Be faithful to yourself! The well-known saying can be understood and misunderstood. When it is misunderstood, it speaks of heightened self-centredness; when it is rightly understood – well, that is preceded by serious spiritual work. To be faithful to our real self, we must peel away from our self-identity all those layers that are false, mistaken or superfluous. We must examine: what am I, and what am I not?
Our first experience of ourselves is our bodily nature. Although it is through consciousness that we look upon our bodily existence, the body is so elemental an experience that it obscures everything else. The philosophical interpretation of bodily identity equates man with the sum of all matter in the universe. And yet it is a strange thought that matter, mud, should all at once begin to think and feel, and seek an explanation for its own existence. This, after all, is something spirit is better able to do, so it is a mistake for a spiritual existent to identify itself with matter. But it is true that what is not spiritual cannot reveal the soul.
If you identify yourself with sense perception and want to be faithful to this slice of who you are, you will become a sensual person. Yet it is said that the soul, though it can be sensed, is by nature beyond the senses. A breath of air, an inkling, an inner feeling – at first our notions are hazy.
Another layer is the mind, the centre of thinking, willpower and the emotions. The mind is at times a good friend of the soul, at others its enemy. When it is a friend, it whispers good counsel; when it is an enemy, it stirs up doubts and misgivings instead. But man, beyond his transient thoughts and feelings, is a spark of universal consciousness.
We must also break with the consciousness of transience. Against the limited state of consciousness that is the fear of death, what helps is eternity-consciousness: instead of an earthly mortal, I am a heavenly immortal. All these planes of being are embraced and summed up by the false ego, but we can regard it at most as our weaker self, from which we would do well to launch ourselves, and at last meet our true self. From myself – to my true self…
Am I my deeds? Actions speak louder than words, and although we are responsible for our deeds, countless times we try to evade this responsibility. There is, however, only one way to be excused from it: if man acts not by the worldly order but by the divine, if he engages in spiritual activity. More people live and judge by the body than by the soul.
In his moments of self-laceration man identifies with his bad qualities, forgetting his original transcendent qualities. Alongside original sin, original innocence also exists. Another layer is the system of expectations. The expectations of others keep many people at once captive and functioning. Expectation is not bad in itself; the lofty expectations of a noble person are worth living up to. The trouble comes when the right expectations from good sources fail to become an inner scale of values. Meeting false expectations authentically produces falseness; with good expectations, even half a success is a success.
In man's identity, his family relationships and his work, his vocation, play a tremendously important part. When introducing himself, man mentions his name, his work and his family, and yet alongside worldly and family ties, everyone is also part of the divine family. Worldly situations are always relative: the youth in his first bloom soon turns into a wrinkled old man, everything changes. In contrast to relative identities, however, the ultimate identity does not change, it is lasting.
He who seeks himself by philosophising might say: I am everything and nothing, while the enlightened one would say: I am part of the universe.
Be faithful to yourself? Understand it rightly: be faithful not to matter but to your spiritual nature, not to the transient body but to your lasting spiritual self, not to foolish expectations but to your own spiritual self, not to your limitations but to your radiant spiritual traits, not to your worldly vocation but to your heavenly calling. Be faithful, be noble, be true!