What is a «Better Self»?

Relation to Your Usual Self

In referring to a «better Self», I am adopting a turn of phrase. You have only one unique «true self»: that is your egocentric-self built on your memories, experiences, abilities, values, activities &c. It is a pattern that emerges in your experience that maintains a sense of continuity and distinctiveness, despite your maturation and ever-changing situations and mental states. Your self is something that you inherit, discover, construct, co-evolve. You possess and use this self to live and as a point of reference.

In addition, you have an awareness of that egocentric-self. This awareness capacity/activity, being unchanging and contentless, is therefore viewed as your «real-self» in Eastern spiritual traditions. You can see it represented as the embedded head in the THEE-online logo.

Your better Self refers to application of your awareness (i.e. your real-self) to ensure obedience to the Primal Injunctions. This is the only way to put your egocentric-self in perspective, and to allow it/you/me to gain more control over its/your/my tendencies.

The better Self is therefore an inner mental stimulus for sustaining goodness and respecting the grain of human nature. This seems crucial for sustaining humanity. Bad things may and will happen, but evil is inhibited. Exactly how, will become clearer as the Primal Injunctions are first explored and then elaborated via an examination of evil.

Is it Better Self or Best Self? Should it be Higher or Highest Self?

My provisional formulation is «better». But it is up to you. «Higher/highest» is hierarchical-metaphorical, and I prefer the social-evaluative «better/best». In addition, «better/best» suits a framework about goodness.

• I use «better» to help me focus on just two states of being: the false and the true, the good and the evil, the strong and the weak, the blind and the aware, the higher and the lower (or for some e.g. Jeremy Booker: The 7 Basic Plots.: «Self» versus «Ego»).
• You can use «best» if you prefer to think of your «being» as made of multiple selfs or a gradation of selfs, rather than as a polarity. Perhaps the better Self is sometimes under pressure to do even more.

Why Emphasize Obedience?

Obedience is commonly considered as a virtue, and it can serve as an ultimate value. But when some rule seems natural or beneficial for us, we barely notice that we are obeying. Rules of success and rules of happiness abound on the Internet without the term «obedience» ever appearing—it must be taken for granted. With reflection and by the end of the section, these Primal Injunctions should seem obvious and reasonable for you, as well as being suitable for everyone else.

Question: The aspiration for freedom is quintessentially human, and autonomy is essential for creativity. Even if dedication to obeying has been identified in one Quest, how can obedience for all be reconciled with this aspiration for freedom?

Answer: Freedom is not lost. Just as we are free to do good, we remain free to release evil. However, willing obedience to these Injunctions gives us a way to restrain and counteract tendencies to evil within ourselves and others.

Because Primal Injunctions exist to be obeyed willingly, they cannot be imposed, coerced or legislated. Exhortation, admonition, encouragement, persuasion and even entreaty are therefore brought to bear. It should be no surprise that forms of the Primal Injunctions are widely advocated in blogs, inspirational tweets, sermons, school-day speeches, political campaigns and the like. There are also philosophers and theologians who offer specialized ideological accounts.

Dealing with Evil

The Model Beings framework revealed that good and evil shape the Planes of Existence and are therefore as deeply embedded in our everyday psychosocial life as time and space are in our physical-biological life. It was suggested that these Planes taken together constitute the Pleroma which requires the energies of goodness. Evil, by contrast, depletes the Pleroma and contributes nothing.

Even without that speculative analysis, it is simple to note that:

• a tendency to evil is intrinsic in «being human»,
• evil is released all too often and seemingly unnecessarily, and
• something systematic needs to have evolved to restrain evil.

The Primal Injunctions framework puts flesh on our intuitive notion that we each can activate a «better Self» in order to:

• enable the sustenance of goodness, &
• restrain tendencies to evil in ourselves.

To Repeat: Because Primal Injunctions are based in willingly chosen obedience, you are as free to refuse as to obey any of them. Coercion is impossible in any case. So obedience is a manifestation of human freedom.

Have a preparatory look at how Primal Injunctions differ from Primal Quests.
Table:►

Properties	Primal Quests	Primal Injunctions
Nesting	Within Purpose-RHL6	Within Obedience-RH'L6
Derivation	From Levels of Will/Endeavour	From essences of Primal Quests
Function	Generate what is right for you.	Enable good & restrain evil.
Content	A system of purposes that is the core underlying motivator in a life.	A system of rules that deals with unavoidable egotism.
Choice	1 (or 2) from 7 Quests.	All 7 Injunctions are applicable.
Freedom	Based on a spontaneous choice that feels natural and desirable.	Based in willing obedience.
Emergence	Socially obscure but personally discovered sooner or later.	Openly taught, exhorted or apparent.
Operation	Episodic and often only emergent later in life.	Need to be continuously accessible from childhood.
Internal Interactions	Framework for Sustaining Human Existence activated by the good v evil duality.	Framework for Creating a Better World by Expressing a Better Self.

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• Review the structure of this section.

  OR

• Commence now with the first and most fundamental Primal Injunction: to get enjoyment.

Originally posted:16-Nov-2012