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.

Steps
1.

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.

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 rotates once each day (i.e. once every twenty-four

hours), and most inhabitants spend approximately twelve hours in

substantial darknesswhen half of the planet is hidden from the Sun, and twelve hours
in substantial light when half of the planet is exposed to the Sun. Also, the planet
Earth is orbited by the Moon, and it (along with the Moon and other uninhabited
planets) orbits the Sun (i.e. one of many stars) in one of many galaxies. The Moon
encircles the Earth once every twenty-eight days whereas the Earth and the Moon
encircle the Sun once every three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter of a day.
There are approximately thirty days in a month and there are twelve months in a
year. The four seasons of the year are winter, spring, summer, and autumn. The
winter months are the coldest months whereas the summer months are the hottest.
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.
o

The symbol of occupant depicts masculinity and the symbol of house

depicts femininity. An occupied house is typically associated with a pleasant

experience whereas an empty house is typically associated with an unpleasant

experience.
o

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).
o

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.
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.
o

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 self-importance. 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.
o

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.
o

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 self-protecting 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.
o

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 goalsto
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).
o

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.
o

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.
o

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.
o

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.
o

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.
o

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.
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.

Tell us what you know!

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Tips

Be your own worst critic and your own best friend and truly know who you are
so that the labels of others have less power over you.

Realize that maturity entails knowing who you are, understanding what you
want and having the courage to handle your business.

Ask yourself, what is your presence here the result of, really? Ask yourself,
what will be the result of your presence here, really? Aspire to grow physically and
mentally to at least perhaps impress yourself, even if others decline to acknowledge
your existence, or the virtues in your appearance and performance.

View knowledge as your awareness of any aspect of reality. View ignorance

as your non-awareness of any aspect of reality. View learning as any process which
expands your awareness of reality.

Life is usually detailed with ups and downs but you can breathe steadily and
find your flow of calmness within the greater cosmic flow from which to maintain
stability and upward mobility in your life.

Look at yourself in a mirror every day and do your utmost to ensure that you
earn and maintain the respect of the person whom you see staring back at you.

Fully grasp that life only eventuates one moment at a time and that it is up to
you to cultivate and luxuriate in the richness of each moment.

Expect to have to confront problems and discomfort on a daily basis but

appreciate that challenges are opportunities to grow as a resilient person.

Use your intellect and intuition to discover who you naturally are and use your
imagination and ingenuity to invent the best possible you.

Appreciate the fact that you will never really feel like doing some things thus
when it counts you would need to have developed the capacity to focus exclusively
on the task at hand, to just do it and promptly begin an activity and to progress one
step at a time to use the habit of tolerating constructive discomfort to build for
yourself a life of which you can be proud.
Show 8 more tips

Warnings

Continually reflect upon the human condition in an honest and objective frame
of mind, but be careful not to allow such reflection to inhibit your ability to fully
experience and appreciate your time to live.

Do not panic when confronted with mystery or inescapable confusion about an

aspect of reality. Rather calmly acknowledge that sometimes satisfactory answers
are simply not available for some questions.

It is wise to have a plan for your life based on realistic possibilities to execute
with precision and focus to guard against your most precious resource of time being
wasted.

Strive always to maximize lifes quantity and quality, to embrace and

showcase perfection, to love and be loved and to make sense of you and your
surroundings for your rainbow of life to be of optimal rewarding beauty from
beginning to peak to end.

Do not allow the burden of your whole life to rest on you all at once but instead
take life one day at a time.

Never underestimate the importance of thoroughly contemplating the human

condition. If you do, you might miss out on great opportunities or you might
encounter hardship which you may have otherwise been able to avoid.