Self-actualization

Our Inner Divinity is trying by all possible means to have a birth, to come into existence. To be in existence does not mean to have a body, feelings, and thoughts; to be in existence means to be Self-actualized, to make our divinity manifest in our life.

People do not realize that most of the time they do not exist. Their body exists, but if you search for their True Self, you meet imitations of It in their emotions and thoughts. The True Self is absent.

To be absent means to have no existence. Most of the people on earth live like vacant houses.

Once I said to a man, "Where are you?"

"I am sitting here."

"That is your body," I said. "It is your body that is sitting there, your emotions are sitting there, your thoughts are sitting there, but someone else is sitting in your body. Where are you? You are imitating someone. Someone is acting through you. An imitated image is sitting in you. Where are you, the Self, the Eternal Witness? Is it the Eternal Witness that exists in you, or is it your mechanism that is running by itself? - and you are calling such a mechanical life, 'This is the way I live!' Where is that I?"

People like to imitate movie stars. For example, when an actress changes her hair style, the next day two million girls try to imitate her. If you ask, "What are you doing?" they will say, "I like this kind of hairdo." Do they like it or are they victims of imitation? You run away from your "home" and make your image of imitation live there instead of you. If you find out why you are imitating, you will be closer to Self-actualization.

We are going to come into existence; that is what evolution is. Evolution is the process of coming into existence as divine beauty. Unless we fulfill the purpose of our life and come into existence as the Self, we will become the failures of nature.

In reality, Christ was the manifestation of God. God was successful at coming into manifestation through Christ. The whole mission of Christ was to teach us this fact and to urge us to manifest divinity on earth, to bring God into existence in our lives.

Trying to be joyful is one of the best methods of Self-actualization. Whoever brings joy to the world is the greatest benefactor of humanity because joy is the radiance of God's presence. Whoever is destroying the joy of people is the enemy of his Self. The more joy you bring to yourself and others, the more communication you will have with the Most High, in you and in the Universe.

The actualization of joy is not so easy. You fill yourself with joy. Then a small bug comes and takes away all your joy. But if one wants to actualize his True Self, he will never give up until joy continuously flows down from the mountain of his Self, bringing life and glory to all his thoughts, words, actions, and relationships.

There is the joy of achievement, service, devotion, and purity. There is the joy of sacrificing yourself for a great cause. There is the joy of the awareness of immortality. There is the joy of the awareness that people have forgotten you or did not recognize your service with gratitude. There is the joy of being forgotten. There is the joy of contact and communication with Higher Worlds. There is the joy of paying debts for others. There is the joy of expansion of consciousness, the joy of contacting your Core. All these are phases of Self-actualization.

Joy is the oil of your physical, emotional, and mental mechanisms. Without joy, they burn out and perish. Strangely enough, people sometimes feel happy when they deprive others of joy.

Can you try not to let anyone, anything take your joy away? Can you live in a way that you do not destroy the joys of others? This is a way of kindling the divinity in others.

People lose their joy when they lose their teeth, when their hair becomes white, or when their face wrinkles in old age. Can you keep your joy intact? We have died many times and will die again and again until we come into our true existence, until we actualize our True Self. As long as we do not exist as a Self, we will continuously die and be born. Once we really exist, death will be conquered and we will be immortal.

Unfortunately, we are very often absent. We talk with each other, but we are not there; we shake hands, but we are not there; we eat our breakfast and dinner, but we are not there; we are in the news, in the papers, in our failures, defeats, hatreds, jealousies; yet we are not there.

Who is shaking the hand? Who is talking with that friend? Who is eating that dinner, if you are not there? Very probably you are obsessed and possessed, and you are absent. Try to exist. Try to be present. Try to be there in your actions, talks, and thoughts.

Try to eat your food and do not let an entity in your body eat it, or an anxiety or a hatred eat it. Your food becomes poison when you do not eat it but let "others" in you eat it.

You hug your wife but you are not there. Your wife says, "Honey, you are not real." You say, "I love you," but she says, "Where are you?" If you do not exist, you are a machine. The machine cries, the machine loves, the machine hates, the machine makes love, and the machine eats and watches the news.

Unless you exist, you cannot enjoy life. Joy makes you real, and whatever you do with joy, that deed affects people's lives because you are in your deed. If you are not real, everything in the world has no real value for you, and you misuse everything, manipulate everything, accumulate everything, just to feel that you exist.

How free are you from your body; how free are you from your emotions and thoughts? How much freedom do you have from your vanity and ego and self-interest? The less freedom you have, the less existence you have. Slaves do not exist for themselves but for others. Except you belong to your Self, you do not have a Self.

-Torkom Saraydarian

(Breakthrough to Higher Psychism)