Know Thyself

Most famously known as a phrase found in Greek philosophy, stated by Plato then by many others after. Yet has been found in earlier texts such as the Tao Te Ching.

GNOTHI SEAUTON

I would like to begin with a few quotes about "know thyself" as they have had some impact on how I see this phrase and how it has shaped me, my studies, and my teachings.

By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness
toward ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.
-- Thomas Moore

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there. 
-- Marcus Aurelius

To thine own-self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day.
Thou can'st not then be false to any man.
-- Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. 
-- Tao Te Ching

Being true to myself starts with knowing myself. I had been advised of this idiom by my mother, my teachers in school, but first read it in the Tao Te Ching and always considered it to be of Chinese origin. Plato also recounts the idiom in his words of Socrates.  Does it belong then to the Chinese or to the Greeks? I later heard from a Native shaman in my area that it has been part of their own warrior philosophy since the beginning of time. That was the first time I heard it referenced to the warrior class and was immediately corrected that warriors are first in battle with themselves before they can ever be trusted to be in battle with or for others. They must be able to face themselves, part of every boy's rite of passage. But much of that has been lost to contemporary Montreal society and maybe others to be sure. I find it quoted in so many cultures from the Greeks, to the Middle East, to the Plain Indians and Iroquois Indians, to England's Shakespeare, to the Chinese Taoists and Buddhists, to the Japanese Samurai.

It is part of my philosophy now.

I re-evaluate myself every year. I look at the person I have become and where I am going. I look at the mistakes I have made and how I have learned from them. I look at strengths and weaknesses and know them to be the same double-edged blades, tools in my toolbox of life. It is important that i maintain these blades as clean and sharp tools ready to be used when needed.

I have then applied this to the philosophy of my teachings of Wicca. One of the exercises I ask all my students to do is to start a journal (as I have here) or write in one they regularly maintain answers to the following questions:

• Who was I?
• What major changes have occurred in my life?
• What have I learned from them and how have they shaped me?
• Who am I now?
• What are my hopes and fears?
• Who am I striving to become?

A college professor first challenged his students of humanities to answer these questions. They were part of his midterm exam. Many students resisted this kind of internal review. Many still do. It is hard to look in the mirror of life and see our own in all of his perceived imperfections. It is too easy to see how ugly we think we are. Or too easy to allow an illusion of false beauty to color our view. In Japanese art, however, there is true beauty in the true nature of things. We are perfect because we are imperfect. And so the students challenged the teacher in turn demanding one question. WHY? Guess what. When they received their final exams, the page had but one question on it. WHY? If you answered with a long essay, you were graded according to how well you argued your various points, but never got batter than a "C" as a grade. If you simply answered "BECAUSE", then you  were graded with a "B". But, if you answered "WHY NOT?", then you got an "A". The students who tended to answer WHY NOT were also usually those who answered the mid-term. Those who recognized their fears of facing themselves and were determined to face themselves and learn.

I answered GNOSIS... knowledge. SOHIA... wisdom. They are not synonymous terms. but both star with knowing the self. Can we really and truly know ourselves? Can we have full gnosis of ourselves? Perhaps not, perhaps it is like perfection. Nothing is truly perfect except in its imperfections. So we try to know as much as we can of ourselves so we can understand who we are and why we are. These help us to understand where we are going and how we plan to get there. We can understand our limits and willingly challenge them and work with them or around them. We can find peace, love and acceptance within... which inevitable will be all around us.

As above, so below.
As within, so without.

Know Thyself.