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What is the Higher Self?
We live in a time of great disconnect. Indeed, we are connected to the outside world as never before, but most people have little to no connection to the far more compelling story that is being told to 'I' by 'I' right now and always.
In a sense we are all reactionaries, or are rendered so by the material world, because the story we continually tell ourselves is one of reaction and response. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, 'I' am engaged with something else: another person, a problem I need to solve, a task I must perform, and in lieu of any of that, some form of entertainment to engage me.
It's like our energy is on full blast all the time. Extending out from us and into our world.
We call this normal, and take it for granted.
Many who are religious know that this is not the best way to live, but because they have identified 'god' as something outside of themselves, they still find themselves engaging WITH, once again directing their attention outward to learn from and gain happiness from a deity greater than themselves.
This is a time of intensity, even insanity. The world appears to be breaking apart in so many ways. Spending all our time and energy reacting to and responding to an intense and insane world is certainly going to affect us profoundly, and subsequently it is no surprise that stress and discontent are so prevalent.
If we had another option beyond just taking a vacation, we might benefit greatly from it. If a large number of us exercise this same option then the world itself would benefit. The crazy would subside, even a little. The intensity would abate.
It is time to meet the Higher Self.
I'll just come right out and say it: the Higher Self is possibly the most neglected vital thing in the world today. Because the mass of humanity fails to connect to the Higher Self, it becomes easier for us all to engage in lower activities that debase and exhaust us, conflict being the most harmful (and also the most obvious).
So, why do people neglect their Higher Self? Well, because it is something that very few people spend any time thinking about, it is perhaps unsurprising that Higher Self is widely misunderstood. Even those who do consider it important generally have an incomplete conception of it. Thus, its value is not fully appreciated.
Perhaps greater understanding OF it would yield greater interest IN it, so I will attempt to explain Higher Self to the best of my abilities.
Is it our conscience? The 'little voice within' that nudges us in the right direction and guides us to wiser choices?
Not really.
Christopher Hitchens, in one of his many public debates with Christians, indicated that he thinks that's what it is, and that's all it is. Always scholarly, he referenced Socrates' 'daemon' and Adam Smith's 'inner guidance'. Both men were referring to a higher wisdom within us we can seek which can sort between right and wrong actions.
Of course, as is well known, Hitchens was committed to a materialist worldview, which presumably means that he would account for this 'daemon' as having arisen through evolutionary processes which formed the human brain.
Certainly, this 'daemon' is a good thing to have. It's also an extremely good thing for OTHER people to have when they are engaged in some form of relationship with you!
But it is not the Higher Self. Is there a connection? Indeed. But is it the sum total of the Higher Self? Not even close.
So if the materialists are falling short of the mark, how are our religious brethren doing? Actually, not so good. From the Christian perspective, you had better attribute any inner voice of wisdom to Jesus or God, lest you be tricked by Satan! It seems absurd, but even if your Higher Self guides you to make wise and loving choices for decades, but you claim that it comes from within you and not via Christ talking to you, any Christian pastor would caution you. Satan is quite the trickster, they will tell you, and no matter how good his advice might seem to be, he is after only one thing: your eternal soul. Seek spiritual guidance to get back on track, they would advise.
It should be noted that Alcoholics Anonymous has adopted this concept for their own purposes. They refer to a 'Higher Power' that can guide us, once we admit our powerlessness and need of outside assistance to achieve sobriety and the life we dream of.
In both cases, we are cautioned against trusting 'wisdom' that arises from within and is integral to us.
As forHindus, they maintain that the concept of an 'inner guru' is dangerous and fraudulent unless and until one has achieved a high level of enlightenment under the tutelage of flesh and blood gurus who have completed the process themselves. It is not Satan, but 'the ego' that tricks those who do not receive the approved training and instead listen to teachings and insights that come from WITHIN, NOT through masters who have expunged their own egos to the point where they can properly guide you.
So we're not getting a lot of help either from materialists or 'that old time religion', are we?
We must remember that we are talking about 'Self' here, so that means NOT Jesus and NOT a guru, but an actual and accessible higher aspect of OURSELVES that can uplift and enlighten us.
Does it exist? YES, emphatically!
So let's figure out what it is and start working with it.
The Higher Self is exactly what the name implies, a higher version of yourself. Mentally, morally, imaginatively and creatively, yes. But also physically, and this is the part that is easiest to miss.
Hitchens referred to Socrates and his daemon, so I will fast forward a tad and say that Plato is possibly our best guide to understanding the Higher Self, with his concepts of 'real' and 'ideal'.
According to Plato, anything that exists in expressed, manifest form derives from a formless ideal, a template if you will.
The Higher Self is this template from which you derive, both in terms of mind and in terms of body.
Most people, when considering the Higher Self, think in terms of a Higher Mind, but not a Higher Body.
This was me for thirty years. For three decades I have experienced connection with my Higher Mind (on and off I should say; during this period there were moments when I could not feel the connection strongly, or even at all - my 'Father, father, why hast thou abandoned me? moments).
Only recently have I come to realize that Higher BODY exists on the same plane of ideals (to use Plato's terminology) as Higher Mind, and thus I make it a daily practice to focus on aligning my physical form with this Higher Body just as my mind has become aligned (not completely, of course) with my Higher Mind. Higher Mind is thus an aspect of Higher Self, not the totality of it.
We can see that it is like peeling back layers of an onion to come to a fuller understanding of what Higher Self is, and the more important understanding of how we can benefit by connecting to it. Since most people consider the Higher Self purely in terms of Higher Mind, let's start there.
By tendency, I rarely include personal episodes in my essays, however in this instance I feel I may be doing the topic a disservice were I to avoid relating it to my own experiences.
I first encountered my Higher Mind in 1991, during a very dangerous and dramatic situation. I had to escape from the Oakland Hills Fire of that year, which devastated a large swath of terrain just behind the UC Berkeley campus. The apartment I was renting at the time was one of the casualties of the flames, and I easily could have been another.
There was a point when I made my way in haste down the road toward the Bay when I nearly froze up. Imagine the situation. Behind me were hundred foot flames, and on both sides of the road were flames from the burning forest all around, licking at the asphalt. Suddenly, there was nothing in front of me but pitch black. It looked like nothing a sane person would ever choose to drive into, but with flames on every other side of me, what else was there to do? Still, I nearly froze and put on the brakes, which would have meant certain death, but the fear of driving straight into That Blackness nearly overwhelmed me. I was terrified that I was heading straight into the firestorm, which was where the black smoke was most likely coming from.
Then, I heard a voice. It was as clear a voice as one might hear from someone with whom they are conversing. No one else in the car heard it, of course, but it was more than just a thought in my head. At least to me, it was clearly audible, and it said, 'everything is going to be all right'.
'Confidence' is not the right word to use here, but this voice was of no doubt about what it was saying. It wasn't cheering me on, trying to boost my confidence, and such. It was basically reporting the future to me from a place of knowing. There was no trace of doubt in it, as one might hear from another person in a similar situation. It knew, and it wanted me to know.
I received this information differently from how one generally does. The moment I heard this voice telling me everything would be all right, all fear evaporated because I, too, knew that it would. The best way to describe it would be that I downloaded the information, and it became MY certainty as well as the voice's.
And, as it turned out, everything WAS all right. After a few seconds of driving through pitch black, the smoke began to dissipate. From black to gray, from opaque to vapory, and finally to a clear view of the city of Oakland below. I and my passengers were safe. Hardships would follow (we had lost our homes after all) but we would survive.
One other element of this episode has always stayed with me. Before leaving the apartment complex, I spotted out of the corner of my eye a woman who looked very panicky as she stood by the firefighters who had just arrived. I was part of a queue of cars making our way to the exit gate, but in a matter of seconds I made eye contact with her, stopped briefly to open the door, let her in, and chauffeured her to safety down the hill.
This was, I believe, an initiation ritual. If I hadn't stopped to let her in, I think I would not have 'met' my Higher Mind a few moments later. Perhaps my entire life would have unfolded very differently. I suppose it is possible that I would not even have survived that very day. But I 'proved' myself with that simple act, and Higher Mind responded.
That episode in the Oakland Hills marks my first awareness of Higher Self, though I would not call it such for quite some time afterwards. I had been agnostic with atheistic leanings for a good 15 years prior to that experience, so my transition came about slowly, but steadily.
Thus, I did not consider this voice of wisdom and assuredness (and it must be said, a terrific sense of humor as well) my Higher Self at first, and I as I wrote earlier, I no longer do either. In the beginning, I called it 'the conversation', as it was something I could tune into whenever I wanted, and doing so yielded great insights over time.
As for now, I recognize that Higher Self includes both Higher Mind and Higher Body, meaning Higher Mind (that which I have been aligning with for three decades) alone is not Higher Self. There is a 'template' for a more perfect version of our physical expression, just as there is one for our mind.
Ultimately, Higher Mind - and indeed Higher Self - is as temporary an expression as the physical mind and body are. All are mere temporary expressions of formless Consciousness, the Aware Existence from which all matter arises and throuh which dissolves.
The purpose of Higher Mind is to make itself obsolete. Once our 'everyday' consciousness has fully merged with Higher Mind and experiences no separation from it, recognizing higher/lower are merely different aspects of the same thing, its role as a teacher and guide will have been completed.
This will be a shining moment that we all will eventually experience. As more and more of us do, the discord and conflict and sorrow that characterizes life on Earth will attenuate gradually, as fewer and fewer will gather at that trough.
To summarize, the Higher Self is a higher version of you in every imaginable aspect. It exists to bring you into alignment with your Truth, which is that you are Aware Existence and Eternal Source.
If YOU didn't exist, neither would Higher Self. Higher Self has no purpose unto its own; it is your guide in all manners and all respects.
This is not to diminish it in any way. It is indescribably wonderful, beautiful and awesome. But as I wrote earlier, its purpose is to render itself obsolete.
The Brooklyn Bridge is an extraordinarily beautiful work of art, but if there were no span for it to bridge, no gap between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, it would not exist. Think of the Higher Self this way, then. An extraordinarily beautiful bridge between all that you think you are and all that you TRULY are.
It is impossible that you will not at some point come to align yourself with your Higher Self so that it can serve this function for you. The only question is how long do you want to wait?
It is high time humanity moves forward. We have spent precious time indulging ourselves in the illusion of materialism and 'the cosmos is all there is or will ever be', and look where it has gotten us.
One word to describe the materialistic age: recklessness. We have been reckless with human lives, reckless with the future, reckless with our relationships to our fellow creatures, reckless with our treatment of arable land, reckless in our use of resources, reckless in our pursuit of wealth, and reckless in our choice of leaders.
Reckless, as well, in our concept of ourselves. We are NOT thinking mud, we are beings of Consciousness! Why is it so appealing to so many to feel that they have grokked it all, read their scientific papers and concluded that we are thinking mud?
I will never understand this.
What I will say is that our future hinges on whether enough of us can let that vulgar illusion go for good and reclaim our true value as Immortal Consciousness expressing as and through matter, but in no way limited to that particular expression.
This is where the Higher Self comes in. If you are willing to consider the possibility that it exists, it will take that opening and make something of it, as it has done for me.
You have to be willing to question the premises of materialism, but how is that a bad thing? There is nothing better that can happen to a human being in this or any lifetime than meeting the Higher Self and beginning to align with it.
It is the 'seek thee first' that has been taught about, but misunderstood.
But now is a time for understanding.
You are glorious and wonderful. Love beyond compare and creativity such as you have never known is waiting to introduce itself to you.
May you meet your Higher Self in THIS life, not the next.
In a sense we are all reactionaries, or are rendered so by the material world, because the story we continually tell ourselves is one of reaction and response. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, 'I' am engaged with something else: another person, a problem I need to solve, a task I must perform, and in lieu of any of that, some form of entertainment to engage me.
It's like our energy is on full blast all the time. Extending out from us and into our world.
We call this normal, and take it for granted.
Many who are religious know that this is not the best way to live, but because they have identified 'god' as something outside of themselves, they still find themselves engaging WITH, once again directing their attention outward to learn from and gain happiness from a deity greater than themselves.
This is a time of intensity, even insanity. The world appears to be breaking apart in so many ways. Spending all our time and energy reacting to and responding to an intense and insane world is certainly going to affect us profoundly, and subsequently it is no surprise that stress and discontent are so prevalent.
If we had another option beyond just taking a vacation, we might benefit greatly from it. If a large number of us exercise this same option then the world itself would benefit. The crazy would subside, even a little. The intensity would abate.
It is time to meet the Higher Self.
I'll just come right out and say it: the Higher Self is possibly the most neglected vital thing in the world today. Because the mass of humanity fails to connect to the Higher Self, it becomes easier for us all to engage in lower activities that debase and exhaust us, conflict being the most harmful (and also the most obvious).
So, why do people neglect their Higher Self? Well, because it is something that very few people spend any time thinking about, it is perhaps unsurprising that Higher Self is widely misunderstood. Even those who do consider it important generally have an incomplete conception of it. Thus, its value is not fully appreciated.
Perhaps greater understanding OF it would yield greater interest IN it, so I will attempt to explain Higher Self to the best of my abilities.
Is it our conscience? The 'little voice within' that nudges us in the right direction and guides us to wiser choices?
Not really.
Christopher Hitchens, in one of his many public debates with Christians, indicated that he thinks that's what it is, and that's all it is. Always scholarly, he referenced Socrates' 'daemon' and Adam Smith's 'inner guidance'. Both men were referring to a higher wisdom within us we can seek which can sort between right and wrong actions.
Of course, as is well known, Hitchens was committed to a materialist worldview, which presumably means that he would account for this 'daemon' as having arisen through evolutionary processes which formed the human brain.
Certainly, this 'daemon' is a good thing to have. It's also an extremely good thing for OTHER people to have when they are engaged in some form of relationship with you!
But it is not the Higher Self. Is there a connection? Indeed. But is it the sum total of the Higher Self? Not even close.
So if the materialists are falling short of the mark, how are our religious brethren doing? Actually, not so good. From the Christian perspective, you had better attribute any inner voice of wisdom to Jesus or God, lest you be tricked by Satan! It seems absurd, but even if your Higher Self guides you to make wise and loving choices for decades, but you claim that it comes from within you and not via Christ talking to you, any Christian pastor would caution you. Satan is quite the trickster, they will tell you, and no matter how good his advice might seem to be, he is after only one thing: your eternal soul. Seek spiritual guidance to get back on track, they would advise.
It should be noted that Alcoholics Anonymous has adopted this concept for their own purposes. They refer to a 'Higher Power' that can guide us, once we admit our powerlessness and need of outside assistance to achieve sobriety and the life we dream of.
In both cases, we are cautioned against trusting 'wisdom' that arises from within and is integral to us.
As forHindus, they maintain that the concept of an 'inner guru' is dangerous and fraudulent unless and until one has achieved a high level of enlightenment under the tutelage of flesh and blood gurus who have completed the process themselves. It is not Satan, but 'the ego' that tricks those who do not receive the approved training and instead listen to teachings and insights that come from WITHIN, NOT through masters who have expunged their own egos to the point where they can properly guide you.
So we're not getting a lot of help either from materialists or 'that old time religion', are we?
We must remember that we are talking about 'Self' here, so that means NOT Jesus and NOT a guru, but an actual and accessible higher aspect of OURSELVES that can uplift and enlighten us.
Does it exist? YES, emphatically!
So let's figure out what it is and start working with it.
The Higher Self is exactly what the name implies, a higher version of yourself. Mentally, morally, imaginatively and creatively, yes. But also physically, and this is the part that is easiest to miss.
Hitchens referred to Socrates and his daemon, so I will fast forward a tad and say that Plato is possibly our best guide to understanding the Higher Self, with his concepts of 'real' and 'ideal'.
According to Plato, anything that exists in expressed, manifest form derives from a formless ideal, a template if you will.
The Higher Self is this template from which you derive, both in terms of mind and in terms of body.
Most people, when considering the Higher Self, think in terms of a Higher Mind, but not a Higher Body.
This was me for thirty years. For three decades I have experienced connection with my Higher Mind (on and off I should say; during this period there were moments when I could not feel the connection strongly, or even at all - my 'Father, father, why hast thou abandoned me? moments).
Only recently have I come to realize that Higher BODY exists on the same plane of ideals (to use Plato's terminology) as Higher Mind, and thus I make it a daily practice to focus on aligning my physical form with this Higher Body just as my mind has become aligned (not completely, of course) with my Higher Mind. Higher Mind is thus an aspect of Higher Self, not the totality of it.
We can see that it is like peeling back layers of an onion to come to a fuller understanding of what Higher Self is, and the more important understanding of how we can benefit by connecting to it. Since most people consider the Higher Self purely in terms of Higher Mind, let's start there.
By tendency, I rarely include personal episodes in my essays, however in this instance I feel I may be doing the topic a disservice were I to avoid relating it to my own experiences.
I first encountered my Higher Mind in 1991, during a very dangerous and dramatic situation. I had to escape from the Oakland Hills Fire of that year, which devastated a large swath of terrain just behind the UC Berkeley campus. The apartment I was renting at the time was one of the casualties of the flames, and I easily could have been another.
There was a point when I made my way in haste down the road toward the Bay when I nearly froze up. Imagine the situation. Behind me were hundred foot flames, and on both sides of the road were flames from the burning forest all around, licking at the asphalt. Suddenly, there was nothing in front of me but pitch black. It looked like nothing a sane person would ever choose to drive into, but with flames on every other side of me, what else was there to do? Still, I nearly froze and put on the brakes, which would have meant certain death, but the fear of driving straight into That Blackness nearly overwhelmed me. I was terrified that I was heading straight into the firestorm, which was where the black smoke was most likely coming from.
Then, I heard a voice. It was as clear a voice as one might hear from someone with whom they are conversing. No one else in the car heard it, of course, but it was more than just a thought in my head. At least to me, it was clearly audible, and it said, 'everything is going to be all right'.
'Confidence' is not the right word to use here, but this voice was of no doubt about what it was saying. It wasn't cheering me on, trying to boost my confidence, and such. It was basically reporting the future to me from a place of knowing. There was no trace of doubt in it, as one might hear from another person in a similar situation. It knew, and it wanted me to know.
I received this information differently from how one generally does. The moment I heard this voice telling me everything would be all right, all fear evaporated because I, too, knew that it would. The best way to describe it would be that I downloaded the information, and it became MY certainty as well as the voice's.
And, as it turned out, everything WAS all right. After a few seconds of driving through pitch black, the smoke began to dissipate. From black to gray, from opaque to vapory, and finally to a clear view of the city of Oakland below. I and my passengers were safe. Hardships would follow (we had lost our homes after all) but we would survive.
One other element of this episode has always stayed with me. Before leaving the apartment complex, I spotted out of the corner of my eye a woman who looked very panicky as she stood by the firefighters who had just arrived. I was part of a queue of cars making our way to the exit gate, but in a matter of seconds I made eye contact with her, stopped briefly to open the door, let her in, and chauffeured her to safety down the hill.
This was, I believe, an initiation ritual. If I hadn't stopped to let her in, I think I would not have 'met' my Higher Mind a few moments later. Perhaps my entire life would have unfolded very differently. I suppose it is possible that I would not even have survived that very day. But I 'proved' myself with that simple act, and Higher Mind responded.
That episode in the Oakland Hills marks my first awareness of Higher Self, though I would not call it such for quite some time afterwards. I had been agnostic with atheistic leanings for a good 15 years prior to that experience, so my transition came about slowly, but steadily.
Thus, I did not consider this voice of wisdom and assuredness (and it must be said, a terrific sense of humor as well) my Higher Self at first, and I as I wrote earlier, I no longer do either. In the beginning, I called it 'the conversation', as it was something I could tune into whenever I wanted, and doing so yielded great insights over time.
As for now, I recognize that Higher Self includes both Higher Mind and Higher Body, meaning Higher Mind (that which I have been aligning with for three decades) alone is not Higher Self. There is a 'template' for a more perfect version of our physical expression, just as there is one for our mind.
Ultimately, Higher Mind - and indeed Higher Self - is as temporary an expression as the physical mind and body are. All are mere temporary expressions of formless Consciousness, the Aware Existence from which all matter arises and throuh which dissolves.
The purpose of Higher Mind is to make itself obsolete. Once our 'everyday' consciousness has fully merged with Higher Mind and experiences no separation from it, recognizing higher/lower are merely different aspects of the same thing, its role as a teacher and guide will have been completed.
This will be a shining moment that we all will eventually experience. As more and more of us do, the discord and conflict and sorrow that characterizes life on Earth will attenuate gradually, as fewer and fewer will gather at that trough.
To summarize, the Higher Self is a higher version of you in every imaginable aspect. It exists to bring you into alignment with your Truth, which is that you are Aware Existence and Eternal Source.
If YOU didn't exist, neither would Higher Self. Higher Self has no purpose unto its own; it is your guide in all manners and all respects.
This is not to diminish it in any way. It is indescribably wonderful, beautiful and awesome. But as I wrote earlier, its purpose is to render itself obsolete.
The Brooklyn Bridge is an extraordinarily beautiful work of art, but if there were no span for it to bridge, no gap between lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, it would not exist. Think of the Higher Self this way, then. An extraordinarily beautiful bridge between all that you think you are and all that you TRULY are.
It is impossible that you will not at some point come to align yourself with your Higher Self so that it can serve this function for you. The only question is how long do you want to wait?
It is high time humanity moves forward. We have spent precious time indulging ourselves in the illusion of materialism and 'the cosmos is all there is or will ever be', and look where it has gotten us.
One word to describe the materialistic age: recklessness. We have been reckless with human lives, reckless with the future, reckless with our relationships to our fellow creatures, reckless with our treatment of arable land, reckless in our use of resources, reckless in our pursuit of wealth, and reckless in our choice of leaders.
Reckless, as well, in our concept of ourselves. We are NOT thinking mud, we are beings of Consciousness! Why is it so appealing to so many to feel that they have grokked it all, read their scientific papers and concluded that we are thinking mud?
I will never understand this.
What I will say is that our future hinges on whether enough of us can let that vulgar illusion go for good and reclaim our true value as Immortal Consciousness expressing as and through matter, but in no way limited to that particular expression.
This is where the Higher Self comes in. If you are willing to consider the possibility that it exists, it will take that opening and make something of it, as it has done for me.
You have to be willing to question the premises of materialism, but how is that a bad thing? There is nothing better that can happen to a human being in this or any lifetime than meeting the Higher Self and beginning to align with it.
It is the 'seek thee first' that has been taught about, but misunderstood.
But now is a time for understanding.
You are glorious and wonderful. Love beyond compare and creativity such as you have never known is waiting to introduce itself to you.
May you meet your Higher Self in THIS life, not the next.
