How to Know Thyself

Knowing one’s self is a lifelong journey and a journey which should be embarked upon with total trust in your personal observations and personal experiences to date. Truth is only known in relation to an individual's perception of reality. There is only one reality and your personal perception of it constitutes only one of many. However, who is the actual perceiver, "Who are you, really?"

Reflect upon the following considerations to gain an idea of how to view yourself holistically, as a part of reality, as well as to view your awareness as somewhat of a mirror of reality, such that to describe that of which you are aware equates to the truth about an aspect of reality. Knowing yourself means to be oriented in time and space to tap into an energy at the depth of your being which will equip you to fulfill your highest destiny.

1. Ponder the concept of the Universe. There are some who postulate that the Universe is as old as time itself. Assuming that this assertion is accurate, this would suggest that time and space are inextricably linked and it allows for the premise of somewhat personifying the Universe as "one whole being" which is growing and changing from one moment to another. It also does not allow for the possibility for anything which happens to be undone.
2. Ponder the planet Earth in relation to the Universe.
   • For example, contemplate that the planet Earth is a spherical and rotating part of the Universe, which is surrounded by a combination of air and water, and houses liquefied fire around its core.
   • The planet Earth rotates once each day (i.e. once every twenty-four hours), and most inhabitants spend approximately twelve hours in substantial darkness when half of the planet is hidden from the Sun, and twelve hours in substantial light when half of the planet is exposed to the Sun. Also, the planet Earth is orbited by the Moon, and it (along with the Moon and other uninhabited planets) orbits the Sun (i.e. one of many stars) in one of many galaxies. The Moon encircles the Earth once every twenty-eight days whereas the Earth and the Moon encircle the Sun once every three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter of a day. There are approximately thirty days in a month and there are twelve months in a year. The four seasons of the year are winter, spring, summer, and autumn. The winter months are the coldest months whereas the summer months are the hottest.
   • The planet Earth is a beautiful habitat for plants, animals, and people. The mobile capabilities of biological entities range from the ability to swim in water, to moving around on land, and flying in the air. The Sun is a spherical gaseous whole which emits immense quantities of light, whereas the Moon is a rocky spherical object, with a reflective surface, which houses and empties itself of the light from the Sun.
3. Ponder the necessity of the existence of your biological parents to your personal existence. Each person is posterior to the existence of one mature male person and one mature female person. Also, each person is either of the male gender or of the female gender. Further, each person has the capacity to grow into a mature person with a partial ability to produce more people provided that biological defects have not interfered with such ability.
   • The symbol of occupant depicts masculinity and the symbol of house depicts femininity. An occupied house is typically associated with a pleasant experience whereas an empty house is typically associated with an unpleasant experience.
   • A child is an interwoven wholeness originating from the father’s blissful union with the mother. In the reproductive process, the mature female person houses the unborn human being for approximately nine months and endures the suffering as the body of the young person separates from her body during childbirth.
4. Ponder the requirements for your personal survival and for that of your species. Each person requires air, water, food, sleep, and physical contact for his or her personal survival (i.e. to temporarily extend the duration of his or her life).
   • The requirement for physical contact with respect to survival is most acute in infancy and somewhat diminishes as an individual matures and some amount of physical contact between a member from each gender is essential for the collective survival of humanity.
   • However, at some point, due to either natural or man-made occurrences, it is a certainty that it will become impossible for each person’s power to live to continue to exist. Coverings, shelter, transportation and an occupation as a source of financial income are also prominent features of a modern lifestyle.
5. Ponder the relationship between your body and mind and the continual interaction between them. Each person is comprised of his or her body, mind, will, emotions and conscience.
   • The body refers to a person’s strong physical presence, which is situated at a location in the universe and the mental presence in the universe is the brain which is a powerful computing machine capable of precise logic and beautiful creativity.
   • The brain is the part of the body which coordinates the activities of the body. A person’s awareness occupies the universe and perceptions of the universe occupy a person’s holistic awareness. The primary emotions are love, fear, happiness, sadness and anger or the impulse to protect one’s ego which is one's sense of self-importance. Additionally, the conscience emotionally rewards personally beneficial behavior and emotionally punishes personally destructive behavior.
   • Human awareness is submerged in mental dreams when asleep, and is not cognizant of the rest of the physical body until awake, in a similar way to the way in which an unborn human being occupies his or her mother, and is not cognizant of the rest of the universe until the time of delivery.
   • A mother’s body is either fully occupied, partially occupied, or empty, and a person’s awareness is either awake, asleep, or dead.
6. Ponder the significance of your natural mental and physical reflexes. Each person has an innate propensity to move away from any source of an unpleasant sensation be it mental or physical, and to move closer to any source of a pleasant sensation be it mental or physical.
   • A person returning some type of harm to another who has caused him or her to experience some type of harm is an example of a mental self-protecting reflex, and a person’s hand recoiling from a very hot surface is an example of a physical self-protecting reflex.
   • Concomitantly, recognize the universality of a person’s natural inclination to an expression of laughter when feeling high and to that of tears when feeling low. There is a natural inclination to pursue more and more pleasant sensations and to avoid all unpleasant sensations. The presence of these opposite sensations is interpreted by many to be an innate signal to each individual to survive and to grow rather than to stagnate and rot to naught.
7. Ponder your freedom to make personal decisions within the realm of possibility.
   • The will of a human being is functional when a person is awake and voluntarily initiates those activities of the brain and the body which are not reflexive. The choices which a person makes today are the architect of the future which he or she may live long enough to inhabit tomorrow. People set various types of goals to satisfy needs and wants and work in an effort to achieve them.
   • Some endeavors are a means to an end and some constitute an end in and of itself and some are a hybrid. The general ends which all normal human beings tend to seek a means to are the will to live, the will to pleasure, the will to superiority, the will to connection and the will to identity.
   • Each person has the capacity to assess what is possible at a given moment, and to personally decide upon a course of action or inaction from among his or her options, as well as the capacity to act without such assessment having taken place.
   • The ability to autonomously assess one’s options allows an individual to act without reference to the instructions of another person and without reference to a pattern of behaviour which may have been exhibited by another. Further, as it is possible for the human will to dominate most innate propensities, this means that it is possible for a person to opt to rebel against the natural mental signal to exclusively pursue pleasant sensations, and it is possible for a person to opt to rebel against nature's urging for him or her to pursue a viable means to survive and flourish as an individual.
8. Ponder your astute linguistic abilities as a sentient member of the human race. Human beings belong to the most advanced category of organisms in terms of the ability to communicate (i.e. to produce symbols or virtual duplicates of things or events which may be real or imaginary).
   • As a sentient being, each person has an awareness of his or her existence and has an awareness of the existence of his or her awareness. Whilst it is relatively easy for a human being to view his or her body as a part of the Universe, the mind appears more as a "mirror" of the Universe, and this "mirror" might be viewed as allowing for any manner of distortions to the extent that people may adjust this “mirror” to remember the past, or to observe the present, or to imagine events with respect to the past, present or future.
   • This would lead to the conclusion that a word is a “mirror” of awareness, and that awareness is a “mirror” of either the common physical Universe or an individual’s own personal mental “universe.”
   • A person's awareness vacillates between the mental realm of the brain and the physical realm of the body and the voice of a person can recreate the content of his or her awareness using words or he or she can be silent. Words are thought packages which can be used to convey ideas, feelings, and requests from one mind to another.
   • This extraordinary capacity to communicate possessed by human beings, in terms of the production, consumption, and exchange of information, allows for two separate individuals to decide to consolidate efforts to produce one cohesive result, and this accounts for how civilizations may appear more and more advanced as time progresses.
9. Ponder your innate desire for superiority. Each human being has the natural capacity and proclivity to evaluate himself or herself and other human beings as individuals with respect to appearance and performance. Each human being also has a name as a point of reference for him or her as well as a reputation to uphold.
   • The five standard senses used for such an evaluation of things in the physical realm are seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting and each is sensitive to pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
   • Human beings also have a natural desire to be sophisticated and impressive mentally and physically and there is also an innate desire to appear and perform more impressively than others of the same gender. Mental and physical characteristics are inherited from one's parents. There are some popular theories which suggest that physical characteristics range from aesthetically unpleasant or aesthetically challenged at the lower end right the way up to those which are aesthetically pleasing.
   • The human skeleton is mainly comprised of three houses or cavities. The skull may be viewed as a house of knowledge, the ribcage as a house of strength, and the pelvis as a house of beauty. It has been observed that males tend to have greater capacity with regard to physical strength whereas females tend to have greater capacity with regard to physical beauty. It has also been suggested that aesthetically pleasing features may be an indicator of an individual’s health and high potential for survival and reproduction. Additionally, it is apparent amongst human beings that the average height of males exceeds the average height of females.
   • People are naturally predisposed to pride with respect to the possession of strength, attractiveness, knowledge and highness and shame with respect to the possession of weakness, repulsiveness, ignorance and lowness. Human beings also each have an innate desire to be noticed and looked up to by at least one other individual in the Universe other than himself or herself, and there is a general and innate fear of complete rejection and absolute loneliness.
   • Each person has his or her own unique repertoire of gifts, talents, skills, qualities, abilities and interests on which to build high self-esteem for a higher potential of success in activities and relationships.
   • With regard to competing for a romantic partner, it is quite obvious that if another person is more attractive than a particular person, then there is a greater chance of this particular person being ignored by some potential romantic partner due to the presence of the more attractive person.
   • Each person is naturally directed to pursue life, pleasure, superiority, connection and self-knowledge and to avoid death, pain, inferiority, isolation and self-ignorance along with possessing the freedom to choose his or her words and actions.
   • Another uniquely human characteristic is the human capacity for empathy, which allows each person to imagine himself or herself to be another, and to assess such a hypothetical experience to the extent that one may anticipate what is likely to help or hurt another person in the real world, by way of reference to one's self as a person sharing a common nature with the other.
10. Ponder your natural aversion to ignorance and your natural curiosity about reality. Existence is both real and imaginary or tangible and intangible.
    • A person’s physical body is hungry for physical materials, his or her holistic awareness is hungry for non-physical truth, and both of these types of resources are necessary for a person to feel fulfilled.
    • Holistic awareness is a mirror or a virtual house that reality dwells in as knowledge the more a person observes, experiences, and learns. Human beings are rational organisms and the goal of understanding one's self and one’s surroundings is a hallmark of how people naturally operate.
    • People are able to investigate what is necessary for things or events to exist or happen as well as the potential or actual usefulness of things or events. People attempt to make sense of the mystery of existence and tend to be discontented to the extent that this is not possible.
    • Additionally, human beings tend to experience mental discomfort with regard to comparing the vastness of the Universe with the relatively minute size of a human body, and there is also usually some level of fear with regard to not knowing for sure what happened in the distant past, what is happening in distant space, and what may happen in the immediate and extended future.