Are we slaves to our own psyche?
Who or what is behind the contols of our subconscious?
What do you think? Or am I to believe that you have no idea of your own or just don’t want to brainstorm your own here but would like to know others’ ideas? You ask and we answer? What does this forum look to you, a questionaire? 
Yeah Im just one big ass question. 
Its a brainstorm sir.
You imply a duality. Is my psyche different from myself? Is my psyche separate from myself?
There is a duality between the regions of mind, the conscious and the unconscious. We could say that I am in charge of my psyche. While a lesser me occupies the seat of the conscious mind. I am the unconscious.
But that is not how it feels. My sense of identity associates ‘me’ with the waking mind, wrapped in my Persona. Yet there is a great Shadow behind me. What is beyond that Shadow? I am too afraid to look there. There are all the abandoned, forbidden, and exiled elements.
The unconscious willpower drives my life. I imagine that with my conscious willpower that I am in control. But I am the imitation. I am the counterfeit. I am only the tip of the iceberg.
What is the unconscious willpower? In the symbolism of Gnosticism: my conscious willpower is the Demiurge, who mistakenly thinks himself the creator of all. While my unconscious willpower plays the role of the True God.
There is a break between unconscious and conscious but they are parts of a greater wholeness. We can overcome this break. We can attain inner reunion.
The person controlling us is our self, but it may be a part of our self that is unfamiliar and strange to us.
Great post Xanderman.
I feel like this too. A duality between what I want and what I do. I more and more believe that we create our own personal reality. Not what happens in front of us matters, but what happens inside our mind. But how can you control it?
I also tend to name the unknown as god, because if my conscious self is not leading my life, what is? Willpower? It comes back to the question how to bring it under control. If we can’t, you can say we remain slaves of our psyche. What does control our psyche/subconsciouss? Isn’t that nature/genes or something else? How can we be free? Hasn’t this got something to do with Nietschze’s Will to power to overcome it?
I dig that 
.
Yep, people are ‘looking for themselves’. We are looking outside, but wise men know we have to look inside.
I can somewhat agree with the idea, that people get what they (unconsciously) want. This idea doesn’t apply to everything, but as human can have some influence on there surroundings, they have some responsibilty what is happening (with them). Hardship is a way of growth.
We have worked hard to develop our languages, to communicate and gain/deliver knowledge to and from one another.
The result is a mind full of the ideas and ideology brought in from others, taught also to gain knowledge also to spread to others to help the process.
I view the subconscience only as the things we fail to take notice to in our daily activities, because they can be done while thinking of more important matters. If something goes wrong, that is when we take notice of them, and this subconscience act now becomes something of more importance to bring forth into our conscience mind.
I believe Heidegger has much to say about this point, but I’m getting away from your question…
The psyche of a human in this day and age, is very messy and influence greatly by our upbringing and the society around us.
I would say that yes, we our slaves to our psyche…but more importantly, you must realize that our mind is almost entirely a product of the humans around us. So having said that, how could we not be slaves, when our minds themselves are complete projects of the outsides influence.
Any thoughts discovered on our own could not have flourished without first gaining this knowledge from the outside.
One night I dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, content with my lot. Suddenly I awoke and I was Chuang-tzu again. Who am I in reality? A butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang-tzu or Chuang-tzu imagining that he was a butterfly?
Chuang-tzu (3rd century B.C)
Emptiness. Not a negative state of abscence; instead, it should be understood as the transcendence of duality. At that moment in which the “self” is no longer distinct from “the other,” the unity of the whole has once again been restored. The “self” only exists in our imagination, in our mind. We create the ego and the world with our thoughts. Our natural state of being is emptiness, unsullied by attributes, by the past and future.
Form, emotion, perception, will and consciousness. With the help of these aggregates our mind gives birth to the ego-consiousness. Experiencing oneness with God (for me), or the earth, the cosmos etc. returning back to the origin , to unity, this is the state beyond duality. For me, as a Christian, my entire life journey and battle is staying one with God, returning to my oneness with him, my origin. Times I succeed, times I don’t, transcedence of duality is difficult to sustain. I tend to think, personally thats what God meant when he said,
“Be still and know that I am.” he’s talking about this very thing. Be empty and know that I am. Be empty of the five attributes and we will reach the state of all knowing, our oneness and origin, we will then be whole with him. For a Christian believer, I can only credit our seperation with him, to the Garden when Adam and Eve fell to sin. At that point we were seperated from our oneness and origin. In oneness with God everything is as he created, we are his image his perfection we have the heart of perfect wisdom. In the flesh, we are seperate in constant battle constant quest to return to our perfect wisdom that we were created with. Isn’t that why we love philosophy so much, digging through the threads of the five attributes to attain a perfect truth, a perfect wisdom the ultimate reasoning? Maybe, maybe not, but I tend to think we are slave to the quest, the quest back to ourself in perfect form, the image of God. Perfect we are empty of human consciousness, form, perception, emotion, and will. I feel this is what our spirit is, the transcedence of duality. Wherever you feel your spirit’s origin is from, it is the returning to that perfect origin that controls us. I can’t help but say from dust to dust. Physically and allegorically. Before we were dust, thats our origin, thats where we want to be, back to the perfect truth and wisdom.
Allo, this is my first post, I’ll introduce meself. My name is 'Ana, & I’m 24. that is a good question, I suppose this would be upon the individual himself, based on many seperate actions & beliefs, traditions & so forth. For example if one were to invision G-D (or his respectful entity) as a fearful unforgiving damning entity his psyche could possibly suffer & become enslaved by a numerous amout of fears (Decidophobia being the most common - [The fear of making life changing decisions]) On the other hand if this individual claimed no entity at all or viewed his entity in such a way he could also understand the goodness of his divine. He may find himself not to be enslaved at all. Instead – He becomes the master of his psyche. But that’s just me babbleing late at nigh! 
And I’m not a sir I’m a madam.
the subhumans, a punk band from canada, asked the question in 1981 and found the answer to be “slave to my dick”…
-Imp
Unconsciously Impetent wants to add to this topic. But consciously he doesn’t has something to say. Being a slave of his psyche he adds this to the topic. Or is it something Freudian?
I think if you had changed Impetent to Impotent for Impenitent… that would qualify as a Freudian slip.
Heather,
What a beautiful explanation! It is obvious you’ve gotten tangled up in Eastern Philosophy. I found that the Tao Te Ching made the Bible and other religious texts understandable. Eastern Philosophy allows our “western heads” to go outside and look back in. It’s simplicity and directness scrapes the dull film covering western religion away and allows us to see our spiritual nature with some clarity.
On to duality of psyche. I don’t believe that it is possible to escape “me” except for brief and rare moments, usually through meditation or whatever works (for you) to bring that level of sensitization into play. You’re right. It doesn’t happen very often, but it’s wonderful when it does happen. The act of emptying out would be much easier if we were pure spirit but, alas, we have this corporeal component to deal with, and me won’t give up without a fight. In practice, I have found that the answer is to constantly remind myself that, while life is important, Me isn’t. This allows Me to do what is necessary to get through the day without being too obtrusive. The result is emptying out, but the duality is there in the background. The key is to never let Me become important.
Release all precepts. See directly. Act directly.
It is a difficult concept to master because of it’s utter simplicity, and I admit that I am a poor practitioner.
It may be that all that we call human is a construct of the mind and intuitively many of us see that, but I will persist as that construct until the inevitable return to that which is nameless does occur.
JT
Psyche means soul or mind. I think that we control our own psyche initially, but the fact that we are free to act, this freedom determines our fate and that is controlled by life or God or psyche in other words. So, it’s both ways, we control our psyche and psyche controls us too. We control our psyche and psyche controls us too according to the choices we make and how we act, ok? And this control by fate extends to our next life too. Why the hell do you think someone would be born poor if they didn’t exploit the others to gain wealth by un-ethical means in a previous life?
You know ‘overcoming’ and ‘climbing the ladder’ Whitelotus? If we can overcome we can be enlightenend humans. Peace 
!