The self in the spiritual
By Lian Brook-Tyler
In modern spiritual circles, the self often gets a bad rap, and yet, all the while it’s being dismissed and denied, it’s busy running the show.
To clarify, when I say modern spiritual circles, I am talking of forms of spirituality that are 30-50 years old and based in non-duality or oneness in some way, rather than Eastern traditions in which students are devoted to a master, happening within a context in which a cosmology, community, concepts of consciousness, and practices have been baked in for aeons.
Like shamanism, non-dual spirituality can’t be plucked out by its ancient roots and easily take hold and bloom in a shallow pot of soil stripped of the nutrients of community, devotion and service.
The modern fad (it's a few thousand year old fad but still a fad relatively speaking) of individualism will filter how we view anything and everything, including spirituality… Especially spirituality.
The way we live day to day in today’s culture just isn’t conducive to a wholesale adoption of the older lineage and community-based forms of spirituality, we need another path that is an alchemy of those ancient ways for modern days.
Which, coming back to the title of this post, means we need to walk a path that doesn’t deny the self but intentionally keeps it front and centre, honouring it as the altar that charts our relationship to the divine.
The obstacle is the way.
The self can be defined in many ways, here I’m defining it in the broadest way that is experienced at different levels at different times - it is our human vessel, including our body and ego, it is the patterns we run for survival, it is all the parts of ourselves that have been shoved down and hidden and scattered and lost to the elements, it is our unique soul, and the drop that the soul is in the ocean of everything.
And keeping the self front and centre is a journey of ongoing illumination, understanding, compassion, responsibility, and acceptance, beyond all the ideas we have about ourselves.
This is a devotion to a lifetime of asking the question “Who am I?” Over and over, and being willing and able to hear the answer, and respond.
This is the work of learning not to flinch from the dark, shameful and painful parts, and learning not to grasp for the bright, wondrous and impressive parts.
(And for some of us, vice versa: not flinching from the light or grasping for the dark.)
It is a journey of loving the self beyond the limits of selfishness, selflessness, and even self-love.
You might know that I am obsessed with the myth of the centaur Chiron, the Wounded Healer, and have heard me tell the story of how that revered, wise, and powerful healer and teacher shows us how to be honest and humble in the tending of our own wound (see link below for all kinds of goodness about working with this archetype), what you might not know is that the story of his wife, Chariklo is another that opens us to healing power of different kind.
Chiron was sired by the Titan Cronus when he had taken the form of a horse as he impregnated the nymph Philyra. Soon after giving birth to Chiron, Philyra abandoned her child out of shame and disgust.
So Chiron’s original wound was one of being unwelcome and abandoned because of his strange and ugly appearance.
The nymph Chariklo was an oracle, shaman and mystic. When she saw Chiron, she felt a deep longing to be with him, and so transformed into a centaur herself.
She joined Chiron as his wife and consort, serving alongside him in the work of healing and wisdom. Her name means Spinning Grace, she can be seen as the feminine complement to Chiron, and she exemplifies devotion, soft power, discernment, receptivity, love and grace.
Chariklo saw the beauty in Chiron’s ugly, unwanted form… and thus, he was beautiful.
Your own personal myth may foretell of you one day being merged with an infinite expanse of divine love, wisdom, and peace… If so, the way there is to get down and dirty with yourself - the one at the centre of that myth - and like Chariklo and Chiron, fall so deeply in love with your woundedness and ugliness that it becomes beautiful.
All my love,
Lian ♥️
P.S. There might be a part 2 to this post which talks of the cult of the fantasy of self that is prevalent in many quasi-spiritual self-development circles, in which a fixation with being everything we (which is often really our wounded parts) dream of becomes the God we pray to.
That is not the work I speak of here, though can be the precursor to it when we are are ready to be clear-eyed, humble, honest and loving about the parts of us that are not quite so big, brave, bright, and obviously beautiful.
P.P.S. Your Chariklo placement astrologically can be revealing, look for aspects with your sun, moon, ascendant, and of course, dear Chiron. 🥰
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