The essential elements for self inquiry and self realization towards knowing Thyself

"What is knowing Thyself, and how to know Thyself?"

Under the influence of the veil of ignorance, on top of under the influence of the many different existing created/inherited/adopted egoistic cultural/religious/spiritual/family/communal/regional/national/political/commercial/educational/philosophical/mystical/superstitious wishful thinking, ideas, beliefs, values, desires, and practices, many minds might think and believe and propagate that 'knowing Thyself' means to know 'who I really am', of finding out my initial origin/the beginning of my existence, or the original source of my infinite existence, of where I belonged to (originally), of whom I came from or what I was made of (my creator/my parents/the source of my infinite existence), of knowing my original infinite all time ancient unchanging true self identity of a permanent independent immortal individual pure and perfect consciousness/spirit/soul/existence that is devoid of painful suffering, residing temporary in a mortal impermanent limited and conditional impure decaying disintegrating body and mind that is full of painful suffering.

Under such idea, thinking, belief, values, practice, inspiration, and aspiration (wishful thinking), the minds of human beings, including many yoga and buddhism enthusiasts, believe that they (what they think and believe is who they really are, or their immortal soul/spirit/consciousness that belong to themselves) came from or were the creation of an almighty creator/controller/authority/judge of the universe, and they believe that they have an infinite immortal endless pure and perfect existence that exists infinitely right after they came into existence, but somehow they have a downfall and are lost in the world of impermanence and mortality and painful suffering (due to ignorance or sins), and are waiting to return home (infinity and immortality and absolute pleasurable enjoyment) to where they initially came from, a place/space that is devoid of mortality, vulnerability, limitation, difficulty, dissatisfaction, fear, insecurity, uncertainty, unpleasantness, painful sorrow, illness, decay, weakness, old age, and painful suffering, but only infinite and limitless power to manifest and control everything in certain way, of all kinds of desirableness, pleasantness, joyfulness, blissfulness, and pleasurable enjoyments.

That is the freedom of thinking, understanding, belief, values, and aspiration of the minds.

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Knowing Thyself, under the teachings and practice of yoga and/or buddhism, is about -

Knowing what is the mind and the modification of the mind, and everything that the mind perceives/experiences internally and externally through the senses via the sense organs of the physical body.

By initiating, activating, and/or engaging in the conscious mind evolution and/or mind conquest, under the presence of the limited and conditional conscious awareness, conscious cognition, conscious freewill, conscious initiative, conscious choice making, and conscious effort or action taking.

To attain direct self realization towards knowing Thyself, via meditation and self inquiry/introspection/investigation, by rendering the mind focus, clear, and quiet to be inquiring towards "Who am I?", or more precisely, seeing/knowing the truth of "What is the 'I' that the thinking faculty thinks and believes, or perceives and conscious of, or recognizes and identifies, or remembers and acknowledges, or grasps and attaches unto as 'who I am', or 'this is me/I/myself', or 'this is my body, my mind, my life, my world, my identity, and everyone and everything that is my and mine'?" under the rendered focus, clear, and quiet state of mind.

To perform self inquiry to attain direct self realization towards knowing -

What is the perceptive cognitive intellectual emotional self-aware/acknowledge/assertive thinking and acting faculty and the thought process/current/activities towards perceiving/processing/reasoning/knowing/experiencing a worldly life existence of names and forms of pleasurable enjoyment and painful suffering, that are all selfless, impermanent, limited, conditional, and non-self?

Why the mind doesn't know itself a.k.a. the existence and function of itself?

What is there that is hindering the mind from knowing Thyself?

What is ignorance?

How to be free from ignorance? 

What is the veil of ignorance?

What is the annihilation of the veil of ignorance? 

What is consciousness or awareness?

What are the different states of mind?

What are the different states of consciousness?

What is the 'I', or the ego, or the self awareness/acknowledgement/assertiveness?

What is egoism?

What is impurity?

What is restlessness? 

What is thought/idea/feeling/emotion/desire?

What is the law of nature?

What is cause and effect?

What is life existence?

What is suffering?

What is the root cause of suffering?

How to be free from suffering?

What is survival instinct?

What is duality and non-duality?

What is renunciation?

What is dispassion?

What is the mind thinking and behavior pattern? 

What is disturbance, unrest, uncertainty, insecurity, peacelessness, restlessness?

What is hurt, fear, greed, anger, hatred, cruelty, violence?

What is dissatisfaction, disappointment, discontentment, dishonesty, hypocrisy, untruthfulness, selfishness, possessiveness?

What and why there is politics, politicking, manipulation, exploitation, bullying, intimidation, invasion, intrusion, occupation, slavery, abuse, corruption, gangsterism, organization, grouping, discrimination, prejudice, fighting, war, killing, power/control gathering and clinging, manmade rules and regulations/law and order, religion and spirituality and culture or religious/spiritual/cultural belief, values, and practice?

What is conditional and unconditional?

What is universal and non-universal? 

What is unconditional peace, freedom, liberation?

What is dhamma?

What is yoga?

What is buddhism?

What is self inquiry and self realization?

What is direct self realization?

What is enlightenment?

What is 'yogi'?

What is 'buddha'?

What is 'all are buddha, all are dhamma'? 

What is 'all are Maya, all are the creation/manifestation of the mind'?

What is 'Brahman (the all pervading selfless timeless attributeless silent universal consciousness that doesn't belong to anyone or anything) is real (permanent/infinite/unlimited/unconditional), Jagat (the selfless manifestation of thought current a.k.a. the mind perception/cognition towards a worldly selfless impermanent limited and conditional non-self non-independent fleeting/ever-changing/decaying existence of names and forms manifesting upon the selfless universal consciousness that doesn't belong to anyone or anything) is unreal (impermanent/finite/limited/conditional)'?

What is ceaseless restless births and deaths?

What is ceaseless restless reincarnations transitioning between different realms/worlds/spheres?

What or who is undergoing restless endless boundless births and deaths transitioning between different countless realms/worlds/spheres?

What is silence, stillness, Samadhi?

What is the end of ceaseless births and deaths, the ceased existence of the wheel of reincarnation, the ceased existence of the sum total of karma upon silence, stillness, Samadhi? 

What is mind conquest? 

What is wisdom?

What is kindness?

What is compassion?

What is time?

What is past and future? 

What is the truth of all kinds of names and forms, of this body and mind, and all and everything else that is beyond and not this body and mind?

What is Selflessness, Impermanence, Limitation, Conditional, or Non-self?

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The essential elements for self inquiry and self realization towards knowing Thyself -

- Moderation or the middle path. 

- Dispassion and simplicity.

- Disinterest towards worldly passionate pleasurable enjoyments of the senses.

- Intense yearning towards absolute freedom, liberation, knowledge, and peace.

- Mental and emotional independence.

- Solitude and seclusion.

- Self management/control/restriction/discipline.

- Immovable determination and perseverance.

- Patience, forbearance, acceptance, adjustment, adaptation, accommodation. 

- Open mind a.k.a. non-blind believing, non-blind following, non-blind practicing, non-blind agreeing/disagreeing, non-blind propagating, non-blind glorifying, non-worshiping.

- Renouncing worldly egoistic ideas, beliefs, values, practices, habits, way of living, affairs, activities, ties and connections, interactions, and communications.

- Turning the outgoing tendency of the mind inwards.

- Going beyond or transcending duality or qualities of names and forms, or not being determined by and non-clinging/non-craving/non-aversion towards the sense of high and low self esteem and self-worth, the sense of belonging and ownership, superiority and inferiority, pride and shame, goodness and badness, righteousness and wrongfulness, positiveness and negativeness, meaningfulness and meaninglessness, gain and loss, success and failure, achievement and non-achievement, enjoyment and suffering, joyfulness and joylessness, togetherness and separateness, family and not family, friends and not friends, and etc.

- Thinning-out, starving, weakening, and eliminate the idea of 'I', 'my', and 'mine', not to say, 'we', 'our', and 'ours' or 'they', 'their', and 'theirs'.

- A rendered impermanent limited and conditional momentary but highly precious clear and quiet state of mind under the presence of conscious awareness.

- Non-grasping, or non-attachment, non-identification, non-craving, non-aversion, non-judgment, non-comparison, and non-expectation towards the action/practice and the fruit of action/practice, allowing the fruit of action/practice to be there as it is, to be what it is, and all are impermanent and non-self.

- Standing as a silent witness. Unmoved, even if what the mind perceives as 'bliss', or 'absolute silence', or 'stillness', or 'guru', or 'buddha', or 'gods', or 'colourful lights', or 'fragrance', or 'sensations', or 'sounds', or 'speech', or 'the passed away beloved ones', or 'anyone', or 'anything', sort of appearing to oneself, all are the creation and manifestation within the selfless modification of the mind.

- Truthfulness and honesty without grasping, or attachment, identification, craving, aversion, judgment, comparison, and expectation, upon seeing the existence of ignorance and all kinds of impurities, or the presence of undesirable and disagreeable qualities, or the presence of vulnerability, powerlessness, selfishness, and hurtful tendency in the mind. All are impermanent and non-self.

- Absence of denial and aversion (rejection/pushing away) and justification (hypocrisy/pretentious/manipulation/lies/story telling/blaming) upon seeing/acknowledging/recognizing the existence of impurities, vulnerability, powerlessness, imperfection, weakness, disability, limitation, helplessness, uncertainty, insecurity, dissatisfaction, disappointment, exhaustion, doubts, unknown, non-understanding, misunderstanding, partial incomplete understanding, ignorance, and/or destructive hurtful violent tendency in oneself (the mind is aware of the restless egoistic impure modification of itself), as well as absence of attachment, identification, craving, and longing towards the opposite of all that, a.k.a. not being determined by the sense of pride and shame, superiority and inferiority, accomplished and non-accomplished, high and low self esteem and self-worth, and etc.

The minds that are functioning under the influence of the sense of pride and shame, superiority and inferiority, and all kinds of desirable and undesirable qualities, under the presence of grasping, under the presence of the idea of 'I' and egoism, will naturally don't like and don't agree with, as well as will be denying and pushing away the truth of the selfless impermanent limited conditional and non-self existence and function of the mind itself, which is naturally full of all kinds of impurities, vulnerability, powerlessness, imperfection, weakness, disability, limitation, helplessness, uncertainty, insecurity, dissatisfaction, disappointment, exhaustion, doubts, unknown, non-understanding, misunderstanding, partial incomplete understanding, ignorance, and/or destructive hurtful violent tendency, that is not the way that the mind would like and desire itself to be - The absence or the opposite of all that.

The minds rather cling or hold onto certain wild imaginations and wishful thinking, of certain worldly egoistic ideas, beliefs, myths, magical story telling, fairy tales, justifications, values, practices, inspirations, and aspirations, that appeared to be agreeable, desirable, reasonable, acceptable, hopeful, and comforting to the minds to think and feel good and better about themselves.

Such as most minds growing up understand that 'Santa Claus' as well as some other 'religious/spiritual/ancient/modern characters' are merely some made up fictional characters that don't exist, that were being created by the minds functioning under the influence of the veil of ignorance to control and manipulate the young children and all the others to behave in certain way and not in certain way, but the minds still want to continue such practice as well as passing on such practice to their next and next generations, not to say, the many other types of cultural/religious/spiritual/family/ancestral/communal/regional/national/political/commercial/educational/philosophical/mystical/superstitious wishful thinking, ideas, beliefs, values, desires, inspirations, aspirations, and practices, that are all deriving from ignorance and egoism, and that empowers ignorance and egoism.

That is the freedom of thinking, belief, desire, practice, and activity of all minds.

It has to come from the mind itself, of want to be free from all those influential and conditional 'myths', 'lies', 'story telling', 'fairy tales', 'heroism', 'patriotism', 'loyalty', 'justification', 'manipulation', 'intimidation', 'bullying', 'oppression', 'suppression', 'exploitation', 'power game', and so on, of so called family and community, or religious and spiritual, or national and political, or economical and commercial values and practice to bring people together, but it is all about gathering and hoarding power of control and manipulation towards all and everyone and everything to be the way that one desires, to achieve all one's greedy ambitious desires, and to feel good and better, or superior and powerful about oneself that is full of uncertainty, unknown, doubt, insecurity, limitation, powerlessness, vulnerability, and etc (The inconvenient undesirable disagreeable Truth), that the minds don't like and don't desire.

However, there is nothing bad or wrong about the mind doesn't like and doesn't desire 'The inconvenient undesirable disagreeable Truth', which can turn into the precious intense yearning towards liberation to be free from all that, by understanding and transcending (not being determined and over-powered by) all that, via renunciation and dispassion, through meditation, self-inquiry, and direct self-realization, and not by denying, rejecting, hiding, and pushing away the undesirable disagreeable truth, while engaging in and empowering random ignorant hurtful activities that impact all and everyone and everything in the process of want to feel good and better, or superior and powerful about oneself, and to feel hopeful and meaningful about the fleeting momentary vulnerable selfless impermanent limited and conditional life existence and function of the mortal body and mind, that is non-self, that doesn't even belong to the body and mind itself.

Inquire the truth of everything, and be free.