Abstract

A newborn infant displays self-other-awareness, searching in its own imaginative space-time of body movement for exciting sights and sounds, and ready to engage impulses and emotions in intimacy with other persons. Soon rhythmic proto- conversations and games invent propositional narratives of aliveness with joyful 'communicative musicality'. By monitoring the life of this inborn per-sonality, and its distress when betrayed, we learn how a self-confident human mind develops an other-aware 'Me', appreciating aesthetic and moral rules and practical skills in a fictional culture of meanings -- the customs, rituals, arts, techniques, and formulated beliefs of ancestors, and mentors. The spiritual or affective inspiration of human reason and language is in an innocent interpersonal self who lives before, and beyond, acquired identity in a particular community and its artificial world. This has important implications for the philosophy and practice of spiritual teaching for self- awareness, agency, and feelings of relationship, from childhood to old age.