The Self: Confrontation

One of the many topics I have posted on is the self, the ego, and the path of karate-do as it is used to help us see inside ourselves. The ability of see ourselves as we really are, removing all those self-imposed "stories" or thoughts, emotions, judgments, and motivations that make up our character. We must first come face-to-face with ourselves in order to "see" and "hear" truth especially when encountering conflict.

Yogi Iyengar states in his book, "He unravels himself from the external body to the self within. He proceeds from the body to the nerves, and from the nerves to the senses. From the senses he enters into the mind, which controls the emotions. From the mind he penetrates into the intellect, which guides reason. From the intellect, his path leads to the will and thence to consciousness. The last stage is from consciousness to his Self, his very being."

What is alluded to in this is the singular practice of yoga, much like karate, is the path whereby the training of the body provides unity of body, mind, spirit allowing us to "see" within ourselves fault. This teaches us how the body functions and leads to the mind and then the mind is trained to unify that body and the only way that is achieved is to see ourselves as we really are and remove all the illusions we put ourselves in to attain a comfort in living life.

Terri Brooks said it well in a fictional account of how evil is destroyed by taking that entity to its very essence, its true self, reality. This is a modified quote, redacted to achieve clarity to the practice of karate-do:

"In the vortex of emotion and basic self that comprises the center most region of our being, we come face-to-face with ourselves. There is a chaos of uncertain impressions: Pictures and impressions loomed up before us. Thrust suddenly before our eyes, the world that is our birthplace and life source, from past to present, lay open and revealed to us, stripped bare of our carefully nurtured illusions, and we see the reality of existence in all its starkness. No soft dreams colored our view of life, no wishful fantasies clothed the harshness of its self-shaped choices, no self-conceived visions of hope softened the rawness of its judgments.

Amid its sprawling vastness, we see ourselves displayed for the pitiful, insignificant spark of momentary life that we represent. We struggle wildly for our grasp of the vision of self that has always sustained us, for what had been our hold on sanity, fighting to shield ourselves from the awesome view of our inner nakedness and the weakness of the thing we are compelled to recognize as ourselves.

... the thoughts, emotions, judgments, and motivations that made up this character. ...

... we see another side of ourselves, aside we have never been able to recognize - or perhaps had simply refused to accept. It reveals itself in an endless line of events, all caricatures of the memories we had believed in so strongly. An accounting of every hurt we had caused to others, e4very petty jealousy we had felt, our deep-seated prejudices, our deliberate half-truths, our self-pity, our fears - all that was dark and hidden within ourselves.

We open our minds to be receptive to those images, expanding outward to embrace them, forcing ourselves to admit the reality of what we have been shown. We cannot sensibly deny these other sides of our characters; like the limited image of the person we had always believed ourselves to be, we have to accept it. It is the truth.

We have to be able to accept the weakness and frailty that are a part of our human nature, as it is a a part of all men."

Only by accepting reality, only by accepting our weaknesses and frailties, only then can we truly attain proficiency in practice and thus in life. Yogi Ivengar also states eloquently [redacted to show karate-do], "Through the stages of karate practice one develops understanding of his own self. He proceeds step by step from the known - his/her body - to the unknown. He proceeds from the outer envelop of the body to the mind. From the mind, he goes to the intellect, the will, discriminating consciousness, conscience and lastly the self."

As one studies the many academic writings we find an underlying connectivity that permeates all of life. Following this one can achieve unity of self to the universe but subverting the path leads to a detrimental outcome.