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July 30th, 2009 by
Gary Hipworth
Are
you curious about the nature or essence of yourself? And I don’t mean your past history, but right at this very
moment, now, who are you? Most people go through their whole lives and never
question just who the decision-maker, the controller, the observer is?
This may be the most important personal development question of all!
Is the self/ soul/ ego a fixed, permanent entity (it certainly feels like that from the inside) or a fluid,
changing process based on changing beliefs, values, ideas, possessions, position in society, experience and
knowledge?
Did humanity invent the idea of a fixed, permanent self to give the individual a sense of certainty and
safety in a dangerous, uncertain world?
This is a very dangerous idea because the
whole of Western Civilization, our legal system, our institutions, are based on the idea of a fixed, permanent self
or ego*.
If I
am not a fixed entity, but a living, changing process, then it implies there is no soul or any being that will
outlive the body.
This would explain a lot of things, but cause humanity to confront some very difficult identity issues,
and who knows what would become of that - possibly a revolution of the psyche much bigger and
more disturbing than any other human revolution!
* See ‘The Mirror and the Hammer’ by Ernesto Spinelli and especially the wonderful chapter ‘The vagaries of the
self’.
