Universalist Unitarian Church
Santa Paula, California
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The Importance of Not Being Yourself
by Reverend John Alexie Crane

I. Consider Your Self
The self. It is something so close to us that we take it for granted; but as soon as we look in earnest in its direction, we can see what an incredibly complex entity it is. While I was on sabbatical at the University of California, I did a close study of the concept of self in social science. It opened my eyes. I had not until then realized fully the diverse and complex contents of this remarkable entity, this system of intricately interacting components.

Normally, we don't pay much objective attention to our selves, because we are, as it were, submerged, absorbed in them. However, in the 20th century, social science has made close and extended studies of the self, and I found myself stimulated by the insights that had accumulated over the course of the past 100 years.

These insights contributed to the contents of the address today, though it took me many years of reflection on both science and religion to find my way to the understanding outlined here. So, if you find it hard to follow, put the blame on me and on the difficulty of the subject, then file it away at the back of your mind for future reference.

II.. For Heaven's Sake, Don't Be Yourself
Albert Einstein was both an eminent scientist and a remarkable human being. His work in theoretical physics revolutionized our understanding of the universe.

Einstein was also a profoundly religious individual. As far as I know, he was not a member of any organized religion, but his articles, essays, and speeches reflect repeatedly the deepest kind of religious insight.

This is evident in something Einstein said about the self. "The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he or she has attained liberation from the self."

What ever in the world does he mean? Liberation from the self? We have always been taught that we should, throughout our lives, make every effort to be ourselves fully, not be liberated from them.

We have been told we should be striving always to develop our native talents, win recognition, status, wealth, become a person, a self of importance. At the same time, we should scrupulously avoid pretending to be what we are not.

This is true, without doubt. It is almost obvious. Almost everybody understands this. Surely it is wise and creative for us to be ourselves; and it is crippling for us to feign an identity that is not actually our own, to pretend to be what we are not.

But there is a level of understanding beyond this. Seen from a point of view a little higher, there is a sense in which not being ourselves is a major goal in human life.

Transcending the self is the central goal in philosophical and mystical religion (as opposed to traditional, popular religion) in all cultures of the world. The aim is to transcend the self that we acquired casually, unconsciously as we grew up in a particular family, in a given society, at a given point in history.

This casually created, accidental, unintentional self contains thousands of conceptions and misconceptions, and, though the errors and distortions among them separate us from reality, a great many people in any society, hold an unswerving conviction that these errors give them an understanding of the actual world.

The great teachers of religion in all times and places have taught the insight that Einstein expressed in the sentence: "The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he or she has attained liberation from the self." Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tse, Socrates, and dozens of other great teachers have also tacitly expressed this significant understanding. As one sage put it: "Until we lose ourselves, there is no hope of finding ourselves."

The incessant destructiveness, the conflict, persecution, warfare that has persisted in our species has been produced by people who were being themselves with gusto, being the selves that their society brought them up to be. Being themselves faithfully and blindly.

Enough of us must rise above this naive level of existence to make possible the creative transformation of human life.

Consider patriots in all the nations of the world. They are people being themselves as their society has instructed them to be. They are intensely loyal, committed, patriotic, ready to die (or to kill) for their country, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.

This kind of thing only looks good to us when we are viewing it within our own country. When it occurs in the people of another country, we can see how crazy it is. Blind patriots are a menace to human life through their being so intensely, so fully themselves, so passionately devoted to their nation — an extension of themselves.

Enough humans must now transcend themselves to ensure the continued existence of humanity on earth. For heaven's sake, let's stop being merely ourselves.

III The Real Self
Almost all our time, thought and energy in this life appear to be given over to satisfying the needs, the demands, the instructions, the whims of this odd, old self to which we have grown so attached.

Think about it for a minute. Where did that self come from? Who or what made it? We have learned a lot about this in the past sixty or seventy years from social science. When you study the matter closely (as social scientists have), it becomes clear that each society creates a self in each of its developing members. The self is made by already existing selves, interacting with the young people. Each society creates a self in the loose collection of instinctual, biological material with which a human individual begins life.

It takes this mass of amorphous material, and starts giving it identity through the agency of the family. Families are the first major formative factor in shaping individual selves.

Each child's family, in turn, is composed of already existing selves which earlier absorbed the concepts, the values, the goals, the understanding of reality that happened to prevail in that particular society, at that point in history.

Through the impact of the family, the child is taught a language, and each language has built into it a haphazard set of assumptions, of conceptions and misconceptions, of a number of distorted images of reality.

Each society teaches each of its members what to see and what name to give to what they see, teaches all members what they should regard as important, what to aim for in life, what to avoid, who is to be dutifully obeyed, which people to regard as enemies deserving to be killed if need be.

All of these elements are conditioned into each self before she or he is able to reflect consciously. All of this social conditioning makes up a kind of computer programming or hypnotic suggestion that is taken in to ourselves gradually, in the course of our daily lives as we grow up. As it turns out, the programming contains many errors and distortions, is very far indeed from being perfect. It has many mistakes and misconceptions built into it. Which in turn serve to confuse our understanding of the real world.

For example, the people of the western world were taught for centuries that women were by nature, by the will of God created inferior to men, and that women ought therefore to be wholly subservient to their husbands.

The Bible states this clearly, and the Bible was for centuries regarded as God's word. As civil law later evolved, the Biblical view of women became part of it, and it was also, of course, lodged in the self, in the minds and hearts, of each living individual, male or female.

Everybody took for granted that, of course, women were inferior creatures. No question. For hundreds and hundreds of years. Think of the staggering quantity of suffering, of suppression, frustration, persecution, anguish, unreality, injustice, the staggering loss of human talents this distortion of reality generated.

To take another example, until fairly recently, for the past two hundred years, American men have been programmed to hold a deep, unswerving conviction that their major purpose in life was to get ahead, gain status, recognition, power, wealth, position at all costs.

Millions of men in our society have been driven by this social conditioning, which frequently robbed them, not only of a full life, not only of the rewards of love and personal relations, but even of their own physical and mental health. The stress generated by continuous striving to produce, to achieve, to gain recognition, status, power, and wealth has been greatly advantageous to society, but, at the same time, destructive, crippling in the lives of many individuals.

To find serenity, peace, meaning, joy in life, we must rise above the severe limitations built into our existence by the socially defined self. If we are to be fully alive, we must transcend ourselves.

We must stop being our accidental selves, our naive selves, and find our way to an awareness of our essential selves. Essential self? What does that mean? Where is it?

The self created in us by society can be observed and analyzed. We can make it an object of our attention. We can look at our thoughts, feelings, impulses, perceptions, memories; our arms, legs, feet, and fingers. We can see them as objects. We can even observe our own self-image.

But behind self-image, behind thoughts and feelings, impulses and memories there is a "something" that is aware of all these, that is observing them. This something is awareness itself, consciousness, apart from its contents. The observing self.

The contents change; but the essential self is distinct from its contents. It is awareness itself, and is the basic ground of conscious life. It is the background in which the other elements exist, strikingly different from them in its characteristics.

The essential self contains objects, such as ideas or memories or feelings, but it is not itself an object. The essential self cannot be perceived as an object. It has no objective qualities, has no boundaries or dimensions. We must experience it, be in touch with it directly.

IV. Finding Our Way
What can we do to find our way to being in touch with our essential selves? The ground of our being. The matter is not simple. It is not something easily achieved. It is not something you attain, and then have forever after.

It is a lifetime task, requiring regular attention. The awareness, the unity, the identity must be repeatedly renewed. The task becomes a way of life, and one with extraordinary rewards.

What can we do to move in this life-giving direction? There are five practices that occur to me, each of which will contribute, and all of which are important.

  1. Searching. We are a community of seekers. With reading, study, reflection, and writing we can enlarge and repeatedly renew our consciousness of the crippling elements in the naive self. Intellect, reason, understanding can be a great help to us.

    The sermons that we have here in church are aimed at creating this kind of understanding. Articles, books, drama, poetry, dialogue with others, and private, personal reflection similarly contribute.

  2. Committed Action. We can eliminate destructive and self-destructive patterns in the naive self by pursuing the following sequence: Insight-Commitment-Action. Insight, then commitment, followed by deliberate action.

    For example, we may through study, reflection, and self-searching, gain the insight that striving fiercely for success as our society defines it may well be damaging us, causing us serious health problems.

    Then, having gained the insight, we can commit ourselves to moving toward a whole and healthy life. We choose actions that will create this kind of life for us. If we find ourselves slacking off in the drive to wholeness, we remind ourselves of the original insight, renew our commitment, take the action. Again and again.

  3. Dedication to the Present Moment. When we are working at a task (a household repair, counseling a friend or a client, painting a picture, planting a garden, washing the dishes), if we do it reluctantly, hastily, wanting to be doing something else, thinking only of the result or of what people will think of it, the work often does not go well, is unrewarding. If, on the other hand, we are able to give ourselves wholly to the task, be fully present in it, let ourselves flow with it, lose ourselves in it, the experience can be memorable, almost magical.

    You have had this experience, I am sure. Self-interest and self-concern disappear. We lose ourselves, and experience the essential self. The more often we can achieve this state of being, the more creative will our lives become.

  4. Dedication to Love. "The forms and structures in which love embodies itself are the forms and structures in which life is possible, in which life overcomes its self-destructive forces." [Paul Tillich] Love creates a personal environment which enables us to rise above defensiveness and greediness, self-interest and self-concern.

    We need to keep awareness of love alive in ourselves in order that it may inform our acts and thoughts and wishes. We must love and be loved if we are to find our way, if we are to be wholly alive. Love is essential.

  5. The Practice of Meditation. Each day, sitting still, relaxing the body, and emptying the mind for a period of ten to forty minutes is a practice that brings incomparable rewards: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. It is a major contribution toward getting in touch with our essential selves.

    Dedication to understanding, searching. Committed Action. Dedication to the Present Moment. Dedication to Love. The Practice of Meditation.

    As we find our way, as we rise above the limits of the socially conditioned, the accidental self, as we find unity, find identity with the observing self, we find our way to awareness of the God within us. We find our way toward meaning and peace and the fully lived life. We become better able to live in the world as it is, rather than only as we have been conditioned to believe that it is.

Dr Alexie Crane
2880 Exeter Place
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805) 682-3476

Lex1304@aol.com

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