Self-Development

      I will now recapitulate my thesis. It has been argued that man differs radically in kind from other animals. As a transcendence in the evolutionary process there appeared an animal differing fundamentally from other animals because he had attained to propositional speech, abstract thought and self-consciousness, which are all signs that a being of transcendent novelty had appeared in the world — creatures existing not only in World 1 but realizing their existence in the world of self-awareness (World 2) and so having in the religious concept, souls. And simultaneously these human beings began utilizing their World 2 experiences to create very effectively another world, the third world of the objective spirit. This World 3 provides the means whereby man's creative efforts live on as a heritage for all future men, so building the magnificent cultures and civilizations recorded in human history. Do not the mystery and the wonder of this story of our origin and nature surpass the myths whereby man in the past has attempted to explain his origin and destiny?
— John C. Eccles, The Human Mystery, The Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburg, 1977-1978, p. 121.

     If you feel you must enlist the aid and advice of a recognized authority or specialist on a given subject, remember that an expert frequently avoids all the small errors as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. A truly creative editor must become an expert on experts.
— M. Lincoln Shuster, quoted in Editors On Editing, XVIII, Gerald Gross (ed.), p. 36.

     Shame is the uncomfortable or painful feeling that we experience when we realize that a part of us is defective, bad, incomplete, rotten, phoney, inadequate or a failure. In contrast to guilt, where we feel bad doing something wrong, we feel shame from being something wrong or bad. Thus guilt seems to be correctable or forgiveable, whereas there seems to be no way out of shame.
     Our Child Within or True Self feels the shame and can express it, in a healthy way, to safe and supportive people. Our co-dependent or false self, on the other hand, pretends not to have the shame, and would never tell anyone about it.
     We all have shame. Shame is universal to being human. If we do not work through it and then let go of it, shame tends to accumulate and burden us more and more, until we even become its victim.
     In addition to feeling defective or inadequate, shame makes us believe that others can see through us, through our facade, into our defectiveness. Shame feels hopeless: that no matter what we do, we cannot correct it.... We feel isolated and lonely with our shame, as though we are the only one who has the feeling....
— Charles Whitfield, Healing the Child Within, pp. 44-45.

Some Possible Paths to Serenity

1. We are ignorant of our journey, we are limited (humility): we can study universal "laws," approximate them and surrender to our lack of ultimate knowledge. Given these limitations, sages over the centuries describe something like the following:
2. Higher Power is in each of us, and we are in Higher Power.
3. We can view our reality as a hierarchy of levels of awareness, consciousness of being.
4. We are going Home (we are Home, already and always). Home on this earth is being all levels of our awareness or consciousness in our own unique fashion.
5. There will be conflict going Home (melodrama, cosmic drama). This conflict or creative tension is useful to us in some way, probably as a way Home.
6. We have a choice. We can use our bodies, ego/minds, our relationships on this earth to reinforce our separation and our suffering. Or we can use them as vehicles for our Soul, Spirit or Higher Self to return Home and to celebrate that return.
7. Higher Power (Home) is Love (Love perhaps the most useful way we know Higher Power).
8. We can remove the blocks to realizing our Higher Power by experiencing (including living in the Now), remembering, forgiving and surrendering (these five realizations can be viewed as being ultimately the same). Regular spiritual practices help us with this realization.
9. Separation, suffering and evil are the absence of realizing Love, and are therefore ultimately illusions. They are also manifestations of our searching for Love, Wholeness, and Home.
10. We create our own story by our thoughts and actions. What we think and feel in our mind and heart, we will produce in our experience and our life. What we give, we get. As within, so without.
11. Life is a Process, Force or Flow that lives us. We do not live it. When we surrender to it, i.e., flow with its Process and take responsibility for our participation in it, we become co-creators. We can then become free of our suffering that comes with our attachment to resisting flowing with our Life.
12. Inner peace or serenity is knowing, practicing and being all the above. We ultimately discover that we are already and always Serenity and Home.

  Some sources: Perennial Philosophy (Huxley), Christ, Tao, Muktananda, A Course in Miracles, Fox, Wilber, Lazaris, Schaun, and many and always Serenity and Home.

— Charles Whitfield, Healing the Child Within, pp. 138-139.