How Our Original Beings Are Disguised And What Would Be Behind The Mask

We often hear, that we should try to be different, from who we are or that: "that is not me."

• To express my disagreement with someone, "that's not me."

• To stand up in front of an audience to give a speech, "that's not me."

• Going into a business venture "that's not me."

We also have the opposite, when we are told to be ourselves, be who we are. That sounds great, but can we articulate who we are when we want to be someone other than who we are?

Authentic self has become as trite a concept as, for example, love. I have heard it said many times, "I love you" from my colleagues, from my friends, as well as from my partner. It seemed very strange to me and at the same time trite. I did not feel the weight of the expression "I love you" except from my partner. I came to the conclusion, that we use this and similar expressions, but we all use them according to our own interpretation.

In this article I will share some thoughts about the original self, the authentic self, the one we refer to as our original self and the chaos around it.

I would like to start by saying, that the notion of the self, that is, my being, is not the same as the identity, the personality through which I communicate and experience everyday life with my environment. My personhood and identity, as I define myself and as others know me, is a conceptual description made up of nouns, which appears in a more or less coherent and stable form at the point where my being meets my environment.

This being, that I am has a past, a present and, if all goes well, a future. Contrary to this identity, my being is not a concept of nouns, but an acting being of verbs, that changes from moment to moment. This being has neither past nor future. It has only a present. This being is alive and life can only be lived in the now.

Beginning with being born at a particular time in a particular place and thus excluding all other possibilities of where and when I could have been born. But I was born into this particular, family, country and time. After my birth, my parents wanted me to not just be a being, but to be someone.

Not just to be anyone, but to be someone, who would carry on their beliefs, their goals and their values. Be that person through whom they can achieve what they wanted to achieve, but failed to achieve for some reason. Also the community and the wider society wanted me to be someone. I was educated, nurtured, taught and trained to become a useful member of society according to their goals, aspirations and ideologies.

Social Conditioning

If I live up to these expectations, I am rewarded and recognized, if not, I am punished. I therefore try to avoid punishment and strive for rewards instead. This becoming is called social conditioning, which is the result of a completely random environment, time and sequence of events.

In Eastern philosophy, this process is visualized as my original being representing the Sun with all its infinite power and brilliance. In turn, social conditioning creates smog, smoke and filth, that obscures the light of my original being from the experience of daily life.

Initially, through this smog, my original being has an easy job of shining through with its light. We see this in the eyes of a newborn baby, but as we grow and as time goes on, the expectation increases and the fog becomes so thick around us, that my original being is unable to shine through it.

There are moments, however, when tiny gaps appear in the shell of my identity shaped by my environment, but the light I could see through them irritates and disturbs my eyes so much, that in most cases I immediately suppress it and cover it with something urgent to do.

The pressure to meet expectations and the endless role-playing keep me so busy, that I don't even think that life could be different. Drifting with the current of my environment and fitting in is so natural that I think I am.

Some clues for those who can't decide or can't see how much of everyday behavior and thinking represents traits of our original being and how much is an act.

• If my original being were in control of my actions and thoughts, I would always be confident from an unshakable inner determination.

• I would be emotionally stable, yet purposeful, passionate, united and free of any limiting beliefs.

• I would be open, curious, bold to the point of recklessness, self-expressive, almost uninhibited in the positive sense of the word.

• I could love without attachment or clinging and I could give without judgment or expectation.

• My appearance would have a magnetic pull and those around me would naturally seek my company.

• I would live active, creative, dynamic hours and days without any struggle towards any outcome, knowing that I am complete and that no outcome can add to my wholeness.

My original self lives in the now, swimming in the experience of the now and not panting after some abstract fragment of future ideas. It does not want to please anyone or anything and does not need anyone's opinion or recognition.

It is undoubtedly possible to live motivated by the compulsion to conform to community norms, as most people do, myself included. If you are tired of the oppressive state of stultified existence and the struggle to conform, it is possible, through the recognition of human games, to peel off layer after layer of mask after mask until our original being emerges on the surface in its undistorted, natural and authentic state.

This state may appear only as a distant ideal, but our degree of success, happiness and fulfilment is in direct proportion to the presence of our original and authentic self.