Self-realization

“ “The deeper the self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.” ”

“ But the prospect of gain in some form, proximate or ultimate, gain often of an impalpable and spiritual sort, always attends my wish and will. The aim at self-realization, however hidden, is everywhere the root of action. No belittlement of ourselves can appear desirable except as a step toward ultimate enlargement. Self-sacrifice in any true and thorough-going sense never occurs. ”

“ I still hold Will always to be the self-realization of an idea, but it is necessary to provide that this idea shall not in a certain sense conflict with that which in a higher sense is identified with the self. By ‘higher’ I do not mean ‘more moral,’ and I am prepared to explain what I do mean by the above. ”

“ In other words it presents directly before our vision an essentially independent action as a definite fact, which does not merely originate from the personal life of character under the process of self-realization, but receives its determinate form as the result of the substantive interaction in concrete life of ideal intention, many individuals and collisions. ”

“ We have self-realization left as the end, the self so far being defined as neither a collection of particular feelings nor an abstract universal. The self is to be realized as something not simply one or the other; it is to be realized further as will, will not being merely the natural will, or the will as it happens to exist and finds itself here or there, but the will as the good will, i.e. ”

“ We distinguish also ourself from that consciousness which is memory, the awareness of past experience, from present feelings, desires, thoughts, and strivings—these, we say, belong to the self but are not it. The self must have qualities and dwell in the body, guiding, directing, and controlling it, yet this self we never perceive, nor can we conceive it, for our idea of it is of a reality that changes and is yet unchangeable. ”

“ The prevalence of this obvious preference which we feel for everything of our own is indeed striking. Does it not look as if our dear Ego must first lend its color and flavor to anything in order to make it please us?... Is it not the simplest explanation for all these phenomena, so consistent among themselves, to suppose that the Ego, the self, which forms the origin and centre of our thinking life, is at the same time the original and central object of our life of feeling, and the ground both of whatever special ideas and of whatever special feelings ensue? ”

“ But, speaking for myself, I will say that the vista which the idea of self-realisation opens up to me goes far beyond the limits of any one earth-life or sequence of earth-lives, and far, immeasurably far, beyond the limits of the sham eternity of the conventional Heaven and Hell. ”

“ Once feel this truth, and you begin to lose the sense of your identity, to know that your destiny, your self, is an organic part of all men. It is they that speak. It is themselves that have been found and expressed. ”

“ In fact no one knows himself but that self's own soul. The vast and wonderful knowledge of this marvelous universe is locked in the bosoms of its individual souls. To tap this mighty reservoir of experience, knowledge, beauty, love, and deed we must appeal not to the few, not to some souls, but to all. ”

“ Be yourself and speak your mind today, though it contradict all you have said before. And above all, in art, work to please yourself—that Other Self that stands over and behind you, looking over your shoulder, watching your every act, word and deed—knowing your every thought. ”

“ Self-Reliance
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, —that is genius. ”

“ {xix} Reader!—You have been bred in a land abounding with men, able in arts, learning, and knowledges manifold, this man in one, this in another, few in many, none in all. But there is one art, of which every man should be master, the art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all? In like manner, there is one knowledge, which it is every man's interest and duty to acquire, namely, self-knowledge: or to what end was man alone, of all animals, endued by the Creator with the faculty of self-consciousness? ”

“ It is only through a detaching of ourselves from our surroundings, through travel, or the company of books, most particularly, perhaps, through moments of intense self-realisation when we are in touch with eternal instincts or eternal forces, that we recover our sense of values, that we see ourselves simply as part of a pattern, a footfall in the sound of passage. ”

“ Looking at ourselves in a mirror, do we not sometimes think how we would fashion ourselves if we could create a new self, in the image of some ideal which is before us? Would we not make ourselves wholly beautiful if we could make ourselves? ”

“ Our self, of which we talk so fluently, as one and the self-same—how far does it really possess the continuity and identity with which we credit it? Does it not rather seem to be an ideal which we gradually form and set before ourselves as the standard for measuring our attainments of the moment,—the perfect fulfilment of that oneness of being and purpose and knowledge which we never reach? ”

“ You want yourself, — the Self in its completeness, in its fulfilment, in its final expression. In brief, when you talk of reality, you talk of self-possession, of perfection, and of peace. And that is, therefore, all that you mean by the Being of the world or of any type of facts. Being therefore is nothing beyond yourself. You even now hold it within you, in your heart of hearts. Being therefore is just the purely immediate. To be means to quench thought in the presence of a final immediacy which completely satisfies all ideas. ”

“ Here the world, with its joys and sorrows, was explained as the result of the subjective Self, reflecting itself in the mirror of matter; and final emancipation was obtained by turning away the eyes from the play of nature, and being absorbed in the knowledge of the time and absolute Self. ”

“ Now indeed you know yourself as one Self, as a person. For, first, you know your empirical self as the Seeker, meaning, intending, aiming at, that life-ideal; and here you have a contrast of real and ideal self. And, secondly, since your ideal is this ideal, the expression of the meaning of your unique experience, you can rightly contrast yourself with all the rest of the world’s life. ”

“ A certain inarticulate self-consciousness dwells dimly in us; which only our works can render articulate, and decisively discernible. Our works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. ”

“ This is the kind of growth which the soul makes in the life of self-realisation; and if it falls appreciably short of this standard, if it develops itself on this side or that, to the neglect of all other sides, then we must say of it that, though it is realising this or that faculty or group of faculties, it is not realising itself. ”

“ But in those moments of self-questioning, when one does not lie even to oneself, I feel that I can say it is not so—that the real pleasure, the true sphere, lies in the feeling of self-development—in the sense of power and of growing ONENESS with the great spirit of abstract truth. ”

“ It excluded nothing of humanity except what baseness its melody might make impossible. The strangeness and looseness of its framework allowed each man to see himself therein, or some incident or dream in his life, or something possible to a self which he desired to be or imagined himself to be, or perhaps believed himself once to have been. ”

“ Another aspect of the universal struggle for self-manifestation and corporeal realisation, which plays so large a part in all activity and is especially marked in the domain of life, is illustrated on a higher level by that overpowering instinct or impulse towards production and self-realisation, which is characteristic of genius. It may be said that throughout nature, from the lowest to the highest, a tendency to self-realisation, and a manifestation of joy in existence, are conspicuous. ”

“ Really, however, it is my own, my deeper self, whose choice is at each moment shown to me. But, then, observe, unless I thus chose to recognize something beyond myself, I should have nothing to do, I should have nothing to resist, to fight, to win, to love, — in short, to act upon, in any way. The deepest truth, then, is a practical truth. I need something not myself, in order to be active, that is, in order to exist. ”

“ In what sense, despite this complexity and variability of the individual self-consciousness as it comes to us empirically, have we still a right to say that there is in the universe a real, and, within the range of our individual experience, a permanent being, to be called this individual Ego? ”

“ In that case it will at once become clear that the situation has again changed completely, and that we are back to the traditional, the intuitive, the “common-sense” conception of personality, with the single difference that the term “self” means something broader and nobler than when we limit it to the now demonstrated unstable, and ever-changeable self of ordinary consciousness.
And it is precisely to such a view of the self that the discoveries of the modern investigators, when closely scrutinized, irresistibly impel us. ”

“ This heart throbs violently and eternally with the thirst of self-knowledge, as though in it all those substances and forces of nature that have created the human personality as the highest expression of their complexity and wisdom aspired to clarify the meaning and aim of life. ”

“ Reflection will satisfy every truth-seeking mind that [Pg 191] desire for self-gratification, as an impulse to action, has its basis in self; and, from its nature, makes itself the center of attraction, and becomes a sort of an absorbent, seeking self-appropriation ”

“ And, presupposing an acquaintance with that process, as well as with the evolution of the unreflecting good will, we can content ourselves with saying very little.—The self, as we saw, objectifies its reactions in external things, and rises from satisfaction, as forefelt in this or that sensuous object, to the thought of ends, the ideas of permanent objects and pursuits, felt or known to be pleasant, and exciting desire by the ideal affirmation which they bring. ”

“ May you be able to behold beauty and splendor in your own self and recognize that you are a part of the sublime Divine world endowed even with a creative life! In this discovery of the self you will be able to enter as pure substance into your real self, turning away from all that is external to what is within. ”

“ Precisely what we want is this,—that the ‘Things’ really enjoy these states of their own, and not merely be thought of by us as existing in them. That is to say, ‘Reality’ is ‘Being for self’;—an expression, by which we designate that most general characteristic of self-apprehension, which is common to all forms of spiritual life, to feeling, to representation, to effort, and to volition. ”

“ If reason, sense, and self-identity Obliterated from a worn-out brain, Art thou not maddest striving to be sane, And catching at that Self of yesterday That, like a leper's rags, best flung away! Or if not mad, then dreaming—dreaming?—well— Dreaming then—Or, if self to self be true, Not mock'd by that, but as poor souls have been By those who wrong'd them, to give wrong new relish? ”

“ Till some such diffusive conscious principle can be shewn to exist, producing a real connection between my future sensations and present impulses, collecting, and uniting the different successive moments of my being in one general representative feeling of self-interest as the impressions made on different parts of my body are all conveyed to one common principle of thought, it is in vain to tell me that I have the same interest in my future sensations as if they were present, because I am the same individual. ”

“ The consciousness of ‘myself’ and the distinction between ‘my-self’ and all other selves, the antithesis between ‘myself’, the observer, and the external world, the observed, is such an obvious and early fact of experience to every one of us, such a fundamental starting-point of our life as conscious beings, that it really requires a sort of training of the imagination to be able to conceive of any different kind of consciousness. ”

“ III. You must acquire a self-conscious sense of your own self-mastery. It will help you to acquire this feeling if you will continually assert, "I can and will accomplish anything that I am determined upon! ”

“ And reflection makes an idea, independent of this or that sensuous thing, which remains ready to rise before us, and so provokes temptation, and reacts upon habit to the further intensification of both. The self is made one with the bad by abiding habit and lasting idea, and thus gets a content, not past but present, which is discrepant with the content of the good will. ”

“ These moments of self-revelation come in the life of all of us, when our ordinary every-day self, familiar to ourselves and our home circle, is suddenly brought face to face with that other deeper lying and often semi-barbarous self, which crouches hidden beneath the veneer of civilization and the mask of social habit, and we are forced into a swift mental comparison of the two. ”

“ It is the essential nature of my self, as finite, equally to assert and, at the same time, to pass beyond itself; and hence the objects of self-sacrifice and of self-advancement are each equally mine. If we are willing to push a metaphor far beyond its true and natural limits, we may perhaps state the contrast thus. ”