#self-knowledge

[noosphe-re]

The benefit of the knowledge of the self is to know for certain that you are neither existent nor nonexistent, that you are not, never have been and never will be.

Ibn ‘Arabi / Balyani, Know Yourself: An Explanation of the Oneness of Being, translated by Cecilia Twinch

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Anyone who has ever been compelled to think about it — anyone, for example, who has ever been in love — knows that the one face that one can never see is one’s own face. 

One’s lover — or one’s brother, or one’s enemy — sees the face you wear, and this face can elicit the most extraordinary reactions. We do the things we do and feel what we feel essentially because we must — we are responsible for our actions, but we rarely understand them. It goes without saying, I believe, that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less. But the barrier between oneself and one’s knowledge of oneself is high indeed. There are so many things one would rather not know! 

We become social creatures because we cannot live any other way. But in order to become social, there are a great many other things that we must not become, and we are frightened, all of us, of these forces within us that perpetually menace our precarious security. Yet the forces are there: we cannot will them away. All we can do is learn to live with them. And we cannot learn this unless we are willing to tell the truth about ourselves, and the truth about us is always at variance with what we wish to be. The human effort is to bring these two realities into a relationship resembling reconciliation. 

~James Baldwin  ::  (Book: The Price of the Ticket)

[Philo Thoughts]

[gravity-rainbow]

Self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the divine are identical (Gnostic Gospel of Thomas)

Illustration from Carl Gustav Jung's The Red Book

[cerberus253]

Damn, ain't that way too real.

From "Anima and Animus - Eternal Partners from the Unconscious"- By Eternalised on YouTube

[lesewut]

γνῶθι σεαυτόν ("Know thyself!")

Sijakovic, Bogoljub “The Presence of Transendece- Essays on Facing the Other through Holiness, History and Text.” Published 2013 in Los Angeles by Sebastian Press, Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church in collaboration with The Institute for Theological Research of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University in Belgrade.

As the title emphasizes, the book deals with "the presence of transcendence", the absence of which is so acutely felt throughout the rest of our world, that often seems disoriented and senseless. In Sijakovic's philosophical-theological conception, history plays a very important role.

As a relatively sceptical person, I often find revealing argumentations in countries of the world, that define history as a part of suffering (in Western Europe history is thought in terms of making -> Historical Achievements), like we can find in the Balkan (14th Chapter: A Critique of Balkanistic Discourse: Constribution to the phenomenology of Balkan "Otherness") . History and the interpretation is a huge and exciting topic, sometimes it is almost forgotten, how long past historical events are still instrumentalized and influencing our live :

"History is the battleground of our existence. It is that dimension of reality that demands our constant attending because it is both an indispensible constituent of our identity and a playground of virtually unlimited possibilities for deciption. Those who are powerful write the narratives that fill our history books. They "explain" to the rest of us all the "whats" and "whys" in history."

With the help of theology and philosophy, it is possible to reconstruct the past instructively. Beside sorting the facts and offering appropriate accounts, we need to know ourselves and our "nature" , to learn how to react and respond adequately, as we have a responsibility on the interpretation, as it can advance to identification. However, the philosophical aspiration to comprehend the "reality" as a whole, is a very ancient idea. Historical science is complex and there is no object of history completely independet from historical knowledge (T. Litt: "The theory of historical knowledge is simultaneously the theory of historical reality, vice versa." Cf. "Geschichtswissenschaften und Geschichtsphilosophie"). Also the concept of history decided what is to be an object of history, which is again determined by the conceptualization of history, especially by the major interpretative concepts, such as "longue durée" (Braudel) ; "episteme" (Foucault) "unsurpassable horizon" (Satre) ; "Paradigm" (Kuhn). There are many other concepts of interpretation of historical "facts" (there is no objective history, it is always about our understanding and explaining), interesting is also the theory of Nietzsche, who uses the perspectivists approach to history in order to stand against both the positivsts ideal of objectivity and the teleological historical constructs of Hegel ("Weltgeist") and Eduard von Hartmann.

Requirements for the Historian are also compared and interlinked with the social power (my recommendation by Popper: "The Open Society"): History of humanity is the history of the political power. And also Foucault connects the narrative of the Historian with the ritual of power, as those terms are congenital for a long time, the history of the mighty is tying people legally to power, the speech of the power that establishes order. "It is the fascination generated by the glory of reknowned people and deeds: The light of law and the radiance of glory are the functional principles of history [Foucault "Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977 - 78]. Both law and glory issue forth from power, and power issues forth from war. Also an important role of historical science is the formation of the identity of a given community, so it cannot be "over-valued" (in the sense of national identity).

So what is true and correct? It is very difficult, as historical knowledge is always a self-knowing and in the historical science, the self-understanding of man is manifested:

"The ends that he follows and the image of himself are discerned by man in the mirror of history. That mirror is held for us, as she calls us to memory and remembrance (Burkard Liebsch "Probeleme einer genealogischen Kritik der Erinnerung: Anmerkungen zu Hegel, Nietzsche und Foucault") , by the muse Clio whose mother is the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. He who memorizes and remembers- he knows himself."

So it is just logical, that Sijakovic is also highlighting: “The Anthropological meaning of self-knowledge: Toward the Apollonian precept "Know Thyself!"

But also other cornerstones of Sijakovics view are presented, like the confrontation of the human-being in any forms of communication and continuing processing aims at truth and authenticity, which will never end in accomplishment. But maybe in a less aggressive world?

Just a little throw-in, because very informative are also Sijakovics speculations of the “Metaphysics of Light” the theories about “The Paradigmatic and Tautegoric Nature of Poetry”

[oxigenar]

English Version | Please do not ask me not to be myself.

There are times when despair hits and I want to scream   “WHY DOES NOBODY HELP ME? DON’T THEY SEE I AM HURT?” I always needed to deal with my pains alone. From simple headaches to emotional and physical pain (not only those caused by others, but if I also caused it myself then nothing more fair, right?) I am alone. I have always been. But now I am lonely in a foreign language, In…

[bgheal]

[truths89]

Healing Stage

I am sauntering through the memories that structure the home of my childhood.

Although I cannot demolish the architecture of my adolescence, that which cannot be transmuted into florescence, I release for its obsolescence.

Between the basement and the attic of my formative years, I hum in my mother tongue of Igbo. I gyrate and let my pain migrate, which permits my bliss to vibrate.

[dreamy-conceit]

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

— Alan Watts, Life magazine, April 21, 1961

[d-i-x-i-t]

If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun.

Alain de Botton

[powersteine]

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[miss-m-calling]

trebalo bi zauzeti sopstvenu dušu kao parče zemlje, navodnjavati je bistrinom zasaditi zimzelenim biljkama opleviti potrebu da te bilo ko razume trebalo bi, definitivno, posaditi nešto

Radmila Petrović, “Je l’ tuga sa sela?” (Moja mama zna šta se dešava u gradovima)

[genyiszen]

Public Fools

“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not…

[thegodwithinblog]

The Doom & Gloom

Your belief makes it real to you. Your belief takes you to...

Attached & Influenced But are you willing to let it go and free yourself, even if it means cutting the chains to the system and to the society you made an important part of your life already?? Everybody, all the time, in all times cry doomsday. Religions with their prophets, heaven, hell. Politics, what’s better or worse for the country. Economy, difficult times, better times, what to do in…

[lindabermanblog]

Do You Have The Special Gift of Self-Respect? By Dr Linda Berman

Duffy Sheridan – Head Study with White Scarf. 2010. Gandalf’s Gallery, Flickr. “To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.” Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem:…

[oxigenar]

All over the place

Hello again! I’ve been processing my emotions for quite some time now. Yes, inconsistency got me pretty hard these days. I’ve been having crazy ups and downs and, to be honest, it’s exhausting. I am trying really hard to not go crazy, it ain’t easy. I always have a lot to say and I barely know where to start. My mind is just a lot, I am a lot. Just like the meme, god knew id be too powerful if I…