what is spiritual self essay

What Is the Spiritual Self? Rare and Lost Insights Found Here

By Matthew Heyn
Spiritual Health Practitioner, MDiv
October 28, 2018

Finding the spiritual self can be elusive. How you define the spiritual self will change depending on the tradition or person you’re talking to. For many years it’s been a big question for me and so I did some reading and found some rare and lost insights on the topic.

So, what is the spiritual self? The Spiritual Self as understood from Buddhism, Hinduism and Psychology is the Self as differentiated from your subpersonalities, feelings, and body image. The Spiritual Self is universal, carries the potential of awareness, is permanent, ageless, and provides centeredness and compassion.

Lost Insights from Hinduism: The Atman

I know a wonderful Hindu friend and spiritual health practitioner. As of late we’ve cherished conversations around this missing concept in modern life, known as the Atman. Hindu scholars throughout the centuries (perhaps the oldest religion in the history of humanity) have written libraries worth on this subject.

Atman as I’ve come to understand it is based on the Sanskrit word which means “essence, breath, or soul”[ref]R Dalal (2011), The Religions of India: A Concise Guide to Nine Major Faiths, Penguin, page 38). (Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press (2012); John Bowker (2000), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Oxford University Press;WJ Johnson (2009), A Dictionary of Hinduism, Oxford University Press,See entry for Atman (self).), innermost essence, and soul (David Lorenzen (2004), The Hindu World (Editors: Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby), Routledge, pages 208-209; Richard King (1995), Early Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism, State University of New York Press, page 64. Chad Meister (2010), The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity, Oxford University Press, page 63).[/ref]

My Hindu friend pointed me to the Upanishads. In these writings, the major thematic focus is “know your Atman.”

Basically, “know thy Self.”

But what is the Self in the Upanishads? The Atman or Self is not the body, or the mind, or the ego, but soul or Self. There is a You that is distinct from your physical, emotional or psychological self.

And there’s more.

The Atman is also the spiritual essence in all creatures. Atman or Self is their real innermost essential being[ref]Alice Bailey (1973), The Soul and Its Mechanism, pages 82-83. Eknath Easwaran (2007), The Upanishads, Nilgiri Press, pages 38-39, 318-320[/ref].

It is also eternal and ageless. The Spiritual Self from the Hindu tradition is our essential Self, the deepest level of our existence.

So what does this mean practically?

It means our Spiritual Self is different from our feelings and even from our body. Differentiating between our feelings, thoughts, and sensations in our body is a fundamental tool for de-cluttering our hearts when things get emotionally messy.

Knowing that who I really am, deep down, is an ageless, eternal, and stable being gives me a sense of resilience and dependency amidst the changing weather of the mind.

The Atman has an ethical dimension too. For centuries, Hindus crafted a non-violent ethic around the concept of the Atman.

From the Vedanta tradition, you don’t know yourself as well as Vedanta does, an age-old, tried and tested educational process from 1000s of teachers who have explored this phenomenon. What they discovered is that you are really a pure transcendent essence of non-violence.

From this tradition, the Spiritual Self is a non-violent, stable, eternal, and differentiated identity from your body, mind, and feelings.

Lost Insight From Buddhism: The Buddha Nature

I’ve also been speaking with two Buddhist friends over the last summer. One buddhist friend was from the Mahayana tradition (more progressive) and the other was from the Theravada tradition (more conservative).

The Buddha-nature or Buddha Principle is another concept we need in our “me-culture” individualized and self-absorbed Western setting.

The “Buddha-nature” refers to what has been known as the tathagatagarbha and the buddhadatu (Sanskrit; Busshō , “Buddha-nature”.).

Which are roughly translated as the womb” or “embryo”. According to Shenpen Hookham, Oxford Buddhist scholar and a Tibetan lama that the buddha nature is the “true self.”

What is the true Self?

It’s something real and permanent and already present in every unenlightened individual. He and Merv Fowler calls it the “ buddha within” [ref]Hookham, Shenpen (1991). The Buddha Within . State University of New York Press: p. 104, p. 353; Fowler, Merv (1999). Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices . Sussex Academic Press: pp. 100–101[/ref].

Others have noted there may be multiple meanings to the Buddha nature that we all have.

An underlying “being” or essence which is like the self (atman) in the Upanishads.
The buddha nature as a “dharma-kaya” an essence that cannot be conceived in the mind which arises after one returns from dissolution. The Buddha with an unseen transformed body – “spiritually charged nature of everything that is” [ref] Ray, Reginald (2001). Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet . Shambhala. p. 13.[/ref]

The Buddha nature as the womb that exists in all beings and provides all creatures with the potential of awakening. [ref]Takasaki, Jikido (1991). A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga . ISMEO 1966: p.198[/ref]

What does all this mean for our understanding of the Spiritual Self?

The Spiritual Self from the Buddhist tradition, is a universal nature, a hidden womb which like the womb of a mother yet filled with the awakening child. This womb carries the potential for enlightenment and holy detachment from all suffering.

Practically, we should be encouraged as both Hinduism and Buddhism suggest that our Spiritual Self is unchangeable, ever present, ageless, and awake.

The Difference Between the Buddha Nature and the Atman

It should be noted at this point, there’s a difference between the buddha nature and the atman. From my conversations with these hindu and buddhist friends, they seem to agree on one large difference.

Generally speaking, the buddha nature has less of a transcendent element to it when compared to the Atman.

Although I believe the Mahayana Buddhist might disagree. They see Buddha as more of a spiritual being, whereas the Theravada Buddhist sees the Buddha as a great man who obtained enlightenment, but wouldn’t go as far as to suggest that he became a divine being.

Rare and Lost Insight from Psychology: IFS and the Self

Has modern psychology ever noticed the Spiritual Self, especially as we’ve been talking about here?

The discovery of the spiritual Self is not new. Beginning with Freud, he developed the tripartite view of the soul in the ID, Ego, and Superego.

What he referred to as the Ego (which in Greek means “I”), meant that Self that draws upon the energy of the ID while also choosing a moral life as inspired from the Superego.

Freud noticed an interesting phenomenon where one can have a conversation with other “states” of the personality.

Later, Object relations theorists would call Freud’s ego states, “Internal objects.” Those in the psychosynthesis camp would call these states, “subpersonalities.” Now in Cognitive behavioral approaches, they recognize these “parts of us” as “schemata.”

All of these different disciplines talked about a central Self, what Self-Psychologists and Existential theorists called “Ego-Differentiated” Self and “twinship.” In therapy they learned what Carl Roger’s asserted, the Self is there and each person’s inner healer is waiting to be drawn out.

This is a humanistic approach. A humanist belie ves and even hopes for Self-actualization – when the person reaches their full potential.

Yet, none of these theorist looked at how these parts relate to each other. That’s where IFS (Internal Family Systems) comes in.

Dr. Richard Schwartz, a Marriage and Family therapist, noticed these parts related much like a family system. As he began to apply his understanding of sub-grouping, triangulation, and homeostasis to the parts, his clients noticed something rather riveting.

They found their Self. The Self appeared when all the parts had relaxed. When they had met the needs of these various parts, the client felt a deep sense of what they called, “self energy.”

After nearly 30 years of practice Schwartz has never met a client who didn’t have the Self. Schwartz has even met serial rapists and incarcerated criminals who had the Self.

When your life is led by the Self and not by a controlling or protecting part, you have what he calls, “Self-Leadership.” He asks the question, What are the characteristics of Self-leadership?” He answers:

I don’t know the entire answer to that question. After twenty years of helping people toward that Self-leadership, I can describe what my clients exhibit as they have more of their Self present. As I sifted through various adjectives to capture my observations, I repeatedly came up with words that begin with the letter C. So, the eight Cs of self-leadership include: calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness. Richard Schwartz, Developer and Founder of the Internal Family Systems Model

For more information on how to have more Self through an IFS approach see link here.

Personal Experience: How to Connect with your Self

For the last 5 years I’ve been seeing an IFS therapist. Up to this point I had struggled deeply with “finding myself.” I had felt for years that I was a shell of a human being without a specific identity. Practicing IFS not only in therapy but in meditation gave me a sense of that Self energy. Finding my Self through those eight qualities gave me grounding in my personality.

I’ve gotten to know these parts of me as different from my Self and in those moments I feel what others have described as the Buddha nature and the Atman. It’s as if you are you, without confusion, illusion, emotion. It’s a deeper experience of feeling, but in some ways it transcends it.

Nor is the Self something unattainable, but comes into focus at moments of “flow” or flow states. It’s what athletes experience when they’re in a high of symmetry and performance.

Avid meditators experience the Self, that is emptiness or “no parts.”

Perhaps the best way to connect with this Self is to get to know the parts of your life that feel burdened and in control. Giving them the attention and appreciation they so desire allows them to give you more space. Create a parts profile, getting to know them as you would any person. Here are some questions to help you:

How old is this part of you?
What gender is this part? (It’s perfectly normal for a part to have a different gender than your sex.
What does this part do for you? What is its role?
What is it afraid will happen if it let you take the lead in your life?
Who is it allied with or protects?
Where do you feel it in your body when activated?
What are its behaviors when it’s in the lead?
What are some trailheads (moments where it gets activated and with whom)?
What do you call it? What name does it like?

You can also ask yourself about Self leadership.

How often do I feel calm, clear, connected, courageous, etc?
Do I feel I am my emotions and thoughts or do I sense I’m different from my thoughts, feelings, sensations and body?
Am I lead by a part of my life right now or by my Self with the 8 qualities mentioned?

More than anything, it’s an experience to behold.

In this case, trust precedes truth. Happy Selfing.

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It's Within You

What is the Spiritual Self and 11+ Ways to Cultivate it (Even if it Seems Impossible!)

By Andy at Holistic Strong 2 Comments

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Trying to cultivate the spiritual self or a sense of spirituality is difficult. It’s hard to focus on yourself when you’re busy dealing with the problems in life.

In fact, it's challenging to find time to sit still and meditate when you become disoriented from the world around you and personal issues, work-related problems, relationship strife, or other stressful situations arise. But that’s why cultivating your spiritual self matters!

Because when you’re able to sit still, focus on yourself, and connect with something larger than yourself—whether that’s God or nature or just the Universe at large—you realize that there’s power in you that doesn’t come from your surroundings. You realize that there are wisdom and principles to embrace, and relationships to nourish.

And when you make space for this kind of self-reflection in your life, it gives you fuel for when life gets tough; it gives you perspective that you can lighten your struggles as you manifest your spiritual self.

The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now. – Henri Nouwen

What Do I Mean by the “Spiritual Self?”

There are many interpretations of what the spiritual self may be. Many religions and practices have a concept of a “higher self,” or some sort of entity that lives outside the body and yet can interact with the body. There are also concepts of a “subtle” self, an ‘ethereal’ part of a person that might be intangible. Some even speak of the soul as being distinct from the body, but still very much alive.

One thing that all these concepts have in common is that they are all attempting to describe something outside the physical realm. This higher or subtle self is not tangible like our physical bodies, yet it can interact with our physical selves.

Some people believe this spirit can be accessed through prayer and meditation, others believe it can be awakened through things like drugs or intense physical experience, while others still believe it can only be achieved by contacting one’s past lives in a sort of spiritual regression therapy.

I interpret the spiritual self as the“divinity within.” It is our higher consciousness, or the spark that each of us has that connects us to all life. It is the part of us that is with us from birth and will exist with us from conception through death. The divinity within forms the root of our subjective consciousness, or the part of our self-awareness that is separated from our physical reality.

The divinity within is who we are at our core. It is beyond gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religious affiliation and political beliefs. It is a Universal force, which means it exists in every single human being on Earth.

We all have this same divine spark within us, even if we don’t realize it—and we all co-create together to make the world what it is today. The divinity within never came from anywhere else; it has always existed as part of everything else in existence.

As our subjective consciousness develops into adulthood, we see ourselves as separate entities from others around us. This separation causes us to identify more closely with the physical bodies we inhabit than with the divinity within—but this separation doesn’t have to continue forever. By knowing and accepting who you really are—the divinity within—you can better find purpose and happiness.

Why is it Important to Discover Your Spiritual Self?

Take some time to reflect on this question: “What is the spiritual self?” Perhaps you agree it’s what allows you to tap into your higher power and access unlimited creativity, love, and joy. Your spiritual self is the part of you that remembers how to speak with angels, follow divine guidance, and be in harmony with the Universe.

It’s also the part of you that remembers how to operate from your authentic self, live a life filled with abundance and true fulfillment, and experience such extreme levels of peace and happiness that you feel it radiating out in every direction.

The spiritual self is the source of our very identity—when we forget its existence or think it’s “just us,” we block human potential at a very fundamental level. It’s only when we remember our true nature as spiritual beings that we can fully connect to our highest capacity for living, loving, being creative or anything else—how can we do anything to the best of our abilities if we don’t know who we truly are?

We exist in an eternal state of pure consciousness that never changes. When our energy is flowing smoothly and completely through who we really are, we are living our lives as a perfect reflection of this eternal state. We are limitless in every way—we have perfect health, wealth, peace, and joy, and we can better manifest our dreams.

Expressing Your Spiritual Self Example

One way to cultivate greater spirituality into your life and better get in touch with your spiritual self is through the practice of journaling. Through the written word, you can write a letter to yourself as if guided by your higher consciousness.

Here is an example:

I am my spiritual self.

I am the light that shines from within and I radiate outward. I am the warmth that radiates from my pores and warms everyone who comes near me.

The joy that fills my heart is infectious, and I am a beacon of hope. My spirit is pure and untarnished by negativity or doubt; it shines brightly in all that I do.

My beliefs, which are rooted in compassion and love for others, guide my actions. I live my life under these values, because they are what makes me whole as a person—they are what make up my spiritual self.

11 Other Ways to Cultivate the Spiritual Self

In the quest to answer, "What is the spiritual self," quiet reflection is necessary as you distill the essence of who you are without insecurities and other distractions.

However, many people believe that there is more to life than just the physical and emotional—that there is an invisible energy that exists within each of us and in the world around us, which we can tap into through conscious effort and intention.

By nurturing your spirit, you are giving your soul what it needs in order for you to lead a happier and healthier existence as a whole person while deveoping deeper connections with others.

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Going through a really rough patch at the moment, losing motivation, purpose etc. Years ago, I’ve tapped into spiritual self once or twice – something I’ve never felt before. Hoping to discover the inner self once more and for good. Andy, this article is so helpful and inspirational, it is something what I needed to discover to begin my spiritual journey again. Thank you !

Thanks so much for reading the post and contributing a glimpse into your life. I’m sorry that you’re esperiencing some difficult challenges at this time, but the pendulum will eventually swing in a more favorable direction. One way to improve our circumstances, or at least our reaction to them, is to cultivafte a greater sense of spirituality — in our thoughts and actions.

And Erik, I’m still trying to practice what I preach with greater frequency and effectiveness.

Best of luck, Andy

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Why Is Spirituality Important?

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There is a growing body of evidence indicating that spiritual practices are associated with better health and wellbeing for many reasons, including:

Contemplative practice is good for you.

Contemplative practices are activities that guide you to direct your attention to a specific focus—often an inward-looking reflection or concentration on a specific sensation or concept. Many spiritual traditions have a long history of using contemplative practices to increase compassion, empathy, and attention, as well as quiet the mind.

Meditation can induce feelings of calm and clear-headedness as well as improve concentration and attention. Brain researcher Richard Davidson’s research shows that meditation increases the brain’s gray matter density, which can reduce sensitivity to pain, enhance your immune system, help you regulate difficult emotions , and relieve stress . Mindfulness meditation in particular has been proven helpful for people with depression and anxiety , cancer , fibromyalgia, chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis , type 2 diabetes , chronic fatigue syndrome, and cardiovascular disease .
Prayer may elicit the relaxation response, along with feelings of hope, gratitude, and compassion—all of which have a positive effect on overall wellbeing. There are several types of prayer , many of which are rooted in the belief that there is a higher power that has some level of influence over your life. This belief can provide a sense of comfort and support in difficult times—a recent study found that clinically depressed adults who believed their prayers were heard by a concerned presence responded much better to treatment than those who did not believe.
Yoga is a centuries-old spiritual practice that aims to create a sense of union within the practitioner through physical postures, ethical behaviors, and breath expansion. The systematic practice of yoga has been found to reduce inflammation and stress, decrease depression and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and increase feelings of wellbeing.
Journaling is another, often overlooked, contemplative practice that can help you become more aware of your inner life and feel more connected to your experience and the world around you. Studies show that writing during difficult times may help you find meaning in life’s challenges and become more resilient in the face of obstacles.

A spiritual community can improve your life.

Many spiritual traditions encourage participation in a community. Spiritual fellowship, such as attending church or a meditation group, can be sources of social support which may provide a sense of belonging, security, and community. Strong relationships have been proven to increase wellbeing and bolster life expectancy, which is perhaps why one study found a strong association between church attendance and improved health, mood, and wellbeing.

Spiritual strength can help you overcome hardships.

smiling elderly woman against a green background

Having a strong spiritual outlook may help you find meaning in life’s difficult circumstances. Southwick describes the story of a woman who overcame the post-traumatic stress following an abduction and rape by believing that her trauma “served as a platform for her personal development, forcing her to evaluate her life and gradually change it for the better. She credits her ability to move forward with her life…to her dedication to spirituality.”

The spiritual practice of recognizing the interconnectedness of all life can also help buffer the pain that comes with difficult experiences. Researcher Kristin Neff says that “if we can compassionately remind ourselves in moments of falling down that failure is part of the shared human experience, then that moment becomes one of togetherness rather than isolation. When our troubled, painful experiences are framed by the recognition that countless others have undergone similar hardships, the blow is softened.”

Spiritual people make healthier choices.

Adhering to a particular spiritual tradition may bring an indirect health benefit because many traditions have rules about treating the body with kindness and avoiding unhealthy behaviors. Research shows that perhaps because of these tenets, people who practice a religion or faith tradition are less likely to smoke or drink, commit a crime, or become involved in violent activity, and they are more likely to engage in preventative habits like wearing seatbelts and taking vitamins.

Spirituality may help you live longer.

An exhaustive review that compared spirituality and religiousness to other health interventions found that people with a strong spiritual life had an 18% reduction in mortality. Giancarlo Lucchetti, lead author of the study, calculates that the life-lengthening benefits of spirituality can be compared to eating a high amount of fruits and vegetables or taking blood pressure medication. Although some researchers have suggested that the extent of spirituality’s benefit on health is exaggerated, most researchers agree there is a positive relationship between religious and spiritual practices and better health outcomes.

Forgiveness is good medicine.

Letting go of blame and negative feelings after a hurtful incident is a practice that is reflected by a number of spiritual traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. Modern science shows the health benefits of forgiveness are numerous: better immune function, longer lifespan, lowered blood pressure, improved cardiovascular health, and fewer feelings of anger or hurt.

Prayer for peace

In whatever form you use, prayer benefits health through the physiological effects of positive emotion.

Select a daily reading (for example, a psalm or an excerpt from a book of meditations. Read it slowly, connecting with the words, and reflecting on them. You may want to read the passage several times. To enter a contemplative state more quickly, it helps to do this at the same time and place each day.

Listen to, and reflect upon, the following prayer for peace.

May I be at peace May my heart remain open May I awaken to the light of my own true nature May I be healed May I be a source of healing for all beings.

Bohlmeijer, E., Prenger, R., Taal, E., Cuijpers, P. (2010). The effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy on mental health of adults with a chronic medical disease: a meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research; 68 (6):539-44.

Brassai, L., Piko, B. F., & Steger, M. F. (2011). Meaning in life: Is it a protective factor for adolescents' psychological health? International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 18 (1), 44-51.

Charles, J.P. (2010). Journaling: creating space for "I". Creative Nursing;16 (4):180-4.

Davidson, R.J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S.F., Urbanowski, F., Harrington, A., Bonus, K., Sheridan, J.F. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine; 65 (4):564-70.

Grant, J.A., Courtemanche, J., Duerden, E.G., Duncan, G.H., Rainville, P. (2010). Cortical thickness and pain sensitivity in zen meditators. Emotion; 10 (1):43-53.

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7 (7), e1000316.

Hölzel, B.K., Carmody, J., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S.M., Gard, T., Lazar, S.W. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research;191 (1):36-43.

Katzman, M. A., Vermani, M., Gerbarg, P. L., Brown, R. P., Iorio, C., Davis, M., et al. (2012). A multicomponent yoga-based, breath intervention program as an adjunctive treatment in patients suffering from generalized anxiety disorder with or without comorbidities. International Journal of Yoga, 5 (1), 57-65.

Koenig, L.B., Vaillant, G.E. (2009). A prospective study of church attendance and health over the lifespan. Health Psychology;28 (1):117-24.

Lucchetti, G., Lucchetti, A.L., Koenig, H.G. (2011). Impact of spirituality/religiosity on mortality: comparison with other health interventions. Explore; 7 (4):234-8.

McCullough, M. E., Hoyt, W. T., Larson, D. B., Koenig, H. G., & Thoresen, C. (2000). Religious involvement and mortality: A meta-analytic review. Health Psychology: Official Journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 19 (3), 211-222.

McCullough, M.E., Willoughby, B.L. (2009). Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications. Psychological Bulletin;135 (1):69-93.

Merkes, M. (2010). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for people with chronic diseases. Australian Journal of Primary Health;16 (3):200-10.

Murphy, P.E., Fitchett, G. (2009). Belief in a concerned god predicts response to treatment for adults with clinical depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology; 65 (9):1000-8.

Musial, F., Büssing, A., Heusser, P., Choi, K.E., Ostermann, T. (2011). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for integrative cancer care: a summary of evidence. Forsch Komplementmed;18 (4):192-202.

Neff, K. (2011). Self - compassion . New York: Harper Collins.

Pennebaker, J. W., Chung, C. K. (in press). Expressive writing and its links to mental and physical health. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), Oxford handbook of health psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Sengupta, P. (2012). Health impacts of yoga and pranayama: A state-of-the-art review. International Journal of Preventative Medicine;3 (7):444-58.

Southwick, S., Charney, D. (2012). Resilience: The science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Yadav, R. K., Magan, D., Mehta, M., Mehta, N., & Mahapatra, S. C. (2012). A short-term, comprehensive, yoga-based lifestyle intervention is efficacious in reducing anxiety, improving subjective well-being and personality. International Journal of Yoga, 5 (2), 134-139.

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Spirituality

The benefit of spirituality on our well-being, a continued interview with glen milstein on the effects of spirituality..

Posted January 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

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What outcome does our spiritual well-being have on our lives? In this interview, Glen Milstein shares how we can use spirituality and religion to benefit our lives individually and relationally.

Glen Milstein is an associate professor in Psychology at The City College of The City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University with training at the Bellevue Hospital Center and an NIMH post-doctoral fellowship at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. The foundation of Milstein's work with his colleagues is the lifespan development of beliefs: Since humans are born without a word or a prayer, Glen is interested in how the language(s) of religion(s) becomes us through our families, friends, partners, and communities.

In 2019, he guest-edited a section on Religion and Spirituality in the Context of Disaster for the journal, Psychological Trauma : Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy . In 2020, He co-edited an issue on Religion and Health for the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community . He is currently part of a task force within the American Psychological Association that is collaborating on a document to provide religious and spiritual competency practice guidelines for psychologists.

This is part two of a two-part interview with Milstein; you can find Part 1 here .

Jamie Aten: How might readers apply what you found to their lives?

Glen Milstein: What we sought to clarify — which was demonstrated by our research — is that spiritual well-being is beneficial for religious persons. In our study, we found it was protective against depressive symptoms, even if one has strong social support. We learned that it is important to take notice of depressive symptoms and to intervene to reduce these symptoms, with both personal and clinical resources, in order to prevent experiencing worsened occupational distress or burnout .

If you have a spiritual wisdom tradition that has been a positive influence, we can recommend that you examine and discern how this may serve as a source of meaning, wellness, and emotional support. This — like any exercise — is worthy of time set aside consistently. For some people, this discernment may lead to strengthening current practices; for others, it may be a reclamation of a previous path, and for others, it could be a journey on a new path.

JA: How can readers use what you found to help others?

GM: Spiritual well-being is a journey, not a destination. The one constant in life is change, which paradoxically can give us more assurance as change shows both that we can work to heal what has been harmed, as well as strengthen what has been diminished.

We found evidence for this in the data from the ministers. For these clergy, 15 percent had a robust increase in their spiritual well-being (SWB) in ministry across one year and 17 percent in their personal SWB. Also, a different 16 percent had a decrease in their SWB in ministry across one year and 15 percent in their personal SWB.

That spiritual well-being varies, is an idea that might create a sense of personal stigma or disappointment in clergy and other religious persons. Therefore, clergy may benefit from recognizing the need to cultivate spiritual well-being across their lifespan. Psychologists can be among those who encourage persons to improve their spiritual well-being and then assess if this results in the positive outcomes suggested by our research.

JA: What are you currently working on that you might like to share?

GM: Our next project with the Clergy Health Initiative will be another examination of a core psychological question: How does one’s early religious upbringing influence one’s adult functioning?

We know that 90 percent of Catholic priests grew up Catholic. What percentage of Methodist ministers grew up Methodist? How does this upbringing appear to predict their occupational distress, ministry satisfaction, and spiritual well-being?

Because of the sustained work of CHI, we will be able to study 10 years of data to measure outcomes. Our initial hypothesis is that those ministers who grew up Methodist will be functioning better. An alternative hypothesis is that by choosing their spiritual path, those not raised Methodist will function better. It is — in the moment — invigorating not to know.

I am also currently preparing for my sabbatical, which will begin in Autumn 2021. I have accepted an invitation to be a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Divinity of Cambridge University. While there, I will have the opportunity to dialogue with colleagues as I research and write some of the integrative work I developed over the last 30 years. The working title of this sabbatical project is, “Utility of the Ineffable: Darwin, Religion, and The General Good."

I also plan to work with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme to offer COPE dialogues for collaboration between clergy and mental health care providers. I will direct my work to learn from human religious experiences in order to find more cogent and empathic ways to engage those people with lived experiences of mental and emotional distress whose strengths are sustained or challenged by their faith(s).

Milstein, G., Hybels, C. F., & Proeschold-Bell, R. J. (2020). A prospective study of clergy spiritual well-being, depressive symptoms, and occupational distress. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 12(4), 409-416. doi:10.1037/rel0000252

Jamie Aten , Ph.D. , is the founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College.

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Spiritual Development and the Need for Self Reflection

Christian counselor seattle.

In the Christian world today, much emphasis is given to the concept of a testimony. By testimony, people usually refer to some story of conversion, and the more dramatic the better. The goal of a testimony is to share a story of faith to encourage others.

Spiritual Development and the Need for Self Reflection 2

The missing piece of a testimony is the ongoing story of spiritual growth. It focuses solely on the processes of conversion and coming to faith, leaving out the process of becoming more and more like Jesus.

This is a long and difficult process, only made more difficult by a lack of understanding of how the process works. Many Christians know what it means to come to faith, but few know how to move beyond their initial conversion and into deep intimacy in their relationship with God.

The goal of this article is to discuss the importance of self-reflection in the process of spiritual development. This is only one aspect of spiritual development and by no means an exhaustive study of the topic, but it will introduce readers the role of self-reflection in your relationship with God, the biblical basis for his idea, and a simple practice to get you started.

What is Self Reflection?

Self-reflection is deliberate time set aside to slow down in the busyness of your life to look back on your day, month or year in an attempt to learn from your experiences, desires, and feelings. In life, it’s very easy to become driven by your schedule and commitments.

You are too busy trying to stay on top of everything to have any time to sit back and reflect on what you are doing or how you are feeling. Or maybe you don’t feel driven by your schedule but prefer to spend your downtime outsourcing your mental energy to something like TV or video games.

Spiritual Development and the Need for Self Reflection 1

You can ask questions like, “Am I satisfied with what I’m doing?” Sometimes life gets so busy that you can forget why you even got so busy, to begin with. Or you can ask God, “Is my life orchestrated in such a way to make my relationship with you a priority?”

Life can become filled with many good things that overcrowd your time and mental capacity. Asking God this question may prompt you to remove things that feel important in order to create more space and time for God.

Without creating the space to have this self-reflection and communication with God, you will likely operate on autopilot, being driven by values instilled by your culture, family of origin, and immediate community. Intentional self-reflection is aimed at creating space for you to sit with God and ask meaningful questions about life and your relationship with Him.

For those unaccustomed to self-reflection, it may be helpful for you to begin meeting with a Christian counselor. Christian counselors are trained to help you begin reflecting on your life and experiences. They can help lead you to a place of self-reflection and train you to enter this place on your own.

What Does the Bible Say about Self Reflection?

Some Christians have taken the position that self-reflection is too close to the concept of Eastern meditation but that is not necessarily the case. Eastern forms of meditation are designed to empty the mind, but Christian meditation and self-reflection intend to bring you into a quiet place with God where you can intimately converse with him about your experiences and emotions.

For those concerned about this topic, consider these two scriptures related to self-reflection and spiritual growth:

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. – 1 Corinthians 11:28

Spiritual Development and the Need for Self Reflection

However, rather than working them out, the believers were just continuing on with fellowship despite the unresolved conflict. Paul is calling them out and calling them to check their hearts because the community should not persist in unresolved conflict and sin while partaking of the Lord’s Table.

This is still true for believers today. You cannot simply move forward in our faith and lives while living in open, unrepentant sin. There will be seasons of conflict and struggles in the life of a believer, but if that begins to be the norm then there is a problem.

Christians need to regularly step back and reflect on their hearts and motivations to preserve their own health and the health of the community. If they don’t, then their sin can begin to interfere with their relationships with others and their relationship with God.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – Psalm 139:23-24

In this passage, David comes before God to be searched. He knows not the depths of his own heart and sinfulness and needs God to plumb the depths. He requests the Lord to search out the deep things of his heart, so he can process it and grow.

This is true for Christians today. Because of sin, it is difficult to accurately see and assess the true motivations of the heart. To see yourself more clearly will require guidance from God, intentional self-reflection, and vulnerability in community.

As Christians intentionally seek God in silence and solitude, asking for him to search their heart and thoughtfully engaging self-reflection, the Lord will speak in his own unique to each person and bring things to mind.

As the Lord speaks, it is then the responsibility of the believer to take his words into account in order to seek to conform their life to the “way everlasting.” Sitting before God to be searched and searching yourself through self-reflection are key, biblical practices for spiritual growth.

Practicing Self Reflection to Achieve Spiritual Growth

Spiritual Development and the Need for Self Reflection 3

To begin, try a simple journaling discipline. Try spending 10 minutes journaling about what happened yesterday. These don’t have to be profound reflections or esoteric thoughts. Literally, just write what happened.

It might be as basic, “I got up and made breakfast. I went to work. I got cut off in traffic. I talked to Joe about our new client. I picked my kids up from school and got pizza for dinner. When the kids went to bed, my wife and I watched TV together.”

It doesn’t have to be complicated. After journaling about the day, ask yourself, “Was yesterday a good or a bad day? How do I feel about it?” If you feel like it was a good day, then write a few reasons why you thought it was good. If it felt like a bad day, write about why it felt bad.

If you feel conflicted about whether it was good or bad, then write about why you feel conflicted. Finally, with these reflections in mind, come before God in prayer. Consider what he is saying to you. Spend several minutes in silent reflection listening for God while you process what you felt from the previous day and consider what you have to learn.

This is a simple discipline that can be used in conjunction with other forms of prayer and Bible reading. It’s a great way to get you started on a deeper road of self-reflection.

Spiritual growth is a long process of learning to abide in the presence of God. When you meet Jesus, you aren’t done. Instead, you begin on a lifelong journey of learning to become more and more like him.

A necessary part of this process is taking an honest inventory of your life to see where you need to seek transformation through the power of the Spirit. Self-reflection is a powerful tool for you to grow and encounter God in the inner workings of your heart. It may not come naturally to those living in the modern world, but it is a spiritual practice that can powerfully deepen your relationship with God.

DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE

The information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material contained on this article are for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please contact one of our counselors for further information.

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What Is the Meaning of the 'Inner Self'?

The inner self, importance of knowing your inner self, the outer self, balancing the inner and outer selves.

The inner self is the subconscious repository of your thoughts, memories, emotions, and other aspects of your mind that make up who you are. It's the private, internal part of yourself you generally do not share with others—the core of your being.

Being aware of your inner self and how it interacts with your outer self is an important part of good mental, physical, and spiritual health . It's a crucial element to consider when working toward and maintaining balance in your life.

The inner self comprises the parts of ourselves we keep private or share selectively, such as feelings, intuitions, values, beliefs, personality, thoughts, emotions, fantasies, spirituality, desire, and purpose . A strong inner self can help you deal with your emotions, stay self-aware, maintain clarity and values, and feel a purpose in life. It also can help you remain calm and resilient in the face of adversity.

The inner self is the crux of your identity; it's who you are at the core. Connecting with it is crucial for living your healthiest life. Meditate or practicing other mindfulness techniques and activities such as walking in nature:

Can help with depression, anxiety, and other emotional issues
Can raise self-esteem and confidence
Can improve relationships through better communication
Provides a "reality check" against outside events and situations
Helps you align your actions with your intentions, thoughts, and feelings
Can increase problem-solving skills and creativity

Your outer self is what you present to the world—the parts that you choose to allow others to experience, such as your appearance (hair, clothes, etc.), demeanor, speech, etc. Your outer self is like a shell, meant to protect and support your inner self as you cope with the demands of school, work, home, and other external concerns.

This external world can be demanding. Take time to consider whether the aspects of your outer self align with the values, expectations, and perceptions of your inner self.

Conflict Between Inner and Outer Selves

The inner and outer selves sometimes don't align, and this conflict can cause extreme discomfort. Essentially, you might think one thing (in your inner self) but behave differently (in your outer self). For example, a person who identifies as gay but is forced to "act straight" in public experiences distress because their inner and outer selves differ.

This conflict can arise when you don't spend enough time with your inner self—"running on empty," struggling to get through the demands of the day without considering whether your actions and behaviors are in line with your inner self.

The greater the conflict, the wider the difference between what the inner self believes is right and what the outer self does. This conflict ultimately causes stress that can damage the mind, body, and spirit.

The resulting stress can make you more vulnerable to illness and affect daily functioning. You might also be at risk of turning to quick "fixes" such as drugs and alcohol.

How to Recognize Conflict Between the Inner and Outer Selves

Checking to see that your inner and outer selves are aligned is simply identifying gaps between your true values and your actions:

Take a moment and list your core values like honesty, integrity, friendship, helpfulness, etc.
Make a list of daily activities that align with each value —for example, calling friends to see how they're doing or telling the truth even when it's difficult.
Look for values backed by few supporting actions . This is where you'll find conflict. If you value friendship but spend each day alone, there's a conflict between your values (inner self) and actions (outer self).

Once you've identified the problematic areas in your life, focus on quieting your outer self and connecting with your inner self. Slow down, focus on the moment, and listen to your thoughts as you go about your day.

If you still feel conflicted, consider the need for life changes to address these issues. Perhaps starting a new job, working on your relationship, or ending a friendship might be in order. Only you will know the specific changes that might bring you back into balance. Ask yourself:

Does your life require you to stifle deeply held beliefs or some aspect of your identity?
What do you most want to pursue in life? Does this match what you are doing?
Will you feel good about the choices you are making now at the end of your life?

Thinking of the largest gaps first, ask yourself what changes you must make to align your inner and outer selves. For example, one person might change careers or reduce working hours to spend more time with family. Another might change their field of work to more closely align with a cause.

Some conflicts between the inner and outer selves are small enough to resolve easily. Even simple changes can help, such as slowing down each day and taking the time to talk and listen to others, rather than always rushing.

Your inner self is the very core of your being: your authentic self. Getting to know your inner self brings self-awareness, along with many other emotional and psychological benefits.

Tajadura-Jiménez A, Tsakiris M. Balancing the "inner" and the "outer" self: interoceptive sensitivity modulates self-other boundaries . J Exp Psychol Gen . 2014;143(2):736-744. doi:10.1037/a0033171

Zhang, Q., Wang, Z., Wang, X., Liu, L., Zhang, J., & Zhou, R. (2019). The effects of different stages of mindfulness meditation training on emotion regulation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , 13 , 459651. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2019.00208

Ferguson J. Know and Connect Your Inner and Outer Self. https://www.lindajferguson.com/2013/09/know-and-connect-your-inner-and-outer-self/
LaBier D.Building an Inside-Out Life - Part 1. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201006/building-inside-out-life-part-1

By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

Nourishing Your Spirit: The Importance of Spiritual Self-Care

Self-care is an integral part of overall well-being. Any action you take intentionally to maintain or improve your well-being can be called self-care.

Physical self-care, emotional self-care, psychological self-care, and spiritual self-care are all referring to the practice of providing the kind of self-nurturance that promotes well-being on different levels.

In addition, making time to connect with yourself to nourish, replenish and renew is essential to maintain your overall health and well-being in keeping with the pace of modern life.

What are specific examples of self-care?

Self-care practices ensure that you are tending to your various natural needs. Self-care includes ensuring you get enough sleep, eat healthy, nourishing foods, exercise regularly, pursue activities you enjoy, and take time to maintain, promote, or improve your sense of wellness in some shape or form.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are five categories of human needs that, when met, lead to increased satisfaction and happiness in life. These human needs include physiological needs like food and hydration, safety needs like shelter, love and belonging needs like relationships and friendships, esteem needs like career or educational achievements, and self-actualization needs like self-growth and personal development pursuits.

When you approach self-care intentionally, you look at these various needs and engage in activities and behaviors that help you meet those needs.

What is spiritual self-care?

Spiritual self-care is about developing and maintaining a sense of connection to something greater than yourself. Having a sense of belongingness in the Universe and feeling loved, seen, and cared for by a higher power can give you a deep sense of security and stability. The more confidently you believe in a loving Universe or a loving higher power, the more meaning, direction, and security you can find throughout your life experiences.

While “spiritual” or “spirituality” can refer to having a sense of connection to something greater than yourself, that relationship to something greater than yourself involves your personal beliefs, values, preference, and experiences. For example, some individuals prefer to see it as a connection to God, others as a connection to the Universe, and some connect their sense of spirituality to a specific religion.

Spirituality takes on many different forms, and the expression of that spirituality even more so. The key is to identify what spirituality means to you and then develop a practice that honors and respects that definition while giving you a sense of belongingness and security on a larger universal or cosmic scale.

Think of spiritual self-care as being about both connecting to your inner self as well as connecting to your broader higher power.

So spiritual self-care is about tending to your spirit, tending to your essence, tending to your inner self. Your inner self is the sphere of being where your feelings, thoughts, and sensations arise. This is the realm of what’s true for you, your values, preferences, and perceptions. This sphere of being holds your thinking self, emotional self, and spiritual self.

So, you want to take care of this rich internal environment by bringing your intentional attention, love, and compassion into this inner space of being.

Why is spiritual self-care important?

Tending to your internal environment allows you to develop and improve your self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-management habits. Tending to your inner sphere of being also feeds into how you decide to relate to others and the world.

So spiritual self-care is really what allows you to be you. It’s what helps you maintain your energetic integrity and helps you to know and express your authentic self.

When you create that safe space of self-exploration, where you look at and approach yourself with love and compassion, that tender and gentle care you bring to your internal environment becomes the basis of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-understanding. Approaching yourself through love, acceptance, and understanding are ways of relating to the self that nurtures and protects who you know and feel yourself to be.

The benefits of spiritual self-care are many. Cultivating strong beliefs about a loving Universe or higher power that provides answers and solutions to everything in life can help you access a deep sense of inner peace and calm.

When you have a map of life as being orderly, structured, coherent, and understandable, you typically experience inner ease. Spirituality is one avenue that can provide you with that feeling, and through spiritual self-care, you stay connected to that sense.

Inner peace and inner calm are naturally relaxed states of being. When you experience inner peace, you physiologically relax. You feel at ease in life. You feel at peace with the present moment. You experience internal restfulness. Like the nurturing and replenishing effects of being out in nature, being able to access and feel a sense of inner peace within can be nurturing and replenishing.

Many researchers have studied the benefits of mindfulness practices , the practices that evoke inner restfulness. Researchers have noted several benefits that come from mindfulness practices — these include increased attention and focus, increased clarity, higher brain functioning, and more.

Examining Your Beliefs on Spiritual Self-Care

At the center of your spiritual self-care routine is the belief that you deserve to be cared for, nurtured, soothed, seen, and heard on all levels. Believing that you deserve care, compassion, and nurturance on your journey of personal and spiritual growth helps you start to make time for and follow through on practices that add these elements to your day-to-day experience.

What helps you create sustainable habits are the beliefs you have. To make spiritual self-care an essential part of your approach to life, you have to start by recognizing and accepting its importance.

It’s when you believe that something is important, that something has value and adds to your life, or enhances your life, that you make the necessary effort to make it a part of your routine.

So, you have to start by examining your current beliefs about how vital spiritual self-care is, the level of value you see in it, and how you perceive it for what it can do for your overall well-being.

What do you believe about spiritual self-care?

How important is having a regular spiritual self-care routine or practice in your life?

How important or valuable do you think having a sense of connection to something greater than yourself is?

How important is cultivating and deepening this relationship with yourself and to a greater power in your day-to-day experience?

How do you think spiritual self-care benefits you or would benefit you?

These are all questions worth exploring. The more you become aware of your current perceptions and assumptions about spiritual self-care, the more you can make space for creating and internalizing the kinds of assumptions and perceptions that will help you make spiritual self-care a natural and vital part of your life experience.

Types of Spiritual Self-Care Practices

There are lots of different ways to practice spiritual self-care. Any practice that helps you both go inward within yourself and expand and connect to a higher power can be considered a spiritual self-care practice.

Spiritual self-care can look like prayer, it can look like meditation, and it can look like journaling, or energy healing . It can also look like being out in nature regularly. These prayer, meditation, journaling, or energy healing practices can be incorporated into your daily life.

Depending on the level of mindfulness you bring to the activity, just about any activity you engage in can also be transformed into a spiritual self-care practice. When you bring mindfulness to the task that you do, when you bring a sense of grounded presence to tasks as simple as making your bed or doing the dishes, these practices of being grounded, having a part of your awareness inward-oriented, and alert to your internal experiences, connecting to that sense of inner calm, or inner ease at the moment, can be considered a spiritual self-care practice.

While spiritual self-care can include formal practices like a regular sitting meditation, or a mindfulness yoga session, it can also be something you incorporate informally into your everyday activities. Both the formal approach and the informal approach are beneficial.

The formal approach allows you to develop discipline and consistency in the practice of spiritual self-care. The informal approach helps you embody the mindset of caring and tending to both your connection to self and your connection to the universe through incorporating elements of mindfulness, introspection, and universal connectedness into your daily activities.

How to Make Time for Spiritual Self-Care in Daily Life

Having the intention to make time for spiritual self-care in your life and then turning that intention into decisions and actions that you follow through on consistently is the beginning of normalizing having a spiritual self-care practice as a part of your daily life.

To make spiritual self-care a part of your daily life:

Set the intention

Turn that intention into a decision by taking practical steps

Follow through consistently

Intention, decision, commitment, and follow-through are the starting point for any long-term behavioural change.

Identifying Your Spiritual Self-Care Needs

To add spiritual self-care practices into your day-to-day life, understanding your spiritual self-care needs is a good starting point.

Do you need time for self-reflection?

Do you need more time for self-connection?

Do you feel connected to the universe or a higher power consistently?

Do you feel like there is order and coherence in the flow of your life experiences?

What are your spiritual self-care needs at this moment in your life?

You can more readily meet the needs you identify, so begin to explore your spiritual self-care needs by asking yourself, “ What do I need spiritually at this point in my life ?”

This is a personal touchpoint to establish with yourself regularly. As your needs change and evolve, so may your spiritual self-care practices.

Prioritizing Spiritual Self-Care in Your Life

Once you identify your spiritual self-care needs, you can choose one or two practices that will be easy for you to implement. For example, if you enjoy writing and already have a journaling practice, you could try having a spiritual self-care dedicated section in your journal that you can make entries into regularly.

If you already have a meditation practice, you can see how you can expand that meditation practice to include tending to and nurturing yourself and your connection to the universe.

You can take existing things that you do and expand them to include spiritual self-care practices. You can start with a weekly practice and see what that brings into your life experience. Regular spiritual self-care practice enhances how you experience yourself and your world. It can enhance your sense of security and belongingness and bring about a long list of rewards tied to mindfulness and positive emotion.

A spiritual self-care practice is worth investing time, commitment, and energy in because it brings many rewards for the rest of your life.

Want more resources to support your spiritual growth?

Check out Kidest OM's collection of books on consciousness expansion and manifestation.

About Kidest OM Kidest OM is a manifestation author and teacher with indispensable books and online courses designed to help you expand your consciousness and live a more empowered life. Her books include " Anything You Want " and " Nothing in the Way: Clearing the Paths to Success & Fulfilment ," which are available globally in eBook, print, and audiobook on her website and online book retailers.

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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

“i” and “me”: the self in the context of consciousness.

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Cognition and Philosophy Lab, Department of Philosophy, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

James (1890) distinguished two understandings of the self, the self as “Me” and the self as “I”. This distinction has recently regained popularity in cognitive science, especially in the context of experimental studies on the underpinnings of the phenomenal self. The goal of this paper is to take a step back from cognitive science and attempt to precisely distinguish between “Me” and “I” in the context of consciousness. This distinction was originally based on the idea that the former (“Me”) corresponds to the self as an object of experience (self as object), while the latter (“I”) reflects the self as a subject of experience (self as subject). I will argue that in most of the cases (arguably all) this distinction maps onto the distinction between the phenomenal self (reflecting self-related content of consciousness) and the metaphysical self (representing the problem of subjectivity of all conscious experience), and as such these two issues should be investigated separately using fundamentally different methodologies. Moreover, by referring to Metzinger’s (2018) theory of phenomenal self-models, I will argue that what is usually investigated as the phenomenal-“I” [following understanding of self-as-subject introduced by Wittgenstein (1958) ] can be interpreted as object, rather than subject of experience, and as such can be understood as an element of the hierarchical structure of the phenomenal self-model. This understanding relates to recent predictive coding and free energy theories of the self and bodily self discussed in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy.

Introduction

Almost 130 years ago, James (1890) introduced the distinction between “Me” and “I” (see Table 1 for illustrative quotes) to the debate about the self. The former term refers to understanding of the self as an object of experience, while the latter to the self as a subject of experience 1 . This distinction, in different forms, has recently regained popularity in cognitive science (e.g., Christoff et al., 2011 ; Liang, 2014 ; Sui and Gu, 2017 ; Truong and Todd, 2017 ) and provides a useful tool for clarifying what one means when one speaks about the self. However, its exact meaning varies in cognitive science, especially in regard to what one understands as the self as subject, or “I.”

TABLE 1. Quotes from James (1890) illustrating the distinction between self-as-object (“Me”) and self-as-subject (“I”) and a quote from Wittgenstein (1958) illustrating his distinction between the use of “I” as object and as subject.

The goal of this paper is to take a step back from cognitive science and take a closer look at the conceptual distinction between “Me” and “I” in the context of consciousness. I will suggest, following James (1890) and in opposition to the tradition started by Wittgenstein (1958) , that in this context “Me” (i.e., the self as object) reflects the phenomenology of selfhood, and corresponds to what is also known as sense of self, self-consciousness, or phenomenal selfhood (e.g., Blanke and Metzinger, 2009 ; Blanke, 2012 ; Dainton, 2016 ). On the other hand, the ultimate meaning of “I” (i.e., the self as subject) is rooted in metaphysics of subjectivity, and refers to the question: why is all conscious experience subjective and who/what is the subject of conscious experience? I will argue that these two theoretical problems, i.e., phenomenology of selfhood and metaphysics of subjectivity, are in principle independent issues and should not be confused. However, cognitive science usually follows the Wittgensteinian tradition 2 by understanding the self-as-subject, or “I,” as a phenomenological, rather than metaphysical problem [Figure 1 illustrates the difference between James (1890) and Wittgenstein’s (1958) approach to the self]. By following Metzinger’s (2003 , 2010 ) framework of phenomenal self-models, and in agreement with a reductionist approach to the phenomenal “I” 3 ( Prinz, 2012 ), I will argue that what is typically investigated in cognitive science as the phenomenal “I” [or the Wittgenstein’s (1958) self-as-subject] can be understood as just a higher-order component of the self-model reflecting the phenomenal “Me.” Table 2 presents some of crucial claims of the theory of self-models, together with concise references to other theories of the self-as-object discussed in this paper.

FIGURE 1. An illustration of James (1890) and Wittgenstein’s (1958) distinctions between self-as-object (“Me”) and self-as-subject (“I”). In the original formulation, James’ (1890) “Me” includes also physical objects and people (material and social “Me”) – they were not included in the picture, because they are not directly related to consciousness.

TABLE 2. Examples of theories of the self-as-object (“Me”) in the context of consciousness, as theories of the phenomenal self, with representative quotes illustrating each position.

“Me” As An Object Of Experience: Phenomenology Of Self-Consciousness

The words ME, then, and SELF, so far as they arouse feeling and connote emotional worth, are OBJECTIVE designations, meaning ALL THE THINGS which have the power to produce in a stream of consciousness excitement of a certain particular sort ( James, 1890 , p. 319, emphasis in original).

James (1890) chose the word “Me” to refer to self-as-object. What does it mean? In James’ (1890) view, it reflects “all the things” which have the power to produce “excitement of a certain particular sort.” This certain kind of excitement is nothing more than some form of experiential quality of me-ness, mine-ness, or similar - understood in a folk-theoretical way (this is an important point, because these terms have recently acquired technical meanings in philosophy, e.g., Zahavi, 2014 ; Guillot, 2017 ). What are “all the things”? The classic formulation suggests that James (1890) meant physical objects and cultural artifacts (material self), human beings (social self), and mental processes and content (spiritual self). These are all valid categories of self-as-object, however, for the purpose of this paper I will limit the scope of further discussion only to “objects” which are relevant when speaking about consciousness. Therefore, rather than speaking about, for example, my car or my body, I will discuss only their conscious representations. This limits the scope of self-as-object to one category of “things” – conscious mental content.

Let us now reformulate James’ (1890) idea in more contemporary terms and define “Me” as the totality of all content of consciousness that is experienced as self-related. Content of consciousness is meant here in a similar way to Chalmers (1996) , who begins “ The conscious mind ” by providing a list of different kinds of conscious content. He delivers an extensive (without claiming that exhaustive) collection of types of experiences, which includes the following 4 : visual; auditory; tactile; olfactory; experiences of hot and cold; pain; taste; other bodily experiences coming from proprioception, vestibular sense, and interoception (e.g., headache, hunger, orgasm); mental imagery; conscious thought; emotions. Chalmers (1996) also includes several other, which, however, reflect states of consciousness and not necessarily content per se , such as dreams, arousal, fatigue, intoxication, and altered states of consciousness induced by psychoactive substances. What is common to all of the types of experience from the first list (conscious contents) is the fact that they are all, speaking in James’ (1890) terms, “objects” in a stream of consciousness: “all these things are objects, properly so called, to the subject that does the thinking” (p. 325).

The self understood as “Me” can be understood as a subset of a set of all these possible experiences. This subset is characterized by self-relatedness (Figure 2 ). It can be illustrated with sensory experiences. For example, in the visual domain, I experience an image of my face as different from another person’s face. Hence, while the image of my face belongs to “Me,” the image of someone else does not (although it can be experimentally manipulated, Tsakiris, 2008 ; Payne et al., 2017 ; Woźniak et al., 2018 ). The same can be said about my voice and sounds caused by me (as opposed to voices of other people), and about my smell. We also experience self-touch as different from touching or being touched by a different person ( Weiskrantz et al., 1971 ; Blakemore et al., 1998 ; Schutz-Bosbach et al., 2009 ). There is even evidence that we process our possessions differently ( Kim and Johnson, 2014 ; Constable et al., 2018 ). This was anticipated by James’ (1890) notion of the material “Me,” and is typically regarded as reflecting one’s extended self ( Kim and Johnson, 2014 ). In all of these cases, we can divide sensory experiences into the ones which do relate to the self and the ones which do not. The same can be said about the contents of thoughts and feelings, which can be either about “Me” or about something/someone else.

FIGURE 2. A simplified representation of a structure of phenomenal content including the metaphysical “I,” the phenomenal “Me,” and the phenomenal “I,” which can be understood (see in text) as a higher-level element of the phenomenal “Me.” Each pair of nodes connected with a yellow line represents one type of content of consciousness, with indigo nodes corresponding to self-related content, and black nodes corresponding to non-self-related content. In some cases (e.g., pain, emotions, interoceptive, and proprioceptive sensations), the black nodes are lighter and drawn with a dashed line (the same applies to links), to indicate that in normal circumstances one does not experiences these sensations as representing another person (although it is possible in thought experiments and pathologies). Multisensory/multimodal interactions have been omitted for the sake of clarity. All of the nodes compose the set of conscious thoughts, which can be formulated as “I experience X.” In normal circumstances, one does not deny ownership over these thoughts, however, in thought experiments, and in some cases of psychosis, one may experience that even such thoughts cease to feel as one’s own. This situation is represented by the shape with a dashed outline. Moreover, in special cases one can form meta-delusions, i.e., delusions about delusions – thoughts that my thoughts about other thoughts are not my thoughts (see text for description).

Characterizing self-as-object as a subset of conscious experiences specifies the building blocks of “Me” (which are contents of consciousness) and provides a guiding principle for distinguishing between self and non-self (self-relatedness). However, it is important to note two things. First, the distinction between self and non-self is often a matter of scale rather than a binary classification, and therefore self-relatedness may be better conceptualized as the strength of the relation with the self. It can be illustrated with an example of the “Inclusion of Other in Self” scale ( Aron et al., 1992 ). This scale asks to estimate to what extent another person feels related to one’s self, by choosing among a series of pairs of more-to-less overlapping circles representing the self and another person (e.g., a partner). The degree of overlap between the chosen pair of circles represents the degree of self-relatedness. Treating self-relatedness as a matter of scale adds an additional level of complexity to the analysis, and results in speaking about the extent to which a given content of consciousness represents self, rather than whether it simply does it or not. This does not, however, change the main point of the argument that we can classify all conscious contents according to whether (or to what extent, in that case) they are self-related. For the sake of clarity, I will continue to speak using the language of binary classification, but it should be kept in mind that it is an arbitrary simplification. The second point is that this approach to “Me” allows one to flexibly discuss subcategories of the self by imposing additional constraints on the type of conscious content that is taken into account, as well as the nature of self-relatedness (e.g., whether it is ownership of, agency over, authorship, etc.). For example, by limiting ourselves to discussing conscious content representing one’s body one can speak about the bodily self, and by imposing limits to conscious experience of one’s possessions one can speak about one’s extended self.

Keeping these reservations in mind two objections can be raised to the approach to “Me” introduced here. The first one is as follows:

(1) Speaking about the self/other distinction does not make sense in regard to experiences which are always “mine,” such as prioprioception or interoception. This special status may suggest that these modalities underpin the self as “I,” i.e., the subject of experience.

This idea is present in theoretical proposals postulating that subjectivity emerges based on (representations of) sensorimotor ( Gallagher, 2000 ; Christoff et al., 2011 ; Blanke et al., 2015 ) or interoceptive signals ( Damasio, 1999 ; Craig, 2010 ; Seth et al., 2011 ; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014 ; Salomon, 2017 ). There are two answers to this objection. First, the fact that this kind of experience (this kind of content of consciousness) is always felt as “my” experience simply means that all proprioceptive, interoceptive, pain experiences, etc., are as a matter of fact parts of “Me.” They are self-related contents of consciousness and hence naturally qualify as self-as-object. Furthermore, there is no principled reason why the fact that we normally do not experience them as belonging to someone else should transform them from objects of experience (content) into a subject of experience. Their special status may cause these experiences to be perceived as more central aspects of the self than experiences in other modalities, but there is no reason to think that it should change them from something that we experience into the self as an experiencer. Second, even the special status of these sensations can be called into question. It is possible to imagine a situation in which one experiences these kinds of sensations from an organ or a body which does not belong to her or him. We can imagine that with enough training one will learn to distinguish between proprioceptive signals coming from one’s body and those coming from another person’s (or artificial) body. If this is possible, then one may develop a phenomenal distinction between “my” versus “other’s” proprioceptive and interoceptive experiences (for example), and in this case the same rules of classification into phenomenal “Me” and phenomenal “not-Me” will apply as to other sensory modalities. This scenario is not realistic at the current point of technological development, but there are clinical examples which indirectly suggest that it may be possible. For example, people who underwent transplantation of an organ sometimes experience rejection of a transplant. Importantly, patients whose organisms reject an organ also more often experience psychological rejection of that transplant ( Látos et al., 2016 ). Moreover, there are rare cases in which patients following a successful surgery report that they perceive transplanted organs as foreign objects in themselves ( Goetzmann et al., 2009 ). In this case, affected people report experiencing a form of disownership of the implanted organ, suggesting that they may experience interoceptive signals coming from that transplant as having a phenomenal quality of being “not-mine,” leading to similar phenomenal quality as the one postulated in the before-mentioned thought experiment. Another example of a situation in which self-relatedness of interoception may be disrupted may be found in conjoint twins. In some variants of this developmental disorder (e.g., parapagus, dicephalus, thoracopagus) brains of two separate twins share some of the internal organs (and limbs), while others are duplicated and possessed by each twin individually ( Spencer, 2000 ; Kaufman, 2004 ). This provides an inverted situation to the one described in our hypothetical scenario – rather than two pieces of the same organ being “wired” to one person, the same organ (e.g., a heart, liver, stomach) is shared by two individuals. As such it may be simultaneously under control of two autonomous nervous systems. This situation raises challenging questions for theories which postulate that the root of self-as-subject lies in interoception. For example, if conjoint twins share the majority of internal organs, but possess mostly independent nervous systems, like dicephalus conjoint twins, then does it mean that they share the neural subjective frame ( Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014 )? If the answer is yes, then does it mean that they share it numerically (both twins have one and the same subjective frame), or only qualitatively (their subjective frames are similar to the point of being identical, but they are distinct frames)? However, if interoception is just a part of “Me” then the answer becomes simple – the experiences can be only qualitatively identical, because they are experienced by two independent subjects.

All of these examples challenge the assumption that sensori-motor and interoceptive experiences are necessarily self-related and, as a consequence, that they can form the basis of self-as-subject. For this reason, it seems that signals coming from these modalities are more appropriate to underlie the phenomenal “Me,” for example in a form of background self-experience, or “phenomenal background” ( Dainton, 2008 , 2016 ), rather than the phenomenal “I.”

The second possible objection to the view of self-as-object described in this section is the following one:

(2) My thoughts and feelings may have different objects, but they are always my thoughts and feelings. Therefore, their object may be either “me” or “other,” but their subject is always “I.” As a consequence, even though my thoughts and feelings constitute contents of my consciousness, they underlie the phenomenal “I” and not the phenomenal “Me.”

It seems to be conceptually misguided to speak about one’s thoughts and feelings as belonging to someone else. This intuition motivated Wittgenstein (1958) to write: “there is no question of recognizing a person when I say I have toothache. To ask ‘are you sure it is you who have pains?’ “would be nonsensical” ( Wittgenstein, 1958 ). In the Blue Book, he introduced the distinction between the use of “I” as object and as subject (see Table 1 for a full relevant quote) and suggested that while we can be wrong about the former, making a mistake about the latter is not possible. This idea was further developed by Shoemaker (1968) who introduced an arguably conceptual truth that we are immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun, or IEM in short. For example, when I say “I see a photo of my face in front of me” I may be mistaken about the fact that it is my face (because, e.g., it is a photo of my identical twin), but I cannot be mistaken that it is me who is looking at it. One way to read IEM is that it postulates that I can be mistaken about self-as-object, but I cannot be mistaken about self-as-subject. If this is correct then there is a radical distinction between these two types of self that provides a strong argument to individuate them. From that point, one may argue that IEM provides a decisive argument to distinguish between phenomenal “I” (self-as-subject) and phenomenal “Me” (self-as-object).

Before endorsing this conclusion, let us take a small step back. It is important to note that in the famous passage from the Blue Book Wittgenstein (1958) did not write about two distinct types of self. Instead, he wrote about two ways of using the word “I” (or “my”). As such, he was more concerned with issues in philosophy of language than philosophy of mind. Therefore, a natural question arises – to what extent does this linguistic distinction map onto a substantial distinction between two different entities (types of self)? On the face of it, it seems that there is an important difference between these two uses of self-referential words, which can be mapped onto the experience of being a self-as-subject and the experience of being a self-as-object (or, for example, the distinction between bodily ownership and thought authorship, as suggested by Liang, 2014 ). However, I will argue that there are reasons to believe that the phenomenal “I,” i.e., the experience of being a self-as-subject may be better conceptualized as a higher-order phenomenal “Me” – a higher-level self-as-object.

Psychiatric practice provides cases of people, typically suffering from schizophrenia, who describe experiences of dispossession of thoughts, known as delusions of thought insertion ( Young, 2008 ; Bortolotti and Broome, 2009 ; Martin and Pacherie, 2013 ). According to the standard account, the phenomenon of thought insertion does not represent a disruption of sense of ownership over one’s thoughts, but only loss of sense of agency over them. However, the standard account has been criticized in recent years by theorists arguing that thought insertion indeed represents loss of sense of ownership ( Metzinger, 2003 ; Billon, 2013 ; Guillot, 2017 ; López-Silva, 2017 ). One of the main arguments against the standard view is that it runs into serious problems when attempting to explain obsessive intrusive thoughts in clinical population and spontaneous thoughts in healthy people. In both cases, subjects report lack of agency over thoughts, although they never claim lack of ownership over them, i.e., that these are not their thoughts. However, if the standard account is correct, obsessive thoughts should be experienced as belonging to someone else. The fact that they are not suggests that something else must be disrupted in delusions of thought insertion, i.e., sense of ownership 5 over them. If one can lose sense of ownership over one’s thoughts then it has important implications, because then one becomes capable of experiencing one’s thoughts “as someone else’s,” or at least “as not-mine.” However, when I experience my thoughts as not-mine I do it because I’ve taken a stance towards my thoughts, which treats them as an object of deliberation. In other words, I must have “objectified” them to experience that they have a quality of “feeling as if they are not mine.” Consequently, if I experience them as objects of experience, then they cannot form part of my self as subject of experience, because these two categories are mutually exclusive. Therefore, what seemed to constitute a phenomenal “I” turns out to be a part of thephenomenal “Me.”

If my thoughts do not constitute the “I” then how do they fit into the structure of “Me”? Previously, I asserted that thoughts with self-related content constitute “Me,” while thoughts with non-self related content do not. However, just now I argued in favor of the claim that all thoughts (including the ones with non-self-related content) that are experienced as “mine” belong to “Me.” How can one resolve this contradiction?

A way to address this reservation can be found in Metzinger’s (2003 ; 2010 ) self-model theory. Metzinger (2003 , 2010 ) argues that the experience of the self can be understood as underpinned by representational self-models. These self-models, however, are embedded in the hierarchical representational structure, as illustrated by an account of ego dissolution by Letheby and Gerrans (2017) :

Savage suggests that on LSD “[changes] in body ego feeling usually precede changes in mental ego feeling and sometimes are the only changes” (1955, 11), (…) This common temporal sequence, from blurring of body boundaries and loss of sense of ownership for body parts through to later loss of sense of ownership for thoughts, speaks further to the hierarchical architecture of the self-model. ( Letheby and Gerrans, 2017 , p. 8)

If self-models underlying the experience of self-as-object (“Me”) are hierarchical, then the apparent contradiction may be easily explained by the fact that when speaking about the content of thoughts and the thoughts themselves we are addressing self-models at two distinct levels. At the lower level we can distinguish between thoughts with self-related content and other-related content, while on the higher level we can distinguish between thoughts that feel “mine” as opposed to thoughts that are not experienced as “mine.” As a result, this thinking phenomenal “I” experienced in feeling of ownership over one’s thoughts may be conceived as just a higher-order level of Jamesian “Me.” As such, one may claim that there is no such thing as a phenomenal “I,” just multilevel phenomenal “Me.” However, an objection can be raised here. One may claim that even though a person with schizophrenic delusions experiences her thoughts as someone else’s (a demon’s or some malicious puppet master’s), she can still claim that:

Yes, “I” experience my thoughts as not mine, but as demon’s.” My thoughts feel as “not-mine,” however, it’s still me (or: “I”) who thinks of them as “not-mine.”

As such, one escapes “objectification” of “I” into “Me” by postulating a higher-level phenomenal-“I.” However, let us keep in mind that the thought written above constitutes a valid thought by itself. As such, this thought is vulnerable to the theoretical possibility that it turns into a delusion itself, once a psychotic person forms a meta-delusion (delusion about delusion). In this case, one may begin to experience that: “I” (I 1 ) experience that the “fake I” (I 2 ), who is a nasty pink demon, experiences my thoughts as not mine but as someone else’s (e.g., as nasty green demon’s). In this case, I may claim that the real phenomenal “I” is I 1 , since it is at the top of the hierarchy. However, one may repeat the operation of forming meta-delusions ad infinitum (as may happen in psychosis or drug-induced psychedelic states) effectively transforming each phenomenal “I” into another “fake-I” (and consequently making it a part of “Me”).

The possibility of meta-delusions illustrates that the phenomenal “I” understood as subjective thoughts is permanently vulnerable to the threat of losing the apparent subjective character and becoming an object of experience. As such it seems to be a poor choice for the locus of subjectivity, since it needs to be constantly “on the run” from becoming treated as an object of experience, not only in people with psychosis, but also in all psychologically healthy individuals if they decide to reflect on their thoughts. Therefore, it seems more likely that the thoughts themselves cannot constitute the subject of experience. However, even in case of meta-delusions there seems to be a stable deeper-level subjectivity, let us call it the deep “I,” which is preserved, at least until one loses consciousness. After all, a person who experiences meta-delusions would be constantly (painfully) aware of the process, and often would even report it afterwards. This deep “I” cannot be a special form of content in the stream of consciousness, because otherwise it would be vulnerable to becoming a part of “Me.” Therefore, it must be something different.

There seem to be two places where one can look for this deep “I”: in the domain of phenomenology or metaphysics. The first approach has been taken by ( Zahavi and Kriegel, 2016 ) who argue that “all conscious states’ phenomenal character involves for-me-ness as an experiential constituent.” It means that even if we rule out everything else (e.g., bodily experiences, conscious thoughts), we are still left with some form of irreducible phenomenal self-experience. This for-me-ness is not a specific content of consciousness, but rather “refers to the distinct manner, or how , of experiencing” ( Zahavi, 2014 ).

This approach, however, may seem inflationary and not satisfying (e.g., Dainton, 2016 ). One reason for this is that it introduces an additional phenomenal dimension, which may lead to uncomfortable consequences. For example, a question arises whether for-me-ness can ever be lost or replaced with the “ how of experiencing” of another person. For example, can I experience my sister’s for-me-ness in my stream of consciousness? If yes, then how is for-me-ness different from any other content of consciousness? And if the answer is no, then how is it possible to distil the phenomenology of for-me-ness from the metaphysical fact that a given stream of consciousness is always experienced by this and not other subject?

An alternative approach to the problem of the deep “I” is to reject that the subject of experience, the “I,” is present in phenomenology (like Hume, 1739/2000 ; Prinz, 2012 ; Dainton, 2016 ), and look for it somewhere else, in the domain of metaphysics. Although James (1890) did not explicitly formulate the distinction between “Me” and “I” as the distinction between the phenomenal and the metaphysical self, he hinted at it at several points, for example when he concluded the Chapter on the self with the following fragment: “(...) a postulate, an assertion that there must be a knower correlative to all this known ; and the problem who that knower is would have become a metaphysical problem” ( James, 1890 , p. 401).

“I” As A Subject Of Experience: Metaphysics Of Subjectivity

Thoughts which we actually know to exist do not fly about loose, but seem each to belong to some one thinker and not to another ( James, 1890 , pp. 330–331).

Let us assume that phenomenal consciousness exists in nature, and that it is a part of the reality we live in. The problem of “I” emerges once we realize that one of the fundamental characteristics of phenomenal consciousness is that it is always subjective, that there always seems to be some subject of experience. It seems mistaken to conceive of consciousness which do “fly about loose,” devoid of subjective character, devoid of being someone’s or something’s consciousness. Moreover, it seems that subjectivity may be one of the fundamental inherent properties of conscious experience (similar notions can be found in: Berkeley, 1713/2012 ; Strawson, 2003 ; Searle, 2005 ; Dainton, 2016 ). It seems highly unlikely, if not self-contradictory, that there exists something like an objective conscious experience of “what it is like to be a bat” ( Nagel, 1974 ), which is not subjective in any way. This leads to the metaphysical problem of the self: why is all conscious experience subjective, and what or who is the subject of this experience? Let us call it the problem of the metaphysical “I,” as contrasted with the problem of the phenomenal “I” (i.e., is there a distinctive experience of being a self as a subject of experience, and if so, then what is this experience?), which we discussed so far.

The existence of the metaphysical “I” does not entail the existence of the phenomenal self. It is possible to imagine a creature that possesses a metaphysical “I,” but does not possess any sense of self. In such a case, the creature would possess consciousness, although it would not experience anything as “me,” nor entertain any thoughts/feelings, etc., as “I.” In other words, it is a possibility that one may not experience self-related content of consciousness, while being a sentient being. One example of such situation may be the experience of a dreamless sleep, which “is characterized by a dissolution of subject-object duality, or (…) by a breakdown of even the most basic form of the self-other distinction” ( Windt, 2015 ). This is a situation which can be regarded as an instance of the state of minimal phenomenal experience – the simplest form of conscious experience possible ( Windt, 2015 ; Metzinger, 2018 ), in which there is no place for even the most rudimentary form of “Me.” Another example may be the phenomenology of systems with grid-like architectures which, according to the integrated information theory (IIT, Tononi et al., 2016 ), possess conscious experience 6 . If IIT is correct, then these systems experience some form of conscious states, which most likely lack any phenomenal distinction between “Me” and “not-Me.” However, because they may possess a stream of conscious experience, and conscious experience is necessarily subjective, there remains a valid question: who or what is the subject of that experience?

The question of what exactly is the metaphysical subject of experience can have different answers. There has been a long history of theories of the self ( Barresi and Martin, 2011 ) and some of them directly address this issue. Platonic or Cartesian notions of the soul are good examples of an approach providing one answer to this question: conscious experience is subjective, because there exists a non-material being (self, soul) which is the subject of this experience (see Table 3 ). Other solutions tend to either define the self in less metaphysically expensive ways ( Johnston, 1987 ; Strawson, 2000 ; Dainton, 2008 ), define it as a formal feature of consciousness ( Searle, 2005 ), or deny the need to postulate its existence ( Metzinger, 2003 ). What is crucial here, however, is that the problem of the metaphysical self is a different issue and requires a different methodology, than the problem of the phenomenal self.

TABLE 3. Examples of theories of the self-as-subject (“I”) in the context of consciousness, as theories of the metaphysical self, with representative quotes illustrating each position.

What sort of methodology, then, is appropriate for investigating the metaphysical self? It seems that the most relevant methods come from the toolbox of metaphysics. This toolbox includes classical philosophical methods such as thought experiments and logical analysis. However, methodology of metaphysics is an area of open discussion, and at present there are no signs of general consensus. One of the most debated issues in this field, which is especially relevant here, is to what extent the methodology of metaphysics is continuous with the methodology of natural sciences (see Tahko, 2015 , Chapter 9 for an overview). The positions span the spectrum between the claim that science and metaphysics are fully autonomous on the one side and the claim that metaphysics can be fully naturalized on the other. Discussing this issue goes way beyond the scope of this paper. However, if these two areas are at least to some extent related (i.e., not fully autonomous), then one may argue that scientific methods can be at least of some relevance in metaphysics and consequently for investigations of the metaphysical “I.”

One example in which empirical results seem to be able to influence theoretical investigations of the metaphysical self is through imposing constraints on philosophical theories. For example, because the metaphysical self is inherently related to consciousness, we should expect that different theories of consciousness should place different constraints on what a metaphysical self can be. Then, if one theory of consciousness acquires stronger empirical support than the others, we can also treat this as evidence for the constraints on the self that this theory implies.

Let us look at an example of IIT to illustrate this point. According to IIT ( Oizumi et al., 2014 ; Tononi et al., 2016 ) the content of conscious experience is defined by the so-called informational “complex” which is characterized by maximally integrated information (which can be measured by calculating the value of Φ max ). This complex then defines the stream of conscious experience. However, what happens if there is more than one such complex in one person? In this case, as Tononi et al. (2016) wrote:

According to IIT, two or more non-overlapping complexes may coexist as discrete physical substrates of consciousness (PSCs) within a single brain, each with its own definite borders and value of Φ max . The complex that specifies a person’s day to day stream of consciousness should have the highest value of Φ max – that is, it should be the “major” complex. In some conditions, for example, after a split-brain operation, the major complex may split. In such instances, one consciousness, supported by a complex in the dominant hemisphere and with privileged access to Broca’s area, would be able to speak about the experience, but would remain unaware of the presence of another consciousness, supported by a complex in the other hemisphere, which can be revealed by carefully designed experiments. ( Tononi et al., 2016 , p. 455)

This fragment suggests that in IIT the metaphysical “I” can be understood as tied to a complex of maximally integrated information. In this case, a split-brain patient would possess two metaphysical selves, because as a consequence of an operation her or his brain hosts two such complexes. On the face of it, it seems to be a plausible situation ( cf. Bayne, 2010 ). However, in the sentence which immediately follows, Tononi et al. (2016) suggest that:

An intriguing possibility is that splitting of the PSC may also occur in healthy people during long-lasting dual-task conditions – for example, when driving in an auto-pilot like manner on a familiar road while listening to an engaging conversation ( Tononi et al., 2016 , p. 455)

The implications of this possibility are much more severe, because it postulates that in a matter of minutes or seconds a complex can dynamically divide into several complexes, and individual complexes can merge into one major complex. How do the complexes understood in this way then relate to the metaphysical “I”? Unfortunately, IIT is silent about this issue, but there seem to be at least two responses to this question. First, one may argue that the self does not need to be limited to one complex, but that the same metaphysical “I” can be present in all of the simultaneous streams of consciousness (complexes). However, this solution is at odds with both common-sense intuition and IIT itself. It would presuppose not only an extremely disunified view of consciousness, but even lead to self-contradictory consequences. The metaphysical “I” can be thought of as the metaphysical fact that any given stream of consciousness is subjectively experienced by some “self” (regardless of what that self might be). However, in a disunified view of an organism’s consciousness this metaphysical “I” would at the same time a) be the subject of experience of all of the complexes within this organism, and b) be the subject of experience of only one of these complexes while being blind to the others (as claimed by IIT: two complexes are not “co-conscious” with each other). It presents a contradiction and strongly suggests that the metaphysical “I” cannot be underpinned by multiple independent complexes. It leaves us with the second option, which is to bite the bullet and accept that IIT implies that the metaphysical “I” persists either as long as a given complex, or for an even shorter period of time, for example for just up to a few seconds, as suggested by Strawson (2000 , 2010 ). It means that if IIT (and the analysis outlined above) is correct then the metaphysical “I” turns out to be radically different from our intuitive understanding of subject-of-experience as persisting continuously life-long stream of consciousness. However, if empirical evidence in support of the current version of IIT becomes strong enough, it may suggest that our common-sense intuitions about self-as-subject may be mistaken. On the other hand, different theories of phenomenal consciousness (and even different versions of IIT) may imply different constraints on the metaphysical “I,” and the extent to which they are supported by empirical evidence may suggest a way to say something about what the subject of conscious experience is.

Overall, assuming that metaphysics is not fully independent from science, the relevant methodology for investigating the metaphysical “I” is a combination of toolboxes of metaphysics and empirical science. This contrasts with the phenomenal “Me,” where the relevant toolkit includes methods from phenomenology and science. The second point, which has been illustrated with an example of IIT, is that it is important to explicitly spell out the implications of different theories of consciousness in regard to what is the subject of conscious experience, as it may provide the best way forward towards solving this issue.

Understanding Predictive Coding Theories Of The Self

Recently, there has been a huge number of attempts to explain the self through the framework of predictive coding (PC) and the free energy principle (FEP). In this final section of the paper, I will use PC theories of the self as a working example demonstrating practical consequences of implementing the Jamesian distinction between “Me” and “I.” I will suggest that PC theories of the self target different dimensions of self-as-object, understood as a hierarchical structure of self-models ( Metzinger, 2003 , 2010 ), and as such provide a valuable framework to understand the self. However, I will also explain why PC and the FEP do not allow us to say much about self-as-subject (the metaphysical “I”).

According to PC, the brain can be understood as an inference machine which hosts and continuously updates a probabilistic model of the world, which it uses to infer hidden causes behind the sensory data (for a more detailed introduction see: Friston et al., 2006 ; Friston, 2009 , 2010 ; Friston and Kiebel, 2009 ; Hohwy, 2013 ; Clark, 2016 ). It accomplishes this by continuously issuing predictions and comparing them with sensory data, with the discrepancy between predictions and data being propagated further up the hierarchy as prediction errors. As such, PC postulates that the brain can be seen as a hierarchical structure of generative models (which are responsible for issuing predictions). Prediction errors which arise at lower levels serve as data to be compared with predictions at the higher levels. This view of the mind inverts the classical feedforward view in which perception is a predominantly bottom-up process. In PC, instead, perception is mostly driven by top-down predictions, with bottom-up prediction errors serving the function of feedback helping to choose model with the most explanatory power. Moreover, in an extension of PC, which is known as active inference, action is also understood as a way of maximizing the fit of one’s internal models to reality. The main idea behind active inference is that rather than changing the model in order to better fit the data, one can act on the world and change it according to predictions issued by the currently dominating model. As a consequence, the whole perception-action cycle can be understood as driven by one overarching goal, i.e., long-term minimization of prediction errors.

The FEP is a further generalization of PC. It postulates that all living organisms operate under the principle to minimize the so-called “variational free energy,” which is an information theoretical measure which roughly can be understood as a measure of uncertainty ( Friston et al., 2006 ; Friston, 2009 ). One of the main claims of this theory is that organisms which act according to FEP (i.e., they act in a way to minimize free energy in the long term) will, in effect, implicitly approximate Bayesian inference. It means that they will combine their prior knowledge (represented by their model of the world) with the incoming sensory input in a mathematically optimal way.

Both PC and the FEP have recently gained huge popularity and motivated a number of theories attempting to explain various aspects of cognition within this framework. It includes numerous attempts to understand different facets of the self, such as sense of bodily ownership ( Apps and Tsakiris, 2014 ), sense of self in agency and perception ( Hohwy, 2007 ), the influence of interoception on self-consciousness ( Seth et al., 2011 ; Seth, 2013 ), social aspects of the self ( Moutoussis et al., 2014 ; Friston and Frith, 2015 ), the relationship with minimal phenomenal selfhood ( Limanowski and Blankenburg, 2013 ), and even psychodynamical interpretations of the self ( Carhart-Harris and Friston, 2010 ; Fotopoulou, 2012 ). The most comprehensive treatment of the self from the PC perspective ( Hohwy and Michael, 2017 ) also exemplifies most of the crucial points made by other PC theories of the self. At the beginning of their paper Hohwy and Michael (2017) describe the self in the following words:

We use a general computational framework for brain function to develop a theory of the self. The theory is that the self is an inferred model of endogenous, deeply hidden causes of behavior. (…) we discuss why such a set of hidden endogenous causes should qualify as a self. ( Hohwy and Michael, 2017 , p. 363)

The self, as seen from this perspective, is essentially a hierarchical model of endogenous hidden causes of sensory input. Or, in more classical terms, it can be said that it is a hierarchical representational structure ( cf. Clark, 2016 ; Williams, 2017 ) which allows one to distinguish between endogenous causes (what is caused by me) and exogenous causes (what is caused by something else). This distinction can be illustrated with an example of a comparison between seeing a movement of my virtual hand and of a virtual hand of someone else. If adequately prepared, in both cases the image of a hand and its movement may be identical. However, in one case I can realize that the movement of the hand is congruent with my intentions (manifested through my actions performed using a computer controller) and, as a consequence, infer that the cause of the hand’s movement is me. On the other hand, I may fail to notice any congruence between my intentions and the movement and hence infer that the hidden cause behind the movement I observe is some other person. According to Hohwy and Michael (2017) , the self is just a set of such hidden endogenous causes. Although not necessarily in full agreement with this picture in regard to the details, all other PC theories of the self listed above also speak about the self as underpinned by hierarchy of generative models, which are preoccupied with conducting probabilistic inference aimed to infer hidden causes of observed data patterns. This inference is then postulated to underlie specific types of conscious self-experience, i.e., different facets of the sense of self.

As such, one common theme among all PC theories of the self is the following: aspects of conscious experience of the self are underpinned by a representational structure in the form of hierarchical generative models. In its core, it is the same idea as the one introduced earlier by Metzinger (2003 , 2010 ), i.e., that our phenomenal experience of the self is underpinned by a representational structure of unconscious self-models (see also: Crane, 2003 ; Chalmers, 2004 , for a discussion about the relationship between representational and conscious content). Once an unconscious self-model enters conscious awareness, it generates a corresponding self-related conscious content (see: Metzinger, 2006 , 2014 , for an explicit distinction between the levels of representations and conscious content in regard to the bodily self). The same mechanism is at work in PC theories – the dynamic process of model selection leads to suppression of some models but allows other models to enter awareness in the form of conscious content. This mechanism allows PC to explain self-related content of consciousness, which is essentially nothing else than the James’ (1890) self-as-object of experience. This is how PC and the FEP help to understand the phenomenal “Me” – by describing the structure and dynamics of the underlying representational architecture.

To what extent PC and FEP can provide us with any help when confronted with the task to explain the metaphysical “I”? Here, I will argue that in contrast to the phenomenal “Me,” the issues pertaining to the metaphysical “I” are outside of its reach. The reason for this is a consequence of the fact that PC is in principle agnostic in regard to the issue of what brings representational content into the scope of conscious experience. In general, this can be regarded as an advantage, because this way PC accounts of self-experience can avoid the burden of being hostage to any specific theory of consciousness, and stay in principle compatible with most of them (e.g., see Hohwy, 2013 , Chapter 10 for an attempt to combine PC with ideas from Global Neuronal Workspace theory: Dehaene and Changeux, 2011 ; Dehaene, 2014 ). However, it also makes PC fundamentally underspecified when treated as a theory which is used to explain issues related to consciousness. While, as suggested before, PC is a valuable framework to describe the representational structure underlying conscious content, it runs into problems when used to explain why certain content is conscious in the first place. One way in which PC and FEP can attempt to retain relevance is by aiming to explain access consciousness ( Block, 1995 ) – a functional mechanism which allows that “some of the attended information eventually enters our awareness and becomes reportable to others” ( Dehaene, 2014 ). However, the problem of the metaphysical “I” becomes a relevant issue only when approached in the context of phenomenal consciousness – the type of consciousness which is loaded with the burden of the so-called “hard problem” ( Chalmers, 1996 ).

This is where PS and FEP encounter a dead end, as the problem enters the area which belongs more to metaphysics than empirical science (at least in the light of the current state of affairs). In order to provide an account of the metaphysical self, one needs to begin with at least some form of a theory of phenomenal consciousness and its place in physical reality. At present FEP (and PC) does not provide such a theory. Recently, Friston (2018) suggested that FEP can be used to understand consciousness, although the fact that he discusses consciousness in functionalist terms (consciousness is related to counterfactual inference 7 ) suggests that his proposal aims to explain access consciousness, making it irrelevant for the problem of metaphysical “I.”

To summarize, the fact that PC and the FEP are not theories of phenomenal consciousness, and seem not to impose any constraints on these theories, has important consequences for what type of self they can explain. As I argued, they have the potential to substantially contribute to the issue of different levels of the phenomenal “Me” (self-as-object) by describing the structure and dynamics of the level of representational content, which are reflected at the level of conscious experience. However, they are not suited to explain the metaphysical “I” (self-as-subject) because they do not address the issue of the place of consciousness in nature. Hence, the main claim is that while PC can be seen as a useful framework to investigate phenomenology of “Me,” it is in principle unsuitable to provide answers to questions about the metaphysics of “I.”

I placed the debate of the self in the domain of consciousness (as opposed to the self understood as e.g., a representational structure, a physical object, or a spiritual entity) and argued that (1) conceptually, the distinction between “Me” and “I” may reflect the distinction between theoretical problems of the phenomenal self and the metaphysical self, respectively (although the notion of for-me-ness may complicate this picture), and (2) that what is described in the literature as the phenomenal “I” can be regarded as just a higher-level part of the phenomenal “Me” [which can be understood as Metzinger’s (2018) phenomenal self-model].

The first claim draws attention to the distinction between “I” and “Me,” which suggests that these two theoretical issues should be investigated independently, using two different methodologies. While “Me” can be investigated using phenomenology and scientific methodology, “I” is typically a metaphysical problem (perhaps with the exception of non-deflationary understandings of for-me-ness) and it is arguable to what extent it can be approached using standard scientific methods. Therefore, it is important to clearly state which problem one approaches when discussing the self in the context of consciousness (see Tables 2 , 3 for some examples).

The second claim, the postulate to treat what is usually described as phenomenal “I” as just a part of the phenomenal “Me,” has two implications. The first is constructive. Investigating issues which are typically regarded in cognitive science as “I” from the perspective of “Me” may contribute towards better understanding of self-consciousness by emphasizing that these two research areas may have much more in common than it appears. Rather than using two distinct terms, which suggest that we are dealing with two fundamentally different problems, we may approach them as just two facets of the same multidimensional research problem. One such approach is to treat both of them as just different levels in the hierarchical structure of the phenomenal self-model ( Metzinger, 2003 , 2009 , 2010 ), an approach which can be (and implicitly is) shared by recent theories of the self, especially within the framework of PC.

The second implication is pragmatic. Refraining from using the term “I” when speaking in the context of phenomenology and using it only in the metaphysical context may reduce conceptual confusion in regard to this term. However, it will also mean forfeiting an important distinction (“Me” versus “I”) which has already gained traction in cognitive science. As such, the choice to eliminate the term “I” in the context of phenomenology is a repelling option, but may be beneficial in the long term. Alternatively, one may use more specific terms, such as “sense of ownership over an experience” to reflect what is meant by “I” in the Wittgensteinian tradition, or, e.g., “sense of ownership of interoceptive signals” when discussing the role of interoception. A second option may be to recast the distinction used in cognitive science in different terms. One proposal is to explicitly speak about it as the distinction between the experience/sense of “Me” versus the experience/sense of “I” (rather than just “Me” and “I”). The task here would be, however, to prove that there is a qualitative difference between them, and to demarcate the exact border.

Author Contributions

The article has been solely the work of MW.

This article was supported by the Australian Research Council Grant No. DP160102770.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Jakob Hohwy, Tim Bayne, Jennifer Windt, Monima Chadha, and the members of Cognition and Philosophy Lab at Monash University (especially Julian Matthews) for discussions about the issues described in the paper. The author also wants to thank the reviewers and the editor for helpful comments on how to improve the manuscript.

^ Therefore, whenever I use the term “I” I mean self-as-subject (of experience), and whenever I use the term “Me” I mean self-as-object (of experience). This assumption reflects James’ (1890) understanding of these terms (see Table 1 ). I also assume, following James (1890) , that these two categories are mutually exclusive, i.e., if something is an object of experience then it cannot simultaneously be a subject of experience, and vice versa.
^ Wittgenstein (1958) himself did not discuss the issue of phenomenology of the self. However, his approach to the distinction between the use of “I” as subject and “I” as object can be seen as a starting point for contemporary discussions of phenomenology of the self-as-subject.
^ Whenever I use the prefix “phenomenal” I mean “the conscious experience of.” For example, when I write phenomenal “I”, I mean: the conscious experience of self as subject of experience (“I”). In a similar fashion I use the prefix “metaphysical” when I mean “the metaphysical entity of.”
^ Chalmers (1996) also lists “sense of self,” although it is highly controversial whether it can be treated as a distinctive type of conscious content.
^ Sometimes referred to as sense of authorship.
^ “IIT allows for certain simple systems such as grid-like architectures, similar to topographically organized areas in the human posterior cortex, to be highly conscious even when not engaging in any intelligent behavior” ( Tononi et al., 2016 , p. 460).
^ For example, he writes: “So where does consciousness emerge? The proposal offered here is that conscious processing has a temporal thickness or depth, which underwrites inferences about the consequences of action. This necessarily lends inference a purposeful and self-evidencing aspect that has the hallmarks of consciousness” ( Friston, 2018 , p. 1).

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Citation: Woźniak M (2018) “I” and “Me”: The Self in the Context of Consciousness. Front. Psychol. 9:1656. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01656

Received: 20 March 2018; Accepted: 17 August 2018; Published: 04 September 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Woźniak. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Mateusz Woźniak, [email protected] ; [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Sensing the self in spiritual experience

Published: 03 January 2021
Volume 20 , pages 25–40, ( 2021 )

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V. Hari Narayanan ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3280-8632 1

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The paper seeks to argue that the feeling of being part of a larger whole, considered to be a major feature of spiritual experience in some traditions, amounts to a change in the way the self is pre-reflectively understood. Further, the paper argues that some recent developments in the study of cognition support the case for such a revision in self-conception, and this can be used to build up a secular understanding of spirituality. The paper proceeds by making use of Abraham Maslow's account of peak experience along with some accounts of both ancient and contemporary forms of spirituality to argue that the feeling of being part of a larger whole amounts to a significant shift from the separative self-conception implicit in everyday behavior. Subsequently, it is argued that some extant theories on cognition point at the illusory nature of separative self-conception.

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Hari Narayanan, V. Sensing the self in spiritual experience. Mind Soc 20 , 25–40 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-020-00270-0

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Received : 12 February 2020

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-020-00270-0

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7 (page 114) p. 114 Conclusion: leading a spiritual life

Published: November 2012
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Spirituality is widespread and increasingly influential. There is a growing use of the term ‘spiritual capital’ with reference to the potential value of spirituality in everyday lives. What does this term mean? Capital means wealth so spiritual capital is a kind of wealth, that we do not spend, but one we live by. It stimulates creativity, encourages moral behaviour, and motivates us to live a more meaningful life. We have the related term ‘spiritual intelligence’. This provides access to our deepest meanings and motivations. All humans have innate potential to access their spiritual intelligence and lead a spiritual life. So what is a spiritual life? Has spirituality a future?

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Spirituality: Definition, Types, Benefits, and How to Practice
Spirituality is a worldview that suggests a dimension to life beyond what we experience on the sensory and physical levels. In practice, this might entail religious or cultural practices and beliefs surrounding a higher being, connection with others and the world as a whole, and/or the pursuit of self-improvement.
What Is the Spiritual Self? Rare and Lost Insights Found Here
The Spiritual Self is universal, carries the potential of awareness, is permanent, ageless, and provides centeredness and compassion. Lost Insights from Hinduism: The Atman. I know a wonderful Hindu friend and spiritual health practitioner. As of late we've cherished conversations around this missing concept in modern life, known as the Atman.
Essay ON Spiritual SELF
ESSAY ON SPIRITUAL SELF. According to the book, the spiritual aspect of the self is the inner essence, the part of the self that connects the person to the sacred, the supernatural, and the universe. The spiritual self enables the person to experience a feeling of oneness with God and the universe and gives a deeper purpose or meaning to one ...
What is the Spiritual Self and 11+ Ways to Cultivate it (Even if it
There are a lot of ways to cultivate your spiritual self. Here are 11 of my favorites: 1. Get outside. Fresh air, sunshine, and exercise all help the body feel good and clear the mind. Being outdoors in nature can help you get in touch with your spiritual self because it helps you see the world in a new way.
What Is Spirituality?
Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and ...
Why Is Spirituality Important?
A spiritual community can improve your life. Many spiritual traditions encourage participation in a community. Spiritual fellowship, such as attending church or a meditation group, can be sources of social support which may provide a sense of belonging, security, and community. Strong relationships have been proven to increase wellbeing and ...
Using Self-Examination for Spiritual Formation
In this weekly series of articles we'll consider eight spiritual habits to develop for 2017. Habit 1: Assessing spiritual growth — Self-examination. Habit 2: Hearing from God — Seeing Jesus in Scripture. Habit 3: Speaking to God — Prayer. Habit 4: Engaging with God's Word — Engaging Scripture. Habit 5: Communion with God — Worship.
Spirituality
Spirituality. Spirituality means different things to different people. For some, it's primarily about a belief in God and active participation in organized religion. For others, it's about non ...
The Benefit of Spirituality on Our Well-Being
That spiritual well-being varies, is an idea that might create a sense of personal stigma or disappointment in clergy and other religious persons. Therefore, clergy may benefit from recognizing ...
Spiritual Development and the Need for Self Reflection
Self-reflection is deliberate time set aside to slow down in the busyness of your life to look back on your day, month or year in an attempt to learn from your experiences, desires, and feelings. In life, it's very easy to become driven by your schedule and commitments. You are too busy trying to stay on top of everything to have any time to ...
Lesson 9- The Spiritual Self
The spiritual aspect of the self is the inner essence, the part of the self that connects the person to the sacred, the supernatural, and the universe. The nurturing of the spiritual self also gives a deeper purpose or meaning of one's life. People develop spirituality through interaction, observation, and imitation.
What Is the Meaning of the 'Inner Self'?
The inner self is the subconscious repository of your thoughts, memories, emotions, and other aspects of your mind that make up who you are. It's the private, internal part of yourself you generally do not share with others—the core of your being. Being aware of your inner self and how it interacts with your outer self is an important part of ...
Nourishing Your Spirit: The Importance of Spiritual Self-Care
Spiritual self-care is about developing and maintaining a sense of connection to something greater than yourself. Having a sense of belongingness in the Universe and feeling loved, seen, and cared for by a higher power can give you a deep sense of security and stability. The more confidently you believe in a loving Universe or a loving higher ...
"I" and "Me": The Self in the Context of Consciousness
The classic formulation suggests that James (1890) meant physical objects and cultural artifacts (material self), human beings (social self), and mental processes and content (spiritual self). These are all valid categories of self-as-object, however, for the purpose of this paper I will limit the scope of further discussion only to "objects ...
Sensing the self in spiritual experience
The paper seeks to argue that the feeling of being part of a larger whole, considered to be a major feature of spiritual experience in some traditions, amounts to a change in the way the self is pre-reflectively understood. Further, the paper argues that some recent developments in the study of cognition support the case for such a revision in self-conception, and this can be used to build up ...
Spiritual Self Reflection
The spiritual self is an unending, individual life journey that is embedded by faith in God, society, engagement with nature, and the search for meaning in one's existence. It embodies the most powerful and compelling part of you; it is the unconstrained, unbounded essence of who you truly are. A sensation, sense, or conviction that there is ...
PDF Essay on the Relationship Between Spirituality and Religion
Essay on the Relationship Between Spirituality and ReligionWhat is Spirituality?"Spirituality is the capacity of persons to transcend themselves through knowledge and love, that is, to reach beyond thems. es in relationship to others and thus become more than self-enclosed monads." Spirituality. a dimension of a human being that is ...
Conclusion: leading a spiritual life
Capital means wealth so spiritual capital is a kind of wealth, that we do not spend, but one we live by. It stimulates creativity, encourages moral behaviour, and motivates us to live a more meaningful life. We have the related term 'spiritual intelligence'. This provides access to our deepest meanings and motivations.
My Spiritual Life Essay
My Spiritual Life Essay. Good Essays. 1145 Words. 5 Pages. Open Document. There's a lot that I have to be thankful to God for this month, just for all the ways he's been speaking to me through messages, ministry and recent events. I think that my relationship with God has taken on a new, different dimension since the prayer retreats and ...
A Reflection of My Spirituality
on A Reflection of My Spirituality. Spirituality is a very personal experience, so there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Some people find that expressing their spirituality through prayer, meditation, or other spiritual practices helps them to connect with their inner self and the divine. Others may find that expressing their spirituality ...
Spiritual Self
Understanding the Self for Filipino College StudentsSee the full playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_4oyk2RBdFd5xrybUJ_Z4b66xMPDWyI4
Shadow, self, spirit: Essays in transpersonal psychology.
Chapter 3 discusses the meaning of 'holism' in spiritual and transpersonal circles. ... the author argues that the principal function of a theory of self-actualization is to establish a 'myth' or meaningful narrative account of human development that provides conceptual support for people seeking fulfillment and offers clear normative and ...
UPSC Essays Simplified
ESSAY TOPIC (Solved) Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimera. ESSAY TOPIC (Assignment) Mindfulness manifesto is the catalyst to a tranquil self. Identify the core themes (Refer Deconstruction Article 1 of this series -CLICK HERE) Wantlessness, Materialism: Which ideas from from the spiritual dimensions can be used?