Gnosis in a Hundred PagesPage 9 of 100 · Part I

Part I · Asleep

Many selves in one body

There is not one “I” in you but many, and each speaks as if it were the whole of you.

Read to me

0:00 / –:––
One house, many windows, a different person in each.

On Monday you promise yourself you will get up early. On Tuesday someone in you turns off the alarm. Who promised? Who broke the promise? You would say “I” both times. But they were not the same.

The tradition teaches that what we call “I” is really a crowd. There is the one who wants to be healthy and the one who wants the cake. The one who loves your partner and the one who is tired of them. The one who is generous in the morning and the one who is petty at night. Each takes the wheel for a while, speaks with your voice, and then hands it to the next.

This explains a great deal. It is why we surprise ourselves. Why good intentions do not last. Why we say things we “did not mean”. Someone in us meant them.

Each self speaks with your voice and wears your face.

The books call these selves the many “I”s, or the ego. They are not you. They are habits of fear, desire and pride that have grown a voice. You are the one who can notice them.

Seeing that you are many is not discouraging. It is the first honest map of your inner house.

Try this

  1. From waking until noon, count the different selves that speak in you.
  2. Give each one a plain name as it appears: the worrier, the critic, the one who wants coffee.
  3. Do not judge them. Just count. Most people lose count before noon.

Words on this page

The many “I”s, or the ego
The separate selves within us, each with its own wants. The books also call them psychological aggregates.

In the old words

“As water is composed of many drops, as a flame has many sparks, so too is the “I” composed of many little “I’s”.”

Cosmic ShipsSamael Aun Weor
On the next pageWhere did your personality come from?10. The borrowed face