As I was reading my psychology textbook, I came across the formal, official explanation of self-esteem, which I found very interesting:
Self-esteem is the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self.”
From the Vedantic perspective, this is a really intriguing idea to examine — I will assume that for many of us, the goal is to continuously better ourselves in order to eventually manifest the inherent divinity that Swami Vivekananda so often spoke of. Based on this idea, it seems as though we should constantly be dissatisfied with our current selves. This dissatisfaction serves as a spark, a way to galvanize ourselves into working harder to improve ourselves.
From this point on, self (with a lowercase ‘s’) will refer to the “lower” self, or the ego and base tendencies we have as humans; Self (with an uppercase ‘S’) will refer to the inherent divinity (atman) that Vedanta claims we all possess.
The problem with this arises when a person begins to believe that he/she is limited to this small “self,” forgetting that he/she is the Self (which should be liked, valued, and accepted, as stated in the definition of self-esteem). In other words — perhaps the internal strife is valuable, but it is only valuable if the person uses it as a stepping-stone towards manifesting his/her inherent divinity. The second a person forgets what he/she is working towards, things become really dangerous — and this is really easy to do. It’s incredibly (and unnervingly) easy to identify ourselves with this lower self — and this is dangerous territory for those who rely on dissatisfaction to galvanize them into becoming better. The second we believe that we are that lower self, the second that we believe that we are the negative qualities we are trying to eliminate, we have begun to lose the battle.
This is why Swami Vivekananda constantly speaks of strength. For those of you who know me personally, you will have probably seen this quote on my gmail status:
Strength is life, weakness is death.”
Without the inner strength to constantly struggle against our base tendencies while still managing to keep ourselves from identifying with those tendencies, we cannot accomplish anything. Without the strength to improve ourselves, knowing that we are working to expose our inherent divinity (as opposed to assuming that we are inherently bad and the struggle is to eliminate the bad qualities that truly represent who we are), we cannot accomplish anything. Without the strength to continue working for good, despite constant failure and discouragment from those around us, we can accomplish nothing.
Until recently, I had forgotten about this uplifting message of strength—I had focused on Swami Vivekanda’s other message, the importance of self-abnegation. He constantly encourages us to get rid of the ego, as a means of realizing our true potential. With regards to this, one of my favorite quotes by him is:
Are you unselfish? That is the question.”
However, in order to even begin to follow this quote, we must first be strong. Because unless we have the strength to love and affirm ourSelves (our true nature), it is incredibly easy to get caught in a vicious cycle of self-loathing instead of the uplifting type of self-abnegation Swami Vivekananda spoke about. To forget about Swamiji’s message of strength and still attempt to follow his instructions regarding the destruction of ego is Self-destructive (instead of self-destructive – oh the puns…).
So, to relate this back to the concept of self-esteem:
According to my psychology textbook, it is extremely important to have high self-esteem; we all need to love and accept ourselves. My point is to introduce a qualification to this statement (for those who look at life through a Vedantic lens)– self-esteem (affirmation of the lower self) is of critical importance for those who have not yet acquired the strength to begin to fight against it in a struggle to improve and work towards the goal of manifesting their divinity. Of course, it seems like I am saying this as though it is something easy to achieve—I don’t mean to sound like that in any way; in fact, I know that even though I am writing about it, I am nowhere near strong enough to begin denying my lower self; nor am I advanced enough, spiritually, to fully devote myself to the search for my potential divinity. My point is simply that we should be aware that if we do want to work towards that goal, we must first make sure that our Self-esteem is strong enough to support us as we work to eliminate our lower self.
Of course, this is all written under the assumption that in order to realize our divinity, we must go through this self-abnegation – are there other ways to go about it? I’m sure this is just one way to go about it, and perhaps there are many other paths. This post is just to map out the potential pitfalls in the path I, personally, have chosen to take.
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