People think freedom is the power to change what you dislike about the world around you.

You can quit a job you hate. Leave a person who hurts you. Switch cities for a change of scenery. Chop your hair for a new look.

What freedom actually is: the power to change what you dislike about yourself.

This change cannot possibly be brought about without knowing oneself, self-knowledge. This is not knowledge of the “higher self” or knowledge of some “supreme consciousness,” for they are still within the field of thought. Unless one understands one’s self, the self of every day—what it thinks, what it does, its devotions, its deceptions, its