Is there a self beneath the self?
Awakening to a mythic life
Since I can remember I’ve been in an existential crisis with myself.
What am I here to do?
Who am I supposed to be?
How do I fulfill my purpose?
When will I figure everything out?
Why am I even asking these questions?
“Why” this, “why” that. It was the “why” questions that always got me into trouble.
Until last year—when I fell so deep into the why-hole that I found myself on the verge of puking. Literally. (This happened in front of 14 people mid-dialogue, at a retreat.)
The best way I can describe that feeling? Like a snake shedding it’s skin.
I had a deep realization: I didn’t have to ask the “why” questions anymore.
My body was doing an excellent job of telling my mind what was true.
Perhaps you’re wondering “why?” Oh boy, here we go again.
I’ve always been told that WHY is the most important dimension to consider, whether you’re building a business or creating a work of art.
Even Nietzsche famously said:
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
And while I do agree with my intellectual pal, I am now not so concerned with “why.” Because I believe it kept me in the realm of resistance for too long. “Why” was my philosophical security blanket.
Imagine if Alice just kept asking why the White Rabbit was late instead of following him down the rabbit hole. Oh what a journey she would have missed!
That day I almost puked to “why”... was a kind of psychological death. A dying of an old part of me. A part that no longer served.
It was a slow death that resurrected into “how.” I guess it was a natural evolution—as a philosopreneur—a shift from the philosopher who asks “why” to the entrepreneur who asks “how.”
WHY lives in the mind.
HOW lives in the body.
It’s not just theoretical—it’s experiential.
It demands movement.
The “how” is when word becomes flesh.
Take Mahatma Gandhi, for example. He didn’t just sit around theorizing, writing, and talking about freedom. He turned thought into reality by spinning cotton—inspiring an entire nation to become self-sufficient.
He practiced what he called experiments with truth.
I think we only need to see, feel, taste, hear, and touch our why once to know that it is a source of deep truth. After that, the rest of the path belongs to how.
Because the world is not stagnant—it is in constant flux. WHY drowns in the quicksand of the desert, HOW leaps like a panther through the jungle.
That’s how Beyoncé became who she is—Queen B.
In a 2008 interview with Oprah, Beyoncé opened up about Sasha Fierce—her alter ego:
“When I hear the crowd, when I put on my stilettos. The moment right before when you're nervous. That other thing kind of takes over for you…then Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different.”
Beyoncé herself is a constellation of memories, ideas, beliefs—some of which may not have served during those moments on stage when something larger than her self was attempting to come through.
Sasha Fierce was not a mask, but a vessel—a vessel through which the self beneath the self could emerge.
Instead of asking why the self she was couldn’t embody the self she wanted to be, she asked how—and Sasha Fierce was her answer.
Beyoncé is not alone—many stars and athletes from Eminem to Kobe Bryant have created an alter ego.
It’s not a gimmick. It’s a tool for self-actualization. Your alter ego—or as we, at Numinous Realm like to call it, your mythic life—begins where your self-help ends.
You have to die to yourself—to who you think you are. Psychologically. So that you can be true to your Self.
I know—it sounds paradoxical.
But even Alice couldn’t help but forget who she was as she grew in size.
A brilliant metaphor for the reality of transformation.
The more you grow, the less you know yourself.
A notion that can make one quite queasy…but one that rests on timeless wisdom:
“To study the self is to forget the self” —Zen Master Dōgen
“To find out what it means to live, not only with the thing called life but also with death, which is the unknown, to go into it very deeply, we must die to the things that we know.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti
“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.” —Alan Watts
“In order to arrive at what you do not know, You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.” —T.S. Elliot
So I’ll ask you this: which question is a better guide “why do I exist?” or “how can I live more fully?”
The former used to be my compass. And while it served me at times, it also led me into some very dark forests.
That being said, I do not think it is a bad question—just not a final one. It is a question for a moment in time. But not for life.
Because if you follow HOW deeply enough, you’ll eventually run into WHO.
Who am I?
If you’re asking this question—and you’re curious enough to follow it through the how-hole—then stay tuned.
We are cooking up something mythic just for you.
And it shall be served very soon.
In Mystery,
Somya
P.S. I’ll be speaking at (R)Evolution Rising: Astrology for the Zeitgeist online summit from August 8-10th. If you want to have a better understanding of the trends beneath trends, then you don’t want to miss this!