Your Life on Autopilot

By: Linda Ferguson and Chris Keeler, NLP Canada Training, 2008

Imagine this: You wake up one morning and the next thing you know you're sitting in your car. you
are freshly showered, appropriately dressed, and there's a travel mug of coffee next to you. You have no
conscious memory of how any of this happened and you're already halfway to work.
We have evolved to run complex routine procedures on autopilot. Our unconscious processes are
faster, more reliable, than our conscious efforts to understand and influence the world around us. We
do not need to know much about ourselves to get through an average day. We just need to go along for
the ride.
So what's the point of all the efforts we make to remember and discover who we are? Why get to
know yourself better if yourself runs just fine without you?
The short answer is this. It's hard to make it through a whole day without learning something about
yourself. The people with whom you connect, the stories you hear or tell, the things you do: all of them
give you information about yourself. One of the many automatic processes that drive you is the process
which causes you to pay attention to information about yourself. Paying attention allows you to choose
whether to incorporate new information into existing patterns or to let it go. You cannot change without
knowing something about yourself and you cannot live in a world of change without changing yourself.
So even though it slows you down and introduces all sorts of existential difficulties, it is hard to avoid
learning more about yourself. Fortunately, if you are active and intentional, getting to know yourself
better has real benefits. It can be a fun process that leads to results you like. It can give you choices you
would not see on autopilot and better results when autopilot is running your life. It can even grow your
brain. (Ferguson & Keeler, 2008)

The preceding passage tells as how automation run our lives. We evolved and are continuously
evolving from the complex routine procedures that we call ourselves [autopilot). Our unconscious
processes run faster than our conscious effort to understand the world around us. The routine caused by
our everyday life makes us who we are, and because of that, we feel just fine, but the true self to be
called, should give us choices we could not see from the autopilot and makes a better result when an
autopilot is running our lives.
This lesson will serve as our springboard in understanding the self. Several theories about the self
from Western and Eastern philosophers will explain how the self is formed or developed.
Understanding one's self is a prime importance of this book. We behave and communicate with
other people the way we perceived the world and how we are perceived by others, whether
positively or negatively. However, enlightenment starts with knowing oneself, as Lao Tzu
postulated at the start of this module. Our understanding of ourselves creates within us an
environment that enables us to understand others.
The self is sometimes understood as a unified being essentially integrated to our
consciousness or awareness. Various concepts and meanings of self-have been examined.
Various philosophies from Western and Eastern philosophers have been proposed to shed
light for better understanding of one's self.
THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES

The philosophy of self refers to the conditions of identity that make the individual distinct from all
others. Identity means the qualities, characteristics, beliefs etc. that makes a person or group unique
from one another.

The concept of self may be examined in five ways: Self-Knowledge, Self-Activity, Self-Independent of
the sense; Self-Identity, and Self-Image.

Self-knowledge refers to one's knowledge and understanding of one's own learning's, characters,
motivations and capabilities. To have self-knowledge, one must know his/her particular experiences,
sensation, attitudes and beliefs.

Self-activity is defined as an independent and self-determined action of one person. It is the quality
or state of being self-active or self-action. A person's decision to carry out actions which you have
thought about yourself and not been told to do by others. It infers motion or the power of moving one's
self without the help or aid of the external. A person becomes active and directed from action. It is the
basis of all learnings.

Self-independent of the senses refers to the inner self. It is maintaining a person as a separate or
self-contained individual. It focuses on internal attributes like our abilities, natural intelligence not
acquired one. It is a related to a person's sense of worth and self-esteem and help us to strive to achieve
our goals in life.

Self-identity is the particular characteristics of the self that determines individual's uniqueness
among others. It is the recognition of one's potentials and qualities as an individual. It is the awareness
of one's individual identity. Example: gender identity, I.D. card (personal, social identity),

Self-Image is a mental picture of an individual and is quite resistant to change through time
regarding one's abilities, personality, and role. It is how you see yourself and feels about your
personality, achievements and values in life. Example: A person who sees herself beautiful and smart, a
mental picture of a person about himself at the past or present.

THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHY OF SELF

The eastern philosophies of self encompasses all views of the self that emanated from the Asian
continent, postulated by thinkers from this region.

Hindu Philosophy of Self (1500 B.C.E.)

Hindu indigenous (people who live North India, South of Asia who share some common ancestry with
the ancient Indians), believe that the self is made up of two aspects: "Atman" and "Brahman." "Atman"
(self-soul) is a secular word which means "essence, breath or soul." Atman means "real self" of the
individual, the innermost essence and soul of the person. Hinduism considered Atman as eternal;
imperishable, beyond times. It is different from the body or mind or consciousness and accept it as the
spiritual self-concept for the Hindus (Dalal, 2010).
 Atman is the true self that lies at the inner core of human identities and it is only this inner core that
is identical with God. The self-identity of a person can be compared to that of onion with various layers.
The outer layer of our identities involve common sense of views of ourselves that we experience. The
inner layer involves the self-God within each of us and sees the underlying unity of the world (Dalal,
2010).

On the other hand, Brahman connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the
universe. In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all
that exists. It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is
the cause of all changes. Brahman as a metaphysical concept is the single binding unity behind diversity
in all that exists in the universe (Lochtefeld, 2002).

Buddhist Philosophy of Self (5 century B.C.E. to the present)

Buddha's teaching of self is to understand the nature of self which is a combination of five
aggregates of existence known as the "Five Skandhas or the Five heaps:" Form, Sensation, Perception,
Mental Formation, and Consciousness.

Various schools of Buddhism interpret the skandhas in somewhat different ways. Generally, Form,
the first skandha, is the physical form. Sensation, the second is made up of feelings-both emotional and
physical, and senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling.

The third skandha, perception, takes in most of what is called thinking, which includes
conceptualization, cognition, reasoning. This also includes the recognition that occurs when an organ
comes into contact with an object. Perception can be thought of as "that which identifies." The object
perceived may be a physical object or a mental one, such as an idea.

The fourth skandha, mental formations, includes habits, prejudices, and predispositions, Human
volition, or willfulness, is also part of the fourth skandha, as are attention, faith, conscientiousness,
pride, desire, vindictiveness, and many other mental states both virtuous and not virtuous

The fifth skandha, consciousness, is awareness of or sensitivity to an but without conceptualization.

Confucian Philosophy (5518.C.-479B.C.)

In order to understand the Confucian view of the Self one must shed the western conception of the
same, and see the issue under a different paradigm. The predominant theme in this philosophy is
anchored on finding an understanding for true becoming.

In essence, the human condition at birth in Confucianism is not to be confused with that of being a
tabula rasa, as postulated by John Locke, upon which our experiences write what will become the
individual personality (Lan, 2005).
 The human adult self, in Confucianism is defined as an 'achieved state of moral excellence rather
than a given human condition', and there are several implications to such an understanding. First,
strictly speaking, one may speak of a human being in Confucianism only as such with regard to the
human potential to become a human being. In other words, at birth, being human is no different from
being an animal. The true human condition is achieved in life, if indeed it is being achieved, through the
practice of the virtues. While these virtues are almost impossible to be achieved in anyone's lifetime,
being human refers to making the effort of achieving them. In this, the concept of 'self' in Confucianism
is closely linked with all those areas that virtues stand for.

In Confucianism the quest for the human self, the search for what it is to be human in terms of spirit
or body, does not exist. What takes precedence in the writings of Confucius is that of personality-
personality as such is not seen as inherently existing, but as something that is being formed through
upbringing and environment. In that, the human being is seen as a social being. (Some have even used
the term: Social animal). Accordingly, every person is born with four beginnings, which do not
encapsulate a concept of self as yet, but which together, if put in the western framework of thinking,
may be called 'pre-self', or 'potential-self: heart of compassion - leads to Jen, heart of righteousness-
leads to Yi, heart of propriety-leads to Li, heart of wisdom - leads to Chih.

In this, Jen, Yi, Li, and Chih, are the perfection of the virtues that exist in the human heart from the
beginning as potentials. A self as such would develop out of these, and develop through practice of the
corresponding virtues. Personality, in the Confucian perception, is an achieved state of moral excellence
rather than a given human condition.

In Confucianism then, the self can never be static. If one stops to develop the virtues in one's living,
one has already lost them all. To be human means to develop and to keep pursuing the virtues. In the
sage, this has ceased to be a conscious effort or decision. dynamic has been integrated into the nature
of the self, and has become the self. It has become an unconscious way of being (Hobson, 2005).

THE WESTERN PHILOSOPHY OF SELF

The Western Philosophies of Self encompasses all views of the self that emanated from the European
and American continent, postulated by thinkers from these regions.

Socrates: The First Moral Philosopher (470-399 B.C.E.)

Socrates believes that to understand the self is to "know thyself" The particular characteristics of the
self- determine its identity. This assertion, imperative in the form, indicates that man must stand and
live according to his nature. Man has to look at himself. To find what? By what means? How, then. This
knowledge of oneself can be achieved only through the Socratic method through the dialogue between
the soul and itself or between a student and his teacher. Without this work on oneself, life is worthless
according to Socrates.

Aristotle: Father of Western Philosophy (384-322 B.C.E.)

The self is made up of the soul which is the core essence of a living being which is not separated from
the body. The soul is the one that acts within the body (ex. just as we cannot separate the activity of
cutting from the knife) the knife is the body and the act of cutting is the soul.
 Aristotle, in his treatise On the Soul (peri psyche). posits three kinds of soul ("psyches"): the
vegetative soul. the sensitive soul, and rational soul. Humans have a rational soul. The human soul
incorporates the powers of the other kinds: Like the vegetative soul it can grow and nourish itself, like
the sensitive soul it can experience sensations and move locally. The unique part of the human, rational
soul is its ability to receive forms of other things and to compare them using the nous (intellect) logos
(reason) (Zalta,2016).

For Aristotle, the soul is the form of a living being. Because all beings are composites of form and
matter, the form of living beings is that which endows them with what is specific to living beings, e.g. the
ability to initiate movement (or in the case of plants, growth and chemical transformations, which
Aristotle considers types of movement). In contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the
Egyptians, he placed the rational soul in the heart, rather than the brain. Notable is Aristotle's division of
sensation and thought, which generally went against previous philosophers, with the exception of
Alcmaeon (Mason, 1979).

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

To him the "self" is a thinking person. In his writing "Cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore; I am") He
stressed that the mind is a substance within the brain capable of thinking (affirming, doubting, judging
etc.) The self then, is regarded the one that makes us aware to perceive the external world. Descartes
emphasized the notion of self which is made of consciousness (observer - observed) that forms our
thinking and guides our behavior. It is the self that perceives the world.

David Hume: Scottish Empiricist (1711-1776)

The self is nothing more than the mental perceptions which are available to our memory. This relies
our previous experiences that give meaning based on the principles of cause and effects. We view things
as distinct but they are connected together by resemblance, contiguity or causation. All perceptions of
the mind is divided in two distinct kinds, the "impression" and "ideas." Impressions are the form of all
our ideas. The self-according to Hume can be explained further in the "Bundle Theory of Personal
Identity." Hume said the mind is simply a bonded of perceptions and experiences linked by the relations
of causations and resemblance.

John English Philosopher (1632-1704)

The self can be understood by examining one's mind, what constitute the mind. Locke stressed that
mind consists of memory where our consciousness (thoughts, experiences) resides. Locke suggests that
the self is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection and continuous to define one's
personal identity. Thus, the self can be equated with one personal identity. This consciousness
determines one's self that continues to grow and develop trough times that form our personal identity.
For example, as far as our consciousness could remember the past experience or thought, that
determine this identity as a person, it is the same self now as it was then. Memory therefore is a
necessary condition of personal identity.
Sigmund Freud: Drive Theory of Self (1856-1939)

Freud believes that the self has three layers: The id, ego, and superego.

The Id, which works on the pleasure principle, is the seat of our, passion, desires and other instinctual
drives. Like our bodily needs, want and impulses. (Example: Our sexual and aggressive drives)

The Ego seeks to please the Id drives in realistic way. It is also the ego that regulates our action.
(Example: We can resist the urge of stealing money from others, but instead we work to earn money.)

The Super Ego, which works on the morality principle, is the seat of what is right or wrong - as it
reflects the internalization of cultural rules, set by the guidance and influence of our parents.

The three layers of the self-interact with each other. The Ego meditate between the Id and Superego
and whichever dominates from the other two structures, the Ego will act in reality. This is how our self
determines our personality.

SIKOLOHIYANG PILIPINO

The Philippines also has a homegrown phycho-philosophical view of the self. This view was developed
by Virgilio Enriquez, who is considered as the Father of Sikolohiyng Pilipino.

Virgilio Enriquez (1942-1994)

The self in the Filipino is the unity of the "self" and "others" expressed in the Filipino word "kapwa."
Concept of "self" and "others" - He proposed the idea that concept of "self" or (personhood) can be
centered on the core values expressed in the word "Kapwa." The word "kapwa" is a concept of how
every Filipino thinks, behaves and relates with others. "Kapwa" does not mean only "others" but the
shared inner self of a person. Enriquez points out that when a Filipino says the word "kapwa," it shows
the essence of sharing, seeing and caring the other as oneself. It is then, that the Filipino concept of self
can be identified with the unity of his inner self (one self) and outer self (others) expressed in the word
"kapwa." (Example: The Filipino word is a concept that can describe a person's one self. This concept
was develop to the person because of what others think of him.)