How to Know Thyself

Truth mirrors reality and it logically follows that the best way to decipher the truth about
yourself is by personally observing and experiencing the reality of which you are a part.
Language is the means by which the context confronting your awareness may be
rationally, realistically and reverently described. Navigate the parameters of existence
through this article as well as through your personal reflections and come to terms with
the essence of YOU.

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 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. Life is uniformly characterized by the existence of opposites. 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 sex or of the female sex. 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.
A child is an interwoven wholeness originating from the fathers 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.
A person is shaped by heredity and environment. Parents have a duty to

train and equip offspring to survive and thrive in a self-supported manner.

Existence has negative aspects, neutral aspects and positive aspects and

people are oriented to perform from sunrise to sunset to justifiably partake of life's
perfections.

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 persons 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.
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The body refers to a persons 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 persons awareness occupies the universe and perceptions of the universe
occupy a persons holistic awareness. The primary emotions are love, fear,happiness,
sadness and anger or the impulse to protect ones ego which is one's sense of selfimportance. The emotion of anger communicates that something is unacceptable to the
person experiencing the emotion. 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 mothers body is either fully occupied, partially occupied, or empty, and

a persons 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 persons hand recoiling from a very hot surface is an example of a physical selfprotecting reflex.

Concomitantly, recognize the universality of a persons natural inclination

to an expression of laughter when feeling high and to that of tears when feeling low.
People also have a natural configuration to respond to certain patterns of music with
various patterns of movement and to laugh when tickled. 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.
Life presents people with problems or difficulties to prevent, solve and

manage and there are some facts of life that each person must simply learn to live with
that come with the territory of the life experience. Challenges can be intimidating but
they afford richer opportunities to develop and showcase strength and knowledge and to
love and be loved and provide a greater appreciation for comfort. Life is the way it is and
it is up to each person to love himself or herself enough to live his or her best life.
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 ones 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

individuals 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.
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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. The eyes feature the unity of love and the ears
feature the separation of fear. The nose protrudes as a mountain on display and the
mouth is a receptive basin. The skin captures the oneness of existence. Sights and
sounds have a duplicating feature which allows them to be recorded.

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.
Health and fitness are universally regarded as attractive qualities.

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 individuals 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.

A pear shape is considered to be classically feminine with an abundance

of curvaceous pelvic beauty reflecting the separation of the ovaries whereas an apple
shape is considered to be classically masculine with an abundance of muscular thoracic
strength and pelvic narrowness reflecting the unity of the testes and the skull is
considered to be transcendent with the wholesome oneness of a mango and the brain.

People are naturally predisposed to pride with respect to the possession of

strength, attractiveness, knowledge, highness and fullness and shame with respect to
the possession of weakness, repulsiveness, ignorance, lowness and emptiness. 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. Some people experience a high as thrill
seekers and have a sense of adventure.

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. People admire each other and a person may

feel uncomfortable or envious if anothers excellence in an area is making him or her

look inadequate in the competition for wealth, respect and love.
The two main manifestations of love are as a hunger for the presence of a

person or thing and as a willingness to exert oneself to help someone. Time, money,
products, services, compliments, humor, advice, appreciation, affection and
encouragement are all commodities of love. Sometimes loving a person is accompanied
by a feeling of jealous possessiveness.
Competitive tendencies amongst people may at times be hazardous to the

security of life, possessions and values and authoritative protection and regulation are
often necessary to facilitate peaceful and constructive interaction. Traditional ethical
principles prescribe that others should not be extended treatment which one would find
it objectionable to be the recipient of and that for a person to qualify to enjoy a benefit
that person should suffer the cost of it.
Each person is naturally directed to pursue life, pleasure, superiority,

connection and self-knowledge and to avoid death, pain, inferiority, isolation and selfignorance 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 curiosityabout reality. Existence is both real and imaginary or tangible and
intangible.
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A persons 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 ones surroundings is a
hallmark of how people naturally operate. The psychological heritage of humanity
establishes that freedom is guided by a fear of death, pain, inferiority, isolation and

ignorance of the source, meaning and destiny of identity, and a love of life, pleasure,
superiority, connection and knowledge of the source, meaning and destiny of identity,
such that ignorance, weakness, ugliness, lowness and emptiness are concealed with
shame, and knowledge, strength, beauty, highness and fullness are showcased with
pride, amidst emotional punishment for the destructive use of freedom and emotional
reward for the constructive use of freedom.
There is a distinct difference between belief and knowledge and between

theory and fact. Beliefs and theories are possibly true depending on how rational they
are whereas knowledge and facts are definitely true based on the proof of observation
and experience. Some issues are a matter of opinion, personal judgement and personal
preference but even in these matters sound reasoning can improve the quality of mental
functioning.
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Life may be a gift of love from a divine being which is the product of
planning or it may be the unintended product of the natural unfolding of the cosmos, but
either way, life is structured with creativity, rationality and dignity and affords much of
value and utility for which to be thankful.

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.

There are the fixed laws authored by nature and the flexible laws authored
by people which bring order and dignity to existence.

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.