You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

Questions and Answers & exercises / 83
the nervous system feels insulted or threatened
(as in its intelligence), and so the nervous system
might begin to denigrate it.
pROTO-SElf
Going back the way you came, on a physiological level,
means moving from the inferential or cortical brain down
to the (brain stem) reptilian brain. The proto-self is in the
reptilian brain. The proto-self is the governing factor, the
Fight-Flight-Freeze, the kill or be killed, which is prior to
the inferential psychological level that arises through the
socialization process, to justify, rationalize, psychologize, and
mythologize animal behavior.
THE pROTO-SElf:
pRiOR TO THE AppEARAnCE Of THE “i”
Strategy I: Kill
If it is assumed or imagined that someone else is the source
of pain, then the organism wants to kill the person. A human
is an animal with a cortex. The nervous system resists
real or imagined threats to survival.
Strategy II: Assimilate
Anything seen as separate or different can be seen as a
threat. Therefore, oftentimes the nervous system deludes itself
making them (person or psycho-spiritual system) appear as
similar to “you” in order to reduce the imagined threat.
Vedanta: Realize (Not This)—(Not That)
Now, as your nervous system gets more differentiated,
it can begin to see everything as not “you” (NOT-this) and