The difficult art of knowing thyself

According to an old Japanese tale, a Samurai once challenged a Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. However, the Zen master told him scornfully that he was a fool who was trying to waste the master’s time. The Samurai’s ego was hurt. He lost his temper and pulled out his sword from its scabbard. Then he threatened to kill the Zen master.

The Zen master calmly replied, “That’s hell.”

Confronted with the bitter truth that only a fool could lose his temper over such a remark, the Samurai calmed down. He put his sword back into the scabbard and bowed to the Zen master respectfully. He also thanked the master for his insight and wisdom.

“That’s heaven,” said the Zen master.

Daniel Goleman: “Self-awareness means being aware of both our mood and our thoughts about that mood”.

The simple story drives home the point Socrates once raised centuries ago. His injunction was “Know thyself”. In other words, he wanted people to be aware of their own feelings and emotions as they occurred. In modern parlance this is introspection. Sometimes we are jubilant over our achievements and successes in life. At other times, we are crestfallen as our plans have misfired. But how many of us analyse our own thought processes?

Meta-cognition

Psychologists call this process of analysing one’s own thought processes “meta-cognition”. In simple terms, it means “self awareness”. When it comes to self-awareness, the mind observes itself and investigates experiences and emotions minutely. Sigmund Freud, the Father of Psychoanalysis, recommended the process of self-awareness or meta-cognition for those who wish to do psychoanalysis. What is important is that the capacity for self-analysis enables the psychoanalyst to form his own reactions and judgements. Self-awareness helps anyone to remain calm in any turbulent situation. Just like the Zen master who remained unruffled by the Samurai’s threat to kill him, anyone who practises meta-cognition will not be carried away by emotions. When you are carried away by emotions, you will not be aware of what you are doing. Most crimes are committed by people who have no control over their emotions. If such people can be educated on the importance of self-reflectiveness, the crime rate could be minimised. According to Styron, self-awareness is somebody like an observer who can watch a difficult situation with dispassionate curiosity.

Even the Buddha practised self-awareness when someone tried to provoke him. For instance, when Alavaka ordered him to walk out of a certain place, the Buddha obeyed him without showing the slightest sign of anger. The Enlightened One repeated the process three times and Alavaka was quite satisfied. However, when the Buddha refused to move when he was ordered to do so for the fourth time, Alavaka realised his folly.

Self-importance

The difference is between getting murderously enraged at someone and penetrating the self-reflexive thought, “I must not give in to anger”. Unfortunately, most people find it difficult to do so because of their ego or the feeling of self-importance. As long as we think we are important, it will not be possible to practise self-awareness. Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, says that self-awareness means being “aware of both our mood and our thoughts about that mood”. According to him, self-awareness is a “non-reactive, non-judgemental attention to inner states”. In the long run, a person who practises self-awareness can tell himself, “I shouldn’t lose my temper however much I’m provoked”. If he can cheer himself up through self-awareness, he is a winner.

Controlling our anger through self-awareness is productive as far as we do not harbour a grudge against our adversary. If this happens, the whole exercise of self-awareness becomes a fruitless task. Instead, we should be able to control our emotions and get rid of them. Then only can we enjoy the fruits of self-awareness.

Emotions

Psychologists have categorised three types of people who try to suppress their emotions. For instance, there are people who have a firm grip over their emotions. They know who they are and what they are capable of. They can make independent judgements. What is more, they know their boundaries. Such people are said to be enjoying good psychological health. If society is full of such people, we will have less crimes. As human beings most of us get into bad moods occasionally, but we should not be obsessed with them. Then there are those who know that they fly off the handle quite often. They also know that they have no control over their emotions. Society is never short of such people. As a result, the police and other law enforcement authorities have a difficult task of containing the mounting crime rate.

The third category of people are also aware of their feelings and moods. What is tragic is that they do not want to change themselves. For instance, hardcore criminals are not willing to undergo any positive change in their emotional intelligence. As one leading psychologist put it very succinctly, they have a “laissez-faire attitude to life”. Even if they are in distress, nobody will be able to change their attitudes. They are resigned to their fate.

This brings us to the inevitable conclusion that knowing ourselves or self-awareness is a difficult art to practise. Some people will know themselves better than others. Then there are others who try to know themselves to change their attitudes.

The only problem all peace-loving people face is that there are people who do not want to know themselves. Nobody knows whether they also serve God!