The wisdom seekers of past ages essentially set forth one overriding dictum “Know Thyself”. Simple enough! We then, however, begin to understand the difficulties involved. Sri Ramana Maharshi poignantly asks us to inquire ‘who am I”? Who, indeed….
For those who live primarily in the external surface being, we are an amalgam of the thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, instincts, habits and trained responses that make up that surface personality and that all together help us for the ego-consciousness with which we identify.
On a deeper level, there is the soul, the psychic being, and the Self, and any prolonged and detailed review of ‘who am I” eventually leads to this. The Bhriguvalli of the Taittiriya Upanishad shows a seeker successively identifying first with the body, then the life force, then the mind, then the higher causative knowledge level, and eventually with the existence characterized by Ananda, which is one with Existence and Consciousness as the formative reality of all that exists.
As the seeker becomes aware of the multitude of forces operating on his surface being, and at the same time begins to identify more and more with the inner reality, he realizes that gaining self-mastery is an essential part of the process of maturing of the soul, and this requires both the detailed knowledge of these forces at work, and a persistent and detailed effort to bring them under coherent control aligned with the higher purpose and reality of his being.
“To know oneself and control oneself.” — The Mother
A disciple asks: “What does this mean?”
The Mother responds: “This means to be conscious of one’s inner truth, conscious of the different parts of one’s being and their respective functions. You must know why you do this, why you do that; you must know your thoughts, know your feelings, all your activities, all your movements, of what you are capable, etc. And to know oneself is not enough: this knowledge must bring a conscious control. To know oneself perfectly is to control oneself perfectly.”
“But there must be an aspiration at every moment.”
“It is never too early to begin, never too late to continue. That is, even when you are quite young, you can begin to study yourself and know yourself and gradually to control yourself. And even when you are what is called ‘old’, when you are quite aged, it is not too late to make the effort to know yourself better and better and control yourself better and better. That is the Science of Living.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 4, Becoming Conscious, pp. 115-116
Santosh has been studying Sri Aurobindo's writings since 1971 and has a daily blog at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com and podcast at https://anchor.fm/santosh-krinsky He is author of 17 books and is editor-in-chief at Lotus Press. He is president of Institute for Wholistic Education, a non-profit focused on integrating spirituality into daily life.