Self-actualization: Thoughts and actions reflecting our speech March 17, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.Tags: inspiration, life, personal development ideas, personal development potential, personal growth, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, self-realization, spirituality, writing
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In our efforts to maximize our personal development potential, one of the steps we can take is to make an effort to speak more positively, which leads to the larger question of whether doing this can make us think more positively and act more positively.
An obvious benefit of developing the idea and habit of speaking positively is that it is a personal growth action step, a tangible behavior with measurable results. With a bit of effort we can tell if we are speaking more positively or not.
Sometimes self-realization and self-actualization advice asks us to make non-measurable emotional or intellectual commitments or resolutions in our personal development programs; and this can be discouraging when we try to determine if we are making actual progress.
But in some cases we need to make the effort and have faith that by taking concrete tangible action steps, that those steps can result in an improvement in our emotional and intellectual status and ultimately lead to a more measurable result.
Hopefully then, if we speak more positively, we will begin to think more positively, and in turn we may then also begin to act more positively.
— Dennis Mellersh
Personal growth: Wisdom perfection and the world of illusion February 21, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.Tags: Buddhism, inspiration, Lama Surya Das, life, personal growth program, philosophy, Prajna Paramita Sutras, Prajnaparamtia, psychology, self-actualization, writing
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Our earnest efforts at achieving self-realization notwithstanding, most of us can tend to get wound pretty tight with the daily stress quotient the world doles out, and when this happens, , we might want to remember that keeping things in perspective should be a part of our personal development programs.
Advice which is easier to give than to take.
Some philosophical and/or spiritual systems such as Buddhism use comparisons to help show us how fleeting the external world and its stressors are.
Consider the Eight Similes of Illusion from the Prajnaparamita Sutras , as cited in Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World, written by Lama Surya Das (1)
The Radiant Buddha said:
Regard the fleeting world like this:
Like stars fading and vanishing at dawn,
like bubbles on a fast-moving stream,
like morning dewdrops evaporating on blades
of grass,
like a candle flickering in a strong wind,
echoes, mirages, and phantoms, hallucinations,
and like a dream
A note from Wikipedia
“The word prajnaparamita combines the Sanskrit words prajna “wisdom” with paramita” perfection”. Prajnaparamita is a central concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism and is generally associated with the doctrine of emptiness (Shunyata) or ‘lack of Svabhava’ (essence) and the works of Nagarjuna. Its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva path.”
(1) Published by Broadway Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, New York, 1997
—Dennis Mellersh
Personal Development Ideas 