Self-existence

“ Have done then with this illusion that thy Self is all in all. Intuition tells thee no more about thy future Self than it tells thee about thy neighbors. Desire, bred in thee by generations of struggle for existence, emphasizes the expectation of thy own bodily future, the love for thy own bodily welfare, and makes thy body’s life seem alone real. ”

“ But to this idea, in its kind, must every life, to be complete as life, correspond; and the human correspondence to self-existence is, that the man should round and complete himself by taking into himself that origin ”

“ You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well. ”

“ In the case of mankind, the self-assertion, the unscrupulous seizing upon all that can be grasped, the tenacious holding of all that can be kept, which constitute the essence of the struggle for existence, have answered. ”

“ Must we say that any degree of felt continuity of existence is enough to constitute rudimentary selfhood, or ought we to hold that there is no true self where there is not at least as much intellectual development as is implied in the power to remember the past and anticipate the future, as one’s own? In other words, are we to make 343selfhood as wide in its range as sentient life, or to limit it to life sufficiently rational to involve some distinct and explicit recognition of the contrast between self and not-self? ”

“ The arrangement with which we habitually identify ourselves—what we call the normal or primary self—consists, in my view, of elements selected for us in the struggle for existence with special reference to the maintenance of ordinary physical needs, and is not necessarily superior in any other respect to the latent personalities which lie alongside of it—the fresh combinations of our personal elements which may be evoked by accident or design, in a variety to which we at present can assign no limit. ”

“ The extensive and intensive affirmation of our will, as this ‘I’ or that ‘You,’ whether in bodily well-being, psychical harmony, influence on others, or appropriation of physical or spiritual good things,—all these assert our particular personal existence, and all that opposes the actuality or possibility of these lowers it. Self-sacrifice is knowingly to give up this existence to that which is higher. In it we bestow our will on what, we believe, either will or may lessen the extensive and intensive assertion of our private self. ”

“ I shall en- deavour to be at least honest with myself, and hope that the use of this book may help me occasionally, to sever myself mentally from the associations of the world and retire within my- self. My hope is that some day I may be able to become acquainted with my own individuality, and discover what is the first essential and object of my existence. ”

“ By that which is self—caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent. ”

“ You want yourself, — the Self in its completeness, in its fulfilment, in its final expression. In brief, when you talk of reality, you talk of self-possession, of perfection, and of peace. And that is, therefore, all that you mean by the Being of the world or of any type of facts. Being therefore is nothing beyond yourself. You even now hold it within you, in your heart of hearts. Being therefore is just the purely immediate. To be means to quench thought in the presence of a final immediacy which completely satisfies all ideas. ”

“ Let us take this for granted then; but is this what we mean by self-realization? Is the conclusion that, in trying to realize, we try to realize some state of ourself, all that we are driving at? No, the self we try to realize is for us a whole, it is not a mere collection of states. ”

“ The desire to feel that one is one's own and not the Lord's, the vanity that would say, This truth I reasoned out myself; the pride that would claim that the integrity I possess is my own, and that the merit of my good deeds belongs to me; the self-sufficiency that asserts one's self as the origin and center of what he is and feels and acquires, is the tree of knowledge sending its roots down deep within the spirit. ”

“ To live for the cultivation of one's mind, is, after all, to live for one's self, and therefore out of harmony with the eternal law which makes it impossible for us to find ourselves except in what is not ourselves. ”

“ Really, however, it is my own, my deeper self, whose choice is at each moment shown to me. But, then, observe, unless I thus chose to recognize something beyond myself, I should have nothing to do, I should have nothing to resist, to fight, to win, to love, — in short, to act upon, in any way. The deepest truth, then, is a practical truth. I need something not myself, in order to be active, that is, in order to exist. ”

“ And yet it is just in this renunciation of self that I truly gain myself, or realize the highest possibilities of my own nature. For whilst in one sense we give up self to live the universal and absolute life of reason, yet that to which we thus surrender ourselves is in reality our truer self. ”

“ Turning now from the question of content to that of origin, we must consider first the genesis of the good self, not in the world in general, but in the will of the individual: and the question here is, how is it possible for the self to identify itself with what seems to be altogether outside it? How is it that I can feel pleasure in the successes of persons and causes which do not affect my private personality? how can I desire their furtherance, not as means but as an end? How can the content of my will be not myself, as this or that exclusive individual? ”

“ I have the life in myself, and take it from out of myself. Only through this medium of the Moral Law do I see MYSELF; and if I see myself through that law, I necessarily see myself as self-active; and it is thus that there arises in a consciousness—which otherwise would only be the consciousness of a sequence of my representations—the utterly foreign ingredient of an activity of myself. ”

“ In fact no one knows himself but that self's own soul. The vast and wonderful knowledge of this marvelous universe is locked in the bosoms of its individual souls. To tap this mighty reservoir of experience, knowledge, beauty, love, and deed we must appeal not to the few, not to some souls, but to all. ”

“ Meanwhile, thinking men have laid siege to the absolute Truth by aid of such powers as they commonly call into action. For centuries past, the nature of things in themselves,—and along with (or perhaps above) all other natures, the "Self" within every man has been among the most fascinating of objects pursued by human thought. Yet, how far do we really know the life throbbing in every pulse? Can we tell the secret of our own individuality? ”

“ Let me be furnished in myself with health, safety, strength, the perfection of physical existence; let my mind be furnished with highest thoughts of soul-life. Let me be in myself myself fully. The pageantry of power, the still more foolish pageantry of wealth, the senseless precedence of place; words fail me to express my utter contempt for such pleasure or such ambitions. Let me be in myself myself fully, and those I love equally so. ”

“ As a thinking, self-conscious being, indeed, he may be said, by his very nature, to live in the atmosphere of the Universal Life. As a thinking being, it is possible for me to suppress and quell in my consciousness every movement of self-assertion, every notion and opinion that is merely mine, every desire that belongs to me as this particular Self, and to become the pure medium of a thought that is universal—in one word, to live no more my own life, but let my consciousness be possessed and suffused by the Infinite and Eternal life of spirit. ”

“ We have asserted that if this ideal goal becomes an exclusive goal, such that no other is viewed as the possible goal of this life, and if this goal is viewed as one which, if attained through any other life than mine, would not be attained as I meant it to be attained, then my life is defined for me as the life of a unique, and so of a genuinely individual Self. ”

“ It by no means follows because our conception of personality is derived from finite beings, that it is necessarily limited to them; and that it cannot be thought of in connection with a being, some of whose attributes are infinite and others perfect; in other words, that the idea of finiteness is necessarily involved in that of personality. What are the conceptions that make up the idea of our own personality? I reply, the power to affirm “I” of one's own being—the possession of will—the power of self-consciousness, and these in union with rationality. ”

“ But the voice of my conscience cries to me: "Whatever these beings may be in and for themselves, thou shalt treat them as subsisting for themselves, as free, self-existing beings, entirely independent of thyself. ”

“ Only the Self which is your world is your completely integrated Self, the totality of the life that at this instant you fragmentarily grasp. Your present defect is a matter of the mere form of your consciousness at this instant. Were your eyes at this instant open to your own meaning, your life as a whole would be spread before you as a single and unique life, for which no other could be substituted without a less determinate expression of just your individual will. Now this complete life of yours, is. Only such completion can be. Being can possess no other nature than this. ”

“ The conception of the self has become fixed where it was previously indeterminate. The realisation of one line of conative tendency is now definitely anticipated as part of our future life-history, so far at least as external conditions will allow of its execution. ”

“ But the time comes when he must choose one of these fancied selves to be his real self. One of the possible selves must be actualised. He has only one life to live, he has only one self to live it; and if he wants to realise a character at all, he must choose some one walk in life in which to realise it.
Of course, he would like to be several different selves at once: all have their attractions. But he recognises that that is impossible. However severe the struggle, he must decide on some one self amid all the galaxy of his fancied selves; and this one self must become his real self. ”

“ In God we live and move and have our Being. The other thesis, at first sight apparently opposed to the foregoing, may be stated as follows: This Fourth Conception of Being appeals, when rightly understood, to the self of each individual thinker. And it appeals to individual thinkers only, whether human or divine. We have often spoken in the foregoing of any idea as if, taken apart from other ideas, it possessed, so to speak, a selfhood of its own, the selfhood imperfectly exemplified, transiently embodied, in your consciousness at this instant while you think and purpose. ”

“ Put away the false selfhood of family and race and name, of form and rank, for these dwell in this body; put away the actorhood and other powers of the body of form; become the Self whose self is partless joy. ”

“ Now indeed you know yourself as one Self, as a person. For, first, you know your empirical self as the Seeker, meaning, intending, aiming at, that life-ideal; and here you have a contrast of real and ideal self. And, secondly, since your ideal is this ideal, the expression of the meaning of your unique experience, you can rightly contrast yourself with all the rest of the world’s life. ”

“ Our self, of which we talk so fluently, as one and the self-same—how far does it really possess the continuity and identity with which we credit it? Does it not rather seem to be an ideal which we gradually form and set before ourselves as the standard for measuring our attainments of the moment,—the perfect fulfilment of that oneness of being and purpose and knowledge which we never reach? ”

“ In what sense, despite this complexity and variability of the individual self-consciousness as it comes to us empirically, have we still a right to say that there is in the universe a real, and, within the range of our individual experience, a permanent being, to be called this individual Ego? ”

“ This primary self in time gets unified, in so far as we come to contrast the varying self-contents with more or less determinate ideals, concerns, plans, which give life a certain unity. From this point of view, I am one Self only in so far as I am conscious of my life — of memories, aspirations, devices, failures, triumphs — as tending, or at least striving; and therefore as known by contrast with, or in the light of, a certain type of fulfilled consciousness, — of attainment, — which is now, as the ideal Self or Other Self, the determining principle that makes my life the life of one being. ”

“ Here the world, with its joys and sorrows, was explained as the result of the subjective Self, reflecting itself in the mirror of matter; and final emancipation was obtained by turning away the eyes from the play of nature, and being absorbed in the knowledge of the time and absolute Self. ”

“ Here again, then, there is a real, undoubted, original and positive foundation for the notion of self to rest upon; for in relation to my former self and past feelings, I do possess a faculty which serves to unite me more especially to my own being, and at the same time draws a distinct and impassable line around that being, separating it from every other. ”

“ And now, as to the true serial order of this world of Life, we have, from the outset of our exposition of our Fourth Concept, recognized that, whatever the world contains, it contains in the form of a Self-Conscious Being. ”