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The Practice of General Self-Knowledge (of the Soul) · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

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Hello and welcome to another episode of The Curious Mind
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Podcasts. This is your host, Gabriel
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Ellis. I'm a psychologist and
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psychotherapist and a philosopher.
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And in the last episode I already started to talk about
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the topic of self knowledge. I tried to show how
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historically, throughout philosophy and also in therapy,
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why this is an important topic, why it's indeed advisable for
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self growth, for any serious self growth, to pick up this
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topic of self knowledge and to develop it.
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And I laid the foundations, the theoretical foundations in the
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last episode. Today I wanted to come to the
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practical sides and I would like to split this practical aspect
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of self knowledge again into two parts.
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The first part, which I would like to talk about today, is the
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more general part of self knowledge and self
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understanding. What is the self?
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Not what is myself, but what is the self for all humans?
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What is the self in general? And then in the next episode, I
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would like to talk about the more psychological and
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therapeutic aspect of it, which is embedded in this
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understanding of what the self is.
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What is my biographical, my specific, my idiosyncratic self.
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Now, in the pursuit of, in this general understanding of what
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the self is, we have two different approaches.
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They are not mutually exclusive, but they have quite different
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kind of techniques embedded in them.
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One is the kind of negative approach by understanding of
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what self is not or by understanding what not self or
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non self is. And the other is the more
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positive approach by identifying something that self is or
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supposedly is and pursue that connection or that
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identification. I think that the negative method
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is practically easier to point at something and then to say
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this is not you. I think this is methodically
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simpler and by most spiritual traditions I think this is also
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the preferred way as it has been practiced.
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Traditionally matter was considered the clearest part of
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non self and so the rejection and disciplining of the body as
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the material component within us was probably always the first
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practice of spiritual, mystical or religious people and the
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different techniques in there were practiced by many of those
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practitioners. There was fasting, sleep
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deprivation, the renunciation of possessions and during pain and
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during heat and cold. So these things that are
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typically very uncomfortable because they RIP us out of our
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normal daily life and out of the social fabric in which we are
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embedded. They were traditionally
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practiced both, for example by Christian ascetics, by Buddhist
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ascetics, by ascetics, probably of all kinds of different
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cultures, in order to practice this one and most important
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method of non self, which is to regard the body as not self, to
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regard the material aspect of our life of ourselves, so to
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speak, for normal naive selves as not self, and to distance
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ourself from it. The second aspect that has been
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typically the target of this kind of practices next and after
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the body were emotions. Emotions typically among those
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practitioners is regarded as reactions to something that is
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not self. When I react to the weather,
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when I react to somebody yelling at me, when I react to the fear
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of poverty and so on, the expectation that something will
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happen, then I'm reacting to something that is not me.
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And hence this reaction in itself is doubtful to be part of
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me again. And so practitioners are
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doubtful of the emotions and of passions of desires and so
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forth. A Greek word for this is apatia,
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which in terms of practice, practice and exercises, means
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that the practitioners let a feeling arise and then they
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don't engage with it, they don't discuss with it, they don't
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consider it at all. Instead, they label it as what
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it is, which is an emotion that comes up, and then they let it
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be. So this is the practice of
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observing emotions without emotional involvement, without
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triggering a second emotional reaction.
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To endure this emotions, not to distract myself, but to bear the
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emotion as it is like a wave that comes, appears into the
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mind, stays for a while, and then leaves again.
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Now these are practices that were also practicing early
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Christianity among the desert church fathers, for example.
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But of course, people who are a little bit familiar with
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contemporary meditation techniques, they recognize it as
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Bipassana meditation. So all kinds of aesthetics from
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different traditions have been using this method of allowing an
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emotion to be in the mind, to see it as such, maybe even to
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explicitly label it as something and then to leave it
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unconsidered, not to engage with it.
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That has been a practice for, we can say by now, millennia.
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The most modern Buddhist version of it is the Bipasana technique
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that was proposed by the Burmese meditation teacher Mahasi
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Sayidor who basically practices it like that with this labeling.
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So Mahasi Sayidor is famous for this labeling technique.
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It's very practical. Many people use it.
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There are other B Pasana techniques that don't require
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this active word labeling. Nonetheless, it's the same and
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quotes negative approach, seeing something as not me and thus
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losing the identification with this thing.
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For example, the emotion let it be and see in the practice how
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it slowly falls off and the habitual identification of the
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mind with this aspect with emotions to slowly wither and
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leave more mental space for something higher, something more
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free than the entanglement with emotion typically is.
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Another aspect of disengaging with emotions is to stop the
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emotional disentangle, the emotional entanglement through
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silence and by avoiding small talk.
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Also, this is something that aesthetics have been known to
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practice. They typically withdraw from
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normal social entanglements, and so they're not by this practice,
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by this withdrawal. They practice not directly to
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disengage from emotions, but to unburden themselves from the
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emotional triggers that inevitably come up when we deal
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with normal human communication. So we had the body as a target
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of disidentification. Then as the next logical step,
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we have emotions as the target of disidentification.
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For those who in a more general philosophical or spiritual
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pursuit, one to practice self understanding and self
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knowledge, and a third one which is more radical is the
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disidentification from cognitions.
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So for example, thoughts, intuitions, impulses of will,
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intentions. So these are all forms of
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cognition and more ambitious ascetics or people who in a more
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serious fashion want to find out what the self is, they have been
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known to practice the disentanglement, the
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disengagement from cognitions as well.
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So the Christian early practitioners, for example, they
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regarded thoughts, especially evil thoughts, thoughts of
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desires as they have labeled them as whisperings from the
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outside. And also Buddhist practitioners,
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maybe not of the first hour, but of the the 2nd, 3rd and 4th
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generation. And henceforth they used the
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kind of the practice of or there was a symbol in early Buddhism
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which is called Maha. Maha was an entity that that
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personified evil, the personified death personified
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also seduction of the mind and so on.
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And so to consider those thoughts and feelings and
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intentions as false as whisperings from the outside was
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one practice of disengagement and disentanglement from
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cognitions. We can also, as a practice, we
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can consider ourselves as gatekeepers, as A at the
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threshold of consciousness, basically understanding that we
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cannot stop cognitions to come up inside of us, thoughts to
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come up, impulses of willpower to come up, but then to engage
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in a critical, skeptical relationship to it.
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And not to just to not just accept it, but to ask ourselves,
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are you a genuine thought of me, or are you one of those enemies
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of those non self aspects? Is this a thought of my parents?
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Is this a thought of society, of something that is merely
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incorporated into my mind but is not genuinely me?
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Another method to practice it is maybe more contemporary, which
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is to say out aloud, to speak aloud out the thoughts and to
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thus to disempower them. When I in a safe environment,
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when I confess in a confessional, for example, in a
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therapeutic session or with friends and people that I
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generally trust, when I'm allowing myself to say out loud
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difficult thoughts that I have that I struggle with, that I
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ruminate about, then the typical result is that they lose power
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and there is a relief coming from them.
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So this is an additional practice of disengaging
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disidentifying from thoughts. And a derived method from this
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is journaling, which is often used in therapy, which I also
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recommend. In therapy, which is especially
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if I not have all the time available, trusted people or
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don't want to burden them all the time with very difficult
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thoughts and cognitions that I have, then at least I can say
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them out loud on paper and write them down.
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And by that I weaken the hold that those thoughts, those
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convictions have on me, on my mind.
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I want to mention a last and a more problematic practice that
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has been used over the centuries and also today, which is
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obedience and submission. Especially in religious and
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spiritual circles, this has been an important part.
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You submit yourself to the to a higher authority.
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And by that we challenge the intellectual, the egoistic
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vanity that we have, believing that everything is on us, having
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the burden of responsibility of choosing the right thing to do,
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but also the egoistic vanity of I am right all the time.
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So this is challenged by this practice.
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And even though on paper and logically it does make sense to
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submit myself to my intentions, to a higher authority that knows
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better, that is wiser, in practice I think that we have
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ample examples and enough evidence to show that this is
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mostly problematic. If I'm in a sect, if I'm in a
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religion to submit myself to a higher personal power
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personified by actual people, then typically this will sooner
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or later result in some emotional abuse.
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And so if I cannot find something that is impersonal,
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for example, the Buddhist Dharma or a teaching, it can be
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religious, it can be Christian or something like that, then I
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would rather emphasize the difficulties and the risks that
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are involved in such a practice. And yes, so deal carefully with
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obedience and submission to people because people are people
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and they have their own interests.
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OK, So that was the negative method, highlighting identifying
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what is not me, seeing what I typically had habitually
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identify myself with it as not me, and disengage from that,
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disidentify, dissociate myself from those aspects.
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And then as a result, to see how the mind clears up, how there is
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more mental freedom, how is there more emotional
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flexibility? And so to see how nourishing
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that is to actually disidentify. I don't want to go in too much
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into the risks of asceticism. I think obviously people who
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practice with kind of physical discomfort from disengaging from
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emotions, they leave a normal human life aside.
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And so this comes with its own dangers.
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And if this is not practice carefully, then of course this
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will lead to further suffering. So let's assume that
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practitioners figure out how to do this in a safe environment in
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a way that is leaves them psychologically intact and so
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not to go on to extremes with those practices as people have
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done a lot in the past and also in more radical spiritual
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circles Now, OK, having said that, this caveat and this
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disclaimer, this has been the negative approach.
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What about the positive approach?
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So also in history, also even in Buddhism, in later developments,
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there has been a positive approach to what the self is, to
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understanding what the self is, to understand what the general
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I, the capitalized I is. And in the more western,
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northern Middle Eastern regions there have been long practices
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of the so-called Neoplatonists. They go back to Plato and his
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ideas and they have adopted more a more mystical interpretation
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of his teachings and their goal was to uncover the naked pure
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spirit, the nose that is untouched by the world.
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And when I say untouched by the world, then of course they that
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brings in again the negative approach identify what the world
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and quotes is the not self is. So again, I peel away the layers
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of reality, the layers of body, sensory impressions, thoughts
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and intellect. But I also hold on to this
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positive goal, this self, this spirit.
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And while I'm practicing the non self, I still have my vision
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clearly set on this positive goal to identify and to become
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the self that I actually AM. This has a counterpart also in
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Buddhist meditation in the so-called Samata practice where
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basically concentrate on objects.
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It can be a concentration on the breath, it can be a
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concentration on mantras. So for example in Thai Buddhism
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the monastics use the mantra of Buddha.
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So this is what they repeated over and over again.
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Mantra meditation is important even in Islamic Sufi practices
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and Christian practices. So this has a long history.
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But in general, this is the concentration on something, and
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practice shows that when we are able to do this successfully, to
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concentrate on our amount, which by the way takes enormous
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willpower and concentration and dedication, then miraculous
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things happen. The mind clears up, it gives way
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to ecstatic feelings, to a very spacious experience.
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And while the Buddhists only see this as a stepping stone and
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don't consider this as an authentic expression of the
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self, other traditions would see this already as an emanation, as
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a an access to the soul, to the divine spirit.
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And so this shows again that what the self is and what we can
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can consider as the authentic self highly depends on what
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teachings we are following. Another practice that those
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Neoplatonists have been pursuing was to drive intellectual
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thinking to its limits and then to see it collapse because we
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try to go beyond the intellectual limit.
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This is reminiscent also of the later Buddhist practice with and
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within the Zen, the Zen qawans that burden the intellectual
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mind with a paradox that it cannot solve, and to go so far
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so that eventually it just falls off and again leaves behind this
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enormous spaciousness that is more an expression of a nothing
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than of a something. This is from the Zen
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perspective, but also Christian thinkers and new Platonists have
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been using this method in order to get access to the essence, to
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the soul, to the spirit, to the divine light.
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And to give a more philosophical example, philosophers who have
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been pursuing critical thinking. For example, Rene Descartes, who
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at the beginning of the modern times that he helped to pave the
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way for us in the 16th, 17th century, who used an approach of
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skepticism in order to peel away critical thinking and skepticism
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to peel away the false layers to get access to the soul and to
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the knowledge and understanding of God.
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Other practices that fall in this category are rituals and
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energy work to purify the soul. And this can be done by prayers
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and acts of kindness. For example, there have been
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gnostics also. Let me just close the window
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because the dog is barking. This is real life.
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There we go again. So agnostics have been around
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maybe even longer than Neoplatonists.
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We are told that the first teachings are ancient.
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We cannot really know that. But first Gnostic writings seems
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to have appeared in Egypt, and then they have spread over
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different regions in the world. They have used visualizations
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again, prayers. They have used trances all for
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one goal, which is to identify themselves with the fallen spark
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of light that is entrapped in the material world, to shatter
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the identification with Meta and to release the light again, to
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unveil the divine spark, the divine light that is in all of
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us, right. So this have been practices that
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are more spiritual, more philosophical.
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Why? Because they target the general
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understanding of self, the general self discovery.
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When I come to the more maybe contemporary psychological
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aspects, this I will do next time.
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This is what we can do in therapy.
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But it's good to have a general understanding of the purpose and
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of those practices. I can generally recommend also
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to pursue some of those practices even if you are not so
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inclined, if even if you're not convinced by them.
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If you do work weekend seminars, for example, we pass on our
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workshops for a week or a weekend or even a day, It might
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give you a glimpse of what these techniques are all about.
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And I think this is in general kind of useful.
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And to then go into more psychological methods and to see
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how the psychological methods are actually aspects of those
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broader ideas, the broader concepts of self discovery.
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I want to mention also a criticism of this approach.
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And I want to highlight one philosopher who has done this.
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His name is Mark Stiernan. He has been a contemporary of
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Hegel, a younger contemporary. He actually visited his lectures
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and he was a rather rebellious student, and he developed a
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different answer to the question of what the self is.
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For him, the self is the absolute freedom to determine
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oneself. And with this he criticizes the
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blind obedience to any authorities, including
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philosophical authorities, including Hegel, for example,
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the Idea, Hegel's idea that I am actually the spirit that is
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striving for self knowledge. Stiana criticized this by
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saying, well, I got away. I, I, I put aside maybe another
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false eye. Let's say the body is a false
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eye. But then what did I do instead?
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I installed another false eye, which is in quotes the spirit.
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So I have not gained anything. I've submitted my original
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freedom, the freedom that I have as an individual, and I'm
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sacrificing it for another ideal that I just accepted from
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another authority. Now with this philosophy, with
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this approach, with this attitude, he became one of the
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forerunners of both Friedrich Nietzsche and his fundamental
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critique of authority and especially of the church and of
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Sigmund Freud's concept of the Super ego.
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Because also Sterna describes how children first are exposed
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to the authority of their parents and then internalize
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those rules and commands into their own mind as what Ford
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would then call the Super ego, as ideals.
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Sterna criticizes then those fixed ideas or the conscience or
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bad conscience that this internalization produces.
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And again, how does he criticize it?
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He says that people place inside something, something that is
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above themselves and thus create an unhealthy alienation from
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themselves. He says that individuals should
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never subordinate and sacrifice themselves to such may may be
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philosophical or spiritual superstitions.
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And he advises rather a radical disillusionment and the
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appropriation of all the powers that human the mental powers
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that humans previously recognized the sacred or
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transcendent, and to assume them as their own.
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And anyone who knows Nietzsche's writings will easily recognize a
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similar streak, a similar direction in his writings as
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well. I think overall, no matter how
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we practice on the negative path, on the positive path, by
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stripping away layers of the wrong or identifying ourselves
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with something that is more us, a higher sense of us, the result
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should be lightness. The result should be
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spaciousness, more kindness, and so forth.
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If you see that your practice is going into another direction,
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then you're doing you're practicing it wrong.
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So ideally this should be practiced only as long as it
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serves those effects again. Next time I will focus on the
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psychological, on the therapeutic practices of self
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discovery, of self understanding.
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For today, I hope that it sparked your interest into those
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practices. As always, I invite you to work
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with me. If you are interested in
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personal therapeutic or in spiritual work, you can find the
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links in working with me below in the comments.
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Other than that, I hope that you enjoyed this episode as well,
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took some inspiration and I see you next time.