6. What is it to Inquire into the Self?

”But what have I done with my life?” asks Mrs Ramsay. And on flows her inquiry through Virginia Woolf’s dancing prose — through her motions of listlessly serving dinner to her family, into visions of her brighter past, pulled back again into the tricky dynamics between the guests at her table.

How can I inquire into myself? To do that, I must become aware of my own experience. Subjective experience is like a continuous flow that goes on inside. Only part of my subjective experience reaches my awareness at any given time, yet it is through this flow of experience that I form and update my understanding of the world I am part of.

In the tradition of psychosynthesis, subjective experience is the raw data of how I come to know both myself and the world. Roberto Assagioli writes: ”In psychosynthesis the Self is considered a reality, a living Subject, of which one can have direct and certain awareness.” (Carl Gustav Jung e la psichosintesi, 1966, p7). In this quote, he is in fact broadening the notion of self to reach beyond the indivdual experience, but I’ll get back to that later.

This ”direct and certain awareness” coheres through the notion of the I or the self, which is seen as the center of both awareness and will. My awareness has to do with how I observe and make sense of the world through for example my senses, feelings and thoughts. My will, which also is a core psychosynthesis concept, has to do with how I express my reactions to these stimuli, for example through my body, feelings, and words.

In psychosynthesis, the I is considered the center of awareness and will

There are a few points that I appreciate about this definition of self. For me, it is implicit in this way of seeing that:

• The I is a point of observation through which all impermanent events of life continuously flow
• The I is the center that can experience perceptions without identifying with them. Thus, the I is not inherently attached to any of the contents of consciousness.
• The I brings together observation (awareness) and intention (will) – and Assagioli makes a point of not separating these two aspects of the human experience. You could say they are distinct but not separate.
• The I is not inherently attached to the contents of awareness or will, but rather seen as the center that holds the process of observing and willing, and brings these aspects together

To inquire into the self, then, is to pay attention to this ongoing process inside. And to start making connections around how I as an individual construct my view of the world. As I venture on this journey to get to know myself, I open new doors to both master and transform myself.

But first things first. The ”I” is but one of seven fundamental experiences identified in the psychosynthesis theory. I will look at them each in turn.

Inspiration:
To the Lighthouse (V. Woolf)