Tuesday, March 18, 2014

True Self


"The discovery of our True Self is not just a matter of chronological age. Some spiritually precocious children, usually those with a disability of some type, see through the False Self rather early, while lots of old men and old women are still dressing up what is soon going to die anyway." 
-  Richard Rohr
I read the above quotation recently and thought to myself, Yes, that's it exactly. I won't get into the finer points of what I think the False Self is or isn't, I will leave that to the experts. I am not an expert on the False Self, I only know that I have one, and I work to eradicate it daily. My son, on the other hand, the one with the list of disability acronyms as long as my arm, does not. That is not to say he can't be a giant pain-in-the-ass, he's far from a saint, but he has no ego (False Self). I'm not sure he ever really "saw through" the False Self, as much as he never developed on in the first place.
They say that ego is an "accumulated phenomenon" one attains by living with others - if a child were to live totally alone, they would not develop an ego. All this makes me wonder about the phenomenon of autism, and the "epidemic" we have going on now. I wonder how all this plays into the grand scheme of things? Does it stand to reason that those less likely to be swept up into the "norm," are actually the ones here to teach, not the other way around?

Food for thought.



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Carrie is a parent and advocate of a child with special needs and even more special gifts. She blogs at http://carrielink.blogspot.com/ where this is pretty much her favorite topic. Carrie’s book, WIL OF GOD: Embracing the Relentless Love of a Special Child, is available in print on Amazon and all e-readers.


2 comments:

  1. I think everyone is here to teach and we are all here to learn. The best thing we can do is stay open to the lessons we receive from everyone all day long (damn, is that hard! especially when the lesson comes in the form of someone calling me a "libtard") and grow, grow, grow.

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  2. Interesting. I wonder about these kinds of things often, spending time with my Sophie, calm and unchanging and motivated solely from within.

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