silence shared in words
presents
What Is More Important -- To Be Thyself or to Know Thyself?
From Ignorance to Innocence #13
I have to start with your language, and slowly slowly, you will start learning my language.
I am bilingual and I will make you also bilingual.
There are two languages: the language of words and the language of silence.
Right now I have to use the language of words to translate the poetry of silence, the music of silence.
What Is More Important
To Be Thyself or to Know Thyself?
Do you think they are
different?
How can you know yourself
if you are not
yourself?
And vice versa.
how can you be
yourself
if you don't know
who you are?
To be thyself
and to know thyself
are not two separate things,
hence the question
of choice does not arise.
They are two
aspects
of a single process.
You have to
work on both together
simultaneously;
neither can be neglected.
But
it is easier to start from being thyself;
easier,
because you have been distracted from yourself
by others.
The masks
that you are carrying
are not your own imposition.
Unwillingly,
reluctantly,
you have been forced
to be someone other than you are;
hence it is easier to throw it off.
Slavery of any kind
is easier to get rid of,
because intrinsically
who wants to be a slave?
That is not in the nature
of any being,
human or not human
Slavery is against existence;
hence it is easier to throw it off.
It always remains a burden,
and deep down
you continue to fight with it,
even though on the surface you follow it;
deep down
nobody can
make you
accept it.
At the innermost core of your being it remains rejected forever;
hence it is easier to throw it off.
The process is simple.
Whatever
you are doing,
whatever you are thinking,
whatever you are deciding,
remember one thing:
is it coming from you
or is somebody else speaking?
And you will be surprised
to find out the real voice;
perhaps it is your mother
you will hear her speak again.
Perhaps it is your father;
it is not at all difficult to detect.
It remains there, recorded in you
exactly as it was
given to you for the first time the advice,
the order, the discipline, the commandment.
You may find many people: the priest,
the teachers, the friends, the neighbors, the relatives
There is no need to fight.
Just knowing that it is not your voice
but somebody else's
whosoever that somebody else is
you know that you are not going to follow it.
Whatsoever the consequences,
good or bad,
now you are deciding
to move on your own,
you are deciding to be mature.