The Psychology of Self-Actualization

[Wind]

One of the greatest and most profound books ever written, Tao Te Ching.

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UYch2JnO4

[Wind]

I have high reverence for Manly P. Hall, his knowledge is more worthy than gold for the soul.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SH1jNAV-pI

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WED584SUWy4

[Wind]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPyH7lRMbOY

[Wind]

Basically this sentence from Jung sums up our society with it's problems.

[Dreamtimer]

Our collective disease.

I always liked Jung. I don't know why I haven't read more of his work. Perhaps now is the time.

[Wind]

Some of his material can be complicated and takes a lot of digesting.

I think he wasn't only exceedingly intelligent, he was very wise too.

[Dreamtimer]

That may be why I haven't read a lot. But I'm at a good stage of life to do so.

[Wind]

I've gotten many of his books, but I actually haven't read through them... Yet.

[Dreamtimer]

I learned a great deal of what I know about Jung through years of dream work. I think he had a better handle on the psyche than did Freud.

[Wind]

Of course he did.

[NotAPretender]

Don't forget that Jung was crazy as a loon, also. Probably because he was so intelligent...genius really and wired differently than most folks. He gave full range to his imagination much like Einstein did in his own discipline. I would swear that I read he believed his mother was two distinct 'personas' But:

"The Swiss psychiatrist born the fourth but only surviving child into a family in northern Switzerland wherein his father was a poor rural pastor (shortly after the birth of Carl, he was appointed to a more prosperous parish) and his mother had come from a wealthy Swiss family, but was unstable, given to depression and visions. His mother was hospitalized when he was young and eventually the father transferred to another parish to be near her. As a child, Jung developed a theory that he had two distinct personalities, one of a modern Swiss citizen, another of an 18th c. man. He was drawn to elaborate self-made rituals and reputedly developed and overcame his own neurosis of fainting to get out of having to go to school or do homework."

http://www.aquestionofexistence.com/...stav_Jung.html


f.w.i.w. He conducted research in astrology including 'double-blind' studies.

[Dreamtimer]

That's interesting, double blind studies of astrology.

[Wind]

Don't forget that Jung was crazy as a loon, also.

There's a fine line between genius and madness.

[Wind]

Talking about madness, sometimes I find myself bordering on being like The Mad Hatter when I end up being so obsessively laser-focused on the details on whatever topic that interests me, which usually are related to psychology, spirituality, history and symbolism. I wouldn't dare to call myself a genius instead of a nutter, but I suppose that I have the ability of hyperfocus because I'm on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum. In his interview with Joe Rogan, Elon Musk said that he was always hardwired differently. When he was a kid he thought he was insane and I can relate to those feelings although I'm not a rocket scientist!

I don't know if it's a gift or a curse and I don't know if it's something you can really "turn off" or turn on for that matter either. It just happens sometimes, like when you get into the "zone". It's a feature in the operating system (brains), instead of a bug. Perhaps Aragorn might attest to that too. Winding off, meditating and going to the nature can help with that.

No one never ever taught me these things. I had to learn psychology on my own in order to understand myself, the world around me with it's people. Social interaction, I never really understood that until I started to really study in my early 20's. Things like that can make a person question their validity or eligibility of being a functioning member of the society. What the hell is normal anyways? I'm glad I learned to understand myself instead of choosing the misguided and terrible way of suicide, which too is a choice. As Albert Camus put it; "There is only one really serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that".

I always felt very different from others and I knew that I was, an alien from another planet? I suppose that many others could sense that too. At least when it comes to young boys, usually their reaction to "difference" is bullying - sometimes quite severe too. That seems to be the nature of man at the current time. How terribly wrong we have gone.

More thankful I am for my heart though, God only might know how I have loved. Perhaps in my own detached way, but the love is still there. I deeply care, even though time after time I've been stomped on. There's still something pushing me forward. Perhaps it's something greater than me - atman or the soul, if you will - which transcends this silly little small persona with all it's problems and suffering. Within my relative lifetime I've already seen a lot, perhaps even too much of suffering and different kinds of hells. Let alone in past lives, but I shall not get into that here. I think it all serves a purpose though and I hope it has made me a more compassionate person, although I've always been a deeply compassionate person, I see and feel people's pain very deeply within myself. I feel the pain of animals and Gaia too. I feel and see the beauty of all of it too.

There's the eternal Self, watching all of this unfold and it is me, but it's also beyond me. Beyond the mask of this persona that I call I, me. We all have that, we all are that. That divine, angelic - sublime being. We've just convinced ourselves that we're not that. Yet we are. Divine beings in human form playing this game on this material level which will pull our hearts and minds into many directions. We cannot compromise our hearts nor our soul, for the consquences shall indeed be very grave if we do that. It's like when we talk about God we are putting God in a box or we define it as a concept, yet what we call God in the west is inconceivable, beyond words and human comprehension. It is that which cannot be named! That's where we come from, that's what we are. If we do have to put labels as we humans always like to do, then perhaps God could be perceived as eternal bliss and love, which is the origin of all consciousness.

I don't like to focus on myself as I strongly dislike the limelight, but I suppose it sometimes serves the purpose of an example. Sorry for my monologue though, just had to let that out of my system.

"If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done."

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56blGsmWd9k

[Aragorn]

Talking about madness, sometimes I find myself bordering on being like The Mad Hatter when I end up being so obsessively laser-focused on the details on whatever topic that interests me, which usually are related to psychology, spirituality, history and symbolism. I wouldn't dare to call myself a genius instead of a nutter, but I suppose that I have the ability of hyperfocus because I'm on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum. In his interview with Joe Rogan, Elon Musk said that he was always hardwired differently. When he was a kid he thought he was insane and I can relate to those feelings although I'm not a rocket scientist!

I don't know if it's a gift or a curse and I don't know if it's something you can really "turn off" or turn on for that matter either. It just happens sometimes, like when you get into the "zone". It's a feature in the operating system (brains), instead of a bug. Perhaps Aragorn might attest to that too.

Yes, you've described it very well.