If you knew yourself, could you truly be yourself?

There are different aspects of the self to know. Think of it more like the layers of an onion. As you get closer to the outside, which contains all the layers within it, the idea of what it is becomes clearer. If it were an infinite onion comprised on never-ending layers, then perhaps the idea of self could never be realised. But if the self were merely a projection of something deeper and more real, than as we discover what this is, we would only know ourselves better.

I feel there may come a point, when the idea of self no longer matters, and only the experience does. While it may be something that will always change, always evolve, during our life. It should just do so, and be constantly assimilated into who we are, so that in any given moment, as we experience the now, it just is who we are, and there is nothing else outside of it.

 

I sort of disagree, the inner workings of the brain/mind are being expressed through you/me (not gay) as you read or type on this thread. What else is driving you? You are the full extent of current self, our personality has the ability to confront our environment so I dont think its continuously changing but more like expanding.

 

@jaypoxblox

But how would you ever know what your subconscious thoughts are? How would you differentiate between conscious and subconscious thoughts? How much of an effect does those thoughts exert on your personality? Check out the link.

en.wikipedia.org/introspection_illusion

When is your opinions your own? Were you really the origin of your opinions or beliefs? Or were you simply fooled into believing that?

We are not our reflection; we are not our body or mind. We are each other, agree? We live through the eyes of one another. If you and I were alone in a room and I suddenly called you a cock-goblin, you would most likely laugh it off, right? Now if I called you "the man with two cats and no place to sleep" in front of a group of people that you might or might not know and they were to guffaw with manic laughter, rolling on the floor, you would feel like shit, right? The joke makes no earthly sense, but you will feel slighted, right? The joke could not be applied to you in any form, yet you will be filled with sadness, right? Thus, your perception of self is dictated by others, right?

Anyway, back to reality. Our subconscious will rip us to shreds, so it's better that we are not aware of some of the more primitive animalistic contructs of our psyche. Just look at how functional schizophrenics are as a whole - those without medication, of course.

 

Expanding as in gathering more information? That is a type of change no? As we gather information implicit beliefs may change outside of awareness. \t\t


I suppose expansion is a form of change but everyone has some very basic core values that our personalities draw from.
Every morning I wake up with my personality is intact. I think any significant changes to it would be a result of something very traumatic that cannot be put into perspective in the subconscious via dreaming etc or thought through logically and causes sum form of damage.

My mood may be altered by whatever challenges I think the day may present or lack of. My sense of ego wherever that may fit into my phyche may get kicked when I get a reality check but it just as quickly lapses if my thinking is positive. My awareness of self (when thinking) via my mind takes in the information/environment further stimulating my consciousness and my personality reacts to keep the game alive. I suppose any significant change in our personality requires a significant event either positive or negative.

And there's probably a million and one other ways that all these processes may take place under different labels and different perspectives. We are part of something that evolves continuously both subjectively and objectively. Its so hard to have anything constructive to say atm its like the mind has access to infinite possibilities. Maybe thats why we have a personality and are not solely creatures of our minds.

 

The way i see it is basically, yeah i guess i could say i know most of myself. I know my personality, i am on the serious side, but i can be very happy and friendly. I am a person who loves to help others and do good. I have a short temper for bs, but i don't show it physically unless it is pretty bad. etc

Anyhow i think when you say "know yourself" the idea itself seems really limitless because we are constantly changing, and it goes very deep. I guess it can make an interesting discussion but personally i see it more as a personal thing. I think most of it is on a subconscious level, which is expressed in our thoughts, actions, and way of life.

Putting such things into words and comprehensive thought takes a lot of time and energy, but it can be very important when trying to become a better person, which is the only logical reason i can think of for taking time to do such a thing.(Rather than just experiencing life for what it is)

I think the thing that truly holds us back from "knowing ourselves" is the ideologies of society, and the way we feel that we must act and present ourselves to the world. Once we realize this is a completely ridiculous way of living and learn to be our true selves, we can find our true self. I have found weed to do a great job at this.

It raises another question i must ask. What is the point of knowing our true self? Well, the way i see it is when we can understand who we truly are we can try to better ourselves more and more in our lifetime by fixing any negative aspects. Besides that we have already established that it is important to be yourself, and not to be the person others think you should.

 

I agree.

The other effect of knowing yourself better, is that aspects of the self come into play that were previously hidden. Who we actually are and why we do this becomes obvious ONLY once we've realised something of this. Like the onion analogy I mentioned earlier, it is only by discovering the inner layers that the true understanding of ourselves becomes clear.

 

I feel like knowing yourself is the only way to really be yourself. But by know yourself, I mean know yourself on the deepest levels, and be able to distinguish the surface persona from the authentic self. green711 said it will. We learn to distinguish between the mask we wear to fit in with and please society and our true nature.

In knowing ourselves truly, we also have to face ourselves in our completeness... our good and our bad side. We have to know our shadow, face it and accept it rather than suppress it and hide from it. Only then can we truly know and accept ourselves, and only then can we work to improve upon our weakness and become more balanced individuals.

 

I took my "ego" for a test ride yesterday.

It still the same old arrogant, stupid self

 

Interesting point, though i believe that knowing yourself is not merely impossible, only depending on what context you define yourself. I know myself, when I say that, I know my personality, I know my experiences, I know my body, I know my situation. But taking it to the next level, 'do I really know myself'? I mean, how can you know something as intangible as the spirit, you can describe its effects you can describe how it makes you feel, but can you really say that the spirit has a function?

 

It could simply be that the spirit's function is to help each of us to know it's there. As we come to recognise this aspect of ourselves, we not only know ourselves better, but this aspect can't really be known until we've chosen and spent much time looking at who we are first.

There's a big difference between what we're able to know about ourselves with the egoic self, and what we can know through the spiritual one.