My knowledge of other religions is superficial and my knowledge of Christianity is just a little more in depth so it’s only natural that I would begin with exploring the thought of self-awareness through the lens of Christianity first. This thought is not coming from a place of attack on anyone’s beliefs or for the purpose of a Bible quoting war. It is simply an expression of the place where I know myself to exist, a place where there is no conflict between my spirituality and my self-awareness, the place where I AM.
If you are a Christian or hold onto a Christian belief then it makes sense to me that the headline should be that the Christ came; all other stories are simply background or build up. So, with that in mind I say this, the foundation of Christianity is Love. God came into the world because of Love and he experienced what it is to Love in human form. He knew full well what the outcome would be yet he still chose to come.
When the Christ came, he gave Christians one principle by which to live. Even after knowing all of humanity’s story and knowing human beings in their entirety, the guiding light given by the Christ was for followers to Love God with everything (we know it as the first and great commandment) and to love other human beings as you love yourself (the second commandment which the Christ said was like unto the first). He said that there are no greater Commandments than these.
When your foundation, your starting point, your mindset, the spirit in which you approach life is Love, then all of the other things – caring, compassion, respect etc. – will fall into place. These are just extensions or the children of Love. As human beings it is inevitable that we will make mistakes no matter how good our intentions might be, but when each step of your path is made from a place of Love then stepping back to rectify mistakes becomes just a part of the path.
Nowadays we have many laws, versions of holy books, denominations, leaders and teachers telling us what to think, to say and how to act. It has become so confusing that it is easier to just tune out or become cynical. This is especially so when most implementation of laws or interpretations of the different versions of holy books are inherently influenced by the interpreter’s own flawed humanity. Yet, regardless of how complex it all appears or the vast amount of information being piled on or thrown at us – as if to make us feel that we lack knowledge so we then choose to outsource our thinking – still one thing is undeniable, The Foundation is Love.
The ideal is to Love God and Love other human beings as you Love yourself. If you Love God you will Love other human beings and by Loving other human beings you are in fact loving God. This makes sense when you think of the Christ saying the first (loving God) is the great commandment and the second (loving others) is like unto the first. It is one circle, yet this circle of Love only functions if we, the individuals, consciously know what it is to Love ourselves!
As human beings we can fake a lot of things. We can even try to convince ourselves of who we think we are by what we tell others. Who we truly are, and how we truly feel about ourselves will always be on display in our hidden actions and within the silence of our own minds and souls. The challenge then becomes to Love ourselves and the first step in learning to Love ourselves is by knowing and acknowledging who we are at our core.
We have to have an honest look deep within and face both our positive and the negative traits; not looking for blame, mind you. By the time you reach this place it is not about blame but instead about learning so that you can then consciously handle yourself. So you can then develop constructive tools to handle your negative traits giving them another avenue and therefore minimizing their destructive effects. Likewise, you can then develop tools to give your positive traits a platform to maximize their positive effects and therefore learning to Love yourself.
To look at it through the lens of Christianity; when asking forgiveness for a sin it would make sense to not just know what the sin is but to also know why or what made you more susceptible to committing that sin. If you don’t know why you do something, then chances are that you will inevitably keep doing it regardless of how badly you may feel afterwards. It all can’t just be thrown on satan.
We have to tune back in, to consciously get to know ourselves and Live in our lives instead of just existing in it. We can fool a lot of people but we can’t fool ourselves and our souls know when we have acted in “Bad Faith”, as the philosophers would say. We know, when out of fear of choosing to do something, we instead choose to pretend ignorance and just allow things to happen. We do this so as to pretend to ourselves that the responsibility of the choice lies elsewhere. But our core knows the truth, it holds us responsible and it will always find a way to express that feeling. More often than not, that anguish or disappointment will then be expressed in a negative way onto others or in a destructive way onto ourselves. Similarly, we also know when we have truly acted in good faith, with good intentions, when we have tried our best. That knowledge will help bring us peace when the results of our attempts are not what we hoped or expected. It will help us learn to like ourselves; enabling us to Love ourselves and therefore to understanding the true meaning of loving your neighbors as yourself.
An additional thought…
If you remove the lens of Christianity; if after going through the “process” we decide to not participate in the “circle of Love”, we will have at the very least gained conscious knowledge of our truest self. The optimist in me says that more often than not, this conscious knowledge will encourage us want to be our best Self
d.n.