Many people in mystical religions are searching for their true self. Psychology does not provide us with an answer to this quest. On the mystical path, we go much deeper than into our psyche.
We open ourselves to the realm of the spirit.
Only here can we find the core of our being - not in the body or the brain, not in thinking or feeling. The true being lies deeper. It is to be discovered in the spirit or the soul.
But what will we experience when we encounter it?
Searching in the house of the soul
Imagine that your being is a house, and you set out to search it. You have searched all the rooms and have not found your true self - not in your thoughts, not in your feelings, not in your past, not in your longings and desires.
Then you descend deeper and enter the basement. You search through the rooms of your unconscious layers. But even there you do not find it - not in trance states, not in deep hypnosis, and not in visions.
You discover another staircase that leads even deeper into your soul. Here it is completely silent. A meditation where thinking, feeling, and willing have come to rest. Even here you do not find your true self, not even if you stay for weeks in a darkroom.
Then you discover another step that leads to further depth. Here you open yourself fully to God and you find the innermost room of your soul. You have your hand on the door handle and are breathless with excitement.
What will you discover when you look behind the door?
What do you think?
A wonderful, pure, holy self that shines before you? A being without weaknesses and problems? An individual that radiates with love?
I tell you, the first part of the answer will be disappointing. You open the door and find no individual true self.
There is no individual true being!
The second part of the answer is better than you might have ever dreamed. Behind this innermost door, you will discover God.
If you were to say, "I am God," that would be correct.
But one does not say that.
This was the greatest surprise of the mystical path for me.
How often had I read, "God is in the innermost part of your heart"? But how was I supposed to grasp that? For a long time, it remained only an idea, a concept.
Sun Myung Moon also explains that the spirit-mind - the innermost part of our spiritual self (soul) - is inseparably connected with God and cannot exist without a relationship to God.
One could also put it this way:
Our true self - the innermost core of our being - is no longer an “individual” self.
It is a global self, connected with God and all beings.
The spiritual mind is the core of the Spiritual Self, it is the place where God resides.
The spiritual element of the mind (spirit-mind) does not arise without a relationship to God.