[Mike Todd]

Hi Whit,

I believe that your question pertains to the distinctions between an egoic and a nonegoic sense of self. Much has been written about that, and I’d rather not paraphrase teachers whose erudition and eloquence far exceed my own.

However, with respect to the interpenetration of language and the sense of self, the following may afford some leverage: the relationship between one’s inner ideolect (phonemic imagery as well as non-verbal narrative) and one’s sense of self appears to be bidirectional; as such, the ways in which one frames or attends to language may influence the ways in which one perceives and relates to oneself.

I believe that by carefully attending to symbolic, mythical and metaphorical framing in language as such, one can begin to develop an analogous sense of self, in which the constraints imposed by egoic foregrounding gradually fall away. This sort of linguistic framing is exemplified in great poetry and in the founding texts of many, especially Eastern and indigenous, spiritual traditions.

Of course, all this is just a roundabout way of saying that the sense of self about which you enquire is very likely a corollary of “getting spiritual”, an aspect of which is attending to spiritual writings RH-style.