It was the beginning and as Robert Blake wrote, “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”

I am deeply suspicious of those who profess to know themselves in a way that is intensely confident and assured. Colin Wilson suggests that the “self-surmounter”can never put up with the man who has ceased to be dissatisfied with himself. It strikes me that they are operating from perceived illusions of their belief in self. Perhaps it is more that they have not become insightful enough to be aware of their looming self doubt or that they are too attached to “self” to see beyond it. It seems to be a never ending task to shift what we have accumulated of our personality that is in the way of knowing “self”. We humans seem to have an incredible ability in our conditioned way of seeing, to ignore, deny and avoid painful truths about ourselves. To search for truth is too much for the denier.

And thenvthere is the problem of self expression as St. Augustine has writtne ‘I came to know where I was [as a child], and tried to express my wants to those who could gratify them, yet could not, for my wants were inside me, and they wen outside’ (Conassions, Bk. I, VI. Italics mine.)

I have become aware of the limitations of the conditioned self. It is what I doubt. In some ways my later life has been about the refining of a “gentle will” that is focused on revealing what has interfered with openness and receptivity to revelations of self knowing that are authentic.

It seems as well that there is something of my essence that is by its nature creative and imaginative and that when I enter openly into that, there is in turn a more satisfying sense that my attempts of expression are more authentic. At times that creative expression itself is the action that reveals something more of my self. Creativity and imagination seem to be inseparable from that experience of becoming and being authentic. With this there is an increased awareness of the mystery, of life and that which can not be known.