The Know Thyself Blog: A Guide to Spiritual Awakening
a little enlightened reasoning in an age of insanity
What Does "Know Thyself" Mean? (The Ancient Secret to Modern Awakening)
What Does "Know Thyself" Mean? (The Ancient Secret to Modern Awakening)
The phrase "Know Thyself" was famously carved into the stone of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece. Over the centuries, it has been quoted by philosophers, printed on coffee mugs, and treated as a generic piece of self-help advice.
Today, most people interpret "know thyself" as an invitation to figure out their personality. We take Myers-Briggs tests, analyze our Enneagram types, and curate our identities. We think knowing ourselves means knowing that we prefer introversion over extroversion, that we find peace in fly fishing or throwing ceramics, or that we have a specific set of political beliefs.
But the ancients were not telling you to discover your hobbies or analyze your personality quirks. They were giving you the most direct, potent instruction manual for spiritual awakening ever written.
Here is what "Know Thyself" actually means when you strip away the philosophical clichƩs and look at t...
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Author
J. Stewart Dixon
Author / Philosopher / Iguana Owner
J. Stewart Dixon is an unorthodox, know-thyself, personal-growth teacher and multi-award winning, best-selling author best known for his Spirituality for Badasses book series. He teaches based on thirty years of training, interaction, growth and insight with a wide variety of modern Zen and Nondual teachers, his ongoing education and certification in neuroscientific mindfulness and a degree in communications from Syracuse University.
