Me, my self and I
kerii April 26th, 2009
The world seems to be completely smitten with the idea of getting to know one self all of a sudden. Or at least it appears that way to me.
I just returned to Namibia after having lived in Israel for the better part of the past three years. In catching up with a number of friends I have been surprised to find that a common topic of discussion with people nowadays is the question, “How do I get to know myself better?”
At first I thought it may have just been a Namibian thing, but to be sure I decided to go online to see if this was a global trend I somehow missed.
I found a staggering 140 thousand news articles that had written about the concept in one way or another last month alone! I found a further 166 million Web pages that had content relating to the concept.
Now these numbers may not be as big as the 526 thousand news articles that were written containing the name Barack Obama last month, but they were significantly higher than the 53 thousand articles written with the words climate change. Therefore I came to the conclusion that this was a topic that merited investigation.
As always, the source of my initial enquiry into this matter was the Baha’i writings. And it is here that I found the gems that inspired this post.
It seems the Baha’i Faith takes a different approach to the issue of knowledge of “self” to that of contemporary society. One can find thousands upon thousands of sites and articles on-line that suggest true happiness comes from finding out who you really are as an individual — and then designing your life to fit that self-informed identity.
Though the Baha’i writings do not disagree with this entirely, they do offer a nugget that I have not expressly found in other sources: The only way to truly find one’s self is to find God!
Baha’u'llah says,
O My servants! Could ye apprehend with what wonders of My munificence and bounty I have willed to entrust your souls, ye would, of a truth, rid yourselves of attachment to all created things, and would gain a true knowledge of your own selves — a knowledge which is the same as the comprehension of Mine own Being.
Therefore true knowledge of ourselves is the same as that of knowing God! In the words of one of my heroes, “put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
It is with this understanding that my mind truly began to swirl. God is everything! How can my reality be the reality of every other thing too?
The question betrayed a paradox between my understanding of how the contemporary world defines “self” and the Baha’i writing’s definition of this same concept. On the one hand the world sees “self” as an entirely subjective and highly individual state of being. On the other, the Baha’i writings see “self” as an integral part of one of the broadest concepts our minds can conceive of – everything!
Case in point: Abdu’l-Baha says to master self is to become part of the “universe and the inhabitants thereof.”
Full quote:
Today the confirmations of the Kingdom of Abha are with those who renounce themselves, forget their own opinions, cast aside personalities and are thinking of the welfare of others. Whosoever has lost himself has found the universe and the inhabitants thereof. Whosoever is occupied with himself is wandering in the desert of heedlessness and regret. The ‘master-key’ to self-mastery is self-forgetting. The road to the palace of life is through the path of renunciation.
My understanding of the Baha’i writings regarding this point is not that we all become monks and meditate until we become one with the world. Rather it is that we become the living embodiments of this principle and strive to employ it in all of our daily activities.
Further my investigation into the writings uncovered a deeper nuance. The writings suggest that all individuals consist of two selves. One of which we commonly know as Ego. The other is the Higher Self.
Shoghi Effendi said,
…self has really two meanings, or is used in two senses, in the Bahá’í writings; one is self, the identity of the individual created by God. This is the self mentioned in such passages as “he hath known God who hath known himself”, etc. The other self is the ego, the dark, animalistic heritage each one of us has, the lower nature that can develop into a monster of selfishness, brutality, lust and so on. It is this self we must struggle against… in order to strengthen and free the spirit within us and help it to attain perfection.
How do we do this? An answer I found was in meeting the challenge Baha’u'llah gave us when He raised the bar on the golden rule. He said,
Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.
“Do onto others as you would have them do onto you” is no longer good enough.
Of course the other part of this answer is a good dose of daily prayer.
After writing and looking back at all of this, I felt that we were being asked to do something super human. Apparently I was right! In explaining these ideas to a believer, Shoghi Effendi said meeting these challenges would be impossible for a human being. However, as human beings it is our responsibility to try.
The only people who are truly free of the “dross of self” are the Prophets,” he said. “…for to be free of one’s ego is a hallmark of perfection. We humans are never going to become perfect, for perfection belongs to a realm we are not destined to enter. However, we must constantly mount higher, seek to be more perfect.
So… now that I had an informed perspective on how to find one’s self and all the different implications that had, I decided to call one of my friends who asked me the question that started this all in the first place.
The phone rang….
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