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Originally Posted by Greenslade
The mind is in a symbiotic relationship with the ego and is not subordinate to it, it's one of the aspects of the framework of the ego. The self encompasses the ego and the unconscious, which also has a number of processes 'operating' that most people don't even know exist, but yet are instrumental in choices, decisions and beliefs - they are a part of the creation of the framework or one's reality. What you become conscious of is, for the most part, a 'product' of those 'subsystems. Jung says that the ego (one of the descriptors he uses anyway) is the centre of the field of consciousness. The self encompasses both the conscious (the ego) and unconscious aspects, the unconscious aspects being the Shadow Self, cognitive behaviour and dissonance, animus and anima...........
If you prefer a more Spiritual approach then you should be aware of Ahamakara and its underlying Chitta, Ahamkara has been described as the "I-maker" and Chitta is Lower Mind. It's worth noting that Jung was a scholar of Eastern Spirituality and based his model of the ego on Ahamkara, and that many understandings psychology has have parallels to ancient Eastern understandings.
So my question is, are people truly self aware when they don't know how (or even about) the unconscious 'subsystems' of the self are even 'operating'? Because they are part of the self.
"People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them."
Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents.
"People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them. In this respect the psyche behaves like the body, of whose physiological and anatomical structure the average person knows very little too.
Carl Jung, "The Undiscovered Self.
The ego utilises reason, intelligence, logic.... all that 'mind stuff' to 'process' and 'navigate' this level of reality - your "tools and instruments," they're all used to interact with the physical world around us. The unconscious is apart from mind and utilises dream-like states which have a very different 'logic and reason' the the mind. This is where dream interpretations come from, often they are the unconscious trying to communicate with the conscious mind, but in consciousness.
The self encompasses both the conscious and the unconscious aspects, the unconscious aspects being what Jung calls "the real psychic facts."
If we don't truly understand ourselves are we ready to understand what's beyond ourselves?
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