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/lit/ - Literature

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3974911 No.3974911 [Reply] [Original]

I'm torn over the concept of the self, could someone please help me understand?

Recently I read 'Demian' By Hesse, and it told the story of someone getting to know the self, to refine it, to cultivate it and to make it grow. I also just started reading Marcus Aurelius and he speaks of 'worshiping' the 'deity' within.

I can appreciate, but not fully understand, this view on the self.

I have read quite a bit of mystical and theistic literature and much of it speaks of the self being an illusion to be overcome, or a prison to be destroyed. In 'Demian', did the protagonist not just end up being enslaved by the self? He wore its halter, followed it's commands, and was left entirely in its hands. He did its bidding and was encouraged to do so by his spiritual guides, but this left him without a will of his own, it consumed him.

I am torn between wanting to improve and refine the self and wanting to annihilate it, as I see the benefits of both. Could it be that I have misunderstood the concept of the self or maybe misinterpreted the books?

>> No.3974958

Bump

>> No.3974990

>>3974911

Read Michel de Montaigne's essays.

>> No.3975003

Hesse was heavily influenced by eastern theology (or philosophy, depends on how you look at religion over there). I would start there. Buddhism deals almost entirely with defining and overcoming the self, if you cut away all the cultural stuff. Hinduism to a lesser extent. I think that a thorough grounding in the works that influenced hesse (the Buddha Dharma, the Upanishads) would bolster your understanding.

>> No.3975013

>>3974990

Many thanks for drawing him to my attention. Are there any of his essays that are particularly relevant to my conundrum that you would recommend?

>> No.3975026

>>3975003

I have read some Buddhist and Sufic literature. One generally spoke of the self as an illusion to be overcome, while the latter spoke of it as something to be destroyed or cast away. The protagonist in Demian did the opposite, he developed and improved the self rather than overcoming or destroying it(or so it seemed to me).

I am confused as to whether the self is something to be be cultivated and improved or destroyed as a slaver and false idol.

>> No.3975040

>>3975013

Just read all of them. They're written wonderfully accessible to the layman and include many introspective musings on a very wide variety of topics. In a sense I guess his essays were a way of understanding his own 'self' though they are not explicitly about 'the' self (generic) which is what you seem to be after. I would recommend him if only because he was one person who tried to understand his own 'self' via his musings and essays and his writings are just as relevant today as when he writ them.

>> No.3975060

>>3975026
The self is an illusion in the sense that it is a construction covering a range of mutable and impermanent mental processes. To indulge it or destroy it is equally senseless, it is a waste of time. It is more constructive to consider which actions you would take in the world as it is.

>> No.3975069

>>3975040

Any translation I should look out for? I'm looking at one on Amazon at the moment by M.A. Screech.

>> No.3975074

>>3974911
My school teaches us to destroy or dissolve the false self to reveal the true self. I think there's merit to both.

>> No.3975086

>>3975060

Marcus Aurelius says something similar, that the past and future are finished or uknowable and that we must worry over neither of them but over our thoughts and actions in the present. But what did he mean when he spoke of worshiping the deity within yourself? It seems uncharacteristically vain in comparison with his other musings.

>> No.3975151

>>3975086
Stoics believed in universal Reason/God that is the driving force behind everything. Everything happens according to this divine Reason and just the way it should. Since everything is good and just right, you must succumb to fate and stop having opinions about things you can't change.

>> No.3975155

>>3975151

That is in line with my own views, but I view the self as something that can be changed.

>> No.3975210

>>3975086
>But what did he mean when he spoke of worshiping the deity within yourself?
The will, which God gave to every man and woman with which his or her self, is the deity within yourself. It is our supreme gift and must be treated and venerated as such.

>> No.3975223

>>3975210
>with which [to conduct] his or her self

>> No.3975241

>>3975210

So in other words, that 'will' is the 'true self' so to speak, and the self that is to be cast away or controlled is the 'lower self'? I think I understand a little now

>> No.3975265

>>3975241
I'm not an expert but I don't think Aurelius or other stoics would have made this distinction between selves. There is only what is in our control (will) and what is outside of our control (phenomena, other people, our bodies, all things that are not our will). A stoic wouldn't "cast away" their body but they would realize that the things we do with our bodies are within our control and we are responsible for them, so the goal is to cast away emotional reactions to mere happenings.