The philosophy of transcendental, non-dual Shaiva Tantra has lots to say about this subject.
One being that, your belief about what you feel about yourself is not your authentic, true self. These beliefs are generally narratives, some deeper than others. Examples of narratives include: "I am successful"; "I am a failure"; "I am smart"; "I am dumb"; "I am socially graceful"; "I am socially inept". Rather that arising from narratives, no matter how deeply held, the authentic self arises naturally and spontaneously from the transcendental ground from which all phenomena arises from.
In other words, "be yourself" is once both good advice and bad advice. It's generally where you want to go (at least from the perspective of Shaiva Tantra). But you need sufficient wisdom -- that is, awareness -- of knowing your true self.
The other is that what arises naturally and spontaneously may not be something you want to arise naturally and spontaneously. Someone who is naturally and spontaneously an asshole is still an asshole. Part of the practices Shaiva Tantra involves becoming. If you want to be a compassionate person, it isn't enough to put on a social mask so people see you behaving in a compassionate way; that is not authentic. It isn't enough to want to do it, or to feel it welling up deeply inside of you. Rather, it is becoming (that is, the transformation into) the person such that being compassionate is natural and spontaneous.
Shaiva Tantra is not the only teaching that has something to say about this subject. Another one I learned from books written by that trickster, Carlos Castaneda, this idea of impeccable intent. It's another way of saying "integrity" or "authenticity", or "wholeness". There are others -- Lao Tzu, for example. Rumi.
Oooh perfect, a googleable term to capture thoughts I've been worrying over for years now.
I am a very different person than I was 10 years ago - I think so, and people around me think so. But the question of "who I am, on the inside," I think I would answer with traces of that old self, even though that old self never outwardly manifests anymore.
So there's "me, me," the version that is quick to judge others, has a hyper-inflated ego, wants to sit around and watch netflix, and eat a lot of donuts. Then there's "I wish I was this guy, me," the 15% bodyfat 225lb bench 10x programmer that everybody loves, and then there's the "me that other people see," which is somewhere between the other two versions. So which one is "me?" Me-me has a desire to become "I-wish-me" and is acting on that desire in concrete ways, and tamps down "me-me" mindsets in order to achieve that. So are there two individuals in this body fighting? What's going on?
Looking forward to reading more about Shaiva Tantra, thanks for bringing it up.
Zizek has a good piece on this, linked at the bottom, which reflects in part my thoughts on the matter. When considering all of the "me's", the eternally misunderstood "me" the "me" that everyone else sees, the one that is "real" is fairly straightforward. When we think of something being real, or not real, we're often posing a question over whether it's perceptible. After all, in this empirical world, we can only be sure of the existence of things that can be observed. The 'real me', in this light, is unequivocally the person that others interact with. Internal debates between superego and id, between the best possible version of yourself and the slovenly inverse potential, are all rather ancillary.
This leads to the discomfiting but valuable realisation that all of the generous narratives you've developed behind your actions don't ameliorate them one bit. Simply believing one's self to be a good person with a terrific goodwill towards your fellow man means nothing at all compared to what we have actually wrought. Zizek notes that everyone believes that, deep down, they are a good person, taking the example of the Nazi that, when accused of atrocities he is complicit in, protests that "that was not the real me. If only you knew the life that has lead me here, then you'd understand".
There is a fantastic book on Shaiva Tantra written by Christopher D. Wallis, named Tantra Illuminated. The book covers the View (philosophy), history, and some practices. The View can get very involved. I've been mining that for a while, applying it to living in our modern world.
On Quora, there is a guy named Les Matheson who also wrote this fantastic essay on "authentic self". I think it is Les Matheson -- Quora is down right now, so I can't check my memory. It is a chapter he wrote for his book. He had dropped it in on his Quora blog and then removed it, said he was revising it. When I read it, it was a very clear discourse on what the authentic self, and how there are various stages in understanding that authentic self. Unlike Shaiva Tantra, which will have religious views woven into it, Matheson's essay does not (though I don't feel it mutually excludes the Tantric view). His essay starts with this idea of a single-piece puzzle. We usually think of puzzles as multiple pieces that you fit together to form something. But what about a single-piece puzzle? Where does that fit? Is our self puzzle of many pieces ... or a single puzzle piece? If it is the latter, what does that mean? This discourse goes from there -- is the self a box or light? Is it something you try to contain all the things you think of as "you"... or is it light, that radiates and shines?
To answer the questions you brought up from the perspective of my shamanic experiences -- yeah, I have found multiple fragments of personalities that are within. I've found that pieces of ourselves are scattered all over. They might come into greater or lesser influence depending on situations, circumstances, who you are with. Some of these are the rejected shadows (part of Jungian psychology). There are shamanic methods to deliberately get in touch with these, perhaps by bringing temporarily individuating them (similar to gestalt therapy). These can be facilitated by dream work, by drumming, or other means. Reintegration is not really straightforward as, hey, put these things together and somehow they will fit. But no single piece are really Self.
Yup, there is a neat relationship between Shaiva Tantra and Buddhism. The most radical of the non-dual Shaiva Tantra streams starts to resemble Dzogchen.
There is an interesting mapping that goes like this:
Shaiva tantra: self -> no self -> self
Mahayana Buddhism: no self -> self -> no self
I have not fully explored how this all relate to each other. I can say that it makes more sense to compare Mahayana strain of Buddhism to Shaiva Tantra than Theraveda. This is because Mahayana tends to be more cosmic whereas Theraveda tends to be more humanist. Apparently, Buddhist Tantra does not have its own View; or rather, the Buddhist Tantra View is Mahayana.
The renunciate path, that is, the hermit that goes off into the woods with great digust for worldly things, can work for some people. Monasteries are a kind of compromise with renunciation: the monks are usually supported socially by the community.
Renunciation is usually how Buddhism is understood in the West. David Chapman, of the Meaningness blog, has some great articles arguing why the renunciation path does not work well for Westerners in the modern world, and that Tantra is a much better vehicle. Most Westerners struggle with what it means to have individuality. Americans, in particular, grew up in a culture that rejects collectivism, and as a result, cut away the experiences one needs from collectivism. This tension between individualism and collectivism has not been answered well by pop media (hence the popularity of Oprah). There are a lot of insights in ancient teachings about this subject; updating them to be more accessible for modern Westerners is still an ongoing work that a lot of people are keenly interested in.
One being that, your belief about what you feel about yourself is not your authentic, true self. These beliefs are generally narratives, some deeper than others. Examples of narratives include: "I am successful"; "I am a failure"; "I am smart"; "I am dumb"; "I am socially graceful"; "I am socially inept". Rather that arising from narratives, no matter how deeply held, the authentic self arises naturally and spontaneously from the transcendental ground from which all phenomena arises from.
In other words, "be yourself" is once both good advice and bad advice. It's generally where you want to go (at least from the perspective of Shaiva Tantra). But you need sufficient wisdom -- that is, awareness -- of knowing your true self.
The other is that what arises naturally and spontaneously may not be something you want to arise naturally and spontaneously. Someone who is naturally and spontaneously an asshole is still an asshole. Part of the practices Shaiva Tantra involves becoming. If you want to be a compassionate person, it isn't enough to put on a social mask so people see you behaving in a compassionate way; that is not authentic. It isn't enough to want to do it, or to feel it welling up deeply inside of you. Rather, it is becoming (that is, the transformation into) the person such that being compassionate is natural and spontaneous.
Shaiva Tantra is not the only teaching that has something to say about this subject. Another one I learned from books written by that trickster, Carlos Castaneda, this idea of impeccable intent. It's another way of saying "integrity" or "authenticity", or "wholeness". There are others -- Lao Tzu, for example. Rumi.