A Friend to self and Self

 Elevate yourself through the power of your mind, and not degrade yourself, for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self. 

Bhagavad Gita 6: 5 

Do you use your mind to raise yourself up or do you use your mind to tear yourself down?  And what is this self that we are tearing down?

Hmm!  I often tear myself down and what I am tearing down is that which is something that is getting in the way of me being all I can be. I am told and believe that it is not healthy to tear this self down. Ironically, then, I  am concerned about tearing down the "self" ( note the little 's')  that is in the way of me experiencing who I really am...the Self ( note the big 'S').  Is that not the case for most of us with twisted psyches...self concepts that are less than healthy and positive...created on a platform of negative messaging from others?  We come to believe in our core that we are not enough and that we deserve reprimand and punishment. So we live a life of tearing down the self with the mind...with what I call the "Shamer Ego" component of mind, an enemy. Living out self fulfilling prophecy, self sabotage, and negative and critical self talk often becomes the way of tearing down this self.  Any psychologist would tell you how unhealthy that is.

Big 'S' or little 's'

Yet, at the same time , if we are inclined to take those steps to deeper understanding that go beyond psychology, we will see that this thing we are tearing down is not something we want to preserve for higher reasons than self punishment anyway.  This thing we are tearing down is actually just a veil, an idea, an ego, a mind created blockage, that is in our way of something greater...the Self. It is something we are addicted to, something we are so inclined to focus on for shaming or redeeming reasons that it takes up all our conscious awareness. It is something we get lost in and overly identified with becasue it is all we can see. 

All we can see

Why is it all we can see? It is all we can see because it is all we are looking at.  We narrowed this amazing light of Self ( pure conscious awareness) to shine onto this entity and its "me, my, or mine" drama, at the exclusion of everything else. This self is not real yet it is what is causing all our suffering. It is like a big blob in front of the One thing that is real, beautiful, true. ...the One thing that is full of light, love, safety. The blob is so big and dark we can only see glimpses of light around it, if anything at all. So if we are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the light and reality beneath this blob, why wouldn't we want to knock down this wall of self( with the little 's') so we can feel that warmth, peace, joy and ultimate safety of the Self with the big "S"?

Enemies to self

Hmm! Most of us, however, who spend their lives tearing down the self are not aware of the light beyond it, are not aware that there is more. We are consumed by the blob, believing that is all there is and that we are it.  We are so busy focusing on the negative drama of little me...a drama we created by the way, with our resistance to what Life was handing out and our karmic consequences brought on by the ways in which we resisted....that we are lost in it. Shamer ego rules. We use the mind to tear down and degrade  self not for Self, but for self. We make enemies of our minds. It is unhealthy.

Being kind to self to get to Self

Yes, the ultimate goal is to get to Self...well to fall back into Self, realizing that it is there and has always been there...but we failed to see that because we were distracted by our focus on self. So, yes we do want to remove self...to die to be reborn. We want to be able to use this amazing power of the mind to shine on everything without that annoying blob limiting our clarity and vision. We want to see who we are is Self, and that we were never self...that entity we degraded and beat down so often. Still we do not want to keep beating down this thing we are believing we are in the meantime. We want the mind to be a friend , not an enemy.

A friend

Let's stop making the mind the enemy of self.  Let's just, without degradation or abuse, remove the light of consciousness from this me-blob we believe we are and shine it towards the background where the light is sure to shine, if only in glimpses at first, until all we see and feel is the light of Self.

It isn't going to be easy.  Breaking an addiction takes committed will power and practice. Even our self abusing tendencies are habitual...but just knowing that can be a step forward can't it? We do not have to continue using the mind to tear self down, we can use it to shine on Self.  We can.  We can. 

All is well in my world.. 

 Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( September 8, 2023) The Focus of  Consciousness. https://tou.org/talks/