Know thyself · Γνῶθι σεαυτόν
Know thyself
Two words carved at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Tradition credits them to the Seven Sages of Greece in the sixth century BCE, so they were already ancient wisdom when Socrates made them the heart of his philosophy. In later centuries a promise was often added: know thyself, and you will know the universe and the gods.
The navel of the world
The temple at Delphi
Greek myth tells that Zeus released two eagles from opposite ends of the world. Where their flights met, he marked the centre of the earth with a sacred stone, the omphalos, or navel. There, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, rose the Temple of Apollo, god of the sun, of light and of music.
His priestess, the Pythia, took her name from Pytho, the great serpent Apollo overcame there. For centuries people travelled from across the ancient world to seek her counsel. Yet the first teaching met them before they spoke a word, written above the doorway: know thyself.
Written in the stars
Delphi in the summer sky
Look up on a clear summer evening and the story seems to be written overhead. Altair, the brightest star of Aquila, takes its name from the Arabic for “the flying eagle”; Vega, in Lyra, from “the swooping eagle”. Two eagles, as in the myth.
With Deneb they form the Summer Triangle, a tripod of light like the seat on which the Pythia sat. Between them leaps Delphinus, the dolphin, its name an echo of Delphi, and coiled nearby lies Draco, the serpent.
A poetic reading of the sky, offered for wonder rather than as proof.
Gnothi Seauton · Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831
God dwells in thee
If thou canst bear
Strong meat of simple truth
If thou durst my words compare
With what thou thinkest in my soul’s free youth,
Then take this fact unto thy soul,—
God dwells in thee.
It is no metaphor nor parable,
It is unknown to thousands, and to thee;
Yet there is God.
Who approves thee doing right?
God in thee.
Who condemns thee doing wrong?
God in thee.
The Principle of Correspondence
As above, so below
The ancient sages saw the human being as a small universe, a microcosm, mirroring the great one around us, the macrocosm. The same pattern runs through the stars, the seasons and the self.
It is woven into one of the oldest prayers we know: on earth, as it is in heaven. To know yourself deeply, then, is to come to know the order of all things, and to recognise that order at work within you.
The measure of a person
You are made in proportion
The Roman architect Vitruvius taught that temples should follow the proportions of the human body, and around 1490 Leonardo da Vinci drew his famous figure, arms outstretched, fitting both a circle and a square. Ancient builders measured in cubits, the length of a forearm.
We count in tens, as many fingers as we have. Our bodies turn at thirteen great joints, and many peoples kept a calendar of thirteen moons of twenty-eight days. Patterns like these have long invited people to wonder whether we are made in harmony with the world around us. Caring for the body, then, is part of knowing yourself.
The Principle of Polarity
The golden mean
Aristotle described goodness as a golden mean between two extremes: courage, for example, lives between recklessness and fear. Day and night, summer and winter, giving and receiving each hold the other in balance.
Traditions across the world, from ancient Egypt to the First Nations of the Americas, place balance at the very centre of a good life. In body and in mind, to know yourself is to notice where you have drifted towards an extreme, and to return, gently, to your centre.
The Principle of Rhythm
The harmony of the spheres
Pythagoras taught that the planets, moving in their courses, sound a music of perfect proportion, too vast for the ear but known to the soul. The cosmos, in this view, is a great song.
You carry your own rhythm too. Rest a hand on your heart and take seven slow breaths. That steady beat, keeping time without your effort, is perhaps the closest music of all.
The Principle of Cause and Effect
A humble heart
In ancient Egypt, it was said, the heart was weighed after death against the feather of Ma’at, the goddess of truth and balance. A heart light with truth passed on in peace.
In the legend of King Arthur, the young Arthur drew the sword from the stone not to win glory but to give it to his brother Kay, who needed one. What we do with a humble heart, for the good of others as well as ourselves, returns to us in kind.
Your practice
Begin with yourself
- 01What do I truly value, beneath what I have been told to want?
- 02Where in my life have I drifted from my centre?
- 03What would the wisest part of me have me do today?
Sit quietly with one question each morning this week, and write down whatever arrives. Whether you are clearing your mind or renewing your body, every path begins here.