Chapter1: Dimensions of Self

Whatmakes it so difficult for us as human beings to be deeply authentic andspontaneous, to feel free to be who we naturally are? One aspect of the answerlies in what most spiritual traditions understand to be a case of mistakenidentity. Most of us are consciously and unconsciously identified withself-concepts which greatly limit our experience of ourselves and the world.Who we take ourselves to be, as determined by the sets of ideas and images thatdefine us, is very far from the unconditioned reality that deeply realizedhuman beings have come to recognize as our true nature, who we truly are.Numerous approaches, such as psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and variousself-improvement techniques can help us change our self-concepts so that we aremore realistic, more satisfied, and more effective in our lives. But only anexploration of the actual nature of the self, beyond the details of itscontent, can bring us to realms of experience which approach more deeplyfulfilling, fundamental levels of philosophical or spiritual truth.

Ourexperience of ourselves can be transformed from identifying with our mentalself-images to having awareness of less contingent, more fundamentally realaspects of the self. It is possible to arrive at a place where we canexperience ourselves as the actual phenomenon, the actual ontological presencethat we are, rather than as ideas and feelings about ourselves. The more we areable to contact the actual presence that we are, the less we are alienated in asuperficial or externally defined identity. The more we know the truth of whowe are, the more we can be authentic and spontaneous, rather than merely livingthrough concepts of ourselves.

Amongthe many methods that shift the quality and depth of experience, those used byreligious and spiritual traditions are more effective in contacting deeperdimensions of the self, with a more thoroughly developed understanding of thesedimensions and their significance for living life than those used by the newerscience of psychology. However, psychology has contributed powerful newknowledge about the human being that allows us to systematically work throughthe barriers to these deeper levels of self, especially the barriers tointegrating these levels into one's identity. In particular, the currentunderstanding of narcissism is very useful for the process of innerrealization, the process of learning to contact and appreciate the deeperlevels of our nature and allowing these dimensions to actually affect ouridentity.

Theinquiry in this book is part of an exploration which can be found in severallines of tradition in the history of human thought and experience: theexploration of deeper, more objective, or more 'real' perceptions ofthe world and of ourselves than we encounter in ordinary experience. Thesehistorical paths include:

1.Western philosophy, particularly the Platonic and neoplatonic traditions, someexistentialist and phenomenologist thought, and the mystical/Gnostic threadswithin Western religious (Jewish, Islamic and Christian) traditions.

2.Modern psychological research and practice, particularly from the perspectivecreated by Freud and developed within ego psychology, self psychology, andobject relations theory (including transpersonal, existentialist and humanisticcurrents in depth psychology, such as Jung's work).

3.The Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, whichhave developed enormous bodies of understanding of the nature of self and mindbased on powerful techniques of inquiry.

Theselines of thought all explore the nature of the human being as self or subjectand its...