Know Thyself: How to Use the Real Power of Your Mind
KNOW THYSELF
How many times do you hear the phrase, “Know Thyself?” Maybe you’ve heard it in a religious or spiritual context, or perhaps your parents said this to you growing up. Discovering who you are is a common theme in life. Knowing who you are, what you are about, your likes and dislikes, what your morals and ethics are, what your preferences, beliefs, and opinions are can help you navigate the direction of your life. Having interests, passions, hobbies, and desires can point you in a number of different directions. However, when discussing “Know Thyself” in the spiritual sense of the word, it’s important to define what self we are talking about. This requires an awakening or undoing process because the identity you have associated with is not the same as your higher self with a capital S.
The identity self, or the person you believe yourself to be, is the ego’s domain. This special self is who you relate to, reflect upon, and associate everything in your life with. This is the self you know best as it is who you believe yourself to be. When you begin to wake up from this belief, when you begin to question this world, or when you have an experience that brings you closer to your spiritual self, the awakening process is initiated. The meaning of “Know Thyself” takes on an entirely new meaning. What self am I? Do I even know the real self, or is recognizing what I am not enough?
Knowing who you are in the world, and who you REALLY are as spirit are two totally different things. They are nothing alike. A Course in Miracles would say there’s the ego thought system, the system that made up a world and special individual identities, and there is the Holy Spirit’s thought system which reminds you that the only reality is God. There is only God and nothing else.
The Holy Spirit is the answer to the error in your mind, the main belief that you are separate from God, which is the ego’s creation. When you hear people discussing “Know Thyself” are they referring to your special self as an ego, or your true self as a spirit with no individual identity or separation from God?
RECOGNIZING THE EGO SELF (s)
There are ways to recognize if knowing yourself is a masterful trick and a deepening of the ego identity. Both religion and spirituality have a way of always falling back on the special identity. The special soul that you are told you have. Most religious teachings involve the ego’s thought system. They claim God created the world and He created you as a special soul in His likeness. This is a shared belief in every major religion of the world. Even if religions seem to have different teachings, they agree on this one main theme. A Course in Miracles states something completely different, which is why it is not popular. Very few are ready to hear any of this. Its premise is that God is God, and there is nothing outside of Him. Everything outside of God is unreal, or an illusion. This shatters everyone’s belief in a world created by God, as well as the special identity that is YOU.
Understanding this is key to undoing the the ego’s thought system. If you miss this very simple, yet profound premise of the Course, then identifying your ego is challenging. To make this very simple, everything in this world, according to A Course in Miracles, is made up by the ego, it’s quite literally a dream. Therefore, everything you think, believe, and attach to is done so by the ego. Your identity as a person is done by the ego. The entire world and everything within it is done by the ego. Nothing you see in front of you is as it seems. The ego has cleverly placed a veil over you so you never see the truth that is always within you.
Here are a few helpful hints to know if your ego is grabbing a hold of “Know Thyself.”
You feel more powerful and in total control of your life. Nothing can stop you from achieving your goals.
You know what is best for you and everyone else. You know what you need and you will put your mind to it to make sure you get it.
You are in control of healing your physical body, and if you aren’t able to you will feel defeated and less spiritual.
You know the power of the human mind and you will use it to create/manifest these dreams into reality.
You are a conscious co-creator with God.
In all of these examples, the ego is claiming ownership over knowing what is best. The ego will always seek to insert itself into your reality to keep you stuck in a never ending game of confusion. The ego will always have an arrogance because it believes it is playing God, which A Course in Miracles explains it is always doing. The ego is trying to create a world better than God’s world, and it wants you to believe this at all costs. This is why you see all major modern spiritual movements and discussions on the power of consciousness insinuate that we have the power to create our reality, the power to get whatever we want, and to create an amazing world. The ego inserts itself without even knowing it, claiming that this world could be better than God’s.
This idea is what the Course refers to as level confusion. Even students of A Course in Miracles work to pull Heaven to Earth all the time. Some suggest the Course is saying everyone could have perfect health and a perfect life if you choose the Holy Spirit as your teacher. This is the furthest thing from what the Course is really teaching. If there is no world outside of God, then God is the only Heaven, and all illusions must be brought to the Truth, not the other way around.
RECOGNIZING THE SPIRITUAL SELF (S)
The spiritual side of your mind is quite the opposite from the ego. The Holy Spirit is always available if you choose to let it in. Simply asking for guidance is enough, then it’s just a matter of listening. The spiritual aspect of the mind is not concerned with personal outcomes, expectations, or desires of the world. The Holy Spirit’s only mission is to help heal the belief in separation and return to our Real Home in God. Spirit is not concerned with worldly matters for it sees the world as part of the dream, it is outside of Truth. That might be hard for some to understand because the ego mind has such a strong grip on each and everyone of us.
Here are a few hints when you are in your spiritual mind of “Know Thyself.”
You are not attached to any expectation or outcome of how you think your life should be.
You see a lesson in everything you do and every encounter with another person.
You are detaching from the special self or personal identity. You are allowing life to unfold as it will.
The illusion of the world is becoming clearer and you are putting your faith into a much larger teacher than your small self.
You understand healing is only in the mind and is not about a body or the physical world.
These few examples are teaching you that the true self has nothing to do with a personal individual, but everything to do with returning to your real home in God. You recognize that this world can’t possible touch the real creation of God’s Kingdom, and this world is merely a facade masking for the real deal. Your trust in spirit allows you to feel comfortable that no matter what happens in this world, no matter what happens to your personal identity, nothing has or will ever change in REALITY.
THE REAL POWER OF YOUR MIND
Power of the mind is a huge topic of discussion in the self-help movement and the human potential movement. Getting yourself into a proper mindset, getting in alignment with your higher self, manifesting your dreams into reality, and positive affirmations are just some of the tools for accessing the power of your mind. There is nothing wrong with doing any of these things, but be clear on what you are doing.
All of these desires are stemming from what you think you need and want. In this scenario, the ego is leading the charge acting as if it knows exactly what is best for you. However, the spiritual side of your mind is only concerned with one thing, having you wake up from the illusion and realize that nothing is as it seems. Everything you see is not what you think it is. You are putting all of your faith into a false identity, and the ability to choose again, to choose the Holy Spirit as your teacher is the REAL POWER OF YOUR MIND.
You can certainly use your mind to get what you think you want. You can choose which side of the mind you see with. But, when it comes to awakening from the dream the true power of your mind is your ability to go into the decision making aspect of your mind and choose a wiser teacher. That’s it. “Knowing Thyself” has nothing to do with what job you think you want, how much money you want to make, what food is healthiest for you, how long you meditated today, if you can heal every trauma in your life, or what goals you are setting for yourself. It has everything to do with the power of your mind to choose the Holy Spirit as your guide and teacher in the classroom of life.
This takes incredible strength and power. Why? Because the ego thinks it knows what’s best. When you choose spirit, you are handing over everything you think you know, and everything you think you need to something mush greater than your small identity. You are admitting you don’t know. In fact, it brings you to knowing absolutely nothing. This allows your mind to open, and you are ready to be guided back Home, to “Knowing Thyself” in your true reality in God. You are no longer interested in beefing up your ego identity, you are ready to let go of all your false beliefs and put. your faith in a much wiser teacher.
When you find yourself getting caught up in using your mind to create the life you want, and manifesting your dreams into reality, remember that spirit will always show you what you need in life, even when your ego mind strongly disagrees with it. When you are resisting life, your ego is in charge. When you are disagreeing with what is happening in the present moment, you are letting the ego dominate. Being able to see this in yourself is key. When you see the ego clearly, you can stop listening to it. Knowing your ego well is necessary in order to detach from of it. How can you detach from something you don’t see? It’s impossible.
If it suits you, get to know the ins and outs of your ego, how it works, what excuses it makes, what controls it is placing in your life, what resistance it puts up, and what falsehoods it is working to persuade you to believe. When you get really good at seeing it, you will become even better at laughing at it. You will be able to let it chatter without taking it seriously. The only problem the ego leads you to believe is that you need to take it seriously. Guess what? You don’t! You don’t have to take it seriously at all. The ego will do nothing but confuse you and continue to keep you sleepwalking through life.
Use the incredible power of your mind to choose a wiser teacher, a teacher who truly cares about your ability to see clearly, and lights the pathway home from a world gone astray. Don’t be so concerned with achieving enlightenment for that is most certainly coming from the ego. Focus on what you are not, that is all you ever need to do. Eventually the false layers of belief will melt away revealing inner peace to you. Live your life however you choose, but the real choice, the true power of you mind is simply a matter of staying fast asleep, or waking up to the spiritual journey home.