Chapter 10: Know Yourself

Dear reader,

Long time, no see :). Wow, wait. I know you from somewhere...where have we met before? :D Seriously, you're face looks so familiar to me.

I consider myself  a spiritual person and a believer of fate as well as other new age ideas. While I am a believer of my own God, I love exploring the concepts taught other religions. One of the concepts that I find  interesting is reincarnation. My understanding of it is that we all have previous lives that have intertwined with each other. For example if you find it easy to learn the piano in this life, you may have been a pianist in the previous life. Similarly when you find "the one", you feel that you have known them for a long time without being able to explain it, because in your previous life you have already lived a lifetime with them.

Now what if I told you that when we enter this life we lose all knowledge of our previous life together. We look completely different, we might even change gender, but the thing that made us ourselves remains. Christians call it the soul, new age thinkers call it infinite consciousness. What is it about you that would make me remember you, if you looked and acted completely different? That I cannot put a name on, but what I will say whatever it may be, it is our true self, it is what truly defines us. Christians believe that it will live on long after the death of the body. So how do we tune into it?
We are on a continuing path of discovery and one of the things we have to discover is ourselves. Some people will have to live their entire life to find who they really are. Some people end up moving on still stuck in the same frame of mind: deluded, not knowing what their purpose or destiny was. I am of the opinion that our world, whether accidentally or purposefully, is doing all it can to leave us in a state of unknowing. From cradle to grave the world is there to misdirect us and overload us with so many things, we forget all about who we started off as; an innocent creature with so much curiosity and wonderment at the world, where every new sight was a fantasy and every new sound was music to our ears. The first step is not to learn, but to forget.

What we are made to live in are boxes of consciousness, things that limit who we are and ultimately put us in that state of amnesia. Instead of remembering about how crazy and random this whole life really is, about how hilarious it is that we are alive and breathing together and how amazing that is, all we seem to celebrate is being limited by the words and prisons put up by other people around us. Shakespeare famously said: " All the world's a stage" This is the point. When someone asks you "Who are you?" people often jump straight to "Hi, my name is Daniel, I'm x, y and z, and I do this. What does this ultimately do? It puts you into a box. By saying that you're Christian puts you into a group with labels on you. It applies when you say you are black, white, yellow. It applies if you are straight, gay or bisexual. It starts when you explain what school you go to, how much money you earn, where you live. I believe that uniform at schools is all about destroying originality, destroying the knowledge of one's self. The whole world is about divide and rule so that instead of knowing ourselves as great equally amazing people (like we were before), we limit ourselves down to individual boxes. I can no longer remember you for who you really are because you are letting the world change you, and you are no longer changing the world. How do we counter this? It is really simple. Understand that you are not what you see in the mirror, but something greater entirely and that name of yours, John Jones or Jackie Grant is your experience of this reality, not who you are.

So when I say "Know yourself" dear reader, I want you to really ask what your purpose is in this world? Is it the purpose that others want for you? Are you on a path that you, yourself built? Have you tried a range of new possibilities to find out what suits you, or are you trapped in a box like so many other people, stuck believing that this is all there is? If you can't see yourself wearing a particular style of clothing but you want to, try it! It is like not trying a new food because you are afraid of change. How will you ever know until you try it? Some people just love staying the same and being satisfied with their same old lifestyle, but how can you want better results or new things if you can keep on doing the same old things? Knowing who you really are is about broadening your landscapes to the full. Live your life with opportunity and the road of discovery will be so much more thrilling. I don't want any more people to live their live doing something they don't enjoy, or be sitting in a piano concert wishing they could do that when all along they really could, or sitting an exam and hating every second to it while their dreaming about that new beat they put together back at home. Let me ask you, do you know yourself? Ask yourself that. Say "No." to people who say "I love you just the way you are", these people are the type of people who are afraid to change themselves for the better. Say "No" to people doubt you when you want to go out and achieve something, these people cannot do it for themselves. Say "No" to people who tell you they don't like you for being you--find someone that you are proud of being, being yourself is being the happiest you. Know who you are--and maybe one day when we go back to that place together, I will know you too.

Peace and love :)