Coming Alive Through the Fullness of Self

I AM CONVINCED THAT MOST MENTAL ILLNESS, MOST POVERTY, MOST WAR, MOST SUFFERING IN THE WORLD IS DUE TO PEOPLE NOT HAVING A COMPLETE GRASP OF SELF IN THEMSELVES OR A FEEL FOR IT IN OTHERS.

Harry Guntrip wrote a world-changing book entitled Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations, and the Self in 1969 which is the key root book of the British Object Relations School of Psychoanalysis.  What a gift it was to me to read this book in 1980 after 12 years of being a Zen Monk and recently joining Siddha Yoga with Muktananda.

You see, a lot of Zen people are strangely schizoid, ambivalent and afraid of relationships, afraid of being lost in them, disappearing into the other, or being destructive to others due to an inner, unexpressed rage.

Guntrip outlined many of my relationship fears, my shyness, fear of women, fear of intense neediness in myself, being withdrawn, internalized, solipsistic.  Yet this innerness allowed me to fully explore Zen’s Void, the inner space, and with an opening of my Third Eye, finding the Light of Consciousness.

In other words, having a schizoid fixation point, no solid sense of self at all, allowed me to explore the space and entities that lay within and hidden by the false self most other “adjusted” and healthy people have.

About that period of time I became aware that entire cultures were marked by having personality disorder characteristics.  This is something currently regarded as politically incorrect to even state, so you will not find much academic backing for it.  But the ancient Arabic culture could be characterized as pre-self, and as borderline with its impulsiveness, rage, passion fixations, fragmentation in so many ways, easy depression, and so many other clues.  The jewish culture on the other hand could be characterized narcissistic, self-absorbed, feeling better than others, the Chosen People, abusive of other peoples, (and other Jews also.)

Then recently, my own experience of Self-Realization in a classical Ramana and Nisargadatta way through love—an awakened Libidinal Self—cured most of the schizoid remnants and narcissistic remnants in me, and for the first time, I had a solid sense of self, as a human, as the Self, and as the divine all wrapped in one, and with it, a strong desire to help others in any way I could.  The focus was no longer on finding the lost parts of me, the incompleteness, the lack of knowledge of who and what I was, but a worshipping of the Self in others, from insects to humans, and a deep desire to save all from suffering in many, many ways.

The experience of a whole Self, solid Self, that was above and beyond the body, but which also included the embodiment experience, made me whole and in constant communion with the divine within, with sentience and the Life Force.  

No longer concerned with Emptiness, the Void, the Light of Consciousness, the interplay of form and emptiness, I turned instead into being an embodiment of God, of passion, Life, Love, and most importantly, of Knowledge of who and what I was and what I had to do.

I had become alive as I Am as Self, the Atman who is one with Brahman, the Godhead.

It is impossible to express the difference this Self-Realization experience has wrought, except that I know that anyone who speaks of no self, no separate self, no temporal/special Self, does not have a clue as to what real Self-Realization means.  They either have a conceptual understanding about the non-existence of the conceptual selves most believe they have, and thus Emptiness reigns and objects become second class citizens, and even experience is denied any reality because it requires a witnessing self or I to make it real, and without an I, it is unreal, illusory.

These people dwell in a schizoid trap, unable to feel their desire for another in relationship, unlit be passions for life and love.  They become cyphers for Emptiness, unable to relate to others except as narcissistic users and manipulators who obtain embodiment through the adulation of adoring students as they talk their nonsense of no-self, and salvation from the illusion of Self.  They find a new false self through receiving the adulation.

This has driven me to point where I am going to reopen the Object-Relations exploration of Self at all levels, with the intention of discovering how the recovery of a lost Self can lead to a curing of most mental illness and societal dysfunction by making people realize not only a solid sense of Self, but how it is infused by the divine energies, Love, passion, and compassion.

The method I still recommend for this Self-Realization is an awakening of the libidinal self, the passionate lover of others and of one’s own Self, that awakening the Kundalini and other energies within, through loving introspection of one’s inner world, with its emptiness, light, emotions, energies, and other inner experiences, exploring them until the divine Self within reveals itself to you.

Then begins a new journey of living as a divine incarnation, each day gaining a little more energy, power, and knowing of who and what you are.