The Spiritual Self Schema (3-S) Development Program

An overview of the 3-S approach
"I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and
relinquishing the rest ... the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the
list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation."
William James, Principles of Psychology (1890-1950). NY:Dover Press, pp. 309-310.
What is Self ? ... What is Me ? ... What is my personal Path?
Who has time for such questions in the course of a day that requires
going on automatic pilot in order to survive? The notion of a personal
path now seems passé. Nowadays a more apt metaphor would
probably be a high-speed super-highway that takes one rapidly towards
... what? -- happiness? ... misery? Yet more questions, with no time to
reflect on an answer.
This high-speed mental "highway" that takes us rapidly through life
may appear to be externally generated and perpetuated (i.e., by the fastpaced
society in which we live). However, if we were to examine it
more closely, we would find that it is constructed primarily of habitual
patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that uniquely characterize
each of us as individuals. Psychologists refer to the underlying structure
of these habitual patterns as 'self schemas.'
As described in the section Theoretical Foundation for 3-S, self-schemas
filter incoming information, they differentiate and generate judgments
about sensations (e.g., as self-relevant -- desirable/pleasurable,
undesirable/aversive, or neutral), and they guide action, at the most
primitive level, in pursuit of sensations that are desirable and avoidance
of those that are aversive. Thus, through this self-schematic process, we
create "the world" of our personal experience believing that this is "Me;"
this is my "Self;" this is how "I" respond predictably and consistently to
sensory contact with an otherwise unpredictable, impermanent external
world.
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