You May Just be God
A Take on Self Acceptance
I’m on that self-acceptance vibe again. It’s a bastardized word, but it’s the only term that describes a manner of being that, I believe, will enable less neurotic living. I’m thoroughly convinced that the term’s bad rap is down to most of us not properly understanding what a self is and how to properly relate to it. Today’s rant, thus, is an attempt to convey the basis of what I perceive as ‘helpful-self-acceptance.’ (With respect to understanding what a self is, this and this are links to a couple of articles. They describe a view of the mind and body, respectively, that overlap with how I see a self. Take your time, they’re quite paradigm-shifting; don’t miss the message).
I linked a piece that had in its title, the phrase, ‘Life as a Learning System,’ to my last article. It was an attempt to expand on the point I was trying to make at that time. However, I was initially drawn to the linked piece itself by the quoted phrase. As it suggests, one of the premises held in the article’s overall idea is that life’s fundamental algorithm is “learning what is and is not possible”. I find that premise quite interesting.
Likewise, there’s a common narrative among several ‘New Age’ philosophers that the universe is an ongoing collective-exploration of all possibilities of existence- via experimentation. It’s based on a creation myth that posits, paraphrased, that in the beginning, ‘God’ was the only thing that existed. There was nothing like space or time because these phenomena are relative phenomena, i.e., they exist only in relation to other objects, not as things on their own.
Anyways, in the beginning ‘God’ was was the only thing in existence. However, being the only thing in existence meant that ‘God’ had no reference points for properly observing itself. There was nothing to compare/contrast itself to and thus learn facts about itself.
The best I can do to paint this picture, is to ask you to imagine that there is no wind to feel on your skin, no light, talk less of sights to fixate on. No sound, no sensation, nothing to let you know you’re alive. We’d refer to a person going through such as being in a vegetative state, but in this scenario, however, there was no separate observer to point that out. There was just the formless void that these sages believed to be ‘God’.
This formless void, was somehow alive (you know how it goes with myths, there has to be the inexplicable bits. If we could explain it we wouldn’t need myths/religion). And more than being alive, it also somehow desired to have form-it desired to explore the nature of the emptiness and thus give it a form/name/definition.
So, in an attempt to explore, experience and thus define/know all aspects of itself, in every possible manner and context, this formless void, aka ‘God’, fragmented itself. The one -in its ‘desire’ to experience, observe, learn about, and know itself- became many and triggered creation, which continues even to this day.
I don’t know enough to declare the veracity of these ideas, and I probably never will. But I find that there are correlates between the creation myth and your life’s progression from birth to your current state.
You started out as a basic awareness. The only things you did were: eat, sleep, cry and poop, and all of these were done reflexively; without conscious knowledge or effort. You were just ‘there,’ and had no knowledge of yourself or the world outside you; a ‘mindless’ existence which had ‘you’ as its only occupant. I mean, for all you knew, you and your mother were one creature. This excerpt from a fact sheet by the Australian government expands a bit on that:
Eventually, you realized you were something. You had no idea what this thing was, but your worldview gradually shifted from having no sense of separateness, to being an object in a world of many objects. As time progressed this separation deepened, till it became ‘you versus the world:’ on a quest to know yourself via discovery and creation.
The progression from you and your needs as the ‘only occupants of existence’ to ‘you among a world of multiple objects,’ correlates with the creation story’s progression of ‘God as only existence’ to ‘God as multiple objects’. Conveying the rationale behind this correlation is a story for another day, but you can chew on this bit for now.
Back to the topic.
What does any of this have to do with self-acceptance?
Well, imagine along with me that you, being one of God’s many fragments, are powered by its desire for self-discovery; that your life is one of the many possibilities of existence (which it is). Imagine that God is attempting to know itself from your perspective; that you’re one of the ways God is creating the world based on how it perceives the world through you. That’s the first part.
Now, consider how, though, you’re one out of seven billion people, your particular make-up makes it that nobody is exactly like you. This may not account for much, but as they say, if you change the direction of a plane by one degree it will end up several miles off course of its destination. They also say that small changes at birth lead to diverse outcomes at maturity. That’s the second point.
So if you put these two points together, a conclusion is that every person is one of seven billion possibilities of existence; one of seven billion ways to define what reality is; one of seven billion existences to explore. Moreover, because neither of these existences is exactly the same, none of them can present exactly the same intrigues. Each of them is a chance to discover something different about the ultimate reality, aka God/Life.
In essence, you, every other person, and every object in existence are one of the myriad ways God is observing, learning about, and thus defining/creating itself. If each of these seven billion possibilities were to decide that they’re all the same and should all attempt to act the same way, well, we can see how that would be a major clusterfuck based on the logic of this article. Preventing this clusterfuck is where the self-acceptance bit comes in.
Every human being is an adventure; an exploration of what is. Also, considering that no one is exactly like anyone else, its safe to say that each individual is, potentially, an alternate view of the universe; an alternate reality within reality. Deciding to forsake your possibilities in favor of conventional trends and norms, is reducing the universe to what the powers that be say it is. Why would anyone in their right minds want to do that when things can be much better, for them, than what others say it is?
This isn’t to say that shared values and the opinions of others are redundant. It’s an attempt to make you see that your existence is a gateway to an experience of the world no one else can ever have, and that this version of existence contains adventures and treasures no one, save you, will ever have access to. These treasures may not be radically different from those of others, but they’ll be tailored to your circumstances, which is what we’re all looking for; niches and states of being that allow us to thrive without self-sabotage.
So, how does this look in practice?
For me, it means judging yourself less by the standards of the world, apart from issues regarding the law, survival, and finances. It means taking a step back and looking at all the traits you have -and term as weaknesses- in the context of how they helped you cope with life’s events. It means paying attention to your reactions, your thoughts, your inner language, and your actions, all without judgment, so that you can have a better idea of how you really relate to the world and everything in it. It means giving yourself and the events of your life due respect when making decisions, rather than forcing things down a predetermined path.
At the same time, it also means paying deep attention to the world outside you, because you are born from and part of it. It is the foundation of your existence. Educate yourself on the ways of society and how people think and act. Observe the entities and relations that comprise your environment. Acquire worldly wisdom, be street smart, learn about your body, learn good nutrition, learn how to go after the things you want, learn how to detect wants that aren’t yours but were planted in you, observe your mental and behavioral patterns. Pair the knowledge you gain from paying attention to yourself with the knowledge you get from paying attention to the world and see how they match, and what parts of it need be improved if need be.
It’s not a one-time event as I’ve mentioned many times over. It’s a way of life; a tool for sharpening self-awareness and managing your relationship with yourself in a manner that allows you to carry out actions that objectively* benefit your existence, based on the momentary contexts of its content. I asterisked ‘objectively,’ because nothing is truly objective, however, there are relative levels of delusion when it comes to contexts.
There’s a lot more to it than has been said, particularly on the understanding of a self. I’ll document what I can when I can. Till then, try to observe, try to really see yourself for what you are, and your existence for what it is. Namaste.
