The Paths to Self-Knowledge

We often confuse self-knowledge with psychology. Thus, we use personality tests and similar things to know ourselves. But as we stated before, our true self is an independent concept that has nothing to do with our personality traits or moral character. In addition to other aspects of our existence, each of us has a unique and special dimension known as our true self, because of which we are referred to as human beings. The paths to self-knowledge refer to the ways that lead to knowing and reconciling with our true self. This journey is so attractive that, once you set out on it, you will not wish to stop it.

The Paths to Self-Knowledge that Have Reached the Dead End

Restlessness and emptiness are like an incubus casting a shadow over the lives of contemporary human beings. Whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, being a president or an ordinary citizen, we all share this feeling. It seems that there is something missing inside us, and we cannot find it in our daily lives.

Advancements in psychology, mind control, NLP, law of attraction, meditation, etc., are all supposed to fill this void. People have always felt that if they succeed in their personal and professional relationships, this sense of lostness will go away. Today, human beings have lost their hope to find their lost one. In reality, all these paths to self-knowledge serve as temporary pain relievers, which ease the pain for a while but do not fix the main problem.

Lost Is the True Self

Sadly, most of us have forgotten our ‘self.’ We are so busy with life that we have forgotten our true self. To better understand this issue, take a pen and paper and write down your daily schedule. Now look at your to-do list, and see how many minutes you have devoted to being alone with yourself. Most of us are disappointed with the result. It may seem strange, but

what we have lost and spend a lifetime searching for is our SELF!

Life will be a tangled mess until we find ourselves. We constantly lose grip on everything, and no matter how hard we try to find inner peace and happiness, unpleasant feelings continue to linger. Our knowledge about ourselves is incomplete, if not flawed. It is like a puzzle without the biggest piece, or a book with the most important pages missing. To find ourselves, we must look inside, and this can only be done through solitude, silence, and reflection.

Reflection Is the Only Way to Make Peace with Our True Self

Researchers say that the human brain examines and analyzes over 50,000 thoughts throughout the day. But how many of these thoughts are actually about our ‘self’? You might find it hard to believe, but for some individuals, this number is close to zero!

In today’s world, with the media being everywhere, we tend to think about a wide variety of topics. In fact, the media dictates what to think about. Their influence is so strong that they can turn a ridiculous and funny issue into a serious concern. A person may spend hours online just to find out why a certain celebrity has separated from his wife, or how a royal family of a particular country celebrated an event.

We are afraid of being alone with ourselves. In our alone time, we either turn on the TV, talk on the phone, or surf the net. But we cannot achieve peace and happiness unless we create moments of solitude. Inner peace and happiness are born out of self-knowledge, and self-knowledge cannot be gained without silence, solitude, and reflection.

In order to reconnect with ourselves, we need to spend some time alone every day, however short. The best times for reflection are early in the morning and late at night. Let us sit in a cozy corner and let our true self shine through.

We should let it ask its own questions. In finding their answers, we will find genuine, infinite, and eternal happiness and peace. These are the most important questions of our lives, which we have ignored for a lifetime:

• Who am I?
• Why did I come into this world?
• What is the philosophy of birth and death?
• Am I here to study, get married, have children, and finally die? Is that it?
• If the purpose of life is only that, why did I need a world with such complexity and vastness at my service? Just a fraction of all this would be enough!
• Are all these planets, stars, galaxies, different plants and animals, colorful foods, different smells, various colors, and everything else just a coincidence?

If you sit down, concentrate, and think about your essence, you will ask further and more important questions. These questions gradually lead you to understand the philosophy of your presence in this world and uncover the greatest mystery of creation: Who am I, and why was I brought into this world?

The day you find the answer to these questions is the day you will be born again.

 On the Shore of Tranquility

We humans spend our entire lives searching for genuine and lasting happiness and peace, but we choose the wrong ways to attain them. Therefore, the more time passes, the more anxious and depressed we become. Only self-knowledge can lead to happiness and peace. To know and reconcile with our ‘self,’ we need solitude, silence, and reflection. Deep reflection about the human essence and the what-ness of the world creates a variety of questions in our minds and leads us to find the answers. When we find the answers to the most significant questions in our lives, storms of life can never disturb our inner peace and happiness.