Yes Thyself 

Laurel Airica

Special to the Mirror

   Our self-contradictory nature is written on our faces yet we are too close to observe it. Consider, however, that while there is YES in our eYES there is NO in our NOse.
   The French word for nose is NEZ, pronounced NAY, which is another word for NO, whose sound is also spelled KNOW. Coincidentally, the word that shares its sound with NOSE is KNOWS. This infers that worldly knowledge derives from “good scents” – from a “nose for the news” or the ability to “sniff out” the truth.
   Other familiar words for YES are SI, pronounced SEE, which is precisely what we do with our eYES; and AYE (pronounced EYE) which like YES indicates assent (a scent).
   The other word pronounced EYE is I. This must mean we are meant to SEE for ourselves and to cultivate our own unique outlook and insights on life. 
   The close connection between I, AYE, and eYES certainly places our individual vision in the affirmative; the value of our own particular point of view is never in question here. Plus, the creative power of the SEE is clearly reflected in the alphabiblical paraphrase: “As we SEE it, so BE it.” Our attitude and our experience are inextricably interwoven.
   Yet regaining a positive perspective on our natural eye-dentity is rarely achieved without a great struggle – ever since Eve took a bite of the Apple and the whole world fell to hell. Since the words “apple” and “evil” are both “malum” in Latin, we could well conclude that the world was undone by Original Pun. 
   A closer examination of the pun within “kNOw” can also shed light upon the difficulties we encounter when trying to fulfill Socrate’s dictum to “kNOw Thyself.” After all, most people follow this counsel – though not to the letter – by NO-ing themselves, instead. When we realize how often we negate, suppress, and criticize ourselves, it becomes clear that self-denial has become the ethic for everyone from the God-conscious to the diet-conscious. 
   Many people would actually argue in favor of both kNOwing and NO-ing themselves without ever really giving the word kNOw a fair hearing to discover the implications in its multiple reverberations. Yet in order to free the mind from its attachments to concepts subliminally reflected and projected by the language itself, we need to do more than simply “watch what we say” – we must listen, as well.
   By so doing, we begin to wonder whether the fact that NO and kNOw share the very same sound could create a subconscious correlation between knowledge and negation – as if one could beget the other. As unaccustomed as we are to regarding homonyms as significant (or influential), this link seems basic and hardly coincidental when we remember, first of all, that the original, divine admonition was essentially “NO kNOw!” 
   The devastating consequences we are led to expect from the kind of inquisitiveness that drives us to seek knowledge at all costs, resounds in the ancient (adulterated) story of Pandora – the other Eve-L woman blamed for releasing woe upon the world; and in the still current adage about what happens to “curious cats.” The relationship that is thus implied between an intelligent mind and pain resounds in the word for both: SMART. 
   Similarly, the term apprehension – which means comprehension – also means anxiety and arrest, while conviction and commitment can be both for an idea or for a crime.
   To kNOw is unquestionably a double-edged sWORD that cuts both ways. And since “No-ing” ourselves can leave us so “tied up in kNOTs” that we are incapable of spontaneous and authentic behavior, it seems that only by affirming our I-dentity can we ever hope to discover and develop it.
   The symbol for the word (and letter) “I” provides further validation for this conclusion: When we are in our ego-driven, lower case self, our mind feels disconnected from our body, just as the “little i” is written: “i.” But when we stretch to fulfill the capital potential of our Higher Self, we stand as a bridge that connects Heaven and Earth: I. 
   To achieve such a transformation may first require that we stand on our heads to uphold our convictions and to stand for nothing less, as the exclamation point indicates: !
   Then, once we have fallen head over heals to see aright (much as the brain inverts the images received by our eyes), we recognize that the isolated little ME we used to feel ourselves to be is in reality the collective WE turned upside down. Since WE shares its sound with OUI – the French word for YES – we hear in the AYE that is OUI an echo and an affirmation of the Biblical description of the “I that is WE.” 
   We have long felt separate and APART from one another. What we are, in fact, is united and A PART of the Universal wHOLE. The SOLE that seems so solitary is actually the SOUL that is quite singular. 
   According to our own language, our SOUL purpose in this life is to serve as a fully open I of God and then to ‘tell-a-vision” to the people around us. It is thus quite appropriate that the individuality of our perspective – that gives our eye-dentity its uniqueness – is spoken of as our POINT OF YOU.
   We can therefore deduce from all of these connections that to know ourselves deeply and to be true to who we are, we must first SI ourselves clearly through the loving eYES of our Creator in which All our hEARts are WON. Only then can we achieve the goal of wide-open Self-Real-eYES-ation.