The Earth is not the centre of the Universe

Of late Socrates' renowned quote "The unexamined life is not worth living" strikes me a fair bit, although I have not researched into his thoughts behind those words. I am half way through the book "Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life' by James Hollis and have just listened to a broadcast "Exploring the Concept of Self" by Gil Fronsdal, Buddhist teacher. I noticed a number of similar ideas in both.

Hollis, a Jungian analyst and psychotherapist wrote about people who find themselves in a dark wood in the second half of their life, struggling to find meaning and to reconnect with their authentic self. He suggests that for most part of our life we live under a legacy of parental and societal norms, values and expectations almost like a trance like existence. Sometime usually in mid-life (or earlier for others) many people go through some emotional turbulence when the goals that promised a fulfilling life don't hold true anymore. There arise unexplained feelings of being stuck or feelings of anxiety and voidness. Hollis calls for a soul searching journey "of getting our life back" and the deconstruction of "the false self" and asking ourselves whose life have we been living for.

On a similar vein Gil Fronsdal in his talk suggests that we should examine the layers of internalised self concepts that are constructed from our own history ie. from the family, social, cultural and religious environment that we grew up in. Gil cited an example that for families that have gone through generations of sufferings an internalised message could be a painful sense that the world is an unsafe place. Other examples of internalised messages that become cornerstone of people's life include:

- the message that I need to have a career, a house and a spouse to be happy
- the message that I need to be efficient
- the message that I have been wronged or that I am a victim
- the message that it is important to be liked
etc

Hence there are many a times when "I feel l am like THIS type of person, but I have to be THAT type of person". Sufferings and limitations that come with concepts of self often lead to people questioning "Is this the right operating system for myself?"

Gil suggests we really need to re-examine whether we need to be what others think we need to be. We must also ask ourselves who we think we need to be versus who we really want to be. Gil used a very powerful metaphor of Copernicus' theory which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe and launched the renaissance in astronomy. Likewise he thinks we must review and drop self concepts which don't hold true for ourselves. We can then have the freedom to choose personal messages that resonate to us and which we feel are authentic for ourselves. Making that choice leads to freedom from the "Conditioned realm of self".