WHAT IS SELFISHNESS?

*** The word “selfish” was coined around the year 1630 by a Presbyterian archbishop in a sermon. The word was used when referring to “one’s own mint.” ***

Selfishness as a word, nor as a concept, appears not a single time in the Bible. The word does not exist in Greek. It does not exist in Hebrew. It does not exist in Latin. We, English speakers, are the creators of this new word (virus) “selfishness.”

Semantics gets to be messy business. Using symbols to describe that which is beyond symbolism is maddening. So please don’t take these words too seriously, they are merely signposts. So we stay careful as to not mix up the signs with the path itself.

Merriam-Webster defines selfish as –
“concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.

We are defining SELFish as –
To live a life centered around the love of SELF.

So what is SELF? Who are you? Who are you, really? When you say “me,” who do you mean?

Just as the nose cannot smell itself, the finger cannot touch itself, and the tongue cannot taste itself, our Self too, cannot be pin-pointed, cannot be articulated, cannot be defined.

There are many terms to describe this Self —the Hindus use, “unseen seer.” The Buddhists say “silent witness”. The Christians use “soul”. The Native-Americans say “Spirit.” But the Self is beyond the realm of thought, beyond the reach of mind. So we can put a label on it and call it SELF, but we don’t take it seriously — for the word is just a symbol. And the symbol is not the thing.

So for our purposes when we say SELF we are referring not to the label, but to the experiencer of THIS; to the very one asking the question, “WHO AM I?”

*** = etymonline

WHY SELFISHNESS?

We choose Self-Love as it is the most direct, most powerful path to liberation.

These tumultuous, transformative times are demanding from us a reshaping, a remolding, a reinvention, a rebirth. We answer the call as we see there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. With fear, fascism, and divisive politics on the rise; while finding ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, it is now impossible to ignore the deep fragmentation occurring in our society, affecting us on both personal and collective levels.

And while there are innumerable paths to mend this rift, we choose SELF-LOVE. We choose SELFishness because it unites us with the single greatest, most transformative force in Existence — LOVE.

We already know that LOVE IS THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE. There is no force stronger, no power greater, than Love. We choose Love as our path because we intuitively KNOW that Love is not only the path, but the destination itself.

One of the beauties of Self-love is that it is available to us in each and every moment. In fact, it is impossible to be without Self for a single moment. We need no thing, no stimulus, no other being, it is with us ALWAYS. So any moment, can be a moment of Self-Love. Which is what makes the path of SELFishness INFINITE.

Self-love teaches us that we don’t need anything. In fact, we already have everything we ever needed to be happy.

HOW SELFISHNESS?

The path of Selfishness is the path of Self-Love, is the path of meditation, is the path of Self-observation.

The mind craves organization, structure, and concept, as that is its language. “Ok this is all sounds fine and good, but how do I practice SELFishness? What does it look like in action?” But Self-Love cannot be defined, cannot be contained, cannot be contrived, cannot be explained.

We understand that the only thing to do is to BE HERE NOW, as fully and truthfully as we know how. Just as we know that LOVE IS THE KEY TO THIS UNIVERSE. So we learn how to LOVE, NOW. The path of selfishness is nothing but LOVE OF THE SELF, NOW. So first we must identify the SELF. In order to find the SELF, we must begin a dialogue. This dialogue is nothing other than the practice of MEDITATION.

In the early stages of meditation, we divide ourselves into higher and lower selves. We experience the more biological, instinctual urges in ourselves and call it “lower.” While we experience the more still, quiet, illuminating voices heard in moments of prayer, meditation, or introspection as “higher.”

Slowly, however, we begin to see that it’s all the same Self. Any further division of ourselves simply separates us farther away from our Selves/ Truth. We are not just one, but the entire spectrum of voices, opinions, thoughts, emotions and perceptions — both inherited and learned. Dividing ourselves into higher & lower selves merely reinforces and amplifies the aforementioned fragmentation (virus) infecting our planet and species.