CAN WE FIND SELF-KNOWLEDGE FROM WITHIN?

It is undeniable that we can find truth by looking within ourselves. We can detect our pains, tight muscles, and feelings. We also have the capacity to know right from wrong. As many agree, we are wired to know moral truths. However, can we attain wisdom and accurate self-understanding by looking within?

Here is where we encounter great differences of opinion. The highly acclaimed spiritual guide and mystic, Ken Wilber, comes out in favor of finding the truth within:

·       The mystics ask you to take nothing on mere belief. Rather, they give you a set of experiments to test in your own awareness and experience. The laboratory is your own mind, the experiment is meditation…the whole point is to re-member, re-collect, and re-discover that which you always already are. Indeed, the soul's duty in this life is to remember. The Buddhist smriti and sati-patthana, the Hindu smara, Plato's recollection, Christ's anamnesis: all of those terms are precisely translated as remembrance… And so, the soul that finally remembers all this, and sees it however vaguely, can only pause to wonder: How could I have forgotten? How could I have renounced that State which is the only Real State.

Any self-knowledge depends on remembering, but are we able to do this without bias?

In “Stillness Speaks,” mystic and New Age Guru, Eckhart Tolle, suggests that wisdom and self-knowledge are attainable merely through stillness and self-observation:

·       Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

Although, self-knowledge is theoretically available from within, these writer claim that it is not so easy:

·       “Sometimes, when you don't ask questions, it's not because you are afraid that someone will lie to your face. It's because you're afraid they'll tell you the truth.” (Jodi Picoult)

·       “The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.” (Voltaire)

·       “The author concedes that humanity had the fatal tendency to shape truth to our beliefs rather than beliefs to the Truth.” (Frank Turek)

Why do we run from self-knowledge? It is just overwhelmingly painful. In “A Study of History,” Arnold Toynbee expressed his reservation about self-knowledge:

·       Unless we can bear self-mortification, we shall not be able to carry self-examination to the necessary painful lengths. Without humility there can be no illuminating self-knowledge.

As many point out, true self-knowledge is humbling. It shows us who we truly are. As a result, many psychologists have observed that normalcy is self-delusion. One representative study reported:

·       “In one study of nearly a million high school seniors, 70 percent said they had “above average leadership skills, but only 2 percent felt their leadership skills were below average.” Another study found that 94 percent of college professors think they do above average work. And in another study, ‘when doctors diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia, predictions made with 88 percent confidence turned out to be right only 20 percent of the time.’” (Abcnews.go.com; “Self-images Often Erroneously Inflated,” 11/9/05)

Many such studies demonstrate that self-delusion is pervasive. Although we have the inner resources for self-knowledge, we seem to lack the willingness to make use of them. In “Positive Illusions,” psychologist Shelley Taylor sums up the evidence:

·       “Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases.” (214)

Perhaps pain isn’t so bad? Perhaps it’s even necessary! Sadly, once the psychological torment passes, these aggressive tumors return.  Taylor confesses:

·       “When depressed people are no longer depressed, they show the same self-enhancing biases and illusions as non-depressed people.” (p.223)

This demonstrates that these “self-enhancing biases and illusions” are entirely human and serve to explain why we flee from self-knowledge. We are simply addicted to the pleasure of having an inflated self-esteem, and we will reject anything that might threaten our comfortable addiction.

Psychologist Roy Baumeister has extensively researched the relationship between high self-esteem and performance:

·       For three decades, I and many other psychologists viewed self-esteem as our profession’s Holy Grail: a psychological trait that would soothe most of individuals’ and society’s woes. We thought that high self-esteem would impart not only success, health, happiness, and prosperity to the people who possessed it, but also stronger marriages, higher employment, and greater educational attainment in the communities that supported it. (http://imaginefirestone.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/RethinkingSelf-Esteem.pdf)

• Recently, though, several close analyses of the accumulated research have shaken many psychologists’ faith in self-esteem. My colleagues and I were commissioned to conduct one of these studies by the American Psychological Society, an organization devoted to psychological research. These studies show not only that self-esteem fails to accomplish what we had hoped, but also that it can backfire and contribute to some of the very problems it was thought to thwart. Social sector organizations should therefore reconsider whether they want to dedicate their scarce resources to cultivating self-esteem. In my view, there are other traits, like self-control, that hold much more promise.

Baumeister, Wilber, and Tolle each share the same goal – having accurate self-knowledge. However, it seems that this goal is obstructed to such a degree that the disciplines of remembering, self-reflection, and stillness are incapable of breaking through, and perhaps we don’t even want these disciplines to break through.

This is where Jesus’ words can offer us a renewed hope. One night, a Jewish member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus, came secretly to question Jesus and was told that he wasn’t even ready to hear the answers:

·       Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)

According to Jesus, real truth, although available, is not attainable unless we are reborn of God. Elsewhere, in His final moments, Jesus startled His disciples with a teaching that must have seemed over-the-top to them:

·       Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5)

It is terribly humbling to learn that we “can do nothing” apart from Him. It is something that we will not allow ourselves to see, without entirely destabilizing our lives. At all costs, we will resist it.

However, this truth, embraced by AA, has made the difference in many lives so broken that they were ready to receive it. Let us all be so broken!

JUDGE OR JUDGE NOT

Judging is unavoidable. We judge our children; a teacher judges her students; the employer judges her subordinate; a spouse raises critical issues against her husband; the church disciplines its members; we even judge when we vote.

Against the assertion of some, Jesus did a lot of judging Himself. However, Jesus insisted that judging has to be done with great care. For one thing, we first have to judge ourselves before we are in any condition to judge another:

·       “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log [blindness and self-deception] out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck [the smaller sin] out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:4-5; ESV)

Paul taught the same thing but in a different manner:

·       Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. (Galatians 6:1-5)

Paul made it clear that, sometimes, judging or correcting is necessary. However, not everyone is in a “spiritual” state where they can judge. We have to be gentle! Where does this come from? From examining ourselves! What do we find? That we are “nothing” without Christ and His forgiveness.

When we examine ourselves, any basis for pride is eliminated. We find that we stand only by the grace of Christ. How do we acquire this necessary self-awareness? Through the Bible’s requirement that we love: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

When we attempt to love others by bearing their burdens, we discover that we fall far short of Christ’s calling. This is why Paul wrote: “But let each one test his own work.” When we do examine ourselves with an un-blinded eye, we are humbled by our failures.  However, our failures can reinforce our understanding of the mercy of Christ.

Notice that Paul didn’t write that we come to this self-awareness by comparing ourselves with others. This might just breed arrogance and pride. Instead, Paul wrote: “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in [comparison with] his neighbor.”

This is not an acknowledgement that any of us have a reason to boast. Instead, boasting is our human tendency. We want to feel good about ourselves, even superior to others, and so we look for occasions to boast by comparing ourselves to others. We, therefore, tell ourselves, “I’d never do what he did. I’m better than that.”

Instead, we have to measure ourselves against an absolute standard – Christ Himself. This standard takes the air out of our sails, as it is intended to do. We see our spiritual failures, and this humbles us.

Does this mean that we are not “spiritual” and that we cannot judge? Of course not! We are required to judge. However, it does mean that only those who have been humbled by the truth and continue to confess their sins can judge. It is these believers who can judge humbly, gently, patiently, and redemptively.

But can we judge with confidence and boldness? Yes, we can! How? We know that we are in the light and, consequently, are judging by the light of God. We also know that our corrections or judgments are not of our own invention but come from Him.

Therefore, when someone accuses you of judging, you can respond, “My judgment is now my own. It is my Lord’s.”

You might also turn the table and rhetorically ask, “Well, aren’t you judging me?”

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION AND THE BIBLE

Here is a definition of the practice of mindfulness meditation:

·       "A kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is." (Wikipedia)

While the Bible has nothing against self-awareness - we are instructed to examine ourselves - it has a lot to say against non-judgmentalness.

From a biblical perspective, we are to know ourselves so that we can confess our sins, repent, and make the necessary adjustments.

Paul had criticized the Corinthian church for not judging themselves:

·       “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.” (1 Corinthians 11:30-31)

Jesus taught His disciples that they had to first judge themselves by recognizing their own blindness (the "log" in their eye) before they could see clearly enough to remove the "splinter" from their brother's eye (Matthew 7:1-5).

Scripturally, spiritual growth depends upon self-examination and corrective action, starting with confession:

·       “The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” (Proverbs 20:5)

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.” (Proverbs 28:13-14)

However, the non-judgment of mindfulness leaves out this vital component, ignoring the fact that we are moral beings, and, as such, we have to live in accordance with our moral nature, as the bird must live in accordance with flight by grooming its feathers.

For optimal living, we cannot leave any part of our nature out of the equation. My natural tendency had been to justify and rationalize my wrongdoing. However, I could not completely silence the truth, conscience, and my moral nature, which had been indicting me of my crimes.

This meant that an internal but barely seen battle was raging within, depriving me of peace. My nature was telling me that I had done wrong, while I was trying to silence it.

Peace depended upon self-judgment. I had to acknowledge my sins before God and to receive his forgiveness. Nothing else would suffice.

How does mindfulness handle this problem? By disassociating from a critical part of ourself - our moral nature and guilt!

However, we cannot completely do this. When wronged, we judge. Besides, it is right to judge the pedophile who rapes and kills a two-year-old. However, such necessary judgments are inconsistent with mindfulness philosophy.

Contemporary society has found many others ways to disassociate - drinking, drugging, distracting, exercising, and even achieving. However, none of these address the real underlying problem - that we stand guilty before our Lord and must seek reconciliation with Him and even with ourselves!