Difficulties in life push a person to explore themselves and search for answers to inner problems. On the path of self-discovery, we begin to sense how incomprehensible the mind can be. This feeling of confusion can linger for a long time and resurface whenever we reflect inward. No matter how much knowledge we accumulate, how much we read, learn, or analyze, the irrationality within us still seems to remain. It feels as though some parts of us lie beyond our control, and some parts remain hidden behind a curtain.
Why don’t we behave the way we wish to? Why, despite trying to change, do people still fall back into old patterns? Why is it that on busy days filled with work, study, and handling external problem, we experience fewer inner turmoil, yet when we have free time to sit alone with our thoughts, many inner issues arise? Why is it that as children we are carefree and full of energy, but as we grow older, we feel heavy and exhausted inside? Why can we understand complex knowledge about the world and create intricate things externally, yet feel confused and powerless when facing our inner world?
Understanding these real-life issues is necessary to a person’s life. However, one only feels this necessity after clearly recognizing the presence of these problems in daily life. Often, we are not fully aware of the actions we are doing to ourselves; we only feel the pain and negative emotions that arise from those actions. Until we see that understanding these issues is necessary and begin to observe the roots of the problem and of our actions, we continue to act instinctively, and as a result, inner struggles arising from those patterns will persist.
The difficulties in understanding ourselves is closely related to our attempts to change our inner state or pursue an ideal version of ourselves. Trying to change what we see within creates inner conflict, and repeated failures in doing so bring even more negative emotions. Efforts to eliminate inner problems often create additional unwanted problems. When a person is trying to change what they see within, they are not truly observing to understand it. As long as one continues to chase a self-image, confusion and struggle remain.
The persistence and repetition of inner problems make the journey of self-understanding even harder. When faced with too many difficulties, we instinctively seek answers externally or turn to things that make us feel better to compensate for negative emotions. This tendency does not help us understand ourselves or the complexity within us.
So, does the knowledge a person has accumulated help them understand why these difficulties and this confusion exist? With what we already know, is it true that every attempt to solve inner problems eventually gives rise to new ones? And why does spending more time thinking about these issues seem to make them even more confusing?
We read books, listen to lectures, memorize knowledge, and then each time we look at ourselves, we use that stored knowledge to think about our inner problems. We categorize and label our issues according to certain theories, and whenever something related arises, we interpret and compare it through those framework. Is this truly understanding? Or are we merely memorizing words and using them as tools to try to pursue the image we desire of ourselves?
When knowledge is used as a tool to pursue a desired self-image, what primarily influences our state of mind is that desire itself, not the knowledge. At that point, knowledge is merely words and thoughts of equal value, serving our personal desires. This is why, when dealing with inner problems, people with different, even opposing, philosophies can arrive at similar inner outcomes. No matter how academic, profound, or sophisticated someone’s knowledge may sound, they still have to face the reality that confusion and inner conflict persist in the mind. If so, what is the value of such knowledge one cherishes, beyond being used to debate or to feel good about oneself?
A person can think a lot about themselves yet still not understand themselves. One can comment on inner issues without truly understanding them. Coming up with an answer to an inner problem is different from clearly seeing it. A person who understands can speak about the issue; one who does not understand can also speak about it. The difference is that the words of the one who understands come from direct experience, while the words of the one who does not come from thought, one think the problem is a certain way without having deeply examined it.
We may believe that the Earth is flat, and that belief might not significantly affect our lives. We may think someone is a bad person without seeing their good side, and that too may not greatly impact our life, it only affects how we interact with them. But misunderstandings about ourselves, about our inner world and about the mind can lead to actions that cause daily pain and negative emotions without our awareness. Harmony accompanies those who truly understand. Confusion and contradiction accompany those who think they understand. The knowledge a person has memorized about themselves can become a curtain preventing them from seeing themselves in the present moment.
Self-understanding begins when we no longer view ourselves through the lens of accumulated knowledge and only begins when we observe ourselves without any underlying motive.