When we hear statement like “know yourself,” our first response is I do know myself. But, do we really see the “patterns” that are going on in our lives and why? By patterns I mean situations or events that we seem to face over and over. How can we become aware of our inner self and gain an understanding of who we are and why others perceive us the way they do, thus attracting for example people who are more likely to harm us emotionally or physically, instead of people who might value us more? Some of the more popular methods for self exploration and knowledge are astrology, meditation and numerology with meditation.

Astrology can be quite insightful as to one’s characteristics, mannerisms, thinking process, talents, most compatible signs for close relationships, karma, how other people see us and so on, with the use of the natal or birth chart. The natal chart is also needed when interpreting how transiting planets will influence a person during a specific date. If you have read any of the many daily horoscopes available, you might have felt it didn’t pertain to you at all, or when comparing horoscopes from different astrologers there’s a tendency for them to have some differences or even be completely opposite of one another. The reasons for this is that the daily horoscopes only require input of your sun sign and not the precise birth date, time and location, therefore, they are a general readings pertaining to everyone of that particular sign. Also, astrology is not only based on data, but also requires an interpretation of the information, which can vary from one astrologer to another. The better an astrologer can intuitively interpret a chart’s information, the more informative and accurate for the individual the reading will be. For an individualized interpretation, the birth chart would have to be consulted to identify each planet’s position, how they aspect each other, what houses are involved as well as what sign’s are adding an influence. This is why the general daily horoscopes can often appear to be unrelated to the person reading them.

Vedic astrology is becoming more popular as well. It’s different from Western astrology in that they use the Sidereal method for calculations and go by the moon sign instead of the sun sign. They also divide the birth data into several charts to gain information that is more detailed and covers every aspect of a person’s life. A friend living in India told me how when she was born, her parents had a Vedic astrologer calculate her entire life. The astrologer presented it to them in the form of a book and includes information regarding marital partner, age of marriage, health, karma, career, etc. This astrological information so far has correctly predicted her life up into the present time. Vedic astrology services can be expensive being that many of them still calculate charts by hand.

Another method is numerology, which assigns numbers to your name and combines it with the birth date to arrive at a single digit, though sometimes double digit, number. It’s this final number that is used for an insightful description of the type of person you are, compatibility, karmic lessons in this life time and divides life into phases by age spans.

Meditation doesn’t use any of the above mentioned techniques, but offers a way to understand every aspect of ourselves more deeply because it requires our going into ourselves. To achieve the deepest levels of self awareness, knowledge and understanding using meditating can take a long time, sometimes several years, if not a lifetime.

So using astrology, numerology and meditation can be useful in gaining self awareness, knowledge and understanding about oneself. Though some offer more immediate results than others, using all of them could provide a deeper and longer lasting benefit.