The Self alone exists A question-and-answer session with Swami Paramatmananda

[Guest guest]

Namastefrom Matruvani July 1999 addressing the difference between Self

love and self love. . . .

 

The Self alone exists A question-and-answer

session with Swami Paramatmananda

Question: Is there Self-love and self-love? If so,

what is the relationship between the two?

 

Swami Paramatmanada: Many people have this conflict.

They're trying to lead a spiritual life and either a friend

or their spouse or boy- or girlfriend, or somebody else says,

" You're being selfish by leading a spiritual life. "

So they begin to ask themselves, " Am I being selfish?

Or is it the love of the higher Self? " Self-love with

a small " s " means that you love what you think is

yourself. Which is what? First of all, it is the body, then

the mind and the personality that is attached to the body.

The little self is a mixture of both good and bad qualities,

but it is more rajasic and tamasic1), which means that it's

more human than divine -- it is the impure ego.

 

 

There are two kinds of ego: the good ego and the bad ego. We cannot

completely get rid of the ego until we realise God. So we are supposed

to develop an ego that is good and pure. The bad ego is what takes

us away from our real Self. It takes us away from God.

 

The negative ego has qualities like selfishness, anger, hatred,

impatience and attachment, and these act as seeds that eventually

make us miserable. Initially, it may seem as if our negative qualities

are making us happy, but if we keep indulging in our selfishness,

and if we keep getting angry, we will become miserable and will

make others miserable as well. The little self wants to be happy,

but it tries to be happy through negative means; and instead of

being happy, we end up being sad. So it isn't very smart to love

the little self; and once we realise this, we try to do something

about it, we try to get rid of it. Nobody has to tell you to love

yourself, because everyone loves him or herself the most. Everything

we do, everyone and everything we seem to love, we love because

they give us some pleasure and happiness. The self is number one,

and all else is number two.

 

But what is the Self? If we were to ask a child this question,

it would probably say something like, " I am nine years old,

I am a student, my mom and dad are so and so. " If we ask people,

" Who are you? " everybody's got a different answer.

 

There was a woman who was sick. She went into a coma and almost

died. Some people, when they're almost dead, have an after death

experience even before they die. When this woman was almost dead,

she experienced that she was taken high up to a place that seemed

to be heaven. There was a committee there and they asked her, " Who

are you? " She said, " I am the wife of the mayor of San

Ramon. " (This is just an example; it could be any city.) They

said to her, " We didn't ask you whose wife you are, we asked

you who you are. " She thought for some time and said, " I

am the mother of four children. " They said, " Sorry, we

didn't ask you who you are the mother of, we asked you who you are. "

Then she said, " I am a school teacher. " But they said,

" We didn't ask you what you do, we want to know who you are. "

She said, " I am a Christian. " They said, " We didn't

ask you what your religion is. We want to know who you are. "

She said, " I used to go to church every day. I did a lot of

charitable work and I served the poor. " The committee said,

" We didn't ask about all the good things you did. We just want

to know -- plain and simple -- who are you? Well, the woman ultimately

didn't know who she was, so they sent her back to earth. When she

regained consciousness, she decided that there was one thing that

was more important than anything else, which she had to do now that

she was alive: she had to find out who she actually was.

 

Who am I? If I am none of those things, then, who am I? That is

the important thing. Who is this Self that we are talking about?

What is this Self - this " I " that we love so much? It

is not a person, because this person, the personality, changes all

the time. It couldn't be the body, because the body also changes

all the time, and sometimes the body causes us a lot of trouble;

it gets sick it gives us pain, it dies. We have to eat, we have

to sleep, we have to do so many things, and we have to work for

a living to keep the body going. So the body isn't the Self either.

 

It is the core of our being that is the Self. But, generally, 99

percent of us are not living at the core of our being. We are on

the periphery. We are in the things that we do and in the things

around us. We are not in the centre of our being, but are living

only on the outside. Because we do not look deep enough, we believe

that the externals are ourselves. If we were to look deep enough,

we would find that there is " something " that we can call

our true Self. It's not in our head or in our hands, or in any

particular part of the body. Rather, it is

the feeling of " I " or " I am. " If we go deeper

into this, we will experience awareness

--something that is vast like the sky. It is still called

" I, " but it is something that never changes. It is peace;

it is happiness; it is the true Self. At this stage, we begin to

love that Self more than our body, mind, or possessions. We begin

to realise that the qualities of the little self that we used to

love and cultivate so much, for example anger, attachment and

impatience, are cutting us off from that

expansive feeling -- the experience of our

real Self. We start to see that what we used to call our

self is not our real Self at all; it is the false self. And that

false self is hiding our real Self from us. That is what Mother

says -- that the little self is like a collection of clouds hiding

the sun. When we realise this, we start to deny the little self.

We begin to turn against the little self for the sake of discovering

our real Self. This is not easy for most people. It requires great

concentration and great detachment from external things. Even though

it is the Truth, most people can't do it.

 

Mother says, " Alright, if you can't love the Self as it is

-- and you shouldn't love the little self because that is not your

real Self, it is not the source of any great happiness, and, anyway,

it doesn't last -- then love God or love the Guru who is the Self

of all. Direct your mind towards the real Self of everybody. That

Self is the Supreme Self. Let your love be for the Divine Mother

or Krishna or Jesus or the formless Being -- love That. Then try

to get rid of all the negative qualities of the little self. Try

to get rid of them so that you can get closer to That, so that you

can fill yourself with That. The more negative qualities you have,

the more the little self is allowed to be present in you, the less

the higher Self shines. God shines within everyone. We don't have

to find God somewhere. There isn't more of God somewhere in India

or in heaven than inside you. "

 

" The Jews say that God is a jealous God. This doesn't mean

that He is going to get angry if you love someone else. It isn't

like that. It means that if you want to experience the Divine Presence,

if you want to experience God, then you -- the little self -- can't

be here because God can't share the throne with anybody. As long

as the little ego is there, God won't be there -- it's either you

or Him. They say in the Jewish tradition that anyone who sees God

dies immediately. The meaning of this is that if the little ego

experiences God, then it cannot exist anymore; it has to give way

to the real God, which is within each person.

 

" What does devotion mean? It means thinking of That all the

time, trying to make our mind flow towards God or towards a God-realized

person all the time, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, worries,

passions, desires and everything else. When we begin to devote ourselves

to God, or to Mother, we try to slowly withdraw all our energy from

other concerns, and instead of letting it flow into all those little

diverting rivers, we aim it towards the Ocean of Bliss. Then we

start to feel this Presence. It becomes an experience. We experience

the Atman, the Self. We experience God and we become full of That.

We begin to feel, " I don't count. I don't even exist. Only

this vast Ocean is real. I am just a shadow. I am just a wave on

this Ocean. " This is not philosophy; it is an experience. Ultimately,

every sincere devotee has to experience it. It happens. And it means

that one is going the right way. If it doesn't happen, it means

that there is something missing in your spiritual practices. In

that case, you've got to find out what is wrong, why you are not

getting that experience.

 

" In the final stage, you realise that you don't exist as an

individual, that only That -- Infinite Bliss, Pure Awareness, the

Ocean of Intelligence -- exists, and that you are one with That.

You realise that what you were calling " I, " what you used

to love so much, was hidden among all those other things: the body,

mind, ego, possessions, thoughts and feelings. It was there in the

centre of it all, but it couldn't be experienced the way it really

is. That is the real Self, that is God. Then you realise that God,

the Guru, your own Self is the dearest. But your own Self isn't

that little changing thing that comes and goes, that goes up and

down. The Self is the eternal Consciousness. In other words, once

you get beyond the superficialities of the ego, there is only one

Self. And there is nothing wrong with loving the Self; in fact,

everybody loves the Self the most. There's only Self to be loved.

But to get to the real Self we have to go beyond the small " I, "

the small self.

 

" So what is the relationship between Self-love and self-love?

They are ultimately the same. You only have to remove the personality,

the little things, and what is left is the Self. "

 

1) Rajas = activity, passion; tamas = darkness, inertia, apathy

and ignorance. Rajas and tamas are two of the three fundamental

qualities of Nature, the third being sattva (goodness, serenity

and purity).

 

 

 

 

Aum Amriteswaryai Namaha

 

marci