Who is the “self” in “self-expression”?
It is difficult to define the nature of both the creative process (in terms of cultural products) and the “spiritual” transfer of knowledge, healing energies, or transformative power able to produce basic changes in consciousness and the quality of the will. This is largely due to the fundamental ambiguity inherent in the word self. What does the prefix self refer to in the word self-expression? What does the word form mean in any process inducing transformation? Most students of Oriental philosophy, theosophy, mysticism, or even of today’s popular psychology and “metaphysics” believe in the existence of a “higher” and a “lower” self. Some psychologists and philosophers nevertheless point out the incongruity of a person having two selves; for the term self implies identity or individuality, the latter literally meaning not-divided or indivisible and refers to the exclusivistic feeling of being “I” and no one else. Philosophically, the problem posed by the concept of two selves results
