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Do You Believe in the Self?

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
z7nHu1JyrEt-ZXEXToC04WgrY08yzzJ65BHcZccwk-0.gif

Who are you?
What are you?

Are you the image in the mirror?
Are you a mother, father, doctor, waitress? Beautiful, ugly?

When you think of your self, what do you picture. What attributes are part of this picture?
Do you think others hold the same picture of you as you have of your self?

Some tell me to find my self. What is it I am trying to find?
Some tell me to let go of the self. What exactly am I supposed to let go of?
Some say the self is an illusion. Then what is the reality?
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
z7nHu1JyrEt-ZXEXToC04WgrY08yzzJ65BHcZccwk-0.gif

Who are you?
What are you?

Are you the image in the mirror?
Are you a mother, father, doctor, waitress? Beautiful, ugly?

When you think of your self, what do you picture. What attributes are part of this picture?
Do you think others hold the same picture of you as you have of your self?

Some tell me to find my self. What is it I am trying to find?
Some tell me to let go of the self. What exactly am I supposed to let go of?
Some say the self is an illusion. Then what is the reality?
It is more easy to answer :what Am I becoming. Answer is
A White Light from within.

To get there all the darkness has to come out first, to be abandon.
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
I am whoever I make myself to be today. Mostly kind and looking to help others, sometimes antagonistic and wanting to push others boundaries (typically to their benefit).


Every morning I wake up, I put on my Human mask.

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Martin

Spam, wonderful spam (bloody vikings!)
I have a sense of something deeper, beneath the personal trappings of body and mind.
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Have you seen the White Light?

I have seen a burst of it in a dream. One does not see the source, it is just a brilliant burst of light that seems to impart all the potential you can be.

There are really no words to describe the beauty of that light, except to know the experience was like one's soul is set on fire with an indescribable burst of all embracing Love that brought tears of indescribable joy.

Tears that were still flowing when I awoke.

All I can say is that Light is waiting for us all and we have the choice to embrace it now.

Regards Tony
 
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ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
z7nHu1JyrEt-ZXEXToC04WgrY08yzzJ65BHcZccwk-0.gif

Who are you?
What are you?

Are you the image in the mirror?
Are you a mother, father, doctor, waitress? Beautiful, ugly?

When you think of your self, what do you picture. What attributes are part of this picture?
Do you think others hold the same picture of you as you have of your self?

Some tell me to find my self. What is it I am trying to find?
Some tell me to let go of the self. What exactly am I supposed to let go of?
Some say the self is an illusion. Then what is the reality?

I am I
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Some tell me to find my self. What is it I am trying to find?
Some tell me to let go of the self. What exactly am I supposed to let go of?
Some say the self is an illusion. Then what is the reality?

Baha'u'llah offered this as to what we may find.

"...Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to love Him—a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of creation…. Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one of His names, and made it a recipient of the glory of one of His attributes. Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created things man hath been singled out for so great a favor, so enduring a bounty..."

Rest of this in context at this link.

Bahá'í Reference Library - Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Pages 64-69

There is a great light within all of us.

Regards Tony
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
z7nHu1JyrEt-ZXEXToC04WgrY08yzzJ65BHcZccwk-0.gif

Who are you?
What are you?

Are you the image in the mirror?
Are you a mother, father, doctor, waitress? Beautiful, ugly?

When you think of your self, what do you picture. What attributes are part of this picture?
Do you think others hold the same picture of you as you have of your self?

Some tell me to find my self. What is it I am trying to find?
Some tell me to let go of the self. What exactly am I supposed to let go of?
Some say the self is an illusion. Then what is the reality?

Do you have a definition for the self? Or the Self? I might find it easier to state a belief if I knew we were talking about the same thing, or at least something similar.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
In my spiritual philosophy, the 'Self' is our consciousness Brahman/God. We are all of the same 'Self'.

The term 'Self-Realization' is the finding the One Source/Brahman/God behind our ever-changing ego identity.
 

crossfire

LHP Mercuræn Feminist Heretic ☿
Premium Member
Heck, there is more content in my unconscious mind (that I am unaware of) than in my conscious mind (that I am aware of,) so I can't make any certain consciously considered answer.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
Who are you?
What are you?

Are you the image in the mirror?
Are you a mother, father, doctor, waitress? Beautiful, ugly?

When you think of your self, what do you picture. What attributes are part of this picture?
Do you think others hold the same picture of you as you have of your self?

Some tell me to find my self. What is it I am trying to find?
Some tell me to let go of the self. What exactly am I supposed to let go of?
Some say the self is an illusion. Then what is the reality?
"Do not ask me who I am, and do not tell me to stay the same." - Michel Foucault

The self is a two-part construction, internal/mental and social, a transfiguration that arises to provide a unity of body and mind, but which is, due to its nature as a partially social construct, fundamentally unstable and dependent on a social environment, tied to a body that changes constantly, and a mind that never stays the same, but nevertheless is created to provide a stable anchor, an order to the disparate, everchanging thing that is ourselves.

We have been something and will be something else, but we cling to the assertion that we are always only ever a single, stable, unchanging "I". Change is scary, and there is comfort in order and stability.
And so, the Self endures, unchanging, orderly, yet never staying the same.
 
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