Soul’s Code

“Know thyself” is much easier to say than to do. Pursuing a knowledge of self is the fundamental basis of all psychology. It also forms the basis of many spiritual pursuits. Yet so many are unwilling to pursue this path.

As John Gardner writes in “Self-Renewal:”

“Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. We can keep ourselves so busy, fill our lives with so many diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves with so many people and cover so much ground that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within. More often than not we don’t want to know ourselves, don’t want to depend on ourselves, don’t want to live with ourselves. By middle life most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.”

It’s just easier NOT to walk the path toward self-understanding. Sometimes we turn away from the path because we encounter things we don’t like or are unwilling to accept. Consider the findings of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. You’ll remember him as the author of the famous Stanford Prison Study, which segregated students into “inmates” and “guards” and watched how the two groups