Ego In Western And Indian Psychology

SR No.: 269703
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jacques Vigne
Publisher: Jacques Vigne
Total Pages: 6
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 804 KB

Page 2

JACQUES VIGNE
In this sense one may quote Larry Scherwitz, of the notion of person in a text giving a a psychologist at the University of Califor- general overview of the relationship between nia. Scherwitz recorded conversations with non-dualism and Christianity. Roughly more than five hundred men, of which one speaking, one could say that totalitarian idethird were heart patients, the others in good ologies and materialistic psychologies 'go health. While listening to these records, he out from the person downward, while myscounted how many times each of them used ticism and the traditional Eastern psycholthe words 'T', 'my', and 'mine'. By compar- ogy go out of it upward, and eventually ing the results of the normal group with reach beyond. To constitute oneself as a perthose of the heart patients, Scherwitz real- son is necessary for the child and the adolesized that heart patients made more use of cent. Learning to respect the person of the these words. Besides, by following up these partner in a couple is important for a young patients for several years, he cliscovered that adult to counterbalance the primary drive of the more a man spoke of him self, the more physical urge in the couple. Going beyond chances he had of having a heart attack. The the person is a necessity for him who has author concludes that the antidote was to be reached an inner naturation. more generous and respectful of the others, The Narcissus myth is often interpreted less ego-centered. This is the first step of in a simplistic way: 'Don't care too much for the long way to ego-forgetfulness which has yourself; if you do you will have trouble.' deeper roots than egotism in the moral sense Narcissus was admiring the rellection of his of the term. Tasne Ikani, the oldest woman face in water and finally fell in and drowned. in Japan, stated on her 116th birthday that But more than this, one may recognize in she thought she had a long life because she this an evocation of a complete itinerary of never had been egoistic, and she had com- meditation, especially if one connects it with pletely surrendered the care of her life to the path of knowledge. Narcissus' body repnature.
resents the cgo based on identification with
the physical body. In the beginning, Ovid, Ego in the West : Narcissus and
the Latin poet, describes Narcissus 'as beaupersonalism
tiful as ivory': this is the stage before acolcsThere is a slight difference between the cence, when he was still mostly centered on notions of ego and person, ego being more himself and so as cold as ivory. Then he circumscribed, with often a pejorative under- falls in love with the nymph Echo, but she tone, while the word 'person' denotes a left her body instead of giving hersell physimore positive aspect (see for instance the cally and only sent him back his own words dignity of the person). However, both mean and thoughts: this underlines in a very clear ings have a common basis. Christianity, as way the ultimately illusory side of physical well as popular psychology, has the notion love, which is a projection and which adds of a 'hard kernel' in every person, able to to the identification of one's own body with resist outer pressures at any cost and to af- the body of someone else; instead of graspfirm itself individually. This idea of person ing the object of one's desires, one faces was developed by the school of personalism only one's own mental projections. This in the '30s, at a time when individuals were leads Narcissus to question himself, to come threatened by the storm of totalitarian re- back inside and to split himself into two pogimes and by materialist psychology, I spoke larities, the observer and the object of
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