True and false is true

The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.

                                                                                                                 Carl Jung

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you.

                                                                                                               St Augustine

If Matilda and I were to be asked which is one of the concepts that helped us most on our spiritual journey up to now we would say it has been that of the True and the False Self. Originating to a large degree in the writings of Thomas Merton and expanded upon by later authors and teachers, it forms the backbone of our own inner work and helps us immensely in our relationships. From own experience we can totally relate with these concepts - it just rings true.

The True Self can be described as the Divine Presence within, your soul, your true identity in God (and God in you) that nothing can damage or change, your deep essence characterised by resurrection, life and authenticity. The discovery of Matt 13’s “treasure hidden in a field” and “pearl of great price” leads to a deep joy and a certain lightness of being since you no longer have to prove yourself or anything to anyone. 

The sad truth is that to a large degree we forget who we really are. The main reason for that state of affairs is that we usually over-identify with our False Self. 

The latter - sometimes also called the ego, or the small self - is who you think you are. It develops as a coping mechanism that helps us handle the imperfections of our upbringing whether it is the influence of our parents, our education or our religious context. Society and culture play a huge role in the formation of our masks that help us to get by. Unfortunately those coping skills are often also the source of our prejudices, fears, shame and guilt in later years. Other characteristics of the False Self is a clinging to the status quo, a constant tendency to compare, focusing on security, safety, order, success and being attractive. Richard Rohr sums it up nicely when he says “the human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling or changing or dying.”

The matter of “false” in this context must be clarified. It’s not false in the sense of being malicious or deceitful. It is not as if we decide one day to bamboozle others and then set our plans in motion. The formation of the ego or false self usually happens unconsciously as the platform that gets us started in life. It has a function in that it helps us develop an identity that sets us apart from others through our job, appearance, possessions, and successes. During our childhood and into our young adulthood it therefore plays an important role.

However, the ego is false in the sense that it often develops into a position where it poses as and substitutes for the real thing. The term “small self” is therefore a term that is very helpful in that regard. Through the over identification with the ego constructs we limit ourselves and live within a reduced reality where we discard our shadow self, our body and soul, death and our interconnectedness and instead we focus primarily on our idealised self, our minds, life without any “death” and our individuality, superiority or separateness. Staying stuck and preoccupied with the tools and coping strategies of early life has therefore a very debilitating – even disastrous – effect. In the words of Carl Jung:

 "What is a normal goal to a young person becomes a neurotic hindrance in old age."

and

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.”

Unfortunately, the terms “True Self” and “False Self” has a judgemental ring to it and it also poses the danger of making watertight, dualistic divisions between the two. Authors like Carl McColman therefore chooses for “Playful mind” (True Self) and “Survival mind” (False Self) but is realistic enough to agree that “True self” and “False self” have become so embedded in our language over the past few decades, that they won’t go away at this stage. But I do find his terms very helpful in my understanding of these matters. 

Seeing that the ego or False Self is the way it is, one can expect that it is usually very difficult to move more into the True Self. Why on earth would you want to leave your comfort zone where you feel in control and safe? Richard Rohr describes the answer to this question very well:

“Sooner or later, if you are on any classic “spiritual schedule,” some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with, using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point you will stumble over a necessary stumbling stone, as Isaiah calls it; or to state it in our language here, you will and you must “lose” at something. This is the only way that Life-Fate-God-Grace-Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey. I wish I could say this was not true, but it is darn near absolute in the spiritual literature of the world.
Any attempt to engineer or plan your own enlightenment is doomed to failure because it will be ego driven. You will see only what you have already decided to look for, and you cannot see what you are not ready or told to look for. So failure and humiliation force you to look where you never would otherwise.” (Falling Upward: A spirituality for the two halves of life, pp 65 – 66)

Daniel J. O’Leary in his wonderful book Travelling Light echoes these words and introduced us to the concept of malamat in the process:

“There is a stage in what is often called the Work (of seeking holiness, enlightenment), that the Sufis call malamat. Malamat means blame, failure, discredit, disgrace and humiliation. One story says that while there is a way of purification based on malamat, yet, outside the gates of enlightenment where the people queue to enter heaven, the shortest queue is the one marked ‘Malamat’. One day, most of us who are open to God, must stand for a while in this queue.” (Travelling Light, pp 36 -37)

On our own journey we have found the Enneagram to be one of the wisest and most helpful tools in understanding the True and False Self. We often say that it helps you to “catch yourself out”, making you attentive and aware of instances where the fears and coping strategies of the ego come into play and hinder integration and growth. But make no mistake – it is a lifelong journey, where you constantly start again. However, having experienced what is to be gained in the process, we have come to a much deeper appreciation and understanding of Rumi’s beautiful words:

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow 

a hundred times.

Come, yet again, come, come.

George

In our next post (See: How to spot the ego and soul) we are going to look at Elyse Santilli’s very helpful hints in detecting when you are functioning from ego and when from soul.

See also the post by Matilda: My poor little ego.