One of the oldest spiritual injunctions is, ‘Know yourself.’ It is meant to push people down a path of self-discovery. Although this search may begin with social ambitions and intimate relationships, eventually it will turn inward. The ones who want to know themselves will set up a watching and listening post in the centre of their being. They will begin the arduous task of observing the machinations of the mind and the flutterings of the heart.
This inner work is sometimes divided into transcendent interiority and introspective interiority. Transcendent interiority is the discovery of the deeper self or the higher self; the witness. Ken Wilber describes this witness:
You needn’t try to see your transcendent self, which is not possible anyway. Can your eye see itself? You need only begin by persistently dropping your false identifications with your memories, mind, body, emotions, and thoughts. And this dropping entails nothing by way of super-human effort or theoretical comprehension. All that is required, primarily, is but one understanding: whatever you can see cannot be the one who sees. The Lord is guiding each one of us.
May God bless us all.
With love and prayers, Fr Michael