4 - Selfhood

Using the model from post #3, let's address the modern struggle to frame individuality.

Currently, humanity circles menacingly around the concept of selfhood.  It's still a popular message that the Self is a fraudulent ego fantasy, neither desirable nor constructive. You’ll hear “enlightened” people say Self is a delusion. A hologram, an illusion, a dream. “It isn’t real.”

They’ll say you can experience peace and joy in all things, knowing you’re part of Source experiencing itself. 

It’s perfectly fine for Source to fantasize you exist, but many people think it's somehow misguided for you to have that fantasy… even while they tell you you’re Source. And not only shouldn't you believe in your Self, according to many teachers, but you’re not supposed to really enjoy it, either. So Source chooses to experience itself through you (Source). "But don’t do it wrong, Source."

Oh, by the way -- don't forget to love yourself.

Obviously there are problems with this perspective. 

Others will insist "it's all energy." Asked to give a definition of what energy is, it ultimately circles back to "the stuff everything is made of." Which is not very helpful.

Personally, I'd throw in "energy = consciousness." So please indulge this idea, for a moment. In this view, a Self could represent a cloudy coagulation or combination or convergence of "energies." And this accumulation of consciousness-energy reaches a critical threshold at which it gains some sense of its existence. At that point, a Self is a personification of its energies.

Extrapolating off that one unit, we can grasp a vague model of Reality/All That Is composed of persisting and evaporating cloudlike intelligences. We can debate which selves persist (if any) and which evaporate...but what would be the point? Lacking a universal, multidimensional timey reference or sequence of events, we wouldn't know how to measure Persisting versus Evaporating anyway. But these phenomena in our Earthly context seem to hint at larger scale patterns, perhaps. These words and theories are efforts - possibly misguided - to form some mental handle in the epistemological nightmare called "Reality." If such a thing exists.

Continuing in a playfully assertive voice...

All selves can be framed as fragments processing the expansion of All That Is. Assuming each unique collection of energies yields a unique sense of Self, each also provides unique experiential textures and opportunities to its higher/larger self, aiding its development. 

The way torn muscles expand mass, torn psyches try to heal, becoming something larger than they started out with. These efforts to expand could even involve the experience of sculpting identity, overcoming personal challenges, and a uniquely rewarding/painful evolutionary path. Or the spiraling loss of self to drug addiction. Personal (individual) growth brings rich tensions, conflicts, and resolutions. The interconnection of all Selves compels collective processing, yielding collective growth/expansion.

Model all these infinite, overlapping, interconnected existences in perfect unity, and you have Source. "I AM." Fragment it all out as infinite interaction, and you have "All That Is." WE. Internal and collective harmony occurs in an instant, and across billions of years, and across multiple universes. And whatever else we collectively dream up.

​A Fusion of I and We

A Self's cumulative experiences shape its own experience of Self. This self-perception configures possibilities it can manifest on behalf of We. As a simplistic example, if you love your self, you can manifest particular things. If you hate your self, you will manifest different things. As a unique interaction of energies, Selves are doorways or portals through which WE manifests our possibilities. Therefore, one's perception of Self alters our experiences of that Self - that unique collection of energies. The data and outcomes inform our collective choices. For example, We decide what forms of Self are not viable or desirable, informing future patterns of effort.

It may take time/iterations to process a common configuration of self out of the mix (ex: selves that yield self-hate).  But the experimentation informs We, and is therefore not wasted. And We may find that along the way We can make use of such selves anyway. In the choice to allow such experimentation of a self to unfold, we choose how it can aid the whole. We can even use such portals to convey beautiful things into existence. Energetically/metaphysically, a Self is Our experience, our experiment. If you hold a harmonious awareness of individual I and collective We, you experience  Self as inextricable from All That Is. 

We is grateful for individual service, yet as a part of We, one Self is loved no more or less than another. All is All. Thus the statement among "enlightened" people, "The god in me sees the god in you."...even if they're being an asshole. Even then, thank you for offering my Self opportunity to evolve, which serves the expansion of All That Is. In this view, life itself is a privilege. 

Through Attention, Selection, and Expression, experience by experience, the individual I and collective WE choose what We becomes.  "I" experiences - and creates - an intimate, personalized engagement with "We's" evolutionary expansion. In this sense, I participates in choosing how Source expands. An introspective Self choosing to experience Self more deeply will consequently produce more impactful changes to Self. Deeper attention and focus direct a greater portion of Source's expansion. For the benefit of all. Such is the nature of consciousness, Source, and All That Is.

You can't break anything. Do as you will. Your choices configure Self to manifest different possibilities. WE will see what works, what's desirable, what to keep -- and what to discard. In this respect, all life forms represent experiments.  More powerful consciousness will direct greater portions of consciousness, or energy, or All That Is.

---