More on 'self' and 'Self'

 Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame tree, intimate friends, the ego ['self']and the Self dwell in the same body.  The former eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of Life, and the latter looks on in detachment. 

The Mundaka Upanishads

I love this passage from the Upanishads as found in Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. I am obsessed now with this need to explain the little I understand and know about 'self' and Self. The passage teaches that the little self and the true Self both reside within us.  The  'self' desires and averts,  attached to the things of the external world, while the Self simply observes, attached to none of it.

The self is linked with our attachment to symbols, the personality's 'gold' ...those things the ego craves and is so attached to: money, recognition, some notion of success, material things, etc.  The "Self", however, is pure detachment from these things...needing none of it. 

Remember how I said that our identification with 'self' leaves us confined, imprisoned, and suffering. Well, that is true. With 'self' as our identity, we are forever chasing symbols and....

Chasing symbols is like settling for the road map instead of the territory. It creates anxiety; it ends up making you feel hollow and empty inside because you exchange your Self for the symbols of your Self ['self']. Chopra page 84

The things 'self' wants are not what 'Self' wants. They are points on a map, not the actual earth the map is pointing to.  These things are constantly changing, coming and going, just as our idea of self comes and goes. 

And we experience the truth of selflessness when we see nothing lasts long enough to be called 'self'. Goldstein, page 282

What we want is that which does not have to come and go: peace and joy, and that can only come from Self

By renouncing worldly things you possess the most important sacred property: your peace. Yoga Sutras, page 24

Renounicg doesn't mean we have to give all our possessions away or stop wanting things altogether.  It simply means we are not attached to getting them, our happiness is no longer dependent on the outcome of our desires.  We play with things of the external world but knowing that they will come and they will go we don't base our happiness on them. We are the Self looking at the sweet and sour fruit of the tree of Life with utter detachment. They are not important to us.  Our peace is. 

I love this from the Yoga Sutras,

The moment you understand yourself as the true Self, you find such peace and bliss that the impressions of the petty enjoyments you experienced before become as ordinary specks of light in front of the brilliant sun.  You lose all interest permanently.  'that is the highest non-attachment. Sutras, page 28

Deepak Chopra (1993) The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. California: Amber-Allan/New World Library.

Joseph Goldstein (2013) Mindfulness.Boulder: Sounds True 

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as translated by Sr. Swami Satchidananda. (2011) Yogaville: Integral Yoga Press