“Know Thyself” is an aphorism of Ancient Greece that advises reflecting within and finding one’s true self. But who is this ‘we’? Is it this body and brain we occupy which ages and withers and dies? Moreover, what exactly do we mean when we claim that body, mind, and thoughts are mine? Also, when you can read, direct, and distract your body and mind, isn’t it clear that you are beyond?

The same must also have been noted through time because many spiritual philosophers have remained convinced that there is more to us than what meets the eye, more than rationally understood. They further claim that the spirit is the true self of a person. It is that which is eternal, absolute, and the ultimate. And, I presume you will agree that the permanent(the spirit) is always more significant than the transient(body and mind), even though both provide meaning to life. In their teachings, the soul, which contains the spirit, is attributed as a gift of God and is the Creator, that living spirit settled within us. When this force leaves, we become dead, and our body is classified as lifeless because it no longer has traces of the metaphysical spirit or the soul.

The permanent ‘Who am I?’ inquiry is a profound and spiritual question, whatever the context or the world you are in since science has no answer to who you are beyond your body and mind. Let us see how deep and compelling this inquiry on the eternal identity you are about to read unfolds. Imagine how richly it can transform you and your understanding of yourself. It is about changing the perceptions of what you see someone through your sensory organs. It is about experiencing that divinity inwardly instead of searching for a divine outwardly. In short, the essence of spirituality lies in understanding you are that – God, Guru & the eternal Self.

Let’s begin. Through a spiritual lens, I am simply aware-conscious energy. Quantum mechanics in science today agrees that all that eventually exists is metaphysical energy, the absolute substratum on which all temporal forms of energy superimpose. You are not this body, mind, or soul, nor is it limited by any perception a person may have in their mind. You are that pure awareness, which creates consciousness. Therefore, you are not the mind, intellect, ego, and consciousness but the spirit in pure awareness.

This deeper reality is lacking within most of us because we are said to be spiritually asleep. A spiritual conception is in knowing and experiencing one’s divine state through divine deeds in divinity for the sake of that divineness in the beingness of who and what we are. 

The study of Spiritualism is the quest to unearth one’s authentic self. The five senses perceive outwardly, making the mind aware of sensory information. The mind then gives this information name and understanding, forming the quantitative aspect of ‘what you are’ through our discerning thoughts. However, self-awareness is in knowing thyself, the answer to spiritually knowing, understanding, experiencing, and realizing the true nature of the inner qualitative self or the subject of ‘who we are.’

We generally understand self-awareness as awareness of one’s emotional and cognitive affections, actions, and consequences for self and society. It includes self-evaluating actions, ideas, beliefs, motivations, skills, and weaknesses. However, it is the lowest level of discovering who you are.

The second stage of understanding spiritual awareness occurs when you begin to think of your thoughts, making you aware of how they emerge from memory and the intellect and project that into the future, bypassing the present moment. The mind extracts past knowledge to answer queries regarding its future outcome. Thoughts primarily relate to the past, avoiding the present. In this stage, when you start to enquire inwardly, you concentrate and question the quantum of your thoughts’ flow and the quality of how and why they arise. You also wonder about the outcome of those thoughts in the future, and accordingly, the mind reacts. However, exceptions occur when you are spontaneously aware in the now; you are intuitive, outflowing with pristine knowledge, exclaiming – Bingo, I’ve got it.

When we pause and contemplate the movement of our thoughts, the third level emerges; we notice how thoughts randomly, recklessly, and repetitively flow here and there, from the past to the future, multitasking into this and that, emotionally forever desiring from its selfish mind. All because the mind belongs to you. 

How we allow the mind to imitate others, compare, feel jealous, overpowered with lust and greed, or fall into physical love with intimacy full of expectations, demanding, clarifying, and justifying you are always right, besides, of course, with bouts of sensitivity, sentimentality, sympathy, susceptibility, and passion. However, please note – in spiritual love, you never fall but rise with purity and totality in selflessness, not being sentimental and free from prejudices.

Now, at this point, we have reached the periphery of knowing how the material mind falsely conditions us into our ‘me and mine,’ constantly desiring, reacting, imprisoned, and constrained within what our mind unquestioningly believes and demands from the external world. We spiritually state this as the fourth stage of our transcendence: awareness of our material thoughts and feelings.

In our spiritual journey, after contemplating the abovementioned, we arrive at the fifth level when we start to figure out with clarity and truthfulness, without any justifications, how and in what manner our mind constantly reacts like a puppet, dancing in emotional desires. This truthfulness of our thoughts, feelings, and actions reveals without any argument how deeply imprisoned we are in the clutches of our minds. On the other hand, the material-powered mind persists in justifying, arguing within, and convincing that it is correct to do so when it is often not. 

Here lies the difference between our personality (which, in Greek, means false mask or persona) and our unique individuality in body, mind, and soul. Our personality reflects the traits of our false intentions, which we artificially present outwardly of our false emotional and desirous thoughts, words, and actions professing to be what we are not. On the other hand, individuality reveals the intensity of your unique inner consciousness toward every aspect of dual living.

In today’s world, we have enough self-help books and spiritual teachings, which tend to create false awareness. It leads to feelings of superiority with the temptation to lecture or preach, again presuming we have realized a higher consciousness. It creates an illusion stimulating the mind to preach to others rather than genuinely experience what we have learned inwardly. When our actions do not align with the values we embrace, it can lead to hypocrisy, taking you within into a deeper darkness. Therefore, truthfulness is essential in the spiritual practice of what we preach.

I reiterate that the personality we project to the outer world is a different persona, which contradicts the individuality hidden inside. It means most of us have different qualities inside and outside. Therefore, express and exhibit truthfully what you are inside out, not artificially raving, ranting, reciting, and rendering from your false self – the ego  – ‘I am this and that.’

The sixth phase brings us to unquestioningly, without judgment, in sheer observation, meaning minus thoughts – watching and witnessing the activities of body and mind enhances self-awareness. We spiritually refer to this stage as awakening the soul to one’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Once you understand what is given above, after multiple readings on the abovementioned stages of self-awareness, the implementation of solving any spiritual phase of life becomes much more accessible. The reason is that increased self-awareness facilitates communication and allows individuals to articulate their needs and boundaries more clearly. 

Hence, a self-focussed individual can meta cognate (witnessing one’s mind and thoughts) for self-awareness, the most significant part of Spiritualism, which is sheer watching and studying the mind. Spirituality follows the flow, like in humility, divinity, etc., through prayer, meditation, mindful techniques, and reflective journaling to cultivate spiritual development by experiencing the spirit.

Most of all, self-awareness also assists in responding proactively to emotional stimuli during stressful events, enhancing one’s emotional stability and capacity to cope with crises in the present, moment to moment now. But, if you relate Spiritualism to any religion, the whole understanding becomes uncertain. Theoretically, though religion emphasizes spirituality, the expected devotion to this subject goes haywire, separating one God from another.

The most noteworthy aspect of spiritual development is knowing, understanding, and experiencing self-awareness, primarily because we are undisputed spiritual beings who go through human experiences through our bodies and minds. It provides the correct direction and clarity on working through difficulties and challenges in life, realizing that wholesomeness is in its fulfillment to discover what life is all about, mentally and spiritually. Recognition of one’s true self improves self-awareness, contributing to an individual’s journey in life to take risks and achieve goals they need to accomplish righteously and truthfully.

While it may be faster to work and get things done in auto-mode via memory by the use of sub-conscious routines and reflexes, this has its shortcomings, especially when it comes to a phase when everyone goes on autopilot relying on memory. We forget that sometimes you must switch off the discriminating mind to focus and concentrate to get better results in higher consciousness. Moreover, in lower or what we refer to as subconsciousness, one often multitasks at any given time through emotional desires, essentially in selfishness, for material benefits. In contrast, we must righteously balance the material and the spiritual for a wholesome living.  

In Hindu spirituality, we have some fundamental practices like –
– Hatha Yoga – physical and breathing exercises.
– Jnana Yoga – knowledge of the self.
– Karma Yoga -selflessly performing one’s duty and actions.
– Bhakti Yoga -devotion to attain oneness with the Divine.
– Raja Yoga  –  concentration, contemplation, and mindfulness.
– Sakshi Yoga – awakening the soul to witness the mind.

Now comes the final level of self-awareness: to comprehend that there is no self to experience and realize. It is the most powerful when you become aware of the truth of ‘Know Thyself.’ You are beyond all, simply existing in spiritual waves and energy particles, experiencing an individual life through the spirit as the life force from its field of matter and consciousness. Further, this format also reveals that if one never incarnates being in its beingness of spiritual waves, the question of reincarnation also does not arise.

 Therefore, an individual human is of the highest potential possibilities in its beingness, residing in complete awareness within the soul. It is that spirit’s expression and a part of the “Para Brahman,” which is the highest force of energy ability. Only we are attuned and attributed to the vastness of its eternal infinity. Because of us, as spiritual awareness – God as the spirit, the Universe, and whatever we know or ever know will come into being, factors that appear and disappear are temporal and do not mean much, remaining incidental.

All human minds are infinite with absolute potential, existing in a complete state of self as a manifestation of the unmanifested spirit representing body, mind, and soul. In other words, every human is transcendent and immanent because we assimilate the highest ability of the ultimate absolute nondual eternal energy within our dual-operating mind. We refer to the Universe as limitless, timeless, spaceless, and endless absolute energy exhibiting multiple temporal abilities in matter and consciousness, of which the permanent supreme ability is that of the spirit – “The Para Brahman.” The human mind, as elucidated, is in constant touch with this principle ability, the cosmic spirit, the purest and the most stable form of energy, the absolute ultimate truth. 

Of all the relationships of these unities exhibiting their temporal forms in the nothingness of the Universe, that sufficiency turns out to be unique, and this infinity is what we experience through self-awareness. Your spiritual awareness is that which manifests as God within the mind – ‘Thou Art That’ declaring that the manifest and the unmanifest are the same – ‘Hari Om Tat Sat.’

If we take this on board, it can offer us dramatic changes in the hierarchy of difficulties during the path of inner evolution. Coming to a pure state of awareness like this instills a sense of completeness, equilibrium, and bliss, providing a more profound inner tranquility. In such a situation, the possibilities of having an ego, engagement in anger, frustration, lust, greed, and vices of such nature are slim, leading to a righteously living a balanced and satisfying life with material and spiritual. NAMASTE

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