The Power of Introspection

Randy Siegel

Gnosticism is a philosophical and religious movement that some believe predated Christian times. In ancient Gnostic thinking, Jesus taught it’s not sin that we must be redeemed from, but our unconsciousness. By learning our true nature, we can awaken to a new way of being in the world.

“Know thyself” was said to have been inscribed at the entry of the sacred oracle in Delphi. “The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge,” claimed the Greek philosopher Plato. Centuries before him, the Hindu Upanishads confirmed, “Enquiry into the truth of the Self is knowledge.” Centuries later, the Persian poet Rumi wondered, “Who am I in the midst of all this thought traffic?” Throughout the ages, sages and philosophers have taught the importance of self-knowledge. 

One of life’s central tasks is to know your self. In his groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes self-awareness as “an ongoing attention to one’s internal states.” It’s the ability to see how your emotions and perceptions are influencing your thinking and behavior.

“No one achieves a full direct view of himself, only the merest glimpse as swift as a thought,” writes John O’Donohue in The Invisible Embrace Beauty: Rediscovering the True Stories of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope. “Yet this glimpse grounds everything about your life and illuminates your work, friendship, destiny, and identity.” Most importantly, it increases our capacity to love and experience the Divine.

Many of us think we know ourselves, but we’re only fooling ourselves. There are at least three reasons why. First, our attention is focused on external circumstances, rather than on ourselves. Second, we deceive ourselves, and finally, rarely do we take the time for introspection.

We focus on the external, rather than the internal, naturally. It seems far easier for us to understand our outer world, than our inner one. Self-deceit shows up in our lives as denial and its companion blame. These are defense mechanisms we use to combat the fear that if we find out who we are, we might not like what we find. It’s much safer to send what we don’t want to face to the shadow. Finally, in our technology-driven go-go-go times, we don’t value time taken for introspection. Absorbed with the outside world, we’ve neglected spending time within, and in process become strangers to our souls.

When we fail to explore our intentions and motivations, our actions are controlled by the unconscious. Asleep, we live our lives on autopilot. Unfortunately, many of us do this most of the time. I read once that as much as 90 percent of people live 90 percent of their lives on cruise control.

“If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us—secrets about ourselves, about the nature of life, and about the eternal source of happiness and peace that is always available, always renewable, already within us,” writes Elizabeth Lesser writes in Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.

I also heard it said once that 90 percent of change comes from awareness; the remaining 10 percent is cleanup. So, the call to us is to pay attention. Pay attention to our thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, dreams, fantasies, and events in our lives. Everything warrants our attention because everything has the potential to teach us something about ourselves, our lives, and the Divine.