“Know yourselves… He
who knows himself knows God… He who knows himself knows all men… He who can
love himself, loves all men…” St. Antony
This is a thought that has always spoken to me: Know yourself. It’s nothing new—in fact
it’s not even specifically Christian, but it’s a universal truth. Antony,
however, makes this claim extend beyond the individual and extends it into the
communal. He hits on three points: know self, know God, know others. This is
seemingly obvious, but what is less obvious is how all these things can be
connect through self-knowledge. I would think that it is simultaneously an
interior and exterior knowledge. But how? And what does that mean?
It might be obvious that self-knowledge comes through an
interior examination; of course we need to look within ourselves to know
ourselves. It requires that we dig deep and acknowledge what we like and confront
what we don’t. There’s no skating over our flaws when it comes to knowing
ourselves. We love the light, but acknowledge the darkness. This is something
that Antony knew well—we are made in the image and likeness of light – of God- yet because of sin we have traces of darkness—not
an opaque darkness, more of a shadow, a dimming. St. Teresa of Avila explains
that our soul is an interior castle made out of the purest and finest crystal
and at the center of our souls is where God dwells. From this center, from God,
beams the brightest light. Yet some people live in a way that light is dimmed,
the soul is covered so God’s true light cannot radiate outward from within. And
you know when something in your life is amiss. You have a feeling that something
is not quite right. This is when self-discovery begins—what in our lives is
causing this light to be covered? Are we happy? Is it our hobbies, our actions,
our relationship God (lack thereof?), our relationship with others, our
relationship with ourselves? By asking these questions and taking a good look
at what’s going on interiorly, we can begin to pin down why we act, outwardly,
the way we do.
