Lesson 1
Know Yourself.
Humans have, over the centuries, explored the universe and at the micro level delved into understanding atoms and genomes. While much effort has been made to understand the human mind and our actions, introspection of our self nature has been marginal. Since the dawn of man we have had emotions and feelings, from love and empathy to anger and violence, all of which remain embedded in our mind and actions to this day. These emotions have, over the centuries, been tempered with our shared experience of human progress and history, and in some ways conditioned by it. To many this has directed our moral compass to shape what we consider right and wrong about say genocide, racism and gender.
While this may have shaped, to some extent, as to who we are, we, as individuals, still have to embark on our path towards discovering our self nature. The exploration of the Self has been marginal and in essence in most cases a personal effort. Over the past five decades or so there has been an exhaustive effort towards self-help, self-improvement and counselling of the soul to attain a modicum of peace and tranquility within us. Meditation, yoga, spiritual well-being courses etc. have become the buzz words for many as they quench their thirst for knowledge and peace within.
Integral to the human condition is a search for happiness and achieving happiness is measured differently for different people. Happiness for some is the attainment of riches and a lifestyle, for others attainment of love and companionship, and for some a state of peace within. The true accomplishment of happiness is integral to knowing our self nature in order for the happiness to be sustainable and long lasting.
Have you asked yourself “Who am I?”
Is it our name? Is it the self image we have of ourselves? Is it reflective of the image others have of us? Generally we use words to describe ourselves, words like ‘kind’, ‘honest’, ‘caring’ and many other words. We have to look beyond the words or the images these words carry in our brain. Let’s say we believe kindness is a part of one’s self nature. We have to examine this trait of kindness within us by understanding what does this concept of kindness mean. In what context do we use the word ‘kind’? Are we kind to some people who are close to us and not so kind towards strangers? Are we kind to someone so long as they praise us but if they are critical of us do we become less kind, more passive aggressive?
While we recognise the emotions within us through shared experiences, relate them to a broad assembly of similar feelings represented by one word which is a bundle of similar emotions, understanding our representation of the emotions that envelope that word reveals glimpses of our self nature. Take an example of the emotion we call ‘Kindness’. The question is whether such an emotion, which we then ascribe to our self nature, is transactional and conditional or innate within us? Is our kindness in response to an act of kindness to you? Is your kindness selective or universal? Is your kindness impulsive to emotions or reactive to a stimulus? Are you kind in the face of hostility? When you are kind in your actions and emotions what do you feel afterwards? Is this ‘after feeling’ conditioned by the reaction you get from the recipient of your kind act? What makes your kindness unconditional? Can you remain ‘kind’ in the face of hatred?
The more we explore the anatomy of these emotions within us we will discover that words become the anchors by which we identify a particular emotion. There is nothing wrong in such identifiers in our emotional vocabulary but it should not prevent us from exploring whether such an emotion is unconditionally embedded in our self nature. To know our self nature is a momentous step towards knowing, acknowledging and embracing our self nature.
One may ask why is it important to know our self nature?
There are some conditions of the human mind and living that we crave. Happiness, Peace and Love would rank high in our non material pursuits of living. These conditions are within us but we as sentient beings seek them on the outside of the self rather than first attain them within us. True happiness, true love and true peace reside in the self knowledge we attain. It is through this self knowledge of ourselves that we attain love, happiness and peace within us. Through our structured learning and share experiences in life we have concepts about happiness and what it means to us. More often then not one barometer of attaining happiness is codependent on the actions of people around us. In this sense happiness is transactional, while may well be real and uplifting we need to acknowledge its sustainability depends on how external elements continue that feeling of happiness.
When we know and embrace our true self nature then happiness, love and peace are no more transactional depending on the stimulus the actions and words of others provide us. Yes words and actions of the people we care for matter but they cannot be the sole reason for happiness. When we know our true self nature we attain an emotional self sufficiency which does not seek self affirmation. We then see the words and actions of the people around us with confidence rather than a desperate seeking to feel good. The knowledge of our self nature also is integral to protecting ourselves from hurtful emotions because we can assess negative emotions around us with a detachment allowing us maintain our emotional balance.
Our self nature, rather the image of it, is shaped through our shared experience of life and the belief systems that are embedded into our psyche. This shared experience can be positive and reinforcing and it can be shaped by negativity and depleting to the self. Knowing our self nature involves facing those emotions within us which may also, on closer examination, beak down our own preconceived images of our Self. Because our image our our Self is also images of how people see us and our belief of those images, challenges this notions really creates clarity of who we truly are.
The question then is how do we achieve this better understanding of our true self? This is a process of introspection which has to done in stages and in quiet reflection. Those of us who can mediate may wish to first calm the mind before such an introspection, others can choose a quiet place and an undisturbed half hour or one hour. Say I believe in the self image that I am a compassionate person. Do I believe this because people say it to me? Do I recall the moments where I have shown compassion to others? Was the compassion prompted by an event or came from noticing someone’s anguish or grief? Is my compassion universal or selective? Is my compassion consistent or transitory? Can I recall moments where in contrast to compassion I have actually hurt someone’s feelings? Can I recall these moments where I hurt someone? Was this hurt inevitable or unavoidable due to circumstances, and if so, was I compassionate towards the people I hurt? Can I recall what I felt after I hurt someone?
Any self exploration has to be honest and bit by bit in these silent moments of reflection we not only understand the emotions and experiences that twine around the ball at the center of which is the Self, we relate their understand into who we truly are. The Self is never static, it is endemic to change through experience, emotional interaction and reflective internal thought.
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