The Mysterious Human Self

 IT IS AXIOMATIC that what is closest to us in our lives is often the farthest from our awareness. Such is the case of our human self. We live actively as human selves, aware of enumerable mysteries around us, occupied with a multitude of concerns and activities beyond us. They are the focus of our attention and of our philosophical study. Of course! But what about this self which is the origin of this awareness, which is behind these concerns, which is the performer of these activities, and the thinker behind these studies? We take it for granted, ignoring it for the most part.
It is the task of this book to call attention to this mysterious self that is “behind” the mysteries, concerns, activities, and studies of our human lives. We discover that the self has its own structures which are quite different from the many objects of our normal human knowing, requiring a very different form of reflection.
Twentieth century thinkers such as Buber and Heidegger have initiated this study on the acter of the self. This book attempts to develop their insights by searching into the extraordinary rich and complex dimensions of the self.