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 | ||
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This site is for people who have an interest in PERSONAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. It comes from a collection of material used in course development and workshop conducting over a twenty year period.
My many teachers came from the fields of Psychology, Philosophy, Religion, etc...both ancient and modern. Most of this content is from them... with my own personal insights now and then.
If this page had a theme (it does now!) it would be...
I CAN BECOME THE BEST I CAN BE AT WHAT I CHOOSE TO DO!
A Starting
Point
Self
Actualization
I
Think..Therefore I Am!
Who Are
We?
"To Give Fair
Witness"
East Is East And West Is
West
Meditation
Purpose in
Life..Dharma
Ego Or
Self?
Stewart Emery in his book "Actualizations (You don't have to rehearse to be yourself)" said;
"You and I have within us the creative intelligence to recognize the conditions of existence that support our growth toward self-actualization,and we have the wherewithal to place ourselves in such an environment."Given this awareness, Emery talks about the following progression;
In a book titled "Personality and Motivation", Abraham Maslow outlined the stages one goes through before Self-Actualizing. He referred to these stages as a Hierarchy of Needs.
He proposed that each had to be satisfied...in the following order...before going to the next stage.
A contemporary of Maslows',Carl
Rogerspracticed a similar concept calling it
SELF-FULLFILLMENT.Dr. Rogers is the author
of " On Becoming A Person."
He is the developer of " Client Centered
Therapy "and the indirect question
method of interacting with clients.
In his book "As A Man Thinketh", James Allen
said:
One of the most profound statements on this
subject was made by John C.
Lilly in his book...The Center of the
Cyclone.
Morris Massey said "What we are now is where
we were when". This statement suggests that
we are products of our early environment.
Eric
Berne developed a model to help us
understand our present-self better and
find ways to progress from where we are to where
we want to be.
The model is called Transactional
Analysis.
Although some people were given good
scripts and some given very bad scripts
(perhaps tragic) most people were
simply given banal (ho-hum) scripts. The
scripts were given us during a time of our life
when survival, safety and security was the top
priority. Perhaps now, when we can take care
of ouselves,
some of those scripts are archaic and need to be
updated. If our critical, judgemental
parent is rigid and/or our natural,
creative child is suppressed (over
adapted) we will have difficulty fullfilling our
true potential. Jesus said
"Unless we become as little children we will
never inherit the kingdom of heaven"..."Where is
the kingdom of heaven?"...Jesus answered " It
is within you!"
Dr. Berne's book "GAMES PEOPLE PLAY" is a
great reference for anyone interested in learning
more about Transactional Analysis. Also...check
out the link
International Transactional
Analysis Association.
In my early readings of Eastern Philosophy I
studied the works of
Alan Watts. Watts was one of the leading
translators of Eastern Philosophy and made many
comparisons between East and West approaches to
finding well being. One discipline
was TO GIVE FAIR WITNESS. This exercise
allows you detach your mind from what is
going-on and see yourself...and what is
going-on as if you were another person, and
to see
in a non-critical way.
This should be done in a meditative state
and should be totally objective for the purpose
of beginning the journey of Self-Actualization.
I use the word journey because
Self-Actualization is not a destination
but a never-ending evolving process of
improvement. And...it is not competitive! You are
not trying to be better than others...simply
becoming the best you can be at what you choose
to do (and BE.)
How do we find that
...And finally the twain have met!!!
In his book "WORLDS RELIGIONS" Huston
Smith begins one of his
chapters as follows:
Why are we
here? What does it all mean? What, if
anything, are we supposed to
do?
Buddha tried many "ways" before reaching his
total conscious place of awareness...including
fasting, meditation and a
great deal of uncomfortable rituals. He
concluded most of his hard work was
unneccessary...and settled on "The Middle Way".
All of the great teachers have discovered
that the answer to the question...What
is my PURPOSE ? was within them.
....the ability to bring the mind under
conscious control through focus and concentration
...to find inner tranquility.
Meditation is a significant part of YOGA,
another contribution from Eastern Philosophy.
Transcendental Meditation has a strong following
in western societies and many people are
experiencing their inner-selves at a higher level
as well as learning to control the stress that
western competiveness creates.
For more on Meditation
GO HERE.
In one way or another, each of the teachers see
the experience of finding Purpose in
life as spiritual. A leading
figure today of this teaching is Deepak
Chopra. Dr. Chopra's work has been described
as..."blending Eastern wisdom with cutting
edge Western science".
Dr. Chopra's best seller Ageless Body,
Timeless Mind is an excellent work combining
present knowledge of how our body works through
time (Aging) and how our consciousness (Mind)
effects that process. His message promotes the
"cosmic" theory that Body-Mind-Spirit are
the same. This ancient Eastern theory is
supported by the current Western scientific
theory of Quantum Physics which basically
says that everything in the universe is made of
the same stuff...and the limits of the universe
are unknown (infinite).
Chopra's book The Seven Spiritual Laws 0f
Success is an excellent work on the subject
of Self-Actualization. He defines success
as " the continued expansion of happiness and
the progressive realization of worthy goals."
He includes a beautiful sentence which...in
my opinion totally define's this subject of
"purpose":"... the gods and goddesses in
embryo that are within us seek to be fully
materialized." Dr. Chopra continues..."
The first committment is: I am going to seek my
higher self, which is beyond my ego,
through spiritual practice."
In ancient Greek theater, the
actors wore masks representing the faces
of the roles they played...sad, happy, fearsome,
angry, the hero, the victim, the persecutor, etc.
This was their persona, the personality of the
role...not really who they were.
We all play roles in life...husband, wife,
doctor, lawyer, boss...on and on. Sometimes we
get so used to wearing the masks of these roles
that we forget who we really are. The ego
becomes the most important part of our being and
we spend most our time and energy protecting
it. Remember Stewart Emery's sub-title of his
book "Actualizations"... You Don't Have to
Rehearse to Be Yourself. In Maslow's Hierachy
of Needs, the Status-Ego need had to be satified
before beginning the Self-Actualizing
stage. Chopra said,"Ego...When the SELF is
sacrificed for the self-image.
EXPERIENCE IT NOW!
1.
Physical
Needs
2. Protection, Security and
Order
3. Togetherness-Social Contact
4. Status
and Ego
5. Self-Actualizing
....I THINK THEREFORE I AM....
A man is literally what he
thinks, his character being the complete sum
of all his thoughts.
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes
true within certain limits to be found
experiencially or experimentally...These limits
are further beliefs to be transcended...In the
province of the mind...THERE ARE NO LIMITS!
The old saying is, "IF YOU THINK YOU CAN OR IF
YOU THINK YOU CAN'T...YOU'RE RIGHT!
This statement gives me three (3)
insights:
....WHO ARE WE?
....
The model demonstrates how
we were psychologically structured...in early
childhood...within EGO STATES.
....TO
GIVE FAIR
WITNESS....
In the Adult
Ego-state we can realize that the present
structure of our psychological being is
changeable...we have infinite choices. In the
Adult we begin by taking personal
responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and
behavior and by making a commitment
to well being.
ABRAHAM
MASLOW:
"A Musician must make music,
an Artist must paint, A Poet must write, if he or
she is to be at peace with self. What a person
can be, he or she must be!"
Moses went to the mountain...Jesus went to the
wilderness...Muhammad to a cave...Buddha entered
a forest. Each went alone.
Each returned enlightened!....EAST IS EAST AND
WEST IS WEST....
"Buddhism
begins with a man. In his later years, when India
was afire with his message, people came to him
asking what he was. Not "Who are you?" but "What
are you?"
<
p>
"Are you a
god?" they
asked.
"No"
"An angel?"
"No"
"A
saint?"
"No"
"Then what are you?"
Buddha
answered 
Huston
Smith begins his
book..."World's Religions"... with these
questions: Where are
we?
....MEDITATION....
From the book "Yoga, Mind and
Body":
Meditation is a state of
consciousness that can be understood only on a
direct, intuitive level. Ordinary experiences are
limited by time, space, and the laws of
causality, but the meditative state transcends
all boundaries. While you meditate, past and
future cease to exist. There is only the
consciousness of I am in the infinite,
eternal, NOW.
....PURPOSE
in LIFE-DHARMA....
On this subject of finding Purpose in
Life , there seems to be a lot of agreement
between the great teachers of philosophy
and religion...past and
present...East and West:....EGO
OR SELF?....
When we master the need for self-image we begin
finding self...giving birth to our purpose in
Life. Remember, its not a destination...it's a
journey! 
E
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avacor