Let each man raise the Self by Soul, not trample down his Self, since Soul that is Self's friend may grow Self's foe. Soul is Self's friend when Self does rule over Self, but Self turns enemy if Soul's own self hates Self as not itself. B.G. 6:5 https://sacred-texts.com/hin/gita/bg06.htm
Different translations from the Bhagavad Gita's 6:5
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. https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/6/verse/5
Let a man lift himself up by his own Self alone, and let him not lower himself; for this Self alone is the friend of oneself,and this Self is the enemy of oneself. https://shlokam.org/bhagavad-gita/6-5/
Let a man be lifted up by his own self; let him not lower himself; for he himself is his friend, and he himself is his enemy. https://vivekavani.com/b6v5/
Hmm! Back to that line from the Gita that was swirling around in my head for days now. It has been translated from the original Sanskrit into English in different ways, as you can see. Each translation is going to alter the meaning slightly. I am thinking the translation that Michael Singer oftens refers to is the first one. So in this translation I see three concepts of self possibly in conflict: Self ( capitol S), self ( small s) and Soul. It looks like the self ( little me, ego, maybe...the personalized mind) belongs to Soul...... and the Soul is the mediator between self and Self? So we are asked to use Soul ( the individual essence of who we are) to raise the Self (the collective essence of who we are/ higher consciousness/impersonal mind), instead of trampling down the Self/self with Self? Soul is pleased when Self has control of Self ( mind maybe) but if self hates Self...refuses to see itself as Soul because it is so wrapped up in personal mind maybe, if shamer ego has the reins...then there is a conflict between Self and Soul.
Let's put that into easier to follow words:
It is all about listening to soul over ego, impersonal mind over personal. For us to grow...as we are here to do... we must befriend who we are in all our forms. We don't beat any part of ourselves up (trample down)... Most of us are still so over identified with the "little me"...the ego self ...the personal mind... that we don't even acknowledge the soul or the Self. We are lost in the "me" drama.This little self grows under this attention to the point it is who we believe ourselves to be at the expense of coming to know who we truly are ...a soul seeking to embrace Self. The self begins, then, to run the show...self rules over Self, personal mind rules over impersonal mind. This, of course, interrupts soul's mission here. This is one of the ways we accumulate karma.
Don't trample down "little me" either
Sometimes this "little me" is not kind to itself. Sometimes it even hates itself. Speaking in terms of the psychological ideas of self concept and self esteem , which may not be important to the Self ( the light of consciousness), we can often trample down ourselves with our negative self talk etc. So not only are we lost in an ego ...we are lost in a very self abusive one. We beat ourselves up, we trample our selves down. We live in the lower negative energies and that is what we use the light of Self to shine on. What a waste of precious energy. We take this amazing powerful light of awareness and shine it down on this little speck we call me and when we are not liking what we see, we see only the negative.
Karmic Effect
We may not care for the body, mind and energy Soul is in, in a positive way. This accumulates karma, as well. It is important to note that both karma and the law of attraction are real universal laws. The law of attraction works both ways. If our focus is on the negative, we will attract negative circumstances into our lives. (Even if this seems like utter woo-woo, think about that for a minute. How many positive things happen to you and around you when you are having a real bad day? If you are miserable inside, you see only miserable things around you, right? You are more likely to stub your toe and curse the world for putting whatever that was in your way. You are more likely to bonk your horn at the person driving too slow in front of you, or snap at someone you love...causing some extra conflict and negative karma there, right? Your thoughts and feeling about yourself are also negative so you are less likely to embrace opportunity and reach your full potential etc. It is just the way it works. ) If we are still over identified with little me's drama we will continue to react negatively with our thought, feelings, actions and energies to the "negative" things unfolding...increasing our karmic accumulation of negative! It becomes a vicious cycle and it keeps us down, spinning our tires in the mud.
Self and Soul in the Trampling Down Drama
The Self...universal consciousness...gets glued to this drama even though Soul may be crying out, "No! Don't do that! Raise yourself up out of this pit. You are so much more than this!" Soul's voice is often drowned out by the sound of spinning tires and Self's glued attention to the mess it is in, that we don't hear it. Until we listen to this sage advice, "Raise yourself up with soul!"...we are going to be stuck in the karmic loop. Until Self takes its attention away from looking down at self and raises it up into the spaciousness of what is, we are going to be stuck. Soul will not evolve as quickly as it could if we simply used it, recognized who we really were, and shone that light of Self upward.
Though we are here to get beyond self to Self ...this collective higher consciousness...the unity of all...that doesn't mean we are to trample this mental entity of self, which was created on the individual soul that came here to evolve beyond it, down. We need to raise up Self ...our awareness, our consciousness, by getting passed this "me" focus and acknowledging the soul within us. We can start by being more positive. But not positive in The Secret way. Most of us believe we are being more positive when we don't give up on or dreams and fantasies of getting those things we believe will make us feel good inside. When we say, "Look at how positive she is. She didn't give up on her dreams of becoming a musician. She worked hard and struggled everyday, barely surviving, losing her family, to get that record deal. That's positive.", we got positivity all wrong.
The True Positivity
That is not the kind of positive I am talking about. True positivity is being able to accept what is unfolding in front of us, as it is, without being disturbed by any of it. It is all about being open and receptive to all Life offers. True positivity doesn't require that we get something out there to make us feel better in here; it means we are able to find peace with what is. We accept we have a self, an ego, a little me that is far from kind to itself. We learn to have tolerance and compassion for that little me even though we begin the process of detaching from it. We break up with it in kindness. We counter the self abuse. We meet ego's needs to some extent. But more importantly we meet the needs of the soul. We listen to the soul and use Life and whatever it unfolds in front of us as a tool for helping the soul to expand and grow the way it is meant to. We take the Self...the light of consciousness...and shine it away from "me" onto Soul so we can see who we truly are. Once we recognize what we are...there will be no more trampling down of the self, or Self, or Soul. There will be no more conflict between between Soul, self, and Self....just harmony. And when self is no longer there in the way, there will be nothing but sat chit ananda: eternal, conscious bliss.
Hmm! That was quite a ramble. It might not make a lot of sense now but I will get back to it.
All is well in my world.
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( September 24, 2023) Consciousness and the Personal Mind. https://tou.org/talks/
Bhagavad Gita 6: 5 ...translations from sources above.
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