The Pathway to Self Mastery

"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

So now you know the eight principles of Self Mastery a part of you may think that you can live them straight away.

Good luck ! If you can do that you are a better person than me.

I have struggled for many years not only to live these principles but to actually find out what they are!

The steps you go through on the path are:-

• Awareness
• Seeking
• Learning & Practicing
• Getting Beyond Concept
• Self Mastery

So, at first there is some inkling of awareness that there must be more to life than going to work to a job you donít like but you think you are obliged to do because thatís just what happens in life, acting in a way that compromises your deepest held principles because you are afraid of what will happen if you donít ñ and thatís just business anyway so why complain, all along the way just mindlessly re-acting to whatever life smacks you in the face with and wondering when if ever you might get to be who you are and do what you want to do BESIDES when you retire on your inadequate superannuation

which will leave you on the end of the que at the local medical centre waiting for someone to change your colostomy bag and give you a new set

of dentures, thinking then as the last snippets of life drain from your being that you SHOULD have had the courage to DO something way back when someone gave you THIS to read!

Or maybe not?

So, you start looking. You get some books, you go along to a talk, a seminar, do a weekend retreat etc. Find that there is a whole community of people out there taking steps along the same path.

Then you start learning and practicing. Maybe you begin a meditation practice, start regular yoga, begin journaling, take more in depth teachings.

Slowly slowly as you practice your brain begins to form new neural networks and bit by bit little by little the effort of getting up every morning to meditate begins to recede. Little by little your body starts to remember the yoga poses.

And then suddenly you realise as you reflect back on the week, month or year that has been ñ that you have indeed moved beyond the mere intellectual concept of a practice and have instead integrated it into your being and begun to LIVE IT.

Finally as more and more of your life becomes characterised by moments of flow you get to a state of Self Mastery. In this state you are guided much more by your feelings than your thinking, you have emotional equanimity and serenity, your mind is open to new ideas and ways of looking at the world, you are able to allow all others their being, you take total responsibility for what you are creating in life and you are completely comfortable in uncertainty.

At this stage you are being who you want to BE and doing what you want to DO.

This is the calling for this time of change. This is the challenge for us to take on. This is what we must gently and courageously strive towards.