Know Thyself

 

Know Thyself

The royal road begins with knowing oneself. According to ancient Greek and Roman authors, there were three maxims prominently inscribed upon the entrance to the Temple of Apollo where select initiates, mystics, sages and royalty were instructed in The Greater Mysteries: Of these, “Know Thyself” is the first. This is an irreplaceable prerequisite to receiving higher teachings.   

Altered States introduce a path to true knowing. This begins with knowing one’s body, and understanding how the environment, food, nature, breath, movement, music, peer group, career, programming and media etc. affect our state of being and how we feel, and the impact that has on how we see ourselves and world we perceive. 

In addition to the body, much attention is given to cultivating an intimate relationship with the individual and collective mind, the repository of thoughts, and the human brain which as a tuning device guided by one’s dominant state of being, attention and intention, and determines which thoughts enter our awareness. This includes knowing the roughly 10% of mind which consists of recurring thought patterns and loops which are within our conscious awareness, and the other 90% which most people are not aware of, the subconscious/unconscious and superconscious mind. This path requires thinking outside of the box and entering altered states of consciousness to open new portals of perception. Some methods for seeing beyond one’s normal state of consciousness include dream work, hypnosis, breathwork, coaching, shadow work, meditation, and work with psychedelics.

When the veil of the ego and habitual thinking are lifted, trauma, guilt, resentment, fear, limiting beliefs and anger are revealed as opportunities for integration and transformation. Integration (becoming whole) begins with awareness and involves letting go of judgement, and resistance to what has been, what is, and will be, in order to activate new organs of perception and the capacity to see beyond what has been seen. A natural result of the integration process is an elevated and better feeling state of being, a recognition of oneself as the divine within everything, and revelations of truth beyond imagination.  

Pointing to the importance of this work of knowing oneself beyond the ego and what is known, the renowned mystic and psychologist Carl Jung said: “Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakes. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”.