Throughout the ages, men and women have tried to answer the great question, ‘Who am I’? There are many answers to this question. One group of answers refers to more worldly references, like career, or some other social status. Examples
of these are ‘I am a stockbroker’, or ‘I am a man’ or ‘I have a college degree’ or ‘I am from Brooklyn’. They usually follow
the formula, ‘I am’ and next this phrase is something that is linked to some area of social living.
The other famous answer to this question is often in religious or spiritual terms, such as ‘I am a child of God’, or’my true nature (or identity) is spiritual’. In other words, we are not really of this world; our real self or the true identity is something transcendent. The literal meaning of the word, transcendent, by the way, means ‘beyond knowledge and experience’. So instead of being a businessman or a married woman or someone who loves movies, we are linked to some part or aspect of the Absolute, however we may choose to define or call this transcendent agency.
There is a third understanding or ‘answer’ to this great question, and this is the one that I believe is a vital and important one - even if you have a fixed belief in one of the two forms above. This involves the process or skill of observing different aspects one’s mind and behavior. It is not an answer in the form of a socially constructed identity, nor is it an answer clothed in anything universal or Absolute. In fact, there is no specific answer as such. This is the way of Self-knowledge.
It involves the ability to come to terms, notice and realize at last three aspects of the self:
1) the realization of a transcendent part of the mind
2) the identification of functional aspects of the identity and behavior
3) the uncovering of dysfunctional aspects of the mind and behavior
After reading this, you may actually realize that you do observe these within yourself, and the reply to this is absolutely true. Everyone has some degree of self-knowledge in this ‘third form’. The art of self-knowledge, though, involves - cultivating - the understanding and recognition of these three. This takes a certian amount of training and dedication. In ancient Greece, it was considered the art of ‘philosophy’ or the literal, love of wisdom. To know the self according to the great philosopher Socrates, involves ‘examination’.
This examination involves the art of observing all aspects of the self: the transcendent, the functional and the dysfunctional. When one has the capacity to identify and recognize what causes all of these three aspects of the self, one lives ‘the good life’.
You will find that when the art of self-observation is learned, one will discover deeper spaces of the mind, known as meditation. These will propel the discovery of deeper Qualities, such as freedom, authenticity, autonomy, order and love which is the cause of the second aspect, which is social functioning and competence.
Finally, you will be able to look at the more dysfunctional aspects of behavior more clearly, and see it for the way it is, instead of blaming self and world, leading to the typical distortions of everyday life. All are part of the process of Self-knowledge, the way of discovering who one really is.
One of the beginning methods to engage the third way of Self-knowledge is to learn to “be in the present”. This way, one looks at all three of these aspects of experience: the transcendent, the functional and the dysfunctional. You do this by contacting four sensory zones: sight, sound, touch and balance (of the body in space). When you contact these four areas, you can easily see your experience clearly, for you are looking more closely. Secondly, you can begin to observe the mind more clearly, because the engagement of “hearing” - or the listening to sounds - is transferred to thinking. Thinking is the “hearing” of the thoughts in our head. When we listen more closely to our thoughts, we can see how the manner in which we classify our experience causes many of the problems in our living. This is Self-knowledge; you are learning about your self by discovering underlying causes.
We may not destroy or eliminate all aspects of dysfunctional behavior, but we can learn to look at these patterns more clearly, and with this clarity, not allow them to rule over our behavior. Secondly, we will still retain cultural wisdom or functioning in the world. The more we look and slowly transcend much of our inappropriate patterning (from childhood conditioning), we actuall learn to be more functional in the world. This is what is behind much of our popular personal growth strategy.
However, without the third form or path, the path of Self-knowlege, we will never uncover our real nature, which is contained within the depth of our being. This can only be accessed when we not only transcend dysfunctional or inappropriate patterns, but also our functional ego conditions (with their appropriate functioning) and look at what we see when there is no social or personal patterning at all. If we are too attached to our functioning (feeling good about all the positive aspects of our life), we will not uncover more deeper areas of the mind, which are beyond ego.
The transcendant aspect of our self is utterly transparent, but not literally divorced from human experience. We transcend in order to include or involve ourself in the world. We can function better in the world when we can feel a deep “letting go”, because more problems occur through “hyper-involvement”. But this must be done with the Transcendent aspect of ourself, which can only be accessed through the right form of Self-knowledge.
William Edwards
Author and trainer
www.wisdomskill.com
wisdomskill@gmail.com
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