Chapter 4: Constantly update the Maps of your Feelings

Parts of the Mammalian brain

Thalamus: Processes information from the external world like sights and sounds.
Hypothalamus: Regulates your body’s internal environment through chemical secretio
n.
Hippocampus: Creates long term memories and enables you to learn from experience
.
Amygdala: Emotional center where emotions are tagged to long term memories.
Basal Ganglia: Integrates thoughts and feelings with your actions.
In the previous chapter, you have fertilized your mind and made it accept chang
ing purpose. In this chapter, you are going to water the soil in the form of fee
lings, water being the archetype of feelings, so that you are ready to cultivate
a questioning culture in the next chapter. So, realize that there exists the po
ssibility of feeling better this moment even though your Ego might show you othe
rwise.
PAST=> Sometimes, you are unable to tap into your feelings and intensify your ac
tions. On other occasions, you are so overwhelmed by your feelings that your ac
tions get throttled.
PRESENT=> Sudden pain, forces you to desire better feelings. You learn to contro
l feelings rather than being controlled by them.
FUTURE=> Your feelings have become the link between your purpose and your action
. You utilize them to bring happiness and strengthen the self esteem and self im
age of yourself and your followers and make them self Assurant.
TOPICS IN THIS CHAPTER:
Restore your spirit by including Feelings in your thoughts
Exist in a state of Happiness.
Overcome the limitations of reason by integrating Myths
Improvise your Imagination by recombining images
Intensify your Experiences by tagging them with emotions
Unify your fragmented Selves and forge a new identity
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisib
le to the eye.
------- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ,The Little Prince
“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begi
n to discover that it s bottomless, that it doesn t have any resolution, that th
is heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and
gentleness is there, as well as how much space.”
Pema Chodron
There is a boundary to men s passions when they act from feelings; but none when
they are under the influence of imagination.
Edmund Burke
Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and fa
rther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your tho
ughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.
Brian Tracy
Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed
feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; f
or our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.
T. S. Eliot
You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourse
lf do right in spite of your feelings.
Pearl S. Buck
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and b
y regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we
can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
William James
If feeling fails,
You never shall succeed;
If it comes not from your spirit,
With elemental speed,
To win the hearts of all who hear.
-----Goethe, Faust
A. Restore your spirit by including Feelings in your thoughts
Sometimes, there comes a time in life when we lack inspiration and nothing excit
es us anymore. Our spirit,which animates us sometimes gets broken under the burd
en of mindless thoughts and habits. Too often, our environment becomes very nega
tive and depressing and it tends to rub on us. These are the very times when we
need to tap the fountain of inspiration(derived from the phrase “in spirit”) which r
esides in the spirit within us. To do so, we need to tap our feelings and make s
ure that they get added to our thoughts.
The problem with feelings is that most of them are sub-conscious and invisible.
Hence, your goal is to depict them spatially in the imagery of your mental maps
and make them visible so that you can generate reason induced emotions with your
willpower. During the vast, majority of times, we cannot translate the human c
apacity for reason into better action, as, our Reptilian Brain always over rules
our Neo-cortex, which is our “Higher” or “thinking Mind”. When we finally manage to mak
e most of our feelings conscious and generate reason induced emotions, our actio
ns can transcend survival and we can become higher level of beings.
Our Feelings are either confused with emotions or thought of something shadowy o
r beyond words. We also like to be in denial of our Feelings as, our Ego looks d
own upon being “touchy feely”. Emotion comes from the word “motion”; it is what you feel
when something or someone comes in contact with you. Feelings are what remains
even when the initial stimulus which caused the emotions are gone. Emotions repe
ated over time forms neural maps in our brain in the form of feelings. A person
may be very loving to their family when they are around, but in their absence, m
ight be cheating on his spouse. That means that he feels the emotions but emotio
ns don’t get translated into feelings.
Various religious traditions and philosophy talks about feelings. A good way to
get insight into the nature of Feelings is to understand the Buddhist word Vedan
a. Originally derived from Sanskrit and Pali, Vedana refers to sensations that o
ccur when those parts of our mind where the various senses get registered(like o
ccipital lobesfor the eyes) comes in touch with external reality. These sensat
ions could be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. In Buddhism, vedana(feelings) can
be either a cause of suffering or a cause of removal of suffering. So seeing fe
elings(vedana) with clarity could be a path to enlightenment.
Once you restore the process of automatically adding feelings to your thoughts,
your conscience gets restored and it acts as a compass and directs your action w
ith integrity. Your inner spirit starts flowing and your life gets filled with
joy and happiness. Others seek inspiration from your upbeat spirit and you mani
fest true leadership.

Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of th
e world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close you
r eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you ll live as you ve never lived befo
re.”
------Erich Fromm
To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put t
he nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in
order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts r
ight.
Confucius:
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Wh
ere people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a k
ind of death.
Anais Nin:
Gage’s story hinted at an amazing fact: somehow, there are systems in the human br
ain…. Concerned specifically with unique human properties, amont them the ability
to anticipate the future and plan accordingly within a complex social environmen
t ; the sense of responsibility toward the self and others; and the ability to o
rchestrate one’s survival deliberately, at the command of one’s free will
-------Antonio Damasio
There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwel
ls within us.”
Sophocles
My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth a
nd the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will
, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sa
ne reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels
And not what he sees
----Tao Te Ching
Robert Plutchik created the Wheel of emotion which consisted of 8 basic emotions
and 8 advanced emotions each composed of 2 basic ones. In order to restore your
feelings, start mapping your emotions and so that you can simulate the feelings
. Minimize the effect of negative emotions. For instance, if you are really ang
ry, you can diminish the anger into annoyance. On the same token, maximize the e
ffect of positive emotions. For instance, you can intensify your acceptance of
something into admiration. As a leader, learn how to reverse the entropy of feel
ings in yourself and your followers, and, at the same time keep them subjugated
whenever needed.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences
of any misfortune.
William James
You always admire what you really don t understand.”
Blaise Pascal
“Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that bo
ok I told you about the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is s
erenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.”
Jack Kerouac
“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel t
he depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the wor
ld is transformed.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti
 “All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest
in life.”
Thomas Mann
When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil me
n prevail.
Pearl S. Buck
“"Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied, "and t
hen the different branches of Arithmetic Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, an
d Derision”
Lewis Carroll
“The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamen
tal emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who know
it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead,
a snuffed-out can”
Albert Einstein

B.Make Happiness your state of Being

In his book, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle stated that happiness is the only th
ing human beings desire for its own sake. Other human desires like health or
wealth are not an end in itself but a means to attain happiness. For Aristotle,
happiness comes from action or movement towards a worthy goal and not from sitt
ing around and trying to feel great. Happiness is also an indication that we are
leading a good life and making good use of our unique talents and gifts.
We all seek happiness but it often eludes us. That is because, we always associa
te happiness with a future cause.
“We will be happy if…..”
“We will be happy when..”
We are often putting conditions to happiness. Even if all the conditions are met
, our Mind will come up with new conditions and happiness will prove elusive. In
stead, we should seek happiness unconditionally. The power to be happy at this m
oment is in your hand. That power is called the feeling of gratitude. Look aroun
d, I am sure you will have a lot in life to be happy about. So acquire a sense o
f gratitude, give thanks and feel happiness this moment onwards. Detach causes a
nd effects from happiness. Be happy no matter what by making happiness your stat
e of being.
Sometimes, we are unhappy because we don’t know we can be happy. We see unhappy pe
ople around us and learn to be unhappy from our environment. We need to unlearn
such unhappy behavior and, take pity on these unhappy people and treat them wit
h love and affection. Once we start bringing happiness to others, our inner hap
piness will also increase.
Happiness arises when we cease to be in denial and confront our problems head on
. When we engage with life and the full spectrum of human experiences, even thou
gh, isolated events and failures might make us unhappy, when we take a long term
view and see that we have made a valiant effort to do our best and lead a life
with courage and freedom, we will be happy. When we don’t have any regrets left in
life that we “could have or should have” done certain things, we will be happy.
Sometimes, too much happiness can make us feel cloy and unsatisfied. It might du
ll our purpose and drive. Sometimes we need some amount of tension and dissatisf
action in the system to have change, growth and progress. Often, the best human
achievements have occurred under condition of stress and struggle. Sometimes, th
e best ideas arise out of conflict and dissatisfaction. So, if you are still unh
appy, be happy that the universe is giving you the gift of unhappiness in order
to challenge you to a higher level of excellence and bring out the best in you.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that th
ey are endowed by their Creater with certain inalienable Rights, that among thes
e are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
----- Thomas Jefferson, Defence of Liberty and the Rights of Man.
“happiness is the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason"----Aris
totle
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we
see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that wh
ich we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.
Helen Keller
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of
one s values. Ayn Rand
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel love
d and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
H the Dalai Lama:
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others-
--Cicero
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feelin
g deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments,
propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and sta
rt searching for different ways or truer answers.
M. Scott Peck:
Its love, not reason, that is stronger than death
.-----THOMAS MANN, The Magic Mountain
Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he is happy. If anyone finds out, he’ll be ha
ppy at once---- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Possessed.
“Now he understood it and realized that the inward voice had been right, that no t
eacher could have taught him salvation. That was why he had to go into the world
, to lose himself in power, women and money; that was why he had to be a merchan
t,a dice player, a drinker, and a man of property, until the priest and the Sama
na in him were dead. That was why he had to undergo those horrible years, suffer
nausea, learn the lesson of the madness of an empty, futile life till the end,
till he reached bitter despair, so that Siddharthat the pleasure-monger and Sidd
hartha the man of property could die. He had died and a new Siddhartha had awake
ned from his sleep. He also would grow old and die. Shiddhartha was transitory,
all forms were transitory, but today he was young, he was a child—the new Shiddhar
tha –and he was very happy”
---Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
C. Integrate Myth and Overcome the limitations of reason
Human beings believe that the ability to reason is the biggest gift we have. Hen
ce, our culture gives paramount importance to reason. However, we have to keep i
n mind that reason is rooted in our Neo-cortex, our thinking mind and only appli
es to the conscious part of our mind. As you learnt in the previous chapter, the
conscious brain is a very small part of our mind and dwarfs in significance to
the sub-conscious and unconscious mind. It takes time and effort to start harnes
sing these deeper, more powerful areas of the mind. Myths give us a window to lo
ok into such areas and help you understand you unconscious feelings and enable y
ou to take better decisions.
Reason by itself is a data processing machine. However much you appeal to the re
ason of your followers, you need to understand their motivations in order to enf
orce any course of action. Most of our motivations reside in our unconscious min
d. Hence, you need to understand the Myths of your followers in order to suitabl
e motivate them. As a leader, you also need to understand the myths of your cust
omers and other stakeholders in order to improve your business. You need to lear
n how to re-frame your story to fit in with the myth of your customers so that y
ou and your organization develop a closer bond with them and become a part of th
eir culture.
Carl Jung started the movement of trying to understand the psychology behind w
orld myths. He was of the opinion that all humans share some inner psychological
forces called archetypes which manifests themselves through the similarities am
ong the myths of different countries and traditions. Some of Jung’s notable follow
ers include Joseph Campbell who believed that myth’s give us insights about our ow
n psychology which can be applied to our lives and Claude Levi-Strauss, who beli
eved that myths reflect fixed common patterns in our mind.
Since myths represent universal patterns in our culture, they help us create c
ommon cultures among diverse groups. Myths include stories and fables and, take
n together, they help us communicate complex ideas in a very simple manner and m
ake these ideas stick in people’s mind. For instance, making people understand the
importance of having flexible rules is not easy, since our mind can be very rig
id sometimes and often our Ego makes us think in a very Either/Or or Black/White
manner. Instead of throwing people the rule book and coercing them to be flexi
ble on rules, tell them the Fairy Tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In tha
t tale, a little girl called Goldilocks found a home owned by three bears who ea
ch owned a separate copy of many things. The story is about her trying to find
the chair, bed and porridge that were “just right” for each of the three bears. When
you recount Goldilock’s experience of finding some porridges which were too hot,
some which were too cold while a few which were “just right”; you will be able to en
gage the feelings of your audience and lead them to a higher degree of understan
ding than you would have, if you appealed to their sense of reason only.

The more the critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life becomes; but
the more of the unconscious, and the more of the myth we are capable of making c
onscious, the more of life we integrate
---Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is
too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or descri
ption.
D.H. Lawrence :
Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words
-----Ananda Coomaraswamy, Hinduism and Buddhism,
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.
Blaise Pascal:
“ A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supe
rnatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is
won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to besto
w boons on his fellow man.
-----Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphoric
ally. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, t
hen you are in trouble.
Joseph Campbell
“It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.”
David Hume
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate--
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame:
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!--
-- II.557-65,Milton, Paradise Lost
D. Improvise your Imagination by recombining images
Reconnecting with myths in your life prepares you to start using the immense pow
er of your imagination. As a Leader, sometimes you need to impart instructions a
nd messages in the form of stories and narratives to your audience. Your words c
an evoke feelings but they would be more effective if they also evoked mental im
ages and let your followers see the big picture of your vision. What we see, tou
ch, hear,smell,taste i.e. our perceptions gets represented in our mind as pict
ures and related thought forms and become the “raw material” of our imagination. Onc
e we start improvising on these raw materials by recombining these pictures and
project them into the future, we give birth to imagination.
Imagination then is a conscious act where we stretch the boundaries of our mind.
It is not a stagnant state but rather a constant work in progress. Most great d
iscoveries of mankind has happened due to the work of imagination. It is the cre
ative faculty of the mind and often lead to foresight. Sometimes, imagination i
s looked down upon and dismissed as “unreal” but, if you go back to Chapter 3, if wi
ll see that the nature of reality itself is very subjective. Both reality and im
agination resides in our mind. We are too caught up with reality because our Ego
is wedded to our current reality. In reality, there is a very thin line between
reality and imagination. Imagination is the key to improve your reality but it
has got rusted over the years. So oil and sharpen this key and use it to unlock
the doors of a fabulous life for you, your family and your organization.
Active Imagination is a method of meditation developed by Carl Jung in which som
e of the contents of our unconscious is translated into images or stories. It in
cludes working on dreams and our creative energy via imagination and fantasy. Th
e key is to use techniques like visualization to let the mental images flow with
minimal interference from our conscious mind. In this way, you can begin to red
iscover your dreams and desires of success which your conscious mind has buried
under the current, Ego infused reality.
Imagine a future where the word failure does not exist and you can get whatever
you dream. First of all, you will not only start dreaming more but also become e
xcited about achieving your dreams. You will also teach your family members, yo
ur followers and whoever you know to dream all these big dreams. Then, start mak
ing your dreams more vivid by feeling as if you have already achieved your desir
es and you are living your dream. Then, look back at your current reality a bad
dream and promise yourself that you will soon awake to your true reality of succ
ess, accomplishment, significance etc and, upon awakening, realize that your pas
t was just a bad dream and be thankful that you have come out from your nightmar
e stronger and with more zest to catch up for lost time and lead life to its ful
lest.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we t
hen to depreciate imagination.
Carl Jung
“In order to grasp the fantasies which were stirring in me ‘underground, I knew that
I had to let myself plummet down into them.”
---- Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections,”
Reality leaves a lot to imagination.
---John Lennon.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein
Imagination properly employed is our greatest friend; it goes beyond reason and
is the only light that takes us everywhere
-----Swami Vivekananda
“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but
a faint shadow.”
William Blake
"The value of imagination is in its power to empathize with people whose experie
nces you ve never had. As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how goo
d it is, is what matters."
JK Rowling, from commencement speech at harvard,2008.
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would
wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."
-------Arthur Conan Doyle
E.Intensify your experiences by tagging them with emotions
“A burnt child dreads the Fire”----- popular wisdom
Fire is something which attracts our attention. However, if we happen to get bur
nt, then, we cease to look at fire in the same, playful manner. Our emotions put
a tag on fire so that whenever we come close to fire in the future, we react in
stinctively and move away. Whenever, we undergo an experience, our emotions ough
t to tag that experience. If that experience was pleasurable, it should get tagg
ed positively, whereas, if it was painful, it should get tagged negatively. Howe
ver, often, this process of emotional tagging does not function properly in us a
nd we keep repeating the same patterns of mistake over and over again. The burnt
child, instead of dreading the fire, approaches the fire the same way he did b
efore he got burnt. Similarly, do not learn from our experiences, but keep makin
g the same mistakes over and over again.
Our Ego tells us that we have learnt from our experience. True learning can only
happen when you engage not only the rational mind, but also the Mammalian/Emoti
onal Brain. Before you start looking into your past experiences, lets make a cle
ar distinction between representation and experience in your mind. When you go
through an experience, representations, whether images or symbols, are formed i
n your mind. Representation is a passive process; you have to make a conscious e
ffort to reflect on these representations and tag them with emotions so that you
can convert them into real experiences aka wisdom and grow. Otherwise, you may
undergo a life time of experience but still remain inexperienced.
Why do you need to visualize your past experience? In order to be successful, yo
u need to have experience or learn through the trial and error of new experience
. Your past experience is not real experience; it is merely representations whic
h are unprocessed experience. You have two choices; either, go through more fail
ures, learn from them and then be successful. Or, you can go back to your repres
entations of past failures or mediocrity in your mind and process them into expe
rience and wisdom so that you avoid the pain of future trial and errors. The cho
ice is yours. Your reality is determined by past experience,so change the past r
epresentations in your mind, make your past experiences better and improve your
current reality.
When you start visualizing your past experiences in the representations in your
mind, you start unfreezing past images in your memory and making new meaning out
of them. Suddenly, past regrets and desires come alive and you start projecting
them into the future. Your visualizing process acquires a deeper meaning for yo
u. When you tap your latent desires and ambitions buried in your mental represen
tations, and attach them to the images of success you are visualizing for yourse
lf, you start tapping into the deepest powers of creation and harness universal
forces to create astounding success for yourself.

There are conditions to be met without which an experience cannot come to be. Th
e outline of the common pattern is set by the fact that every experience is the
result of interaction between a live creature and some aspect of the world in wh
ich he lives. A man does something; he lifts, let us ay, a stone. In consequence
he undergoes, suffers, something: the weight, strain, texture of the surface of
the thing lifted. The properties thus undergone determine further doing. The st
one is too heavy or too angular, not solid enough; or else the properties underg
one show it is fit for which it is intended. The process continues until a mutua
l adaptation of the self and the object emerges and that particular experience c
omes to a close. What is true of this simple instance is true, as to form, of ev
ery experience
--------- John Dewey
You cannot create experience. You must undergo it
--- Camus
To regret one’s own experience is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s one e
xperience is to put a lie into the lips of one’s life. It is no less than a denial
of the soul.
---Oscar Wilde
Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced.
Barbara Tuchman:
The spectacles of experience; through them you will see clearly a second time.
Henrik Ibsen
Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how g
ood something sounds on paper. The second is that you re generally better off st
icking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments
are the ones you don t make.
Donald Trump
If you can just get your mind together
Uh-then come on across to me
Well hold hands and then well watch the sunrise
From the bottom of the sea
But first, are you experienced?
------ Jimi Hendrix
F.Unify your fragmented Selves with those of others
Your Self is the sum total of what is considered as you. There are a lot of comp
onents that form the essence of You. Some of these components are your charact
er, your experience, your personality, your identity, the list is endless. In or
der to have unity in your Self, these various components must function in harmon
y with each other. A harmonius Self makes us balanced and help us exert willpo
wer towards the direction of our goals and desires. However, in most of us, our
Self is fragmented with different components pulling us in different directions.
For instance, if our character is not aligned with our Intelligence, our effort
s won’t lead us to the right direction and we won’t make progress towards our dest
iny.
The moment you realize that you Self is fragmented, you immediately start moving
towards unity. Till before, your sub-conscious mind did not have a unity as a g
oal. Once you set this goal, on a sub-conscious level, you already are being pro
pelled towards unity. According to Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the desire
to preserve the unity and the integrity of the Self, is the biggest drive among
humans. So start tapping into this power which is dormant in you.
Having a divided Self, means that you have the potential of creating greater uni
ty and balance in your personality. History shows us, that those people whose
Selves had got deeply divided, are often the one who ultimately creates the most
unity and harmony. William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, has
written extensively on this topic of divided self and its unification. He gives
examples from historical figures like Tolstoy, John Bunyan and, most famously,
Christian theologist, St Augustine, all of whom managed to overcome severe divis
ion and fragmentation of personality to achieve high degree of satisfaction and
greatness. So if you feel that your Self is very divided or fragmented, it only
means that you have gone through more suffering and have acquired the mental mu
scle which is required for very high degree of success and satisfaction.
You can construct your Self by using concepts like Self Esteem, Self Image, Self
Realization etc. As children, we learn to construct our sense of self by intern
alizing Self directed speech; Shakespeare has used this approach in Hamlet with
the extensive use of soliloquy. Having a healthy Self concept helps you to not o
nly aim higher and be more successful, but also to have greater satisfaction and
happiness. Sometimes, unity can happen when we come out of our Self and connect
and be a part of the Self of people around us; our family members, friends, col
leagues etc. Then, our Identity expands beyond the narrow confines of our Selves
to include our family, our groups, our organization.
Normal , day to day,leadership is considered to be transactional. When a Leader
becomes aware of the various Self concepts of the followers and starts boosting
their Self Image, Self Esteem and other elements of their Self and guide them to
the path of Self Realization, then leadership becomes truly transformational an
d starts bringing out the best in people. As a leader, you need to create unity
among the diverse aspects of your Self, and lift up your followers and transform
them to higher level of beings.
Conatus sese preservandi(the will to preserve the integrity of the Self)
----Spinoza
Let me quote from some typical cases of discordant personality, with melancholy
in the form of self-condemnation and sense of sin. Saint Augustine s case is a c
lassic example. You all remember his half-pagan, half-Christian bringing up at C
arthage, his emigration to Rome and Milan, his adoption of Manicheism and subseq
uent skepticism, and his restless search for truth and purity of life; and final
ly how, distracted by the struggle between the two souls in his breast and asham
ed of his own weakness of will……..Augustine s psychological genius has given an acco
unt of the trouble of having a divided self which has never been surpassed
William James, Variety of religious experience
To be quite accurate, I ought to give a different name to each of the “me’s” who were
to think about Albertine in time to come, I ought still more to give a different
name to each of the Albertine’s who appeared before me, never the same.
--- Marcel Proust.
"Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying
with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the s
ame time; that s what you feel, was one; that s what I feel, was the other, and
then they fought together in her mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting,
this love, that I tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own hab
it, to look for a broach on a beach. . ."
---Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
“Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.”
Nathaniel Branden
No one is ever away from his Self and therefore everyone is in fact self-realize
d.
-----Ramana Maharishi
Woodrow Wilson called for leaders who, by boldly interpreting the nation s consc
ience, could lift a people out of their everyday selves. That people can be lift
ed into their better selves is the secret of transforming leadership.
James MacGregor Burns
This above all: to thine own self be true,
/And it must follow, as the night the day
,/Thou cans t not be false to any man "(ll.78-80).-----William Shakespeare, Haml
et