Knowledge of the Self

Today, one of the greatest tragedies in the world is that we don't know who we are or why we use other people's beliefs to define us. It's as if we choose to abdicate our  power so we can claim we don't know what to do about our lives.

Some of us are content with experiencing life from the prism of victimization or powerlessness. We perceive life in this unclear, helpless state of consciousness, because we choose not to wake up and define ourselves with power.

We are accustomed to the visions created from within our darkness. These incomplete, unclear visions of what we want for ourselves inextricably tie us to a permanent state of victimization.

We are constantly asking ourselves over and over again: What's the meaning or purpose of our lives?

We want to know why we constantly have these empty feelings, and regardless of how many things we bring into our lives, they're still present. We seem to always have these  feelings that we should be doing something else with our lives.

There are some of us who believe we obtain the answers, at least we achieve a greater degree of clarity about life, by engaging in self-discovery. Self-discovery basically means examining the origins of our beliefs and their utility in providing us with the answers we seek regarding our questions about life itself.

Many of us know we want to feel happy rather than sad. We seek success, whatever that means to us, rather than failure, which we interpret to mean unsuccessful. Obviously, we can continue with this vein of thinking ad infinitium and never truly understand why we desire certain things versus those we don't.

Unfortunately, this type of reasoning only confirms our victim beliefs about life, it doesn't really tell us anything about the essence of our existence.

Most of us, practically all of us, perceive life from limited awareness. We are limited by what we have been taught and accepted as being accurate descriptions of our lives. If we are of a certain race, we perceive the world from this perspective, and by whatever societal descriptions are used to validate these beliefs.

So when we say we love everyone equally, we mean it only from the limited beliefs we have about ourselves.  We don't, in fact, believe everyone is equal to us anymore than we believe all people have the same skin color, gender or social status.

By saying something like this, we tell ourselves that we have broken free of our traditional beliefs. While we know this is not true, we trick ourselves into believing it is so. We want to believe we can change while remaining the same person.

To change from one set of beliefs to another requires first an understanding of the former. We must understand that all of our beliefs are expressions in the intellectual gymnastics game we play with each other. And in this game, we are not really searching for the origins of our beliefs, but seeking new ones by holding on to the old ones.

We really want to hold tightly to our carefully crafted self-images and build from this foundation. We don't want to become no-thing. We need reference points: family, friends, society, and so forth to confirm our existence. Otherwise, who are we without our beliefs?

From a different perspective, we are trying to build a new house with the same materials. So the end results have us  believing it's a new house while it's really the same house that we're perceiving to be a new one.

Meanwhile, we have all types of beliefs. Some of us believe Heaven and Hell are places existing in time and space, while some others believe they're simply something we have been taught by others. And regardless to which beliefs we hold, we argue fervently that our beliefs our correct.

Similarly, some of us believe we are victims, while some believe we're not. We judge ourselves and others according to our beliefs, which means the true answers lie outside of our limited and biased definitions.

Nevertheless, none of this stops us from searching for the answers to the questions we have about our feelings that something is missing from our lives.

We are forever searching for something to make us feel complete, fulfilled, and adequate. Unfortunately, this search is usually conducted outside of ourselves.

Self-discovery is one, some of others believe it is the primary method, process of searching that leads to an understanding of the self.  This self is described by its lack of beliefs and by its knowledge of the world itself.

Self-discovery illumines our consciousness with the clarity to see the world without traditional beliefs. It helps us to awaken from the darkness preventing us from seeing where we are going and what we are doing.

Knowledge of the self comes from within each one of us. It's not something anyone can teach us. We gain this knowledge by taking the time to understand how we acquired our beliefs, and the power we have to overcome them.

At some point in self-discovery, we clearly know that it's our thoughts and beliefs that's causing us the problems. The more beliefs we acquire, the further we move away from the Self.