J. Krishnamurti used to say “Without self knowledge, there is no basis for thought and action. Self knowledge is the foundation for all thought and action”. However, it seems that in today’s world, we have all types of knowledge, except self knowledge. We can access any information that we want, with the click of a mouse and a search engine on the Internet. But when it comes to knowing ourselves, there seem to be no such easy tools. And without knowing ourselves, without knowing what truly makes us happy, how can we expect to be happy or joyous in this world?
What is self knowledge? Normally, one would say that one has all the knowledge one needs about oneself. We know who we are; we know our name, our parents, our spouse, our children, our siblings and our friends. We study and obtain technical knowledge about our field of education. With experience, we gain a lot of insights into our jobs and professions. We normally know how the world behaves, we know about birth and death, about love and hate, and have a fair idea how to go about life. What we usually don’t know is our own mind, the conscious and the unconscious thoughts that reside there. We are normally driven by our conditionings, our beliefs, and our perceptions, our past experiences and our memories, all of which go to form the backbone of our existence on earth.
To know ourselves, we need to know that humans are normally driven by two emotions in life---fear and greed. We either want something desperately or want to avoid something. We want a good job, a good spouse, a beautiful house, and lots of money, etc. We definitely don’t want disease, poverty, conflict, misery etc. These things we know instinctively, as they are a by-product of acting from either fear or greed. But if we were to overcome and let go of both these emotions for a moment—then what would we be like? The first layer of ourselves that we need to penetrate is the layer that is filled with greed or fear. All our life, we live with these two constant companions. Every other negative emotion---anger, frustration, grief, jealousy etc---is only an offshoot of these two emotions. Since both are negative emotions, they obviously are likely to beget more negativity than positivity. It is easy to realize that once these two emotions are set aside, the behaviour of any human being would change dramatically. Since we have never done this, we don’t even know how that would feel.
Self knowledge starts with understanding the source and overcoming these two emotions. Once this screen is penetrated, a completely new individual, who is unrecognizable from the current one, would emerge. And a new world would be born, where without greed and fear, there would automatically be peace, happiness, joy and harmony. True religion or spirituality begins where these two emotions come to an end. For the first time, when these two emotions disappear, the true individual will emerge. It is like wearing spectacles, where one glass is greed and the other is fear, and whether we look externally or internally, we will get only a coloured, distorted view of the reality of both these realms.
Once these spectacles are off, we begin to see the world as it exists. More importantly, we begin to see ourselves for what we truly are---a spirit or soul encased in a body-mind complex, in total connection with other souls and with our source. We instinctively come to know about how the Universe is moving, how our Creator is working through us. We can sense, more than see, our purpose in life and can automatically align ourselves with this path and with our higher purpose. Animosity, competition, jealousy, violence, anger, frustration, depression and sorrow---all fall away, leaving back only the pure consciousness that we are, on an evolutionary path, with many other souls.