Self-abnegation

“ Self-Abnegation.—'Tis much the doctrine of the times that men should not please themselves, but deny themselves everything they take delight in; not look upon beauty, wear no good clothes, eat no good meat, etc., which seems the greatest accusation that can be upon the Maker of all good things. ”

“ Love everyone as your own self, because the whole universe is one. In injuring another, I am injuring myself; in loving another, I am loving myself. From this also springs that principle of Advaita morality which has been summed up in one word — self-abnegation. The Advaitist says, this little personalised self is the cause of all my misery. This individualised self, which makes me different from all other beings, brings hatred and jealousy and misery, struggle and all other evils. ”

“ SELF-ABNEGATION. Synonyms:
Self-control is holding oneself within due limits in pleasures and duties, as in all things else; self-denial, the giving up of pleasures for the sake of duty. Self-renunciation surrenders conscious rights and claims; self-abnegation forgets that there is anything to surrender. There have been devotees who practised very little self-denial with very much self-renunciation. A mother will care for a sick child with complete self-abnegation, but without a thought of self-denial. ”

“ I can understand if people, man and wife, or brother and sister, begin to draw the line as to what is to be [147] conceded and what expected, and what they do for those they love becomes a conscious self-abnegation,—that life under such circumstances may be looked upon as one of self-denial ”

“ Some, perhaps, will consider such motives as oldfashioned, and such convictions as out of date; but self-abnegation, self-control, and self-knowledge that does not give to self the benefit of any doubt, are virtues which are not oldfashioned, and for which, as time goes on, the world is likely to have as much need as ever. ”

“ Say, Louis, is not my comparison a just one? Is not the wealth amassed by the miser almost always spent in luxuries of every kind? for, as the proverb says: 'An avaricious father, a spendthrift son.' And let us consider the miser from a religious point of view."
"From a religious point of view?"
"Yes; for it is seen from that standpoint that he is especially worthy of praise."
"That is a very difficult assertion to prove, it seems to me."
"On the contrary, it is extremely easy. Self-abnegation is one of the greatest of virtues, is it not?" ”

“ In proportion to the self-abandonment and personal abnegation, the degree to which the will is vacated, do such persons become good mediums. The more immersed in the theurgic studies and novelties they are, the more they lose themselves, and their value ceases to be individual, but only representative. ”

“ She was an angel who asked him for the love that lives by self-abnegation and heroism and self-sacrifice; an angel who would have her lover live like an English lord, with an income of a million francs. ”

“ Self-devotion—Self-abnegation—Sacrifice.—When charity reaches the highest degree; when it requires we should give to others what we hold most dear—as, for instance, [Pg 128] life, fortune, etc.—it takes another name and is called devotion, self-abnegation, sacrifice. These three words, with various shadings, express the idea of a precious gift of which one deprives himself to benefit others. One may devote one’s self to others in various ways, in choosing for one’s object either the life, or welfare, or liberty, or the morality and intelligence of others. ”

“ Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he knew was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? ”

“ I have lived to learn the great lesson that every mishap of my life was of my own procuring, and that self-indulgence and a vindictive spirit are enough to counterbalance tenfold more than all the abilities I ever possessed. ”

“ Are they afraid to go to such extremes? Ah, why then go in that direction at all, if only by such extremes the desired result can be obtained? It is humiliating to degrade one's-self; but is it not still more humiliating to degrade one's-self in vain? ”

“ BUT if I abase myself, and bring myself down to very nothingness, and divest myself of all self-esteem, and reduce myself, as I really am, to mere dust, Thy grace will be favorable to me, and Thy light will draw nigh to my heart; and all self-estimation, how small soever, will be sunk in the depth of my own nothingness, and there lose itself forever. ”

“ Indignation was corrupted into wrath, self-love became selfishness, self-respect became pride, and emulation envy and jealousy. They were at variance with each other; pride struggled with self-interest, fear with desire. ”

“ But, if we watch the influence upon the will itself, of its own wrong decisions, its own yielding to temptations, we shall discover that the voluntary faculty may be ruined from within; may be made impotent to good by its own action; may surrender itself with such an intensity and entireness to appetite, passion, and self-love, that it becomes unable to reverse itself, and overcome its own wrong disposition and direction. ”

“ He saw all this; and for a time he came out of himself, out of his selfishness—out of the constant preoccupation of his interests and his desires—out of the temple of self and the concentration of personal thought. ”

“ From time to time we avenge ourselves for all our enforced concealment and compulsory self-restraint. We emerge from our cells with terrible faces, our words and deeds are then explosions, and it is not beyond the verge of possibility that we perish through ourselves. ”

“ Learn to limit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing, and some definite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not, and to believe in your own individuality. Self-distrust is destroying you; trust, surrender, abandon yourself; “believe and thou shalt be healed.” Unbelief is death, and depression and self-satire are alike unbelief. ”

“ Deceit, then, whether it take the form of a fictitiously high estimation of oneself or the reverse, is the seed that produces an ill crop of Suffering. And we, if we would escape from Suffering and gain peace of mind, must rid ourselves of this self-deceit by all means in our power. It is above all things necessary that we possess an honest and up right heart. ”

“ When you accuse me of self-indulgence you are against me,—me, who for myself have desired nothing but to be allowed to do my duty, and to have bread enough to keep me alive, and clothes enough to make me decent. ”

“ Moreover, do you imagine that if you set out to make the most of yourself in any position in which you are placed, that you will have no chance for self-sacrifice, and no opportunity of martyrdom offered you? ”

“ It may seem bitter to us; and between ourselves we may even laugh at the figure which it makes us cut But what does it matter? We have no other kind of self-control left. This is our asceticism, our manner of performing penance." To become personal—the virtues of the "impersonal and objective one." ”

“ I alone am to blame and am deservedly punished. In my youth I was absorbed by one thing—my precious self; I took my simple-hearted self-love for modesty; I avoided society—and here I am now, a fearful bore to myself. What am I to do with myself? There is no one I love; all my relations with other people are somehow strained and false. ”

“ I frankly confess that in my robust and equable moments I do recognise the broken edge of my life, and what a very poor thing I have made of it—but, for all that, it is my honest belief that we most of us have in our hearts that inmost shrine of egotism, where the fire burns clear and fragrant before an idealised image of self ”

“ What will all my self-esteem avail, if the world calls me a simpleton because, under the ban of my passion, I neglected my studies and social interests? If I am pointed at as an incapable man, shall I not sink in my own eyes? ”

“ How could I put out as my own another man's work and retain my self -respect? I resolved on another and better course—to send you the story in lieu of my own with a full statement of the circumstances under which it had come into my possession, when that demon rose up out of the floor at my side, this time more evil of aspect than before, more commanding in its manner. ”

“ Of all the mental tortures which a man can undergo, what is there worse than the agony of self-reproach? To be condemned by another's judgment may seem to us comparatively a light thing—but to be condemned by our own, what escape or chance of escape can there be from that! ”

“ To escape from self-loathing, to escape from the odious monotony and the indecent realism of life—what a relief! How desirable to be confronted no longer by that impassable gulf between one's own soul and all other living souls! ”

“ He had, moreover, at this moment, when all the energies of his nature suddenly burst out, a power of deliberate, complacent, and pitiless moral self-vivisection, a power of performing upon his character such cutting and ripping-open operations as he thought beneficial to himself, which makes one think of the abnormal faculty of enduring pain, the abnormal and almost cruel satisfaction in examining the mechanism of one's own suffering, occasionally displayed by hysterical women ”

“ If we instanced the self-restraint in which so many pass their lives from day to day, it might perhaps be answered that there is a persistent idea of duty, or love of reputation, or fear of social stigma, the repression of which would be more painful than the restraint it puts upon other impulses. ”

“ And I do not now speak of it as "self-restraint," which is a virtue considered capable of resisting pleasure: while the fact is that I never in all my life felt such pleasure as I do at my own integrity. ”

“ One of the first requisites, in order to be thus acceptable, is the neglect, the forgetfulness of self—a readiness to put self in the back-ground. Any obtrusion of self, any appearance of self-love, self-interest, self-conceit, or self-applause, tends to expose a man to dislike, perhaps to contempt. ”

“ And to pry one's self loose, to break or tear one's self away from such a mental view and condition as heredity and such years of rigorous restraint have developed, is no small task. Indeed, it often takes months, and sometimes years, wholly to rid one's self of these deep seated and powerful, wrong views and prejudices. ”

“ Now—so perverse is human nature—I was no sooner self-assured of my moral quittance from the bonds which had held me so long and so wistfully to an imaginary grievance, than my soul rose in mutiny against my own emancipation. ”

“ Thus a disconcerting chance or a temporary obstacle rouses no disposition to measure strength with adversity, or to cope with untoward combinations, but an angry amazement, an indignant displeasure, a sense of trespass upon one’s lawful domain of success and happiness that result in blundering egotistic self-assertion, which often fails in the clearance of the obstruction to the paths of bland and self-satisfied progress. ”

“ You will say, you have much to struggle with in your own character, and that nothing can satisfy you while you have to contend with self so continually. But your greatest temptation is to dwell too much upon your internal trials, leading you almost insensibly to that most insidious and deceptive form of self-love, a too constant thought of self even in regard to one's faults. ”

“ Bitter experience teaches that the imprisoning net clings too tightly to be stripped from our limbs by our own efforts. Nay rather, the net and the captive are one, and he who tries to cast off the oppression which hinders him from following that which is good is trying to cast off himself. The desperate problem that fronts every effort at self-emendation has two bristling impossibilities in it: one, how to annihilate the past; one, how to extirpate the evil that is part of my very self, and yet to keep the self entire. ”

“ But you, with your calm power of reasoning, can soon convince yourself that they require of you no less a sacrifice than your entire self, and that unbounded, although perhaps unconscious, selfishness is the mainspring of their proceedings, while I, as long as you have known me, have treated you with thorough disinterestedness. ”

“ This view is the consequence, in part, no doubt of the present disordered state of society, which often causes persons to be thrown, or to put themselves, into offices for which they are unfit, and for the duties of which, consequently, they can have no relish. But a more general cause is the interior disorder of man's own heart—from which indeed all the disorders of outward society proceed—his selfishness, his love of ease and self-indulgence, his disregard of the happiness of others. ”

“ The seeds of the evil which now shot up had long been rooting themselves. Self–gratification had been the end, and his will the guide, of his actions; and on such persons uncontrolled power acts like a hot–bed, to draw up their bad qualities into tenfold rankness. ”

“ But now, looking back, I see this—that whereas others have to learn by hard experience, that detachment, self-purification, self-control are the only conditions of happiness on earth, I was detached, purified, controlled by God Himself. I was detached, because my life was utterly precarious, I was taught purification and control, because whereas more robust people can defer and even defy the penalties of luxury, comfort, gross desires, material pleasures, I was forced, every day and hour, to deny myself the smallest freedom—I was made ascetic by necessity. ”

“ But they are damned beyond recovery when they are identified with the things of a petty selfishness. They can be employed as vital terms only when the self is seen to be in process, and interest to be a name for whatever is concerned in furthering its movement. ”