Renouncing the self
Many great saints, and many religions have asked people to renounce the self. One of my friends wondered why it was so, and in fact thought that they were wrong. Therefore this post, to say why I think they were not wrong, and why renouncing the self is in fact important.
One of the most difficult questions to answer is "Who am I?". It is supposed to be the ultimate question, which is the basis of any spiritual quest. The very fact that we are searching for an answer shows that we do not know who we are. This means, we need to discover the answer, each one to himself/herself.
Now, consider the process of a scientist discovering something. How does it happen? Whatever may be the intricasies of the thought process, the idea comes from somewhere deep inside his consciousness. All discoveries that have been made follow this rule. It is a sort of a revelation to the scientist. Gravity existed before Newton, but the idea of its existence got revealed to Newton, and through him, to the world. This revelation can take place only when the mind attains a certain state. The mind has to be calm, focused, and most importantly, not be preconditioned by any prior ideas or thoughts.
If this is the case for scientific discoveries, what then should for the discovery of the Self, the true I? The mind therefore needs to be calm, regulated, and focused. Importantly, it should not have any preconceived notion about the self. We all believe "I am this, I am that". These are just ideas in the mind about ourselves. These ideas, therefore act as impediments in our attempt to discover the Self, the true I. It is these ideas that we need to get rid of. This is what the saints, and various religions mean when they say renounce the self. They simply mean "get rid of the idea of what you think you are, so that the real You can show up".
One of the most difficult questions to answer is "Who am I?". It is supposed to be the ultimate question, which is the basis of any spiritual quest. The very fact that we are searching for an answer shows that we do not know who we are. This means, we need to discover the answer, each one to himself/herself.
Now, consider the process of a scientist discovering something. How does it happen? Whatever may be the intricasies of the thought process, the idea comes from somewhere deep inside his consciousness. All discoveries that have been made follow this rule. It is a sort of a revelation to the scientist. Gravity existed before Newton, but the idea of its existence got revealed to Newton, and through him, to the world. This revelation can take place only when the mind attains a certain state. The mind has to be calm, focused, and most importantly, not be preconditioned by any prior ideas or thoughts.
If this is the case for scientific discoveries, what then should for the discovery of the Self, the true I? The mind therefore needs to be calm, regulated, and focused. Importantly, it should not have any preconceived notion about the self. We all believe "I am this, I am that". These are just ideas in the mind about ourselves. These ideas, therefore act as impediments in our attempt to discover the Self, the true I. It is these ideas that we need to get rid of. This is what the saints, and various religions mean when they say renounce the self. They simply mean "get rid of the idea of what you think you are, so that the real You can show up".
8 Comments:
I don't think religions or saint teach a renounciation of the self or a negation of it. The renounciation that is taught in our scriptures is the renunciation of attachment. We can't reach truth by negating our renouncing ourselves. W
The self is different from the Self. The renouncing of the latter is not prescribed agreed. But what about the former? The self, is the individual ego, which thinks it is separate from the rest of the Universe. The post is entirely about explaining that.
I don't think even this individual identity is renounced...it unites with the universal identity. When the individual identities of threads unite to form the universal identity of a cloth, they don't renounce their individual identity of the thread they merge...
It is simple. I cannot remain what I am, and become something else too. Also, I am not sure your analogy of thread and cloth is quite apt. A more apt analogy would be that of a water in a pot being the individual while the water in the ocean being the Infinite. It is when the pot breaks that the water inside merges with the water outside.
Even then, it is only the pot which breaks...the water retains its identity...the body breaks, but the soul remains...
That is precisely my point too...please read the other post titled "I", which has been linked up from this post....
Also, there is no point in getting into semantics. For, I did not mean the Universal Self by the self, or "I".
rama...what You have said is correct.
But Dont ask, if something can be true for scienctific discoveries why cant it be true for religion. Because what we know scientifically is not truths. They are mirages of truth, and they are functions of time. What Newton realized and told to the world, didnt stand test of time for not even 300yrs. There was einstien to say that it was not universal. Now we dont know, till when einstien will stand the test of time.
Secondly, scientific approach can never get you anywhere near the spiritual truth. Because science believes in creating hypothesis, empirical experimentation and finally aims at disproving its own findings. The wheel which was invincible in its various forms for thousands of years, presently stands challenged by mag lev.
Though, at macro level, everything seems fine, but at micro level, as the intensity of scientfic activity increases in this 21st century, the lifetime of scientific truths is getting very less.
you can know that there exists a original only when you see the mirror image. There is good because there is bad. There is beautifull because there is ungliness. Everything is relative. Its all about relativity. SO its very important to know the true self, but its possible only when your mind is preconditioned by the other self which is the miror image. So, in the path of self discovery, we need to know about the existing self, to know the true self
You renounce you pre conceived notions of the self to arrive at the discovery of self. But this self that you discover is now a preconceived notion for future thereafter. Preconceived notions cannot be set aside completely. But they must be questioned. And the process of a scientist discovering something is explained beautifully in Zen and the art of..
And the logic of renouncing self only to arrive at a new conception of self does not seem to make sense.
Read ur blog after a while, looks in great shape.
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