Evolution of Consciusness(Post 21)-Know Thyself

Self Remembering and Know Thyself

In the last post we saw the necessity of liberating the Mind from its past ,

Where, ‘Ego-Self’ is the repository of all that is past.

And, we have also seen the extreme difficulty in moving away from one’s Ego .

Promises, Coercion, Torture, Persuasion, Training, nothing succeeded in their mission of 

liberating the Mind from the clutches of Ego.

Above things failed because they were either persuading or forcing someone to 

BECOME what he is not (Psychologically).

We have already seen this aspect, let us approach it bit differently.

Becoming is like reaching out to something, and also holding on to what one has.

It is quite normal in the physical world but murky in the psychological plane.

Say for instance,

One can hold on to his ‘old house’ and reach out for a ‘new house’.

But one can not hold on to ‘Anger’ and reach out to ‘Non-Anger’.

For reasons,

As long as one is holding on to ‘Anger’, one can not be ‘Non-Angry’.

And moreover, if one takes a closer look,


 Non-anger is a mere word for ‘Absence of Anger’, it has no independent 

Existence but for ‘Anger’ (There is no ‘Feeling’ such as non-anger).

So, actually there is nothing to reach out, what one can do is let go of Anger.

That is, there is no becoming, either one is angry or not-angry.

The ‘Non-Anger’, the psychological dual opposite of Anger, is simply an invention of 

the Mind, like psychological time to realize it. 

We have already seen this aspect of illusion.

Coming to Ego/Ego-Self,

One tend to do the same thing, that is

Holding on to the ‘Ego-Self’ and also trying to reach the ‘Egoless-Self‘.

The egoless-self is like non-anger, an invention of the mind.

Egoless-Self is just an idea, it has no independent existence but for Ego-Self.

So, here again, there is no becoming, one has to let go of the ‘Ego-Self’.

That is not easy, because ego is what one is.

If one is asked to let go of Ego, then the question will be ‘then, Who am I?’.

This question is raised by the Ego, because abstractly it project egoless self and 

comes out with a void or emptiness.

So, one has to begin with what one is, not on the ideas of a soul or true-self..

That is to know one-self.

Since ancient times, almost in all societies, there existed a saying in one form or another,

‘Know thyself, you will know the rest’.

The Greek maxim ‘Know thyself’ is probably not knowledge of one self but knowing one self.

To know anything, one has to observe it without bias and attachment.

There are many methods suggested by many systems.

And ‘Self-Remembering’ is one of the methods, suggested by Gurdjieff to observe one self.

We will see what is Self-Remembering and how to apply it.