Know yourself

[shawn]

Above the door of the temple of Delphi was carved the phrase "Know Thyself".
But what does it mean?
Does it mean to know one's character with all its faults/virtues, failings/successes, or to know the limitations of human nature?
What is the "self"?
Our feet? Our brains? Our thoughts and feelings?

IMO, it is none of that.
This SELF, which we must know is that part of us which is a part of the Source/the Divine.
Ineffable/indescribable, yet real, which exists on a higher level than our ordinary waking consciousness.

In life, we find ourselves (or what we normally conceive to be "ourselves" ) as a being divided, incomplete and separated and we crave this union with that part of ourselves which we do not yet know.
To find and unite with this Self, is the journey.

People naturally identify with their physical bodies, but this will cause us to be weak and subject to material limitations.
But, when we cease to see ourselves simply as a physical entity moved by instinctive impulses and identify instead with the Source of Life, then we are moving out of these limitations and "self-deceptions".

This explains why the Initiates of old were so insistent that people should know their "real selves" and discussed the world in terms of illusion and dreams.
But, as long as people are content to know everything except their own "selves" they will never reach the higher goals.

So, what does it mean to Know?
In scriptures, knowing another implies physical union resulting in offspring.
In order to "know" something it needs to penetrate, through a sense organ and become internalized.
This then goes through a process of harmonization, which can take an instant, or a lifetime to achieve.

We see in the metaphor of "marriage" a symbol for knowing.
True marriage is true knowing, but people have not yet reached this stage.
We marry with all kinds of other people and things exterior to ourselves.
We plug in and make contacts in factories and offices, in politics and economics......everywhere except in our own inner selves.
This happens because people do not know how to make contact with the inner self and this results in feelings of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction.

When we do manage to become one with our higher self, we then know everything it knows, see all it sees, hear all it hears.......we shall have reached perfection.
But as long as we remain divorced and separate, identifying with the tail and not the head, then we deprive ourselves of all that true wealth.

The tail must be joined to the head, we must "make both ends meet".
This is real marriage and it is internal.
Only then can we "be fruitful and multiply", and realize the fullness of our creative power.

 

[path_of_one]

Can't say much except- yep.

 

[shawn]

I was moved to write this out after reading another thread which looks at the idea of marriage from just a physical point of view.
This is the lowest rung on the ladder to see what marriage is about.

You could be the ultimate male married to the ultimate female and still, you would be incomplete as the outward marriage is just a metaphor, a symbol of what real marriage is all about and that is the internal and personal journey of your own spiritual growth.

Love and wisdom, brought to maturity, the dualities are united and truth emerges.
That is the trinity which brings spiritual creative power into our material world.
The father= Truth
The Son= Wisdom
The Holy Spirit= Love
The kabbalists use different terms, but the meaning is the same.

 

[nativeastral]

The tail must be joined to the head, we must "make both ends meet".
This is real marriage and it is internal.
Only then can we "be fruitful and multiply", and realize the fullness of our creative power.

as I know you like images shawn

'This idea of the life cycle devouring its own tail can seem like a futile process where all that is achieved is ultimately destroyed. But this image of Ouroboros suggests a way to perceive it as an enfolding where the past (the tail) appears to disappear but really moves into an inner domain or reality, vanishing from view but perhaps still existing in some kind of virtual sense. Click here for the source website for this image. '

that source website looks worthy of persusal

 

[Eudaimonist]

Above the door of the temple of Delphi was carved the phrase "Know Thyself".
But what does it mean?

Considering who wrote that quote, my guess would be that one should come to know one's Fatal Flaws (think Greek tragedy), and perhaps also one's daimon (one's talents or callings). Essentially, to understand one's destiny by understanding who and what one is as an individual.

Does it mean to know one's character with all its faults/virtues, failings/successes, or to know the limitations of human nature?

This would be my guess. Roughly this.

Of course, one can read anything into the quote.

For my part, I don't believe in a "higher self". I believe that we have selves that may be divided and conflicted. Achieving wholeness will integrate those parts. I agree that we crave union, but it is the union of our splintered selves, not union with anything else.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Vajradhara]

Namaste Mark,

i hope you are well this winter

For my part, I don't believe in a "higher self". I believe that we have selves that may be divided and conflicted. Achieving wholeness will integrate those parts. I agree that we crave union, but it is the union of our splintered selves, not union with anything else.


eudaimonia,

Mark

this is somewhat similar to a Jewish view of humanity, i.e. there was a primordial soul, if you will, which is known as Adam and this Soul was splintered, shattered into the billions of humans that have a tiny sliver of the Soul which are trying to reunite which is, by and large, the purpose of being born on earth. perhaps this would be an interesting conversation to have with our Jewish friends on the forum?

metta,

~v

 

[nativeastral]

that source website looks worthy of persusal

-' What is life? The American Indians had a traditional saying that “What is, is a three-fold miracle. The first miracle is that anything at all exists, rather than nothing-ness. The second miracle is that some of what is, is alive. The third miracle is that some of what is alive is self-aware, including awareness of the three miracles.” This self-referential awareness of life seeing itself as an endlessly evolving physical/biological/mental/spiritual reality is symbolized by the classical image of ouroboros , the snake that swallows its own tail. ' Unfolding Images of Life

Eudaimonist

For my part, I don't believe in a "higher self". I believe that we have selves that may be divided and conflicted. Achieving wholeness will integrate those parts. I agree that we crave union, but it is the union of our splintered selves, not union with anything else.

Vajradhara

this is somewhat similar to a Jewish view of humanity, i.e. there was a primordial soul, if you will, which is known as Adam and this Soul was splintered, shattered into the billions of humans that have a tiny sliver of the Soul which are trying to reunite which is, by and large, the purpose of being born on earth. perhaps this would be an interesting conversation to have with our Jewish friends on the forum?

it's also reminiscent of Sartre's 'fundamental project', which being existentialist and therefore athiest focuses on individual freedom constrained by facticity [the 'fate' of the situation one finds oneself in, yet 'man is condemned to be free']. Even Sartre has to use the concept God in explicating his philosophy.
Twist of Fate: The Moirae in ... - Google Books

 

[Sancho]

Soren Kierkegaard: "The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is bound to be noticed." The sickness unto death.

The same publication begins with this paragraph.
"The human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself. A human being is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two terms. Looked at in this way a human being is not yet a self."

kierkegaard's curious logic anticipates the idea of narrative selfhood, which has been popular amongst therapists who counsel, for example, those with reason to see themselves as victims to instead understand themselves as survivers. Not that there is direct influence there.

Searching for a transcendent self through introspectively building a narrative, a life story, has been a prominent theme in the last decade of my life. Lately I've been more interested in how Buddhists rejected the idea of Atman, an inner self connected to the divine, which was so important to the brahmen of the Upanisads.

Along with these rather random comments let me add one more. Knowing yourself involves understanding the forces that have made you who you are. This effort goes deep and involves digging up the roots of subjects as diverse as pop culture, ancient religions, and contemporary economic systems.

 

[Sancho]

The Buddhist alternative is much quicker: see all as illusory other than buddhanature. From this perspective there is no self to know. There is only mind, which is empty.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Namaste Mark,

i hope you are well this winter

Eudaimonia, vajradhara. I seem to be doing well. I hope that you are doing reasonably well, also.

this is somewhat similar to a Jewish view of humanity, i.e. there was a primordial soul, if you will, which is known as Adam and this Soul was splintered, shattered into the billions of humans that have a tiny sliver of the Soul which are trying to reunite which is, by and large, the purpose of being born on earth.

I have failed to communicate properly. Much apologizings.

No, I didn't mean that we must try to reunite with others, but reunite what is divided in our own psyches. (Adam, in this analogy, could mean: "the whole person we would have been in an ideal existence.") We easily become splintered in various ways, such as by adopting "foreign truths", by which I mean the "personal truths" of others that we have failed to fully process and integrate into a cohesive and non-contradictory view of reality.

These foreign truths can leave us conflicted and apathetic, because they exist "on the surface" and don't provide the kind of gut level understanding and conviction we need to act with confidence and integrity. We end up pulled this way and that, tugged by opposing forces.

We usually end up yearning for the brilliant clarity of a single true vision -- a set of personal truths that shed light on one's purpose and meaning in life. Some may think of this vision as "God". I personally think of it as "a sense of connection to my daimon". (Daimon in this context means something like "a vision of personal perfection".)

For some, this "vision" is Jesus Christ. For you, perhaps, it is to realize your Buddhahood. For me, it is my own vision of self-actualization.


eudaimonia,

Mark