“You cannot transcend what you do not know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.” — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
It has been said that self-knowledge is the highest knowledge, but what does it truly mean to know yourself? The self that most people identify with is the self that is created through their conditioning. No matter what family or culture you come from, it has conditioned you in certain ways; how you think, how you feel, and your beliefs and attitudes.
The way your parents have been conditioned to think conditions the way you think. The way you think conditions the way you feel. The way you think and feel then takes physical form, as thought processes become neurology and emotions become chemistry.
This is why people will defend, die, and even kill for their beliefs. They have repeated them so often and believed them so strongly that they have, in a very real way, become them. To let those beliefs go is to let go of who they think they are; it is a type of death. A death of what they have become, to give birth to what they yet might be.
This is the essence of all self-transformation, and this is why it can be so difficult for people to see things from a new perspective, entertain a new idea, or let go of a limiting belief even when they know it is limiting. We innately desire, resist, and fear growth, expansion, and change all at the same time.
Your reality can only reveal what you have been conditioned into; it cannot and does not show you the truth of who you are. Thinking we are our conditioning is the misidentification that is at the heart of our suffering.
Stefano D’Anna, author of “The School for Gods,” made this observation: “All wars would end if people could become aware of their conditioning. The Arab, for example, conscious of his conditioning, would stop hating the Israels. The Pakistani would stop fighting the Indian. Protestants conscious of their conditioning would stop fighting the Catholics.”
As human beings, our tendency is to project onto others what we don’t want to see in ourselves, keeping our conditioning hidden. This is how we maintain separation and conflict of the self. It is the inner war that all of us fight, and it is this inner war that gives rise to all other wars.
Peace is more than the absence of war. It is a state of integrity, a state of wholeness.
Our conditioning is necessary. It gives us something to work with. It is the rough draft to revise, edit, and transform. It is the raw material, out of which we can design and create our lives. There is a peace that comes when you begin to realize that you are not just the clay, but also the sculptor.
Getting over yourself is to not only become aware of your conditioning, but also to embrace it. In the space of embrace, there is no room for judgment, blame, guilt, or regret. The embrace is a space of responsibility, possibility and freedom; this is where the alchemy takes place. Embracing the self and how it has come to be softens the clay and allows something new, something different, to emerge.
During his acceptance speech at the 2014 Academy Awards, Matthew McConaughey talked about three things he needs on a daily basis. The first was something to look up to, the second was something to look forward to, and the third was someone to chase.
He said God is who he looks up to, his family is what he looks forward to, and himself in 10 years is the person he wants to chase. He said his hero in life is always himself 10 years into the future.
To all who could hear him, McConaughey illuminated a powerful lesson in getting over the self. When you create the self from a future vision or ideal, you release yourself from being a prisoner bound to recreate the past over and over again. We always repeat what we do not overcome.
The conditioned self is a version of self created by others, parents, family, culture and community. To get over yourself, you must know yourself; to truly know yourself, you must create yourself.
What version of yourself are you chasing? Become now, in this moment, what you wish to be.
