it -- ever so gently. In the light of Love, it slowly dissolves . . .
Access: Public
Just beautiful dear Mary.
“The desire to “get rid” of the false self is simply another aspect of the false self itself”
Fabulous.
It’s what I call being in the box, and trying to get ‘rid’ of the box, or see ‘beyond’ it, but I’m still in the ‘box’ - so whatever I do from this place is, well, boxed in!
So there is no way to get out of the box. Any ‘doing’ is just another aspect of being in the box.
For me there is simply awareness, and this is akin to your ‘embrace’.
My experience is that the more I bring the light of loving awareness to what is, the more I ‘include’ what is, the more all boundaries melt, all ‘false’ selves are included in the whole; and the whole is ever-expanding, ever unfolding. In this ‘light’, the little bits of ourselves which are the result of pain or trauma or denial become tiny twinkling grains of sand on a wide beautiful, endless golden beach.
Ah – I'm just now seeing this comment, Sandra!
It's what I call being in the box, and trying to get ‘rid' of the box, or see ‘beyond' it, but I'm still in the ‘box' - so whatever I do from this place is, well, boxed in!
Thank you for this! – I enjoy looking at other metaphors, other ways of describing these things …
Happy travels – (I heard you'd be on the move for much of the rest of the month).
blessings,
Mary
I love this subject! It forms the basis for the essay I will be posting on Friday for (the first annual/bimonthly?) Blogopalooza. It is a key, in my experience, to freedom. Yummy.