KNOW THYSELF

There are two selfs; the higher and the lower self.
The higher self is human spirit clothed with soul, made in the form of God.
The lower self, the carnal self, the body of desires, is a reflection of the higher self, distorted by the murky ethers of the flesh.
The lower self is an illusion, and will pass away; the higher self is God in man, and will not pass away.
The higher self is the embodiment of truth reversed, and so is falsehood manifest.
The higher self is justice, mercy, love and right; the lower self is what the higher self is not.
The lower self breeds hatred, slander, lewdness, murders, theft, and everything that harms; the higher self is mother of the virtues and the harmonies of life.
The lower self is rich in promises, but poor in blessedness and peace; it offers pleasure, joy and satisfying gains; but gives unrest and misery and death.
It gives men apples that are lovely to the eye and pleasant to the smell; their cores are full of bitterness and gall.
If you would ask me what to study I would say, yourselves; and when you will have studied them, and then would ask me what to study next, I would reply, yourselves.
He who knows well his lower self, knows the illusions of the world, knows of the things that pass away; and he who knows his higher self, know God; knows well the things that cannot pass away.
Thrice blessed is the man who has made purity and love his very own; he has been ransomed from the perils of the lower self and is himself his higher self.
Men seek salvation from an evil that they deem a living monster of the nether world; and they have gods that are but demons in disguise; all powerful, yet full of jealousy and hate and lust.

- Sankofa