the notion of self

1

Each one of us operates as a certain person and with a certain identity…One has to look into this deeply…Not just intellectually and to agree that this is so, or to disagree and argue that this is not so, but to actually see that one operates with an identity…That one operates with a certain identity and with certain fixed notions of oneself…

Each one of us, for example, thinks of oneself as with a certain name, and belonging to a certain culture, nationality, race …and being of a particular gender and having certain characteristics and perhaps even of a particular religion… Even our jobs can define us…

One even says often, perhaps referring to a particular trait one refuses or cannot change : This is me…

But how true is this identity?

This is not an intellectual question or a question asked for the sake of being different or for putting on an air of cleverness…

It’s a question that must be asked because one must challenge one’s notions of oneself and go to the very core of one’s assumptions about one’s identity in order to understand this self…

2

Even between a couple of years, one renounces traits or characteristics one might have identified with absolutely some time ago…One might do this unawares or consciously…And one may not even be aware that one has done this..

So is the identity one has with a name and particular personal history and characteristics true and one’s self? And do we, when we do inquire into the self, replace one set of false notions with another set of false notions about the self? Is the very idea of a self false?

We hear of people who join a particular cult and are then brainwashed or re-programmed so that they are completely different persons…Or we know of people who become quite a different person after a deep personal experience…Is the new self their actual self? If they can change once can they not change again? What do these changes say about the so-called self?

Really, is there anything so permanent as what we identify as self? What is it?

One has to think deeply about this and to actually see what one offers as an answer…it must be answers that are true and that one actually sees for oneself – not answers repeated and regurgitated from texts and wise persons and leaders who have told us what to think, and who have implanted ready-made answers in our minds…