CORE CONCEPT TWO: PERSONAL SELF OR “I”
The “self,” that is to say, the point of pure self-awareness, is often confused with the conscious personality just described, but in reality it is quite different from it. This can be ascertained by the use of careful introspection. The changing contents of our consciousness (the sensations, thoughts, feelings, etc.) are one thing, while the “I,” the self, the center of our consciousness is another. (Assagioli 1965, 18)
Assagioli’s insight into the nature of personal identity, personal self, or “I,” is perhaps one of the most central and profound within psychosynthesis. Unlike many (most?) psychological thinkers, Assagioli did not confuse personal identity with organizations of psychological content, as do conceptions such as “ego,” “ego complex,” “self image,” or “self representation.” Rather, he saw “I” as distinct but not separate from any contents of experience, from any and all processes or structures of the personality.
While this view of “I” underpins all psychosynthesis thought and practice, Assagioli’s most direct approach to revealing the nature of “I”—of “you”—is via the experience of introspection (see quote above), the act of simply observing the contents of experience as they arise in consciousness. This chapter will outline how the experience of introspection, an act of self-empathy, allows insight into the nature of “I.” (Note: we use “I” rather than “personal self” and reserve the term “self” for “Transpersonal Self” or simply “Self.” We have found this to lessen confusion in discussing these already illusive concepts.)
NURTURING INTROSPECTION
It seems that introspection—the free, open witnessing of arising experience—demands a particular type of environment. Many environments draw us away from listening to our private inner experience. Whether the demanding rush of modern life, the hypnotic bombardment from mass media, or a materialistic culture unappreciative of the depths of personal experience, there are active forces drawing us onto the surface of our lives (not to mention the limitations on introspection from survival unifying centers such as Ellen’s in Chapter 1). Such environments—survival unifying centers—neither see nor support the exploration of our unique experience. Assagioli acknowledged the power of these environments when he wrote, “the self, the I-consciousness, devoid of any content...does not arise spontaneously but is the result of a definite inner experimentation (Assagioli 1965, 112).
In fact the “inner experiment” of introspection asks for an environment of empathy and love, an authentic unifying center. We need to be seen and understood as not identical to, nor separate from, our physical, emotional, or mental experience; to be loved and respected as distinct, but not separate, from our appearance, behavior, or roles. Such empathic love supports an inner space in which we are able to look unwaveringly at whatever experience arises, knowing we are safe to do so. This love allows self-empathy or self-love, as we are able to include all of our experience and ultimately to form it into a creative expression of ourselves in the world (see the previous chapter).
Such an empathic environment may take many forms, from friends and family, to intimate community, to a spiritual retreat, to psychotherapy, to psychological or spiritual systems. Psychosynthesis is one such environment, positing that the essence of human being cannot be equated with or separated from physical, emotional, or intellectual experience. Assagioli’s very invitation to introspection as a way to self-discovery is an expression of empathic love, an invitation to explore for ourselves who we are. Having said all this about the environment that nurtures introspection, let us look at what introspection can reveal about the nature of “I”—of you.
THE FIELD OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Supported by the proper inner and outer authentic unifying center, you can achieve a sustained introspection that reveals a wide variety of passing experiences: sensations, feelings, images, impulses, thoughts. You can be aware of heat then cold; of sadness then joy; of thoughts then images. Clearly, you are someone who has consciousness, a consciousness that is distinct but not separate from the passing contents of consciousness. Your field of consciousness allows you to be aware of each succeeding content of experience much like a spotlight illuminates different objects in a dark room. It then makes sense to say that “I” has awareness or a field of consciousness.
PERSONAL WILL
As you continue this inner observation, you may notice you can choose to place your awareness on various contents of experience. You might choose to focus on an inner image, a train of thought, a particular feeling, or the sounds around you. Or you may choose to allow all contents to pass through awareness without focusing on any particular one. That is, you not only have awareness, but you have the power to direct that awareness as well. This ability to direct your awareness can be called will. Thus the concept of “I” may include will: “I” has consciousness and will.
TRANSCENDENCE-IMMANENCE
Introspecting over time, you may find that at times your consciousness and will are taken over by strong inner contents, causing you to lose contact with other arising contents. Lost in a vivid daydream, you may be unaware your foot has fallen asleep. Or feeling anxious, you may be unable to access your ability to think logically. In other words, you find yourself identified with the experience of daydreaming or anxiety and thus dissociated from the experience of your foot or logical thought.
But as time passes you may find your consciousness and will becoming free to reach beyond the thrall of that intense experience; you may begin to feel your tingling foot while experiencing the daydream, or think clearly while feeling anxious. You have here disidentified from a particular experience, becoming open to other experiences as well. To put it another way, you have discovered that you are transcendent of—distinct from, not identical with—the specific experience; and in the same moment have discovered that you can be immanent within—embodied in, engaged with—a broader spectrum of experience. Therefore you, with your consciousness and will, can be considered transcendent-immanent within experience (Firman and Gila 1997, 2002). You are distinct but not separate from, transcendent-immanent within, any and all contents of experience.
It follows also that you are “I” no matter the experience, whether identified or disidentified, comatose or alert, young or old, lost or enlightened. In fact, you are not any experience at all; you are the one who experiences. (See Chapter 1.)
EMPATHIC LOVE
As you proceed over time with this type of inner observation—made possible by ongoing contact with supportive inner and outer authentic unifying centers—you can find that since you are not any particular experience, you can embrace any and all experiences as they arise. These experiences can include moments of ecstasy, creative inspiration, and spiritual insight (higher unconscious); feelings of anxiety, despair, and rage (lower unconscious); as well as ongoing engagement with various patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that you have formed over the course of living (middle unconscious). By virtue of your transcendence-immanence, it would seem there is no experience you cannot embrace. In the words of one early psychosynthesis writer:There are no elements of the personality which are of a quality incompatible with the “I.” For the “I” is not of the personality, rather it transcends the personality. (Carter-Haar 1975, 81)You discover, in other words, that you are fundamentally loving towards all aspects of your personality. You can love, accept, and include a vast range of experience, take responsibility for the healing and growth of this range, and even over time form these experiences into a rich, cohesive expression in the world. You have the ability to have “selfless love” or “agape” towards all of your personality aspects—not taking sides with any, understanding and respecting all, embracing all. The tremendous healing and growth from this emergence of empathic love—from the emergence of “I”—towards one’s personality is a commonplace occurrence in psychosynthesis practice; indeed, this is at the heart of psychosynthesis therapy. As Assagioli affirms, “I am a living, loving, willing self” (Assagioli 1973, 176).
“I” AND SELF
So the loving, empathic presence of an authentic unifying center allows you to discover yourself as loving, empathic, transcendent-immanent “I.” You realize more “you,” as if your essence has become more intense or more potent—you are more disidentified and more embodied at the same time. But one of Assagioli’s strongest contentions was that the source of “I,” from which would come such increased intensity and potency, is Self. He wrote that “I” is a “projection” or “reflection” of Self (Assagioli 1965, 19, 20, 37), that is, our being ultimately flows from the Ground of Being, Self.
If this is the case, your authentic unifying center could be seen here as an intermediary between you and Self, facilitating this connection between you and the source of your being, thereby energizing and empowering you, “I.” The authentic unifying center is in other words a channel for Self, allowing you to experience your own connection to your Source and thereby allowing you to emerge. This is precisely what Assagioli considered an external unifying center: “An indirect but true link, a point of connection between the personal man and his higher Self, which is reflected and symbolized in that object” (Assagioli 1965, 25). The empathic, loving power of the other to facilitate loving, empathic “I” ultimately flows from Self (see Figure 3).
Here we see the altruistic love or agape of Self flowing through the authentic unifying center, giving existence to loving, empathic “I”; the famous line that Assagioli always drew connecting “I” and Self runs through internal and external unifying centers. Such unifying centers allow the realization of the abiding connection to the Ground of Being from which we draw our individual being (the primal wound is an experienced break in this connection, not an actual break, which is impossible, see next).
THE UNION OF “I” AND SELF
Finally, from this direct connection between “I” and Self it can also be seen how completely “I” is in union with Self. This is an unbreakable, unchanging union because it is distinct but not separate from any content or context, any psychological mass, energy, space, or time, i.e., it is transcendent-immanent. So complete is this union—a union between the source and its reflected image—that Assagioli wrote there were not in fact “two selves” but only one: “The Self is one” (Assagioli 1965, 20).
But he added that it was also crucial to remember the distinction between “the Self and the ‘I’…[or else]…the inflowing spiritual energies may have the unfortunate effect of feeding and inflating the personal ego” (p. 44). He describes the blurring of the distinction between “I” and Self as a confusion of levels: “In philosophical terms, it is a case of confusion between an absolute and a relative truth, between the metaphysical and the empirical levels of reality; in religious terms, between God and the ‘soul’.”
In short, while “I” is in union with Self, “I” is not Self. This seeming paradox makes sense if we think of the union between an object and its reflected image in a mirror, the analogy that Assagioli is using here: there is a complete union between an object and its reflected image such that any changes in the object are reflected in the image (but not vice versa); yet the image has its own relative independent existence at its own level on the mirror. Self is like the object reflected and “I”—with consciousness and will—is the “reflection of the spiritual Self, its projection, in the field of the personality” (p. 34).
Given this profound union of “I” and Self, it makes sense that as this self-awareness, freedom, and love of “I” emerge, these can allow an increasingly conscious relationship to a deeper sense of values, meaning, and life direction—Self, the ultimate source of this self-awareness, freedom, and empathic love, the ultimate source of “I.” (See the stages of psychosynthesis in Chapter 4.)
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