How to realize who I am. Who am I? And this reason is the limit of the human personality

If we take all psychological practice, then the two main problems that we have to work with are establishing relationships and self-doubt. And even then, difficulties in relationships are, as a rule, a consequence of impaired self-esteem. And therefore, every time it all comes down to teaching a person to look soberly at himself and the characteristics of his personality, to reconcile him with himself.

But this is precisely where the confusion begins - what should we consider ourselves, what should we take as a starting point when there is such confusion in our heads? This is akin to the question of happiness - the answer seems obvious, but not so simple if you think about it seriously.

The complexity of this question is that when you look inside yourself, you find a complete mess there. Introverts know their world a little better than extroverts, but they are too prone to confuse themselves. Extroverts seem to be able to look at themselves in a simple way, but they find such confusion inside that they quickly abandon this idea.

As a result, both are forced to perceive themselves as an unknowable given, as a kind of amorphous entity that expresses itself in thoughts, feelings and actions. And they consider the constancy of her reactions to be their character, their individuality, and they are very happy when this uncontrolled individuality evokes universal approval, and they are just as deeply upset when it does not find proper understanding among others.

This is the foundation of self-esteem - how “I” correspond to what is expected of me. Although it would be more accurate to say that this is not self-esteem, but its absence, because if I don’t “evaluate” myself, then it’s not SELF-esteem, right? This is MY assessment...

We are taught to strive for this conformity, which leads to very sad consequences. Instead of looking for a place in life that would correspond to our essence, we are looking for a way to remake our essence to suit existing social requirements and opportunities. This is where internal discord and said confusion begin - very soon a person completely forgets who he is, what he is like and what he wants from life.

What I think about myself is not what I feel. What I feel is not what I do. What I do goes against what I want to think about myself...

I am my body

This is the most naive, but completely natural version of self-perception. Every day we see our body in many mirrors, and every time - lo and behold! - it demonstrates resigned submission to our will. If you wanted to raise your hand, you did. They wanted to make a grimace - easily. The body reacts most directly to the urges of the soul, which creates the illusion of inseparability or even identity with the “I”.

An adult says this: “I’m walking,” “I’m eating,” “I’m breathing,” “I’m freezing.” And when the body experiences this or that discomfort, it states: “I feel bad, I’m suffering.” But in fact, it’s not “I” who feel bad, but only my body...

In the first months of life, a child perceives his body as something foreign, external. He plays with his hands as if they were rattles, and only after some time does he notice the difference between his limbs and the objects of the surrounding world. An adult can recall similar experiences in his memory, by analogy with the sensations in a stagnant leg, when it seems to be there, but is perceived as someone else’s.

In fact, it is quite simple to feel the separation of yourself from your body - you just need to tune in to the right mood and focus your attention correctly. For example, you can stand under a cold shower and observe that it is the body that is freezing, while the “I” can remain on the sidelines and observe the process. It may not be possible to catch the right mood the first time, but not the first time, so the second - there is nothing complicated here.

Carrying out such a separation of yourself from your body is very important and interesting, since it allows you to treat bodily discomfort more philosophically in the future and maintain peace of mind, even when the body is not entirely comfortable. That is, you can suffer from hunger, or you can mean that the body wants a snack, and at the same time not suffer at all. The second option is somewhat more constructive, right?

Here you can also remember about instincts, which are embedded in the body at the genetic level and are in no way subordinate to us. That is, we, of course, can resist our instinctive urges, but we still have no power over them, and this confrontation itself does not end well. Instinct is the voice of life itself, and an attempt to drown it out leads to death.

Instincts are not subject to our “I”; we can only observe them in explicit or indirect form. One could say that "I" are my instincts, and this would be a good attempt to get closer to the truth. The foundations of instinctive behavior are inherent in us by nature, and not acquired through upbringing, so they can be trusted - they will not fail, because they express the needs of what a person is in general.

But still, “I” is not my instincts and “I” is not my body. The physical shell is rather one of the conditions for the task that, having come into this world, we all solve. The essence of this problem and the key to its solution lies in something else.

I am my mind

The next and most problematic level of misunderstanding is identifying yourself with your thoughts, with what is happening on the very surface of consciousness. The same principle of perception is at work here - “I am what I control.” The ability to manage internal dialogue creates the illusion that this is where my selfhood, my “I”, is expressed. After all, I can only take credit for my merits and be proud of them if they were the result of the expression of my free will, and not of animal instinct or psychological automatism.

In classical psychology there is the concept of “Ego”, which is considered the center of the conscious part of the personality, and novice lovers of psychological research easily fall into the misconception that “I” and Ego are one and the same. But this is very far from the truth. The ego is just an adaptation mechanism, a layer between the external and internal world. Its function is utilitarian, but by a strange coincidence, it is the Ego with all its contradictions that finds itself at the forefront, which creates the ground for all psychological problems.

Metaphor from life. We know that the ship is controlled by the captain, and if the ship asked the question of where its “I” is, then the correct answer would be “I am the captain” (let’s leave aside for now the romantic ideas about the ship’s own soul). But then a strange metamorphosis occurs and the ship suddenly begins to believe that it is the helm, because it is the movements of the helm that cause a change in course and thus seem to express the freedom of the ship's will. But has this ship gone crazy? Wasn't he too proud in this helm-centrism of his?

The same thing happens every time a person identifies himself with the stream of thoughts in his consciousness. Thoughts are just ripples on the water, the result of the wind blowing, but not the wind itself. Considering yourself your thoughts, equating yourself with your Ego is a legalized form of madness.

In practice, this leads to many everyday problems that cannot be solved without moving to the next level of awareness. This is exactly the point of application of strength that practicing psychologists are struggling with - it is necessary to knock the patient out of his usual confidence that to be a reasonable person means to be a healthy person.

Psychologists have even come up with a special term - rationalization, but they usually use it in a narrower meaning - for example, to describe this form of psychological defense when the patient sucks the rational out of his finger. rational explanation for one's irrational behavior and thus avoids having to admit the true nature of one's actions.

That is, a person commits some kind of recklessness (cheating on his wife, for example), and then, instead of coming to terms with the fact that he really wanted it, that this act reflects his true personality, he comes up with a rational “explanation” which relieves him of responsibility and allows him to continue to remain in the happy illusion that he is a respectable husband. He says, “I did it because...” and then begins to lie. This is rationalization - self-deception through the logical justification of one’s actions.

In a broader sense, the rational perception of oneself leads to such an internal position - “I” is what I think about myself, “I” is what I am decided to be - and this is the most utter stupidity that can be.

For example, a person, having read clever articles on some website, is imbued with the logic of the reasoning given there about the relativity of any moral assessments and says to himself - "Great! From now on, I will believe that there is nothing good or evil in people, people are neutral, they cannot be judged.".

And having said this, he considers the job done: he understood - that means he has changed. But as soon as a close friend slips him a big pig, he finds himself in a suspended and very contradictory state - his friend cannot be considered a bastard, after all, it was decided that there is no good and evil, but at the same time there is no way to forgive him - everything is burning inside and I want to tear this worst friend into pieces.

Here you have an internal conflict - at the intellectual level a person believes that there is no good and evil, but at the level of his emotions he continues to give out assessments left and right with the same categoricalness. And in the same way he continues to judge himself for every mistake and praise himself for every smallest victory. This creates the ground for self-doubt - real behavior does not correspond to rational ideas about oneself, what kind of trust can one have in oneself?

The mind is extremely resourceful in this game of its own, and that is why psychologists dislike smart people to a great extent. If the patient's intellect is not very sophisticated, then bringing it to light is relatively simple - his logic contains a lot of obvious contradictions, paying attention to which, you can quickly bring the person to the realization that he knows nothing about himself, and make him learn yourself from scratch. But the trouble with smart people is that their logic is subtler and deeper, and it is much more difficult to destroy it.

In the same way, there are great difficulties with people who are narrow-minded, but principled - you can’t understand them at all with logic, they are not interested in it, since all their internal rationalizations are built on blind faith in certain rules and principles. These are dogmatists, and it is even more difficult to dig under them than under smart people. Well, that's not what we're talking about.

So, “I” is not my mind, not what I think about myself, not what I consider right and wrong, not my principles, not my views, not what I decided and what I came up with is all superficial nonsense, with which one cannot be satisfied. “I” is something else that is much deeper.

I am my memory

Actually, memory belongs to the sphere of the mind and consciousness, but this version of self-delusion is worth considering separately.

We have just discussed how rational ideas about oneself are structured and what problems lead to identifying oneself with these opinions, thoughts, assessments and principles. There is only one question left - where are all these thoughts stored? After all, people don’t invent them every time, do they?

For this, a person has a memory - a piggy bank in which ready-made solutions for typical situations are added. The person remembers the decisions made earlier and knows that the right person is a consistent person. This is how he was taught, and therefore he strives with all his might to adhere to the views once formed and is very ashamed when he is caught in inconsistency.

However, principles and opinions always lag behind the flow of time. Formed yesterday, they are no longer suitable today. Constancy, certainty and predictability of behavior are reassuring, make you feel the ground under your feet and create the illusion of self-confidence... but this illusion crumbles to dust at the first encounter with an unpredictable and changeable reality.

To have character and to be constant in one's views is considered a virtue deserving the deepest respect. And the lack of a clear life position and flexibility in views is considered humiliating opportunism.

Having character is good, not having it is bad. “I” is the constancy of my views and values, “I” is my character, and my character is my personality. Education prescribes such a subprogram in every child.

Therefore, it turns out that from early childhood a person begins to cultivate, groom and cherish his character. From the entire variety of available traits, properties, views and principles, a unique bouquet of individual characteristics is formed, which are brought together for one single purpose - to earn recognition and respect. Because character is good, and good character is even better.

Remember? So, character is one of the aspects of the Persona, it is a mask that we present to others and - which is much more dangerous! - to ourselves. We believe in our character and are damn afraid of losing it, because deep down we understand perfectly well that all our egocentrism, all our psychological defense against recognizing our complete insignificance on the scale of the universe, is built on the shaky soil of memory of ourselves. Take away a person's memory, and what remains of him?

From the ego's point of view, memory loss is tantamount to death, but does my “I” die? If I lose my memory of myself, will my future behavior be the same as before? Will I come to the same views and opinions again? Will my new character be the same if it is formed under different conditions? - I leave all these questions for you to think about independently.

I am my feelings

Before considering our question from this position, we need to decide what feelings we will talk about. If we take Jung’s concept of psychological types, then there is an interesting nuance that is important to pay attention to now. He has there the concept of a predominant mental function, one of four - thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Jung calls the first two rational, the second pair irrational.

Here's the catch: Jung says that feelings are rational! Just like rational thinking. The only difference between them is that thinking answers the question "Right or wrong?", and feelings - to the question "Good or bad?" Thinking tries to give a logical assessment, feelings - a moral one.

And in this vein, it is very interesting to look at the difference between female and male psychology, because the sphere of feelings belongs almost entirely to women. Most women have feeling as their predominant mental function, while men more or less evenly distribute the other three functions among themselves. Now it would be out of place to reveal this topic, but this is where the secret lies that men and women look like creatures from different planets.

But for the issue under discussion, something else is important to us, another type of feelings - irrational, those that do not obey any logic, do not depend on thinking, and are not amenable to volitional control. Those emotions that arise contrary to the voice of reason and contain much more mental energy than any, the most refined, thinking.

First of all, this includes basic emotions: anger, fear, sadness and joy. These are the emotions that are inherent in a person by nature and do not depend in any way on upbringing. Acting in the manner of mental hormones, they set the overall tone in responding to the current situation. Anger requires active action, manifestations of aggression, fear recommends fleeing, sadness states a loss, joy - gain. These emotions can be accepted or not, but they cannot be controlled - they are part of our animal nature, which we try to compensate for by education.

Other emotions can be called conditioned, in the manner of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes. A person learns to experience these emotions throughout life - resentment, anger, jealousy, pity, like and dislike, love and hate... and the like. In psychology, these emotions are sometimes called neurotic, since they express a distorted perception of reality and are a sign of not entirely normal functioning of the psyche. Gradation is important here - the more intense the emotions from this series, the worse the person’s head is.

The important thing here is that these emotions are always beyond rational control and arise regardless of what a person thinks, what he considers right or wrong, good or evil.

For example, education teaches a person to condemn aggressiveness, calls such behavior bad, immoral, and even in the sports ring requires the manifestation of sports passion, and not pure animal aggression. Aggression is dangerous to society because it is uncontrollable. And so, having completed a full course of social training and scored a passing grade, a person finds himself in a situation where, for example, some lout crawls to the front of the line and takes away the last tickets for the premiere from under his nose.

The occurrence of aggression in this situation is completely natural, but upbringing requires obedience and humility from a person - that is, he has an emotion, but he cannot allow himself to express it... because you need to be a good person, balanced and kind. And since he has never shown aggression in its pure form, he even begins to believe in the sincerity of his virtue. Aggression is suppressed, goes into the unconscious, and the person stops even noticing that it arises somewhere in him.

This is the classic form of conflict between consciousness and the unconscious, from which people gradually go crazy. Reason and consciousness say one thing, but emotions and the unconscious say the opposite. And since the forces here are far from equal, the unconscious always wins - either suppressed emotions find an outlet outside the framework of conscious control, and the police come for the person, or the personality simply splits into pieces, and orderlies come for him.

So, the statement that “I” are my emotions or my unconscious is much more true than the version about reason or consciousness. The mind is filled with abstract and ostentatious reasoning, which is presented to others in order to confirm and strengthen one’s membership in society, and emotions express a person’s real views - what he really thinks and feels, what he is inside, not outside.

However, this does not answer our question. The equal sign placed between emotions and the true essence of a person is a big breakthrough, this is the very achievement for which every psychologist fights with every patient. Acknowledging the nature and content of your feelings is damn important, but it's not the end of the road. This is the milestone at which serious self-discovery just begins.

For Jung, the very first and simplest stage on the path of individuation is the separation of oneself from one’s Person (“I” are my thoughts about myself) and the recognition of one’s Shadow (“I” are my real feelings). For Castaneda, the warrior’s path begins with overcoming fear, which is essentially the same thing. And all of Freud's psychoanalysis is a detailed description of the fight with the Shadow and overcoming neurotic fears.

Having passed this stage, a person finally becomes an adult and independent. A balance is established in his self-esteem, his judgments become balanced and sober, his lifestyle is rebuilt around his real passions, he lives as he wishes, communicates with those who are truly interesting to him, he is free from rules, because now he is able proclaim your own law of life.

And yet, this is not the end of the road... the warrior’s first enemy is defeated, three more remain.

I am emptiness

Let's move on, as one of the readers called it, to distilled philosophy: if everything described above is not “I,” then where can we look for it?

Here we will need to turn to our own memory and extract from it the most ancient glimpses of consciousness that we can reach. Try to remember the most distant images from childhood, still fragmentary and foggy - the subject of our search is hidden in them.

The important thing is that where there are memories, our “I” is also present, and the earlier the memory, the fewer extraneous thoughts it contains, the more pure awareness it contains.

If you manage to recall some of these images in your memory (what’s so difficult about that?!), note that a long time ago, when you were two or three years old, you already had your “I”. Even then, you clearly felt and realized yourself, and from within this awareness you looked at the world around you. Don't try to understand it with your mind - remember it! Immerse yourself in childhood memories and find your “I” in them - “You” have already been there.

The earliest and most fragile memories - these islands of awareness torn from the darkness of timelessness contain the most important discovery - “I am!” There are no words yet, no thoughts yet, no morality, but “I” is already there!

Look at this “I” more closely - don’t you find anything strangely familiar in it? If not, take out vivid memories from three years ago from your memory and find the same “I” in them. Is it even a little different from the “I” you found in early childhood?

If you cut off everything superfluous and extraneous, is there at least some difference between the “I” that you had in the first years of your life and the one that you had at ten years old, at twenty, at thirty?... And today? Is your current “I” different from yesterday?... Is there at least some difference between today’s “I” and the “I” that you discovered in yourself as a child?

Our true “I” exists outside of words, concepts and meanings, outside of time and space. Even when we leave what is cherished for seekers of truth here-and-now, our “I” remains in its place.

Our “I” simply exists, it does not have any qualities or character, it cannot be described and cannot be divided, it is one and unchanged throughout life. It cannot be remade or educated, it cannot be taught anything, its only function is awareness, and it has mastered this skill perfectly since birth.

A person’s happiness lies in finding this unchanging “I” with its calm contemplation. Awareness in itself does not judge and does not give any assessments - it absorbs and accepts everything that happens around without worries and fears. It is filled to the brim with the mere fact of its existence, and pain and pleasure, suffering and joy of the world around it do not affect it, for it these are just flashes of light on the movie screen.

But many years of purposeful development of the rational and calculating side of the psyche leads to the fact that the center of gravity shifts from the true silent “I” to the ever-frightened and preoccupied Ego. And this turns a person into a mad monkey - a creature lost in its fears and doubts, rushing between its Ego.

A person forgets who he really is and, feeling the emptiness of his existence, now tries to find himself in his thoughts, in his principles, in his moral values, in his character, in his individuality, in his achievements and victories... and everything is in vain.

Even the game of self-development does not help here, since in reality there is simply nothing to develop. You can train your mind, sharpen your character, comb your value system and polish your halo, but what does all this have to do with the unchanging Self? Any attempt to improve oneself only leads to a worsening of the situation - to a strengthening of the Ego, to a deeper identification of oneself with something that is definitely not “I”.

From words to deeds

Well, all philosophy is useless if it cannot be put into practice. Usually everyone expects clear instructions on what exactly to do, like 10 steps to success and the like. But we must remember that following someone else’s plan, even an ideal one, will never lead to the goal. Self-discovery is a creative process, you definitely need to put YOUR soul, YOUR spirit, YOUR experience, YOUR intuition into it. It is impossible to find yourself by following in other people's footsteps.

Someone else's experience can be used as a starting point, other people's discoveries can be used as lighthouses on coastal peaks, but you still have to find your own fairway yourself.

Well, in a practical (and therapeutic) sense, a good attitude is: “I am my actions.” Real actions do not deceive as the devious mind does, and they are not as vague as feelings and emotions. Every act, every real action in the real world is a fact, it is a firm and completely unambiguous expression of the essence of a person. If you want to know yourself, study your actions.

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I often asked myself: "Who am I?" How many days and nights have been spent on this issue! I can't even begin to count them. My intellect gave me answers using what I heard somewhere; all decisions were the result of my early conditioning. All the words were borrowed, lifeless, and they did not satisfy me at all. All of them only touched the surface and then disappeared. But none of them touched my inner essence. None of them were heard in the depths of my being. They had no effect on me at all. They didn't even match the importance of the issue.

Then I realized that the question concerned the center of my being, and the answers affected only the periphery. The question was mine, and the answers came from outside. But the very fact that I asked awakened something inside me. I tried to impose on myself the answers that came from outside. This idea was revolutionary, but at the same time a completely new direction opened up for me. I saw that all the answers that the mind gives are completely useless. They had nothing to do with the problem, whatever it was. And the illusion was shattered. What a relief!

It was as if a door had been jerked open, as if a sudden influx of light had dispelled the darkness. My mistake was that I did not see that it is the mind that gives all the answers. And because of these pseudo-answers, the real ones could not come to the surface. I knew that the truth was struggling to come to light, that in the depths of my consciousness some seed was searching for its way, breaking through the soil to reach the light. My intelligence was a hindrance to this. When I realized this, the answers began to come less and less often and the borrowed knowledge began to evaporate. The question went deeper and deeper. I didn't do anything, just watched. I felt there was some kind of process of self-expression going on. I was in it. What to do? I was just watching. The periphery was discarded, died, disappeared. And the center became more and more active.

"Who am I?". My whole body was pulsating with this one thirst. It was such a storm! The body trembled and trembled with every breath.

"Who am I?". Like an arrow, the question pierced all the obstacles within me.

The feeling of acute thirst came again. All my energy turned to thirst. All.

And like a tongue of flame, the question jumped out from within: “Who am I?”

It was amazing! The mind was silent. The non-stop stream of thoughts stopped. What happened? The periphery was calm. No thoughts, no impressions. I was there and the question was there. No, that's not accurate. I was this question myself. And then there was an explosion. In a second everything changed. The question disappeared. The answer came from nowhere. Truth is not learned gradually, it comes in an unexpected burst. You can't bring it, it comes. The answer is silence, not words. When you don't answer, that's the answer.

The test “awareness of yourself, your “I”, your life” will show you how awakened you are, awakened and see the world clearly. A person spends most of his life sleeping. A person’s ego, his habits, desires, subconscious attitudes guide his behavior. When making some choice in life, a person is not guided by his intuition, i.e. doesn't ask your Higher Self, but follows generally accepted norms or begins to make rational choices, calling on logic. And such a choice leads a person astray from his true path. Step by step, a person moves further and further away from himself, following a path alien to him. The higher “I” of a person is hidden under the veil of the needs of his Ego. Everyday affairs and material needs distract a person, filling his life. A person thinks that someday he will change his life. And now he is letting his affairs take their course, following the saying “Wherever the curve takes you,” so it “takes” him not to where he would like. How to wake up? How to see everything clearly? How to realize yourself and become yourself, come to yourself? For it to come awareness of your life, so that it is possible to awaken from the sleep of the Higher Self, so that you can see everything clearly, a person always needs to follow his true desires, which come from the heart, and not imposed by someone. To wake up you need intention- a strong, stable and calm desire. Tell yourself every day - I want to wake up, I want to see the true reality, I am aware of myself now. And sooner or later quantity will turn into quality, i.e. accumulated in your subconscious Your intention will become reality - you will wake up.

Now answer all the questions on the test. “awareness of yourself, your “I”, your life- how much you are awakened, awakened and see the world clearly,” and you will find out how much you are an awakened, awakened, conscious person.

The test is presented in the form of a scale, as described by Dario Salas Sommer, here is a quote from his book “The Practice of Raising the Level of Consciousness”:

“Let us highlight two main states of consciousness known to us: sleep and wakefulness. Let's compare consciousness to a thermometer scale. Let's introduce a 20-degree scale: 10 degrees above zero and 10 degrees below. Divisions above zero indicate the degree of wakefulness, and below - the degree of sleep. We know that there are different degrees of sleep depth. It is never taken into account that along with the existence of different degrees of depth of sleep, there are also different degrees of wakefulness. A person may be more awake or less awake during his normal activities.” In this test, the temperature of awareness can range from - 58 to 58 points.

The results of answers to the test questions are divided into 8 groups. Having collected a certain number of points, you can find yourself in one of these groups: 1. You are in deep hibernation, 2. Sound sleep, 3. Napping, 4. You are on the verge of awakening, 5. You have begun to awaken, 6. You have woken up, 7. You are a conscious person, 8.Your will is in your hands. . A transcript of each group is given after passing the test. To objectively assess your awareness, you need to answer all the test questions. Answer questions thoughtfully and honestly.