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Do you understand yourself?

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Do you understand yourself? We may be so busy doing things that we never tried to observe ourselves - how we are, why we are, the way we are.

I searched Google: "Do you understand yourself?"

These are the top results:

1. A personality test: Understand Yourself - Personality Test

2. An article: How to Understand Yourself And Others | 2KnowMySelf

3. Another article: Do you understand yourself well?: Shinichi Tohei's Ki Weblog

4. Yet another article: Do you understand yourself?

5. Zen article: Zen is Understanding Yourself

6: wikiHow: How to Understand Yourself - wikiHow

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164505 wrote:

Do you understand yourself? We may be so busy doing things that we never tried to observe ourselves - how we are, why we are, the way we are.

I wonder what would constitute understanding oneself if ever we could (and there were such a thing). Not, I suppose, that one cannot have some insight into one's weaknesses and strengths. But this has to be piece-meal. I don't thing you can go see a guru on a mountain to who, in a few insightful sentences penetrate your innermost being. I think that during the 60's there were a number of Maharishies and the like one of two were visited by the more profound of the Beetles. Like Lennon. I don't know that anything very profound ever emerged from those deep waters.

@platorepublic,

I can't ever imagine you being a Beatles fan, Ken, which would explain why you can't spell their name, among other things. But as you have brought it up, and as this thread is about self-knowledge, I will present here some Beatles lyrics that had a big impact on many, back in the days when good music was popular, and popular music good.

Quote:

Within You and Without You
We were talking
About the space between us all
And the people
Who hide themselves behind a wall
Of illusion
Never glimpse the truth
Then it's far too late
When they pass away

We were talking
About the love we all could share
When we find it
To try our best to hold it there
With our love, with our love
We could save the world, if they only knew

Try to realize it's all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small
And life flows on within you and without you

We were talking
About the love that's gone so cold
And the people
Who gain the world and lose their soul
They don't know
They can't see
Are you one of them

When you've seen beyond yourself
Then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we're all one
And life flows on within you and without you

@jeeprs,

I that is the self as knower and I which is the self as known. A Me and not Me. The former self comes to be known in the reactions of the environment, that of things, of being-things, and visa versa. If this is so, as an experimental-game, knowledge of self and the other (subject/object) develops simultaneously and both are dependent. The bar / between the subjectobject is merely a matter of convention, a way we make sense. This self and other represent a common whole. The self - that super-mind-thing - is a process, perhaps without an a priori self-sufficient ontological status - but that is the radical thesis. An important feature of this development of self is the body, its spatiality, but so too language and other verbal communications, tools and signs which structure the way in which the organism comes to represent itself and is in turn represented and understood which again is interpreted and manifested in a wonderful spiralling state of osmosis and semiosis. This play of meaning helps if not determines our notion of self, of that I as knower and of that I as a known. By its very nature, the notion is a construct and grows within the bounds and conventions and traditions of the given world, the given culture and society.

Jeeprs, fantastic song from a most mind-blowing album, most superlative geniuses of music.

@platorepublic,

Hi Qualia - hey I can tell you've been talking to Reconstructo. (Don't worry, he's a friend of mine.:bigsmile:)

One must be careful not to over-intellectualise these things. That song, and the Beatles, and the fact that I was 16 when Woodstock happened, sparked a long interest in Eastern spirituality in me and many others. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, peace be upon him, introduced Transcendental Meditation to a mass audience, via the Beatles. I never learned from his school in particular, but I learned from a similar school, and I would recommend it to anyone.

The thing is, Eastern philosophy is really not intellectual. When you try and turn it into words, it sounds intellectual, but it arises from a very different kind of attitude to life and the world than that of the Modern West. You have to learn to be still and to be very observant of the whole mind and body. It is about purification and concentration. But you can't break it down to a set of concepts or ideas; it is a practice and a way of life.

A famous Western philosopher apparently said once of Buddhism - 'that is not philosophy, it is physiology' (I can't trace the source.) He was very close to the mark, though. When you learn to understand yourself this way, it is quite exact and scientific in its impact. You learn to understand yourself like David Attenborough understands the movement of some gazelle or other animal that he is studying on one of his nature shows. You understand the phenomenon of the mind and body by really watching how it all works and interacts.

And that is self-knowledge.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;164534 wrote:

I can't ever imagine you being a Beatles fan, Ken, which would explain why you can't spell their name, among other things. But as you have brought it up, and as this thread is about self-knowledge, I will present here some Beatles lyrics that had a big impact on many, back in the days when good music was popular, and popular music good.

Not exactly a Schubert lied, but hell, no use complainin'.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164596 wrote:

Not exactly a Schubert lied, but hell, no use complainin'.

If you have to use the German word for song, please capitalise it: Lied. (FYI: German nouns are always capitalised.) So much for Oxford.

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164685 wrote:

If you have to use the German word for song, please capitalise it: Lied. (FYI: German nouns are always capitalised.) So much for Oxford.

You are right. When they accept you at Oxford they don't think they have to teach you such a thing.

@kennethamy,

You can only understand yourself through observed behaviour.
Or direction which is still a form of observed behaviour.
And as it is so hard to observe the self objectlessly we must come to the conclusion understanding others is the best way to quickly come to understand ourselves and become truly objective.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164706 wrote:

You are right. When they accept you at Oxford they don't think they have to teach you such a thing.

Ugh. I really should stop flirting with you. Let's get on with it already.

So that according to sometime sun, I should observe you and you could observe me so that we could observe ourselves.

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164712 wrote:

Ugh. I really should stop flirting with you. Let's get on with it already.

So that according to sometime sun, I should observe you and you could observe me so that we could observe ourselves.

First know what it is you are observing so you wont make the mistake of ignoring something important later on.
I am left wondering if you agree with me or if you are ignoring me, or just taking the piss.

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164712 wrote:

Ugh. I really should stop flirting with you. Let's get on with it already.

:arguing:

:is-it-love:

:popcorn:

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164685 wrote:

German nouns are always capitalised.

Thanks for putting this up, Platorepublic. It sometimes concerns me, for example, when folk are quoting something in German like Being & Time by Heidegger in English and start whamming out the big B being. It often misleads other folk to believe that he is somehow referring to some supreme Being, like that of god, or what have you which is clearly a mistake, for as you point out, all noun substantives (I think) are capitalised in German.

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;164716 wrote:

First know what it is you are observing so you wont make the mistake of ignoring something important later on.
I am left wondering if you agree with me or if you are ignoring me, or just taking the piss.

I am neither ignoring you or taking the piss. I love you, that's all.

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164712 wrote:

Ugh. I really should stop flirting with you. Let's get on with it already.

So that according to sometime sun, I should observe you and you could observe me so that we could observe ourselves.

Ugh! is right! I don't flirt with boys.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164728 wrote:

Ugh! is right! I don't flirt with boys.

Haha, what do you do with them then?

@platorepublic,

platorepublic;164724 wrote:

I am neither ignoring you or taking the piss. I love you, that's all.

Why is it I can give it so easily but find it so hard to accept it?

(I always found flirting easy just so long as I did not want to have sex with them)

See, just proving I have absolutely no way of understanding myself unless you do. Smile

@sometime sun,

Hi all,

My, you lot are easily seduced by pride and prejudice. Only a fool reacts to a fool.
How to find yourself: take all your jewellery, make-up, hairstyles, ornaments, flash gadgets, egos, pride, judgements and opinions, and throw them in a river with a smile, then strip naked and stand in a rainstorm. Then you will find God, the ONE true God, and you will realise that "God is truly, in the rain!... Here stands you... God.

Thank you, and don't catch a cold.

Mark...

@platorepublic,

I wressle with many of my subconcious behaviours which either lack strength or are overly dominant. I do think I understand myself on a large scale, but there's always some minor things that I'm not fully aware of why they tic me and such.

@platorepublic,

The only thing that we can fully understand about ourselves is that we fool ourselves.

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