Comments - What does it mean to "Know Thyself" - Theosophy.Net2024-03-29T10:18:26Zhttps://theosophy.net/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=3055387%3ABlogPost%3A131198&xn_auth=noLoved your Rumi quote at the…tag:theosophy.net,2014-03-13:3055387:Comment:1351432014-03-13T20:43:12.168ZSeth Edwardshttps://theosophy.net/profile/SethEdwards
<p>Loved your Rumi quote at the end. Loved the entire post, to be honest.</p>
<p>Isn't "know thyself" the oldest philosophical directive from our Grecian forefathers? I could be wrong, but I'm thinking it is. It would be a beautiful beginning to western thought if it were.</p>
<p>When I see that old quote, "know thyself," I'm certain it has nothing to do with our physical selves. It's a spiritualistic directive. When we look at the things around us, from a tree, to our own bodies and thoughts,…</p>
<p>Loved your Rumi quote at the end. Loved the entire post, to be honest.</p>
<p>Isn't "know thyself" the oldest philosophical directive from our Grecian forefathers? I could be wrong, but I'm thinking it is. It would be a beautiful beginning to western thought if it were.</p>
<p>When I see that old quote, "know thyself," I'm certain it has nothing to do with our physical selves. It's a spiritualistic directive. When we look at the things around us, from a tree, to our own bodies and thoughts, we can deduce that we are not those things that we see or feel or hear or think or smell. The fact that we can study and observe them means that they are not "us." For we are observers. We are that indefinable thing that is pure subject. It's inherently ungraspable by the intellect, and therefore inherently indescribable. When I look at a fellow human being, I'm not actually looking at them. I'm just looking at the external shell housing another pure subjective being. To know what you are, underlying your external shells, is to know what every other conscious being in the universe is. Stripped of our superficial divisions and appearances, we are all exactly the same.</p>
<p>Even all of that being said, it's still impossible to even faintly describe what we are. And thus the directive still stands, unanswered, pointing us upward and onward:</p>
<p>Know Thyself.</p>