You don’t have to be a genius to develop your power as a human being. Anyone can learn to use all of their inner resources – physical, mental, and spiritual. But is this “Self”? The question has as many answers as there are people who ask it.
As human beings, we are complex organizations of physical events, energy, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and something more that we will simply call for now the spirit. What others see in us, and how we see ourselves, is what we often refer to as the personality. But there is far more to us than meets the eye.
Enchanted with technology, we often think of ourselves as bio-computers, sophisticated biological machines. But machines are closed systems. We can take apart and put then back together again. If we don’t like the system we build, we change it around and create new system. But human beings are more than the physical parts of the body. While some scientist would have us believe that we are only the body, our experience tells us another story. We are living “open system.” We constantly interact with our environment, change it, and in turn are changed by it. We are not simply biochemical reactions, but living systems. We are sustained by a life force that cannot be flipped on and off. A computer “comes alive” when you plug it in and run an electric current through it. You can switch the computer, or any machine, on and off without doing any harm. It’s very difficult to do that with human being. Our life force is an essential part of who we are, and plays a vital function in our ability to live without stress. On still another level, we think, we feel, we dream – our rich mental and emotional life plays a crucial role in determining our health and well being.
When we act as of different elements of our lives are separate from one another, we lose our human power. For example, when a cardiologist treats high blood pressure with medication and ignores the role of diet, exercise, emotions, family and work life, he treats the patient as a machine. When we ignore our intuitive knowledge, deny our emotions, and rely solely on so called logic, we act as if we are machines. We must look to all aspects of our personality system if we want to achieve self-mastery. We come as a complete package. Any action we take involves all aspects of the personality. We do not take decisions without our memory playing a role, nor do we play hockey without our liver functioning. Just as teamwork makes a world-class team, it’s teamwork within the personality that makes a world-class human being.
THE SIX DIMENSIONS OF IDENTITY
We use concept of six dimensions in yogic tradition to define the relational structure of body, mind, and spirit. The outer five dimensions are like sheaths that fit over the core sixth dimension, the spiritual self. This spiritual self is the core identity while the other dimensions constitute the expressive vehicle, the instrument through which the spiritual core expresses itself in the world around us. These dimensions have unique functions but they cannot be separated from each other. We always function as a whole person and not as individual, mechanical pieces. Whenever we think, or talk, or act, all parts of our body, mind, and spirit are involved. By exploring these dimensions, we can see where our resources lie and how to use them to create magic.
We begin our journey with the physical dimension, the body, and then travel inwards through increasingly more subtle levels of energy that make up the life force and mind. We end with the sixth dimension of pure awareness, the spiritual self. Each succeeding dimension is more subtle and contains more powerful resources than the previous one. The more subtle the dimension, the greater the potential for personal power and freedom.
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