The “imperious self” truly deserves its name: it is insistent, invasive, and tyrannical. The harmful psychological energy produced by the activity of our character weak points is so powerful that it can become irresistible. It drives us to act contrary to correct divine and ethical principles. As we will see here, this “anti-self” is as cunning as it is imperious. Its scheming plots are often insidious, going as far as faking the voice of our reason and even diverting some of our spiritual impulses to its own advantage, all without our even realizing it.

In the series of portraits of the imperious self, forms of deception hold a prominent position. This characteristic of the imperious self has already been touched upon: not only is the imperious self tireless, but it is also an expert in deception. Let’s take a closer look at some of its most common tricks.
Once we have gained some ground in our battle against the imperious self, and made some progress in our self-knowledge, the raw and imperious pressure of the imperious self is no longer enough to make us cave to its demands. The same goes if we have received a solid moral education that enables us to quickly detect clearly anti-ethical actions and emotions. In such a situation, the imperious self resorts to deception by taking over the voice of our reason in order to override or outmaneuver the objections of the superego. This results in all sorts of fallacious reasonings that are tailored to justify our anti-ethical thoughts and behaviors. Here are some among many examples of the way in which the imperious self succeeds at fooling us.

This article is another episode in the monographic series dedicated to the imperious self—that relentless adversary that is paradoxically indispensable for our spiritual progress. It is indeed imperious, but it is also ingenious in its own ways, and at times cunning to the point of taking our reason hostage and having us forget its very existence—this is what the following examples and analyses are about to illustrate.

In this new portrait of the imperious self, we analyse three common problems that we are usually reluctant to consider from an ethical perspective: depression, shyness, and weakness of character. Meet some of the passive manifestations of the imperious self.

The imperious self can be anywhere: in our negative actions but also in our seemingly most noble behaviour. Often, the “good deed” we accomplish actually results from an impulse of our imperious self. In such cases, it is not the action itself that will help us identify the mark of the imperious self, but the manner in which the action is accomplished, the underlying intention and emotions. This is an important issue. The imperious self knows very well that once our inner evolution has reached a certain level, it can no longer present itself in the guise of basic anti-ethical impulses such as theft, aggression, verbal violence and so on, that are easily detected and immediately rejected by our soul’s immune system. Consequently, it will often present itself in the guise of actions that are not intrinsically illicit or that may even be considered very positive, but that one will carry out with negative intentions or in an exaggerated and harmful manner.

Not settling for the mere condition of a human-animal and developing the qualities that will make us truly human, such is the ultimate task facing us. The pressing challenge, though, is to prevent Bob, our “inner bonobo”, to end up taking control. So much of our behaviour already bears its mark! Practically speaking, we need to imagine the worst and take the initiative, in other words strive to take control of our self. Only on this basis can we work toward cultivating our humanity.

There is no Nobel Prize (to date) rewarding ethics research, but surely no one would dispute that in this field Ostad Elahi was perfectly learned. What is meant here by the word “learned”? Being learned is not merely knowing. A learned individual is first and foremost one who comprehends, not in theory only or through sustained reading, but as a result of self-acquired concrete knowledge. To comprehend a reality is to have concretely experienced it, to have gained first-hand knowledge of some truth. Indeed, when Ostad Elahi addresses any topic, you have a distinct sensation that he is speaking from personal experience.

The imperious self is an anti-self, i.e., a contrary force that is rebellious and systematically out to pull us away from where our real self—our soul—wants to lead us. If you want to meet with your imperious self, there is nothing simpler, all you need is to take a step towards some ethical or divine principle: help someone without expecting anything in return, hold our tongue when your impulse is to backbite or show off, try to rid your mind of negative thoughts, etc. The reaction will be immediate, and you will clearly witness the power of your imperious self in countering your attempts at such accomplishments.

As we have seen, the imperious self functions on the basis of the “terrestrial” values (ego and material interests). Its action on us could be summarized as follows: to focus our thoughts and aspirations solely toward terrestrial values and to make us forget celestial values; to put it in another way: to make us act solely according to our own material and selfish interests with no regard for others’ interests or for our spiritual dimension.

If the plural “portraits” is used here, it is to best illustrate the multifaceted and elusive figure of our inner life for the imperious self is a shape-shifting model that makes for a difficult subject for a painter. We never really know where to find it when we look for it, and we often find it where we have not been looking for it—at times in our outward behaviour, more often in our thoughts and emotions, in our most daily activities as well as in our actions that appear most spiritual and most noble. The imperious self is like a creeping rootstalk that runs underground and spreads itself out in the Self.