What is the most difficult thing in one’s life?
“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself” Thales
How important is, ‘knowing oneself’?
“The question of whether there is God, Truth or Reality, whatever you call it, it can never be answered by
books, by priests, philosophers, or saviors. Nobody and nothing can answer the question, but you yourself.
That is why you must know yourself” J.Krishnamurti
It’s said awareness of self, brings contentment and happiness in one’s life.
What about Us?
But we are all proud of ourselves.
Is there any need to know oneself?
The truth is we know more about others than ourselves. Don’t you find this interesting?
Where do you stand?
How much you know about yourself?
What you know about yourself is a permanent thing or it changes according to your whims and fancies?
Where do I stand?
As far as I am concerned, I realized that I know nothing about myself, and adding numbers to my age did not help much, since I never felt the need to know more about myself. Probably I am wrong.
Maybe I am influenced by others at every stage?
Maybe I lack originality?
I don’t know.
Am I confused?
I don’t know.
But the above quote clearly mentions that one must know oneself first.
Is it possible to get the answer?
If you have patience, please check this link.
6 Specific ways to know who you are
These days
Is it possible to find time…. to know oneself, since at present all of us are more worried about Covid & its impact?
Please share your views.
Thank you.
Namaste 🙏🙏🙏
Philosophy Through Photography
Photo by Tom Leishman from Pexels
Philosophy Through Photography 
A subtle and also a suitable image to accompany this particular aspect of philosophy. Reflection is an essential element of knowing oneself as I’m sure we all know. Earlier last year, 2020, I wrote a follow up to a series of posts I had written on Ego Integrity, the last of Erik Eriksons life stages I have certainly reached. You might like to read it for comparison with your own thoughts here https://buddhawalksintoawinebar.blog/2020/02/24/how-to-understand-your-identity/ and I would welcome your comments. This follow up was a complete reflection on my 73 years to try to answer the question “who am I” written in a series of 8 posts.
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Thank you Dr B & B.
Thank you so much .
It’s always a pleasure to interact with you and gain more knowledge.
Thank you for all the guidance.
Sure to go through your link and get better perspective about this puzzle.
🙏🙏🙏
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We do not know what we are. We do not understand what consciousness is. We certainly do not know why we are here or where we came from – we assume we are a cosmic “accident” and have evolved through trial and error from a pool of primeval mud.
Perhaps one day in the distant future science will give us the answers we crave. In the meantime perhaps all we can do is to cultivate some sort of inner peace by giving ourselves up to the mystery and ceasing to worry about it.
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Thank you Anthony Garner for your valuable input.
My guess is we are living in illusion.
Nothing is real or false.
Everything real and everything false.
Total chaos.
Simply we don’t know for what we are here.
People are scared for no reason.
Science is also said to be an illusion.
Nobody knows what is going to happen which is again part of illusion.
Very difficult to get the real/ true answers.
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Agreed. All very puzzling and currently unanswerable.
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Thank you my friend
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The most important lesson in life is learning to love ones self until you do how can you possibly love another!
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How true what you said!
Thank you so much
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A very apt image for this important issue, dear Philo. It’s easy to take a Myers-Briggs personality test and assume that you know who you are. But what about values, goals, strengths and weaknesses? It’s a combination of all these that makes us what we are.
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Thank you Dolly,
Agree what you said regarding Myers-Briggs results based on the questionnaire.
Some even said that the 16 types of personalities mentioned don’t come under any scientific scrutiny and are vague..
Personally I feel it’s very very difficult to know ourselves in depth, since we never make a serious attempt and the reason being we don’t like being judged by ourselves, leave alone being judged by others!
Hmm…the values,goals,strength and weaknesses…..who cares?
Life is a daily struggle and we don’t have time to know ourselves, but plenty of time for interfering in others matters by our judgementality.
Have you ever wondered why we indulge in knowing about what others are upto!! And why one loves gossiping!
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I think that, while Myers- Briggs inventory is necessarily subjective, at least it provides a framework. Certainly it has a higher reliability than validity.
Everyone has values; they form a decision-making mechanism within our brain. However, I agree that most people will be hard put to formulate their values. Still, every decision in their lives is based on those values. We have a saying in psychology that attitudes are not measurable, but behaviors are. Behaviors are based on attitudes, and attitudes are based on values.
I also think that everyone has goals, even if the goal is to put the next meal on the table, but again, most people don’t formulate their goals. As to strength and weaknesses, the earlier one recognizes them, the easier it will be to find one’s path in life and ultimately to put that next meal on the table.
As to gossiping, I think Eleanor Roosevelt said it best: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
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wow wow Dolly!
What a great answer!
I am thankful to you always because many of difficult questions you are able to come out with convincing answers.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote is so true!
Thank you so much.
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My pleasure, dear Philo, and I appreciate the compliment.
Be well and stay safe, dear friend.
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Thank you Dolly
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My pleasure, dear friend.
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