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Episode 106 Transcript
Hello friends and listeners. I am happy to have you here for this series on Metaphysical Humanism.
This is the final episode on the 5 Metaphysical Humanism Principles for Self-Mastery. We’ve taken a bit of a journey over the last few weeks learning how to be self-aware, self-responsible, and in self-control. Last week I talked about Self-love, Self with a capital S meaning love from your true self as a being of love. When you can master all four of these principles and implement them into your life as a way of living, a transcendent moment happens and these principles synergize within you and become who you are, not just how you behave. You begin to live on a higher plane of consciousness and awakening.
This moment is Principle V and it’s called self-actualization, or sometimes self-realization. And in this synergized state of being, you achieve what I call the principle of Equanimity – a state of peace, harmony, and balance.
Now today is a deep dive into advanced spirituality ideals, and I will explain why self-actualization in the final principle.
Self-actualization is a term from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. He explained that in order to achieve self-actualization, you must first climb the pyramid of needs – the bottom level are your physical needs like food, clothing, and shelter, the next level you meet your safety needs, and then on the next level you meet your needs for love and belonging, and on to the next level is your esteem and self-image needs. Once you had met all those needs, you could self-actualize or become the best version of yourself. That’s like our first four principles; once you master them you self-actualize or self-realize.
For Maslow and many others, Self-Actualization means you have achieved your potential and reached the peak of your talents and expertise. This is a very material definition – you achieved the dream income, the dream job, the dream partner, have the dream family and the dream kids. You are living the life you dreamed. And we all want to get there and as humans this is part of why we are here! To become Dream Builders!
Self-realization is more of the spiritual part of building your dreams – are you happy – are you loved? Are you self-aware, self-responsible, in self-control, and you live from Self-love ( self with a capital S). If your dreams in life don’t include this spiritual state of awareness, then you probably won’t get all the way to self-actualization. The realization of who you are and your purpose here is just as important as your income or your talents. Spirituality is to become the best human being that you can become while you are here and to remember your oneness with humanity – that you are a wave in the ocean that is connected to all the other waves.
When this happens – when you achieve self-actualization/self-realization – something quite amazing occurs – you will have a moment of transcendence – an awakening to a higher level of consciousness.
Maslow actually went back to his hierarchy and added Transcendence to the top because he recognized the human need to have spiritual awakening. The result of transcendence is that your new state of awareness is a state of equanimity – a state of peace, harmony, and balance even if the world around you is not so.
Maslow had many ideas about transcendence, but I want to focus on the idea that transcendence is a spiritual awakening. To transcend means to transcend the realm of physical laws – it’s a moment where you enter the energy field and step out of the realm of time and space. The 8th Chakra, the Soul Star as some call it, is the portal to the field of energy that surrounds us, creates us, holds us together breathes life into us – some call this energy field, some call it communion with God, accessing your higher self or soul self, others call it Consciousness with a capital C, others think it is dark matter of the universe, or even the quantum field. I call it the metaphysical or spiritual realm. Today I am using “energy field” because I want you to relate it to being a wave like you are a wave in the ocean. When you go into the energy field you are a wave, like a wave of light, or a wave of sound – a wave of energy is not a particle.
So, we enter this energy field, this light, and experience an awakening to a new truth – a new way of thinking – a new perception of this human experience. And it only lasts a moment – it’s a moment of awakening – a moment of transcendence – because transcendence is the vibrational frequency is 700 or above and the human body can’t hold that frequency for long – the result is separation of the spirit from the body…and that what happens with enlightenment which for most people happens at death. Humans are not meant to sustain transcendence.
But once you are self-actualized and awakened you can achieve a state of equanimity in your earthly body. A state of peace, harmony, and balance. Still, this state is not automatic. You have to practice your spiritual principles and continue to live your values and walk your path. Unlike the linear pyramidal hierarchy of Maslow – sort of getting to the top you are victorious, and you’ve won the game of life – spiritual growth is a spiral – it goes in a circular and spiraling motion and each rotation you will be given new opportunities to test your skills, to choose love, to learn new lessons, to practice mindfulness and to overcome challenges. But also, you get new moments of transcendence and new awareness and new depths of these experiences. And as you continue this spiral of growth, your frequency tolerance grows, and you experience greater moments in transcendence – longer moments in transcendence -and greater ease in sustaining equanimity.
Eventually, you may achieve the enlightenment state, which very few have. See, many people confuse transcendence and enlightenment. And that’s because different belief systems have different meanings attached to each word. I am using Maslow’s western model of transcendence and the metaphysical humanist model of enlightenment to talk about these ideals. Remember, this is just philosophy – we can’t prove any of it, yet. We only have our own personal experience and that of others to work from. But what I can do is explain the words enlighten and enlightenment in spiritual terms.
The word enlighten can be defined as going into the light. EN prefix means to go into – like to enter – and the suffix EN means made of – like a door is a wooden door. Lighten is made of light. Enlighten can be defined as “To go into the light you are made of,” Basically, enlighten is transcendence – it’s the wisdom received from transcendence. Yes, we can experience being enlightened. Spiritual Enlightenment is not actually the same word.
When you add the ment suffix in enlightenment means something deeper – the ment means to BE something or become something. Example: Punishment means to be punished. Enlargement means to become larger. Enlightenment means to become light. You aren’t just going into the light – you are going into the light and becoming the light. You are no longer your body. You are no longer tethered to your body. Your body and light have separated. As you enlighten/transcend yourself you get closer to enlightenment.
Transcendence and enlightenment are not the same. Enlightenment is a shift to pure Consciousness, capital C – it’s becoming one with the divine. To become light, the soul must separate from the body. And most of us achieve this upon death – our body and ego die and all that remains is our light. As our body energy fades, our spiritual body frequency increases. Most of us can share stories of dying loved ones seeing spirits in the room – reaching a hand up towards something – reaching for the light. They are shedding the body and becoming the light. And that to me is a beautiful and peaceful thought.
But when I say few have achieved enlightenment, I mean few have achieved it without dying. Religion has tales of this happening – Enoch and Elijah of the Old Testament were both taken into Heaven without dying, Jesus was resurrected then ascended into the heavens alive, Muhammad too ascended to heaven a living being, the Buddha achieved this state under the bodhi tree. Modern Yogi Sadhguru achieved it on top of a hill. The Buddha and Sadhguru and Muhammad all returned to share their light and wisdom, and Christians are promised the return of Jesus. There is a universal concept that you can achieve enlightenment and return to the physical plane.
For Buddhists, enlightenment means to achieve Nirvana – to end the Karmic cycle of death and rebirth. This is breaking free from duality and becoming non-duality. Nirvana is severing ties with the material body and ending reincarnation. Separation of the body and the soul and ending duality.
Sadhguru is a very popular Yogi who achieved enlightenment and stayed to teach others. He is certainly very wise and teaches from the ancient yogic tradition of the Himalayas. His advice is, Do not think about enlightenment – look at your limitations and how to go beyond them. That’s the way to progress.
I don’t teach enlightenment as a Metaphysical Humanist Principle; it’s not principle number six because I can’t teach you how to attain enlightenment – it’s not a goal to go after. What I know of enlightenment comes from the experience of others. We shouldn’t be spending our time chasing enlightenment – because that creates attachment which grounds us in our physical experience and makes enlightenment impossible.
So, I caution you when working with gurus and spiritual leaders who say they have achieved enlightenment and offer that to you. Make sure you find out how they define enlightenment. No one can sell you the experience of Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, or Sadhguru.
But I can promise you that a life of peace is possible. Self-Actualization is something we can achieve and should achieve. You can have moments of transcendence – moments in the light – or with the divine if you prefer. You can return to paradise in our conscious minds.
It is possible to achieve a state of equanimity and live a peaceful life despite the chaos of the world around you or problems that arise. It’s not maintained without effort, and I sure know firsthand that you can have it and then lose it again. It’s a process – a cycle of experiences that either help us grow and become or send us backwards to repeat experiences again until we get it right. This is why self-actualization is a journey.
To recap quickly, and make sure we are on the same page– Self-actualization happens when you master the 4 life principles I’ve talked about the past few episodes.
1. Know yourself.
2. Be responsible for yourself.
3. Honor and respect free-will.
4. Choose Love.
Not just learning them as we’ve done these few episodes – but putting them in to practice and mastering them. That’s self-mastery! And the results of self-mastery are self-actualization and a transcendent awakening to a state of consciousness or awareness that we call equanimity.
A few things happen when you reach this state of equanimity –
The first is that you experience nonduality. We live in a world of duality – light, dark, man, woman, joy, suffering, and of course, body and spirit. On the surface level we know we all have a spirit and that this human experience is temporary – we get it, but we don’t. We don’t experience being spirit.
Except in moments of transcendence. And these moments happen sometimes in meditation, or during yoga, during intensive retreats with a shaman or guru, or when using sacred plant medicines and psychedelics.
Yes, we can create the environment and conditions to open the portal for transcendence to occur!
There are also times that transcendence happens during horrifying circumstances too – Victor Frankl survived a nazi concentration camp and was able to transcend the most horrible circumstances imaginable and live his life with a measure of peace. In his 1946 book, “A Man’s Search for Meaning,“ he said:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
A spectacular statement from someone who lived through the Holocaust. It’s an example of equanimity. At some point this awareness came upon him. He was transcended from what was happening to him, had an awakening, and saw this human experience as something different.
As I’ve mentioned before, my own first transcendent moment came out of the sad experience of my mom dying. Though I’ve had a long road to life mastery, this was a moment of pain and suffering that created the awakening in me and like with so many others who experienced suffering and awakened and that set them on their journey in the first place.
And other times transcendence happens when you are ready to level up! When you master all the life principles, and you become the greatest version of your human self – that moment of synergy and realization can open the portal to transcendence. And you will be changed – even if you don’t understand it – you become new person of higher thought. This higher thought is equanimity.
The next thing that happens with equanimity is that we begin to see our attachments differently. We begin to detach from things and cut the emotional dependency on the material world. We begin to stop our insane consumerism. We no longer desire the stuff we used to think would make us happy.
This is another very Buddhist and Eastern idea of spirituality. Releasing the hold that the material world has on us takes away so much of our suffering. Even Jesus didn’t own anything.
It doesn’t mean we no longer have problems or live in a house or own a car or have a job – it means money and cars and tvs or keeping up with the neighbors – this way of life doesn’t own us anymore. We don’t suffer this life anymore. We don’t suffer that drama anymore. Unattachment is a huge part of having peace and harmony!
We also unattach ourselves from our labels. All these categories we align with that give meaning to our lives – our job titles, our country, our religion, social organizations the social organizations we belong to, the college we graduated from, our NFL team, our political party, our RACE… our family name…
When you write up your bio for your business page or when someone is going to introduce you, some of you might say I am a CEO, or I am an American, I am a catholic, I am a mason, I am a club member, I am a veteran, I am a Yale grad, I am a steeler fan, I am a democrat, I am an African-American, I am a jeep owner, I am a fan of Taylor Swift, I am a Kennedy family member, I am a homeowner, I’m a vegan, I am the parent of an honor student, I am a Stanley mug collector – the newest thing to be – I am, I am, I am …. I am all these labels that separate me from you because they make me feel special.
That is no longer true in your awareness in a state of equanimity. The truth is I am light. That’s all I am. Those other things I wear as labels are just delusions.
And finally, we reach this state of balance is our chakras – our energy – our yin-yang influences come into equilibrium. We stop struggling with how to behave masculine or feminine, what is my role? Paradigms and fears melt away with our energy in sync. This is important, and tough to understand at the same time; our thoughts become neutral.
This doesn’t mean we don’t care; we just aren’t reactive and emotional. We don’t see things as good and bad. When you get out of the mindset of duality, you understand there is one feeling – that of being. Anything else is a creation in our minds. To experience happiness and joy – there must be the duality of unhappiness and suffering. You can’t have one without the other. Nonduality is the feeling of being – its peaceful – neutral. If you are on a joyous high, soon you’ll be suffering a low. Equanimity provides us neutrality.
We humans are firmly grounded in our bodies and the ego wants us to remain so – because when the body goes, the ego goes – so it fights against our ability to live in equanimity because we push the ego aside. It doesn’t want us to transcend. This is why transcendence is momentary, and equanimity is a work in progress. We are human and gravity keeps us in our bodies and ego keeps us in our minds! We want to experience joy and happiness; we want to laugh and dance and be happy – why would we ever let that go? …Maybe for a paradise of peace, harmony, and balance.
For most of us we have to ask, “what would that even feel like? Peace? Harmony? Balance?” I would say it has to be experienced to know. Something inside of us longs for it– the light within us longs to become. I’ve never met anyone who said they didn’t long for peace.
Again, this is a journey that travels in a spiral and each rotation around we have a deeper experience with life mastery, self-actualization, transcendence, and equanimity. We come closer to our ultimate enlightenment even if it takes our entire lives to achieve.
Why self-actualize if that’s not really the end –why is that the last goal? If we have to continue working and self-realizing? It seems futile.
We don’t have to do any of it, you know. Back in Principle III: Honor and Respect Free Will – you can choose to ride this life out without and desire to become or to work on spirituality. That is absolutely your choice. No judgement. You get to choose. Maybe that’s the experience some are supposed to have.
Some need more. Some need purpose. Some hear a call from their soul to become and they choose to follow that voice. I was in my forties when I made the choice – before that I was without hope and direction. This path helped me – it changed me. But I recognize it’s not for everyone – and it’s also not the only path. There are lots of paths up the mountain. These principles may not speak to everyone. But if your soul is calling, I encourage you to seek the path for you.
If you have followed along the last few episodes, I would like to thank you for being here and for hanging in there for some hard self-awareness work. Congratulations if you made it through all the principles!
In the next half of this series on Metaphysical Humanism I am going to talk about the 6 human superpowers! These are abilities gifted to humans that support you in your becoming.
I hope you’ll join me!
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