Why do the wise teachers throughout the world all give this same advice? How could knowing myself be of any practical use? Will it pay my rent, fix my broken heart, heal my wounds? In a manner of speaking it can.
You may think you know yourself if you know what you like and don’t like. If you know what you want most of the time. If you have an in depth understanding and lexicon to describe your baggage and early childhood scripting. You’re in touch with your feelings. You eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired so you’re listening to the body. You try to be clear about your intentions and make yourself live up to an ethical standard that you believe is right. But this isn’t enough.
This is all part of the journey to understanding our true identity but it’s only the first baby steps, the tip of the iceberg. Are any of these things who we really are ultimately? The interesting thing about this journey to self is finding out that most of the elements of our identity are nothing more than socialization and belief systems so engrained we accepted them as chiseled-in-stone fact. We have internalized the expectations our family, social groups, and tribe have projected on to us and now we believe them to be objective and universal truths.
Knowing ourselves beyond the temporary attributes is the path to complete freedom. It’s the way out of our self deluded, limiting thoughts, a remedy for thinking and living small, and the only way to find peace and happiness that doesn’t dissolve, disappoint or fade away. It allows us to love ourselves and others; to act instead of react; to be truly compassionate, generous, and patient; to live up to our fullest potential; transcend fear and other limitations; to get proper perspective on events; see past the illusions of limited perceptions past the chaos and density of mater so we can gaze upon the eternal mystery.
Try this at home: (you need a notebook, pen, highlighter or colored marker)
Close your eyes and relax your mind and body. When you feel very calm open your eyes and start making a list of everything you think you are right now in this moment: (hungry, full, achy, sick, tired, anxious, energetic, depressed, optimistic, confident, beautiful, unattractive, lonely)
Now list everything you know about yourself this year: (Employed, single, married, desperate, comfortable, successful, a failure, growing, graduating, a parent, a boss, a playboy, recovering, addicted, broke, rich, confused)
Now list everything you know about yourself this life: (Most likely to succeed, popular, shy, antisocial, talented, not creative, good with people, prefer to win than lose, moral, immature, generous, like to fix things for others, clean freak, vegetarian, carnivore, smoker, scared of spiders/snakes/elevators, find comfort in food or sex, kill loneliness with work or tv., American, Asian, African)
Now list all the things you know for certain about yourself. Unchangeable things: (Male, female, only child, oldest, youngest, tall, short, straight, gay, white, black, brown, blue/green/brown eyes, Christian, atheist, Republican, leftist, animal lover, childless)
Now start at the top of the list and ask yourself if each item was true about you 10 hours ago, 10 days ago, 6 months ago, a year ago, a decade ago, when you were 5, a time before conscious memory. If it’s possible that there was a time when any item did not define you- highlight it. If there is a future possibility of an item no longer defining you – highlight it.
You should have very few items left un-highlighted. And even those are questionable. You could have a sex change operation, or surprise yourself by falling in love with someone of the same or different sex. And unless you’ve had a DNA test you can’t be too sure about your race. Your country could crumble and you could be left without a nationality. It happens! You could find out that one of your parents had children before or after you which would alter your birth order, or you could find out one of your parents isn’t really your parent. Just notice that things you use to define yourself are not necessarily you and that you have more choices than you may have noticed. This is where free will comes in. That free will most of aren’t really using because we’ve been stuck in a little artificial box of limitation. Now that we know that the temporary personality isn’t who we are we can pick and choose, be more flexible, and free ourselves up to begin the next step of the journey- to find out who we are beyond all that.
