"Know thyself" once stood above the oracle of Delphi, the most important sanctuary of ancient Greece. "Know thyself" doesn't sound very mysterious. If this is the solution, finding the answers may not be that difficult after all. After all, we know us very well. Even if we fool ourselves here and there, decorating something, sometimes leaving something out, in principle we know very well who we are. If we are asked about it, we can answer without much hesitation. We know our name, our place of residence, family status, profession, our likes and dislikes, our strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, what we think we know so well is only our ego and not our Self. We are not born with an ego. Our ego is built and constantly changed through our interaction with the environment, through education, experiences and knowledge. The first experiences and realizations like I am my body, this is my name, I am a boy, I am a girl, I am smart, I am stupid, I am this or I am that, shape our psychic identity. Many of these assumptions are subjective and some are simply wrong. Yet we consider this constructed identity, which we call our ego, to be an unalterable fact.
It is not the ego that makes our experiences. The ego itself is one of our experiences. It is closely connected to the suffering and pain in our lives, because it shows us what loneliness is, how painful it is to be separated from everything. Because with the I also the you, the other and the others come into being. We separate ourselves from our environment and lose our oneness with the nature that surrounds us. Because we do not know what we really are, we wander around as lonely, separated egos, fearing for our safety. We suffer because we equate the death of this illusion with our death. We are not our body, we are not our perceptions, we are not our feelings, we are not our mind and we are not our ego. We recognize ourselves when we look in the mirror. But the oracle does not say "Know you", but "Know your Self". To do this, we have to look beyond the surface.
"Know thyself." We will not find the answers to the question about our meaning of life in the outside world, not in holy scriptures, not in philosophical or scientific books, not in an oracle. All answers to all our questions are ultimately to be found within ourselves. We do not need an oracle. We are the oracle. All the answers lie within us. When we find ourselves, we are at the gate to a higher dimension. We are at the source of all information. To get there, we have to detach ourselves from the identification with our ego, we have to recognize and accept it for what it is: an unstable, transient mental construct, an illusion, albeit an extremely useful and indispensable one.
The ego is the last barrier on our path to the Self. This barrier is strong. The path to the Self is not a wellness holiday. The ego does not want to lose its dominance. It will resist with all its strength, it will show us heaven, it will play enlightenment to us, but it will also confront us with our deepest fears. Losing ourselves is our greatest fear. That is why many people stop at this point and stop in front of the barrier. But we do not destroy our ego, we still need it. We leave it only for a short moment and return to it. But after our return, the ego is no longer our master, but our friend. Then we will evaluate and define ourselves completely differently than we have been used to up to now. We have to break through the barrier alone. No one can help us with that. Everyone has to find his own Self, his own answers.
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