Me: My Self and I (Who Are These People?)
gabrielle May 28th, 2007
In, “The Power of Now”, Eckhart Tolle describes what happened just moments before a powerful transformation took place in his life. He was in a deep depression, suicidal, in fact. He lay on his bed and thought, I cannot live with myself any longer. He writes: “This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me - the I and the self that I cannot live with. Maybe, I thought, only one of them is real.”
The Cholmondeley Ladies (c. 1600-1610) Anonymous Artist
If only one of them is real, then what exactly is the nature of the other? Imaginary? Unreal? A lie?
Catholic contemplatives have described it as “false”. The false self. But just where did this false self come from, and what are we supposed to do with it, or about it? What would we be without it?
Or, perhaps a better question: what could we be without it?
Not even my false self has a tiny waist– I mean, really, what good is it?? But to answer your question of what might we be without it, we’d be like little children. Sinless, loving, welcoming, trusting, awe-stricken, kind, honest, excited, sharing, addictionless, non-broken, fully alive.
A Passionist who gave a retreat put it this way..to get to our real self, we have to peel down through all the layers, as if an onion, to the core.
Me, myself and I …will have to ponder on this for a bit, Gabrielle, …peel off a few layers…..with eye-watering consequences..a true dressing down. One of the Saints - I think possibly St Francis de Sales, said: We are what we are in God’s eyes and nothing more.
Or, perhaps a better question: what could we be without it?
Perfect! And on a lighter note, not having a tug-of-war with ourselves. A very thoughtful post Gabrielle, thank you.
Yes, yes, yes, to all three of you. Onion layers and tugs-of war. Not to mention masks, coping mechanisms and survival tactics. And sin. Oh yeah, sin.
I loved Tolle’s book! And he really made me think about my false self — the egoistic one, self-involved, subject to passions. The one trapped in anxiety.
Not that I’ve managed to shake this off, mind you. I often think of Paul’s cry in Romans: “Who will save me from this body of death?”
Of course, we know Who. If we can focus on Him.
I want a t-shirt that says:
It’s not about me.
It’s about Him.
Blessings!
Judy
The sweetest t-shirt I ever saw was on a baby-faced Indonesian who was told we could not leave work to observe Good Friday even for a while, and that we weren’t to fuss about it, or we’d get written up. Here he was the most gentle, quiet, humble and smiling of us all. We’d have had no idea he was Christian except for that black t-shirt bearing in red the outline of the Crucified’s Thorny Crown atop His suffering face, and it said two words:
The Blood.
Amen
Judy, there’s so much involved with the false self, isn’t there? But I think you’ve hit two of the big things right on the head, being subject to our passions and trapped in anxiety. But I think we have to distinguish between being passionate and being controlled by our passions, don’t we, and I just read a very interesting piece about the role of anxiety in the Christian life, which I’d like to share sometime soon. I was actually quite taken aback by it. Thanks for looking in!
Gypsy, I’m rather surprised your co-worker wasn’t written up for wearing the t-shirt, under the circumstances.