Indulging in internal dialog is the cause of all misery, discomfort and disease.
Remember that magical word – detach. It is your only defense against the debilitating traps set by your self-image. Whenever you are facing a potential challenge, remind yourself to detach from your self-image. If you don’t, you will find yourself having all your buttons pushed and you will pounce upon your prey with huge abandon and an almighty scream, stabbing passionately with your spear! Until, eventually, you come to realise that you are stabbing at thin air, that your prey has slipped away unnoticed, and that the smell of blood everywhere is the smell of your own blood.
Question:
What is the difference between one’s self-image as opposed to one’s social image.Answer:
Your social image is something you build around your self-image!Most people fear losing their social image even MORE than losing their self-image. However, it is only WHEN you rid yourself of your social image that you can begin erasing your personal history and thereby lose your self-image! Holding onto your social image just keeps you stuck in your self-image!
It helps to look at it in this way. The social image is the SYMPTOM of behaviour, whereas the self-image is the CAUSE of that behaviour! In other words, your social image is HOW you project your self-image into the world around you! So what people see is not really the self-image, but rather HOW you behave as a RESULT of your self-image. That ‘how’ is your social image, technically speaking, your personal history. So erasing personal history starts with looking at HOW you come across to others! So ask yourself this question, “Am I WANTING people to RELATE to my social image, and therefore my self-image, or do I WANT people to RELATE to THAT which is behind my self-image.
Personal history is the self-image a man has acquired because of his view of the world — an image which he projects into the world around him. Personal history is not what a man knows about himself. It is what he has led others to believe about him, because of what he thinks about himself. Consequently, concepts such as age, place of birth and parentage can only have meaning within the context of personal history.
If you are going to succeed in erasing your personal history, you first need to put into practice the three techniques that facilitate this process. These techniques are: losing self-importance, taking responsibility and using death as an advisor. Without the wholesome effects of these three techniques, erasing personal history could lead us to start doubting ourselves and our actions, and so become deceitful and evasive.
Question:
Théun, what is the process involved in dismantling one’s self-image.Answer:
LOL! The process involved in dismantling one’s self-image is actually quite hilarious in retrospect!First one’s self-image starts to become a bit, shall we say, dented! Then eventually it has SO many dents in it that it becomes somewhat embarrassing to continue presenting it. Then one spontaneously starts to hide it from those who KNOW one, for one knows they can see right through one’s GUISE! But needless to say, this hiding leads to starting to forget where one has placed it! LOL! And so one starts to lose it, only to find it again, lose it again, find it again, and so on. But each time one finds it again it feels more and more un-comfort-able and less and less appropriate in terms of a SHIELD! And then finally, one day, in having once AGAIN re-discovered the silly old habit, it just feels so goddamned TERRIBLE to uphold it that one discards it with a sense of utter disgust! What a relief! LOL!