Written by: Ken Goldberg
The term ‘Self’ is used by virtually all spiritual paths and psychological schools of thought. However each discipline may mean something different so here I will give a brief description of the Pathwork and Core Energetic understanding of the ‘Self’ and why it is so important to your spiritual development.
On the level of unification, the Self— and everything else— is unified. There is no separation, no distortion, no duality. However in this plane of existence there are many separations, distortions, and dualities. In this Earth sphere (of incarnation) our Self is made up of many aspects which are more or less conscious or connected: the Physical self, the Emotional self, the Mental self, the autobiographical self, as well as the three domains that we often refer to- the Higher Self, the Lower Self, and the Mask self. These last three are more specific to our work and deserve further explanation.
Our Higher Self is the aspect of us that is unified, that seeks connection, that is loving, compassionate, and caring. The Higher self is undefended which means that the Higher self can feel great pleasure and also feel great hurt.
The Lower self is our undeveloped consciousness and it’s attempt to defend against feeling hurt or threat to it’s separate identity. We do this by saying “NO” to our feelings and by numbing ourselves or by attempting to only feel some feelings and not others. Our primary defenses are three: Self Will, Pride and Fear. Self will is the part of us that wants what it wants, the way it wants it. Pride is the attitude of superiority or arrogance that says ‘ I shouldn’t have to go through what other humans go through, I’m above others and above that’. Fear is a physical reaction with a feeling of dread and the anticipation of something bad in the future.
The Mask self is similar to our persona— this is the way we want the world to see us or our ‘Idealized Self Image’. However the mask also includes all the layers of pretense, untruth, and the ways that we cover up the deeper more real layers of the Higher and Lower Self. This includes all of our beliefs that are partly true (such as “In order to be loved I have to submit”) as well as our cover up strategies of blame, criticism, judgement, rationalization and justification, and confusion.
Another aspect of the self that we need to be aware of is the Ego Self. The ego is supposed to be the intermediary between our unseen inner world and the outer world. The healthy and well developed ego is an aspect of, and in service to, the Higher self. This includes
the Compassionate Objective Observing Self that can discern things as they are with compassion, the ability to self soothe, the ability to be intimate/share the inner world with others, the ability to identify the different thoughts and feelings and to choose to align with love and what’s best for all concerned and so on. We are not born with these capacities and if they fail to be developed the Ego may remain in the service of the Lower Self (fearful, self-willed, and prideful) and of the Mask, focusing on outer appearance and self image instead of care and compassion for the good of all.
As you can see from this map of the ‘Self’ that our physical, emotional, psychological, and Spiritual development are the same as the development of the Self, and which aspects of the Self we are conscious of and identify with. We are all on the spectrum of development with a Mask that needs to be exposed in order to be diminished so that our real defenses of the Lower Self can be faced and Transformed. This is the only way to fully unify all that we are into our Higher Self in our evolution toward Unification. As important as it is to identify with our Higher Self, unless we use that resource to identify and transform our Lower Self and Mask we will remain in duality, separation, and in distortion.
