4. Conceptual Definitions

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (eight editions) defined self-knowledge as ‘an understanding of oneself.’ In other words, self-knowledge simply means to know oneself. It is a combination of two words–Self and Knowledge. The other term of self-knowledge is self-discovery. Thus, if a person understands oneself of what he or she is, one is said to have self-knowledge. To do anything one must have knowledge like driving a car, speaking a language, doing a technological job and so on. The more efficient, the more objective and the more impersonal it is the better.

Self-knowledge is commonly used in philosophy to refer to knowledge of one’s particular mental states, including one’s beliefs, desires, and sensations. It is also sometimes used to refer to knowledge about a persisting self–its ontological nature, identity conditions, or character traits. At least since Descartes, most philosophers have believed that self-knowledge is importantly different from knowledge of the world external to oneself, including others’ thoughts. But there is little agreement about what precisely distinguishes self-knowledge from knowledge in other realms. Partially because of this disagreement, philosophers have endorsed competing accounts of how one acquires self-knowledge. These accounts have important consequences for the scope of mental content, for mental ontology, and for personal identity.

Existential philosopher Martin Heidegger said, ‘to exist, to have an authentic being, is to reflect on oneself, to be concerned about oneself.’^[1] True being is self being, involving not only consciousness, but responsibility and free decision as well. The individual is not in total isolation. Human existence is a being in the world and the self is in relation to the not-self, a not-self of other persons and things. The very structure of the individual is constituted by this relation with others and with the world. According to Karl Jaspers, the ancient injunction ‘know thy self’ is misleading. Man cannot know himself and he is his own greatest mystery. We have knowledge of what we are not, but not of what we are.

The Hindu seer insists that the aspirant after knowledge should first, through self-control and meditation, realize ultimate reality, only then can one knows the nature of the world. As Ramakrishna said, ‘to know the many, without knowledge of the One, is ignorance, whereas to know the One is knowledge.’^[2] But it must not be overlooked that some noted Indian Philosophers, such as Kapila and Patanjali, have shown remarkable acumen in their analysis of the mind and the material world.

Self-knowledge is one of the most important and repeated key words in Krishnamurti’s teachings. It has been used for many centuries by Indian philosophers and thinkers with great reverence. The Sanskrit equivalents of it are atmajnana, atmasakshatkara, atmadarshana etc. However, there is a vast difference between the meaning of self-knowledge as used by Krishnamurti and the meaning of the Sanskrit word mentioned above. The ancient Indian believed in the existence of an abiding soul which is called atman in Sanskrit terminology, and which went through a cycle of rebirths. Thus, the knowledge of knowing the soul being a permanent and indestructible spiritual entity was what they understood as self-knowledge. This knowledge was regarded as a direct knowledge different from the knowledge of the world and its objects, derived from sense experience, inference, testimony and authority. Krishnamurti on the other hand does not consider any belief in the soul as a transcendental spiritual reality. By self he understood ‘what we actually are’ and not ‘what we wish to be’ or ‘what we think we are.’ To him, the ‘me’ and the ‘self’ are one’s ego and they are not different from ego. By self-knowledge Krishnamurti means the ‘knowledge of the total process of one’s whole being.’^[3] In another talk Krishnamurti defined self-knowledge as the beginning of wisdom and therefore, beginning of transformation or regeneration.^[4] In other words, it is the direct understanding of oneself by direct perception as one behaves in daily life and one’s relationship with persons, things, events and ideas

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

McMurrin, M. (1955). ‘A History of Philosophy,’ New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publisher, p. 607

[2]:

Nikhilananda, S. (1996). Self Knowledge. Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Retrieved from, https://www.ramakrishna.org/catalog/archive/self_knowledge.htm, dated, 23^rd April, 2013.

[3]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2006). ‘On Self-Knowledge,’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p.2

[4]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2008). ‘The First and Last Freedom,’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p. 31