“I”
“I” is the direct "reflection" or "projection" of Self (Assagioli) and the essential being of the person, distinct but not separate from all contents of experience. “I” possesses the two functions of consciousness, or awareness, and will, whose field of operation is represented by the concentric circle around “I” in the oval diagram - Personal Will.
Psychosynthesis suggests that 'we can experience the will as having four stages. The first stage could be described as "having no will"', and might perhaps be linked with the hegemony of the lower unconscious. 'The next stage of the will is understanding that "will exists". We might still feel that we cannot actually do it, but we know...it is possible'. 'Once we have developed our will, at least to some degree, we pass to the next stage which is called "having a will"', and thereafter 'in psychosynthesis we call the fourth and final stage of the evolution of the will in the individual "being will"' - which then 'relates to the "I" or self...draws energy from the transpersonal self'.
The "I" is placed at the center of the field of awareness and will in order to indicate that “I” is the one who has consciousness and will. It is “I” who is aware of the psyche-soma contents as they pass in and out of awareness; the contents come and go, while “I” may remain present to each experience as it arises. But “I” is dynamic as well as receptive: “I” has the ability to affect the contents of awareness and can even affect awareness itself, by choosing to focus awareness (as in many types of meditation), expand it, or contract it.
Since “I” is distinct from any and all contents and structures of experience, “I” can be thought of as not a “self” at all but as “noself.” That is, “I” is never the object of experience. “I” is who can experience, for example, the ego disintegrating and reforming, who can encounter emptiness and fullness, who can experience utter isolation or cosmic unity, who can engage any and all arising experiences. “I” is not any particular experience but the experiencer, not object but subject, and thus cannot be seen or grasped as an object of consciousness. This “noself” view of “I” can be seen in Assagioli’s discussion of “I” as a reflection of Self: “The reflection appears to be self-existent but has, in reality, no autonomous substantiality. It is, in other words, not a new and different light but a projection of its luminous source”. The next section describes this “luminous source”, Self.
Read more about this topic: Psychosynthesis, Model of The Person