Who are you: part 2

What is the self?

Some call it Ego

It can be related to the material world... even Satan

Heres something to ponder... a wise man once said...

No man lives unto himself; for every living thing is bound by cords to every other living thing. 3 Blest are the pure in heart; for they will love and not demand love in return. 4 They will not do to other men what they would not have other men do unto them. 5 There are two selfs; the higher and the lower self. 6 The higher self is human spirit clothed with soul, made in the form of God. 7 The lower self, the carnal self, the body of desires,is a reflection of the higher self, distorted by the murky ethers of the flesh. 8 The lower self is an illusion, and will pass away; the higher self is God in man, and will not pass away. 9 The higher self is the embodiment of truth reversed, and so is falsehood manifest. 10 The higher self is justice, mercy, love and right; the lower self is what the higher self is not. 11 The lower self breeds hatred, slander, lewdness, murders, theft, and everthing that harms; the higher self is mother of the virtues and the harmonies of life. 12 The lower self is rich in promises, but poor in blessedness and peace; it offers pleasure, joy and satisfying gains; but gives unrest and misery and death. 13 It gives men apples that are lovely to the eye and pleasant to the smell; their cores are full of bitterness and gall. 14 If you would ask me what to study I would say, yourselves; and when you will have studied them, and then would ask me what to study next, I would reply, yourselves. 15 He who knows well his lower self, knows the illusions of the world, knows of the things that pass away; and he who knows his higher self, know God; knows well the things that cannot pass away. 16 Thrice blessed is the man who has made purity and love his very own; he has been ransomed from the perils of the lower self and is himself his higher self. 17 Men seek salvation from an evil that they deem a living monster of the nether world; and they have gods that are but demons in disguise; all powerful, yet full of jealousy and hate and lust; 18 Whose favours must be bought with costly sacrifice of fruits, and of the lives of birds, and animals, and human kind. 19 And yet these gods possess no ears to hear, no eyes to see, no heart to sympathise, no power to save. 20 This evil is myth; these gods are made of air, clothed with shadows of a thought. 21 The only devil from which men must be redeemed is self, the lower self. If man would find his devil he must look within; his name is self. 22 If man would find his saviour he must look within; and when the demon self has been dethroned the saviour, Love, will be exulted to the throne of power. 23 The David of the light is Purity, who slays the strong Goliath of the dark, and seats the saviour, Love, upon the throne.

reluctant-messenger.com...


Another wise man also said...

John 5:30
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

Interesting?

Part 1

First of all is there anything better than a here/not here purple kitty cat?

imho Ego is mind. Self is above mind. The question is which controls most? Self is selfless. It can't be said better than you already did. Have to see who disagrees, isn't me.

Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role.[1]

en.wikipedia.org...

The id is all you really need.

The id is all you really need.

reply to post by theubermensch


Tag, your id, sorry couldn't resist!

reply to post by Akragon


Have you read what ego really is? Among the three, id, ego and superego, the id represents the most basic self, the one presented the most to others and it fulfills the basic needs.

The ego comprises the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions. Conscious awareness resides in the ego, although not all of the operations of the ego are conscious. Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean a sense of self, but later revised it to mean a set of psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defence, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory.[1] The ego separates out what is real. It helps us to organise our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us.[1]"The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world ... The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions

It does not merely represent ourselves as who we are, but what we think and how we think it. The ego is reason-based, not passion-driven.

The super-ego aims for perfection.[17] It comprises that organised part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called "conscience") that criticises and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. "The Super-ego can be thought of as a type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt. For example, for having extra-marital affairs."[20] The super-ego works in contradiction to the id. The super-ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner, whereas the id just wants instant self-gratification. The super-ego controls our sense of right and wrong and guilt. It helps us fit into society by getting us to act in socially acceptable ways.[1] The super-ego's demands often oppose the id’s, so the ego sometimes has a hard time in reconciling the two.[17]

If we state the ego is who we are, we deny the other components id and superego which are direct opposition to each other. For a film school thesis, I compared these in the Wizard of Oz characters...

The Scarecrow represents the id, because he is always seeking to satisfy hunger and is child-like in achieving the ultimate goal of obtaining a brain.

The Tin Man represents the ego, because he is always using reason in achieving the ultimate goal in obtaining a heart..or the seat of passions the ego does not have, but which the id has.

The Lion represents the superego because he represents the ultimate desire of achieving the highest moral identity, which for him was bravery. The concepts of why one should be brave are found in the superego. His ultimate goal was obtain courage.

These three were the characters contained within the dream of Dorothy, her ultimate goal was to get home, or get to that place she was always at to begin with. She merely had to click her ruby heels and she would be home. She had to go to Oz to find the way home, and L. Frank Baum, who was a Theosophist, introduced the effects of heroin from the poppy seeds, the witch placed a spell on them through the poppies. The witch's ultimate goal was the destruction of Dorothy and the three fellow-travelers, the id, ego and superego.

When the wizard imparts the gifts, he informs the receivers that they had it all along, which was Baum's way of explaining to the reader or viewer that we already have what we need for the id, ego and superego to function properly. Baum's idea was that we don't need pyschological hucksters or magic incantations to give us anything, we already have it.

But this is merely my interpretation of The Wizard of Oz. Baum was introducing many mystical aspects in the book, the symbolism is there if we understand his own theosophical views.

Rubies and ruby jewelry throughout time have been said to have many positive effects and mystical properties. The ruby is associated with the sun, and was thought to preserve mental and physical health. In the middle ages, rubies were viewed as a stone of prophecy. It was thought the stone darkened when danger was near. Ivan the Terrible of Russia stated that rubies were good for the heart, brain and memory

Baum was incorporating Theosophist ideas in the Wizard of Oz.

reply to post by Iamschist


Indeed, the Cheshire Cat kicks ass.

Who am I?

In the great words of Devin Townsend from all the way back in 1994....

"I am the coming of a new age, stained we still stand tall
I am the coming of a new age and I will never fall
I bear the questions of a new time, seen but never heard
I've seen the comings of a new time, get ready cause here it comes"

reply to post by Akragon

Originally posted by Akragon
What is the self?
…

Hey Akragon…

Strangely enough, this is where my journey and search for God began.

In early 2009 I heard God’s voice, asking me the question “What is man?” and I also felt the voice ask me “What are you?”

With God’s help, I found the answers (and many others) sometime towards the back end of 2009.

To keep this short, the answers I found to those questions, were that, “I am part of the living God”, or put slightly differently, “I’m a son of God!”


To those still searching, I would say this…


“Know thyself, and you will become known!”


Or more appropriately, from the original text…



Verse 3 from the “Gospel of Thomas”

(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

And I should just add, that I found the answer, before finding the “Gospel of Thomas”…


- JC

reply to post by Joecroft


20And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

21Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.