It is amazing how many of us are not true to ourselves. Some of us allow others to define who we are as people. Others even our parents dictate us to choose our course for study and profession without knowing our aim, ability and ambition. Some of us do not accept ourselves and try to act differently. Frustration grows within us and we do not do any justice to our society through our work. Some of us do not even love ourselves. This not only makes us unhappy but creates lot of problems for the society. Even if we may have our own self which are exclusively decided by us without other's influences but inspite of our tireless effort we could not make them true. Will it not be painful to us? Is it due to the fact that our self is misunderstood by us? Is enough effort was not take to make them true? Shakespeare's quote "this above all: to thine own self be true" is perfect advice that tells us to act, know, and love ourselves as human beings. This would be the key of our happiness and solve most of the problems of the society. So, first of all, we should try to know ourselves and secondly, we shall try to know what should be our ownself and lastly how it be made true by ourselves.
Knowing ourselves: Our first step would be to know ourselves. We should know who we are. Are we individual? Are we all separate? Are our bodies we? No. these are 'sthula sharira". Or, our mind? Our organs? Our intellect? Our ego? No of them are we. All these are different layers inside our bodies. No one of them can be the perceiver, the witness, the one for whom action is made, who is the seer of all actions. There must be some one behind all manifester, the real seer, the real enjoyer and he is , in Sanskrit, called Atman, the soul of man, the real self of man. This true self of us is permanent and ever free. Freedom is only possible when no external power can exert any influence, produce any change.