Principles of Self-Realization

 We are more than our bodies, ego or personality. Inwardly we are eternal spiritual beings that are already, on its own level, perfect and one with God.

We are therefore multilevel beings, with each layer consisting of a conglomeration of attitudes, beliefs and feelings. The aim of Self-realization is to clear the outer layers so that one's inner or higher Self may manifest and express itself without distortion.

Everything real already exists within. This inner reality is not affected by what we do.

Some universal qualities or characteristics of one's inner Self/spirit are: love, peace, joy, light, power, will, beauty, energy, purpose, knowing, infinity, creation, movement, unity and timelessness.

Realizing one's Self requires that we stop blocking it and surrender to the promptings of the spirit and the longings of the heart that opens to and allows an experience of these impulses -- love, joy, peace, light, etc.

Realizing one's Self entails letting go: of fears; of assumptions of separation, lack and special needs; of negative judgments and preconceptions; of guilt, self-doubt and pride.

Our minds are part of One Whole Mind that is interwoven with all creation. However, because we hold a perception of separation and fragmentation we therefore experience things this way.

As we change our minds, our world and experience will also change because what we inwardly hold to (not just on a conscious level), we will create and experience in our lives.

Our experience in the world allows us to recognize what we assume to be real.

Creating our reality begins with our choice in how we perceive our experience. The aspect that we focus on and identify with is accentuated.

Everything that we seem to experience outside of ourselves in the world is really contained within the Self. (Negativity has no substantial reality but rather is a denial of spiritual reality.)

What we are unconscious of in ourselves we will experience as projections on to others and events happening to us that seem out of our control or will.

What we judge against in others, we judge against in ourselves. Conversely, what we forgive and accept in others we forgive in ourselves.

Pain and suffering come from the instinctive tendency for the ego to become attached to and identified with things that it believes we need and are.

Choosing values and beliefs which are out of accord with the truth of our Self entails pain and suffering. Integrating the Self's qualities and purposes releases the distortion causing the pain.

Every pain therefore contains some gift if it is utilized-- some awareness, Self-knowledge and realization.

Choosing integrity and authenticity means ultimately bringing our personality into alignment with our inner Self so that we may become outwardly what we already are spiritually.

Love and sexual attraction outwardly reflects the inner process of becoming whole, by integrating the ego with the inner Self. What we seek to unite with in another is our Self.

Therefore, the purpose of relationship is not to get but to share and gain awareness -- by expressing ourselves we realize who we really are and fulfill the intention of the Self.

Desire, which becomes attached to sense objects, ultimately derives from and can be redirected to the urge to reunite consciously with one's source or inner being.

Love acknowledges the essential unity of all life and the urge to realize this oneness.

Violence in the world is an expression of negativity associated with Self denial.

Fear results from identifying with the body and not understanding the nature of reality -- there is ultimately nothing to fear.

It is not the ego that becomes self-realized, rather identification with the ego is released as we live from a deeper place of wholeness and affirmation.