Go beyond your self

Remember, your self is the way you are in life. It is basically your mandala that you developed in the last post. Your self consists of all your perceptions, desires, memories, judgments, and intellectual functioning (reasoning). The self is not the same thing as the ego. The self is simply all of your values and feelings. 

Use your personal mandala to remind you of your values and feelings and to allow you to reflect on how these values and feelings affect your daily life. This is an important step because, by using the mandala to look at yourself, you can begin to see why you do the things you do depending on what happens outside and inside of you.  It is important to remember that the mandala (the self) is not what your are - this is simply the way you react to various situations that you encounter every day.

Although we may look and act differently, in reality we are all the same: one and the same. We are much more than simply values and feelings. Complete realization that we are one with everything is a giant step that many people can't or don's want to make. Many of us can't reach down into our true nature because the conceptual mind continues to hold onto the image that we are separate from the world and everyone else. 

When an incident happens such as an argument, a feeling of anxiety, joy, love, hatred, etc., look at your mandala and see how many of the petals on your mandala are being reflected. Do the same thing for ways you seek comfort, pleasure and relationships. The use of the mandala in becoming aware of your self is a crucial step toward pure awareness and being able to transcend the little self.  

In the next post we will talk about how the self and the ego are related.