Monday, January 12, 2009

The Three Primary Facets of the Self

A little over a century ago, a researcher named Max Freeman Long began investigating the indigenous Hawaiian Huna culture. He was seeking to understand the ‘superhuman’ powers demonstrated in the lives of the tribal shaman or Kahuna. Among the stories of mysterious powers were tales of Kahuna altering island weather patterns, effecting phenomenal healings and exhibiting clairvoyant knowledge of future events and effective telepathy. While attempting to create a dictionary of their language, he discovered that the Hawaiians acknowledge and use a powerful relationship between the conscious, subconscious and Inner (or higher/super-conscious) facets of the Self.

Consider the conscious mind to be the expression of the Inner Self that is focused primarily on time-and-space. The subconscious, the intelligence inherent within the physical body, is manifesting the Inner Self within the physical dimension. This facet carries a connection to all other lifetimes of the Self. The Inner Self is considered to be the timeless, powerfully creative dimension of the Self and is the director of its many expressions in its many dimensions. This could include the dream state, past lives, alternate realities and God knows what other dimensions in which we may exist.

Long found that the source of the Kahunas’ powers was in how information traveled between these different facets. The conscious mind’s only channel of communication with the Inner Self is through the subconscious. In other words, there is no direct link between the conscious mind and the Inner Self – the subconscious is the only doorway between the physical, conscious self and the Self who is directing and creating in many dimensions. When the Inner Self wishes to guide the conscious mind, the subconscious ‘nudges’ the consciousness with the message, “Here’s more information to explore before making a choice.”

While the conscious mind traffics mainly in word symbols, it also uses numbers, colors, shapes and sounds to send and receive information. The subconscious and Inner Self recognize these symbols but also accept those that carry more information, such as emotion, feelings, desires, mental images, visions and intuition. We unknowingly restrict the flow of information between the subconscious and conscious minds whenever we suppress our emotions. We limit our capacity to feel, especially the subtle sensations and nudges coming from the subconscious.

The powers of the Kahuna were considered superhuman, simply because, with our centuries-old social programming, we do not recognize how much of our innate ability we block when blocking communication between the three facets of the Self. When not aware of the multi-dimensional facets of the Self, we imagine it to be a time-and-space phenomena only. We restrict our abilities to those we can rationally accept in this domain. Our conscious priority is to be right about our identity, recognizing self as those facets that can be justified, rationalized and approved by others. Self-worth is considered to be a function of attractiveness, intelligence, social acceptance and wealth, defined as tangible assets.

We delude ourselves about who we are, believing who we think we are is synonymous with who we are. We believe our identities to be static phenomena, held within the bounds of the conscious mind alone. And as we subordinate the truth of who we are, our lives grow in dysfunction, ultimately becoming appendages of an ego which has grown out of control. We believe it is a mark of intelligence to, at times, invalidate what is – what exists in reality – and so come to doubt our innate value. Given the power of every mental action, such thinking leaves us with a legacy of depression and self-destructive behaviours. We believe we have minimal control over the circumstances of our lives, not to mention the realization of our dreams. We hurry to reach the end of our lives.

By recognizing and then utilizing the connections between the conscious, subconscious and Inner Self, the experience of unique identity expands exponentially. We can accept the experience of varied facets of the Self experienced in dreams, imaginings and meditations. Acts of conscious creation become not only possible but effective. Having the power to create is no longer a lost dream we relegate to gods of ancient mythology. And, a wonderful array of ‘inner’ abilities become available, the supposed-superhuman talents of telepathy, empathic intuition, spontaneous healing, clairvoyance and seeing the future, as examples.

When consciously expanding our identities to include the Inner Self, self-worth no longer is a question. As unique individuals we are of inestimable value. Well-being becomes a function of mental attitude, emotional well-being and desire to contribute to human evolution. Wealth is an expression of our unique talents and gifts. Spiritual relationships are borne out of the alignment between our individual wealth and well-being.

As we come to identify with greater dimensions of the Self, we begin to experience that we attract each event of our lives through the guidance of the Inner Self. No experience occurs without being designed and constructed by the Self – the conscious mind, subconscious and the Inner Self working in concert. When the conscious mind refuses to accept its role in these acts of creation, events are lovingly created to help awaken it. At times these events can appear to be destructive or counter to our desires and dreams, however each event is created with the intention of restoring the natural flow of energy, emotion and information between the Inner Self, the subconscious and the conscious mind.

When the conscious mind is aligned and in balance with the Inner Self, we find ourselves effective in acts of creation. These three dimensions of Self are, in fact, three different expressions of the same Self, merely focused on different vibrations of a multi-dimensional reality. Certain facets of each of us are focused in the physical realm. Other aspects maintain a focus in dimensions beyond the physical. This idea alone represents an exciting expansion in our ideas about the capabilities of the Self.

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