There Is One Religion: The Religion of Know Thyself

Introduction One of my clients who had come to experience understanding her deeper self, being more of her authentic being, and walking through self actualization process reported the following: As I was sitting in the corner of my couch, listening to soothing music, drops of tears came down, one after the other. It was as if they were chasing each other to see which would get down first. It was as if they were happy to be out because I had been holding them back for far too long. I just let them be; they were outside of my control. For a few minutes I didn’t even know why I was crying; I just cried. Then I went for the ultimate sobbing. I felt a deep sense of being lonely; a loneliness that I never knew existed. It seemed like some parts of my life, I just had to walk through by myself. It was my reality, and I had to accept it. Then an inner peace and quietness overcame all my senses. It was as if something, somewhere, was looking at me—in me, but yet out of me. It was beautiful and real—not an illusion. At that moment, everything else seemed like an illusion. This experience is happening often now, more often than before. Maybe it is because I am more aware of myself, my being, and my surroundings. Before, I just used to exist in this world, but now I feel more as if I am truly alive. I have intense feelings, I am more aware of my feelings and experiences, I feel more like I am living rather than just going through life. At this particular incident, I had a combination of feelings of joy, gratitude, pain, and longing. Every time I get an intense experience my means of expression is writing. There are steps we take to reach self actualization, I have written extensively in my other books about this process and about Maslow’s hierarchy of growth. In addition, I have transformed Maslow’s hierarchy into seven levels, the last being self transformation. Therefore, creating a new school of thought called Systematic Transformational Psychology (STP) based on literature review, a combination of some of the most prominent schools of thoughts including Jungian or Psychoanalytical, Maslow, and Existential; in addition to an experiment in a form of natural observation. To go back to the self actualization process, let me use an example to make this process a little more comprehendible. After all, things in nature are more similar than we think and we can learn a lot by observing our surroundings. Let me use water as an example. Water, if not in a river bed with direction and a path toward ocean, does not flow, and after a while might even get rotten and decayed. A source of life and beauty may turn into a useless puddle just because it did not flow and did not find direction. A river is surface water which has found its way to the land from a higher altitude to a lower one, because of gravity. When rain falls on the land, it either leaks into the ground or becomes a runoff, which flows downhill into rivers and lakes, on its journey towards the sea. Does that sound in any way familiar? Now let me use the same concept of water and explain it in another form. We can even do a little experiment with it. When you pour water on a flat surface with no shape and direction, the water will vanish after a little while. Now if this same water is turned into an ice, heat energy is being withdrawn, and the molecules are getting into a more stable and fixed configuration with respect to each other. Because of the polar nature of water, it forms hydrogen bonds between molecules. This type of bonding means when water turns into ice, it positions the molecules into very specific configurations, to maintain the lowest energy state it can get to. Therefore, forming ice crystals which seen under the microscope is absolutely beautiful, it has a captivating harmony and stability. This concept can be compared with self actualization. . Let me elaborate on that. When we are born, we must grow not only intellectually but also emotionally, mentally, and from core (or spiritually if you prefer to call it that). As we grow higher up the ladder of self growth in all these aspect, we move toward self actualization. This is where the water finds a shape. This is when we become solid, strong, focus, determined, and disciplined. We find our place in life and know our priorities, this is where we let go of our extra baggage to save energy, to move up the ladder with lighter weight, we feel more stable with life, we sense more joy of life for simple things, we learn more acceptance, we don’t waste as much energy undoing damaging instead we learn to spend our energy to build, we are less needy and have less anxious attachments, we function less from greediness and instant gratifications. Guilt, shame, hate, fear, and resentment do not control our life, and we sense a healthier connection with the bigger picture of life. Love comes from a deeper perspective not just superficial judgments and categorizations. We learn to look deeper into intention and not just behavior; we become more authentic and less phony, we experience more inner control and in charge of our destiny. In addition, during this process, we become more aware of our different sides, what we are made of, who we are. We learn to use tools that benefit us and dismiss the ones that don’t, and we become more aware of our existence. This stage is where we need to learn about the means available to us whether it is our culture, environment, religion, or whatever else that is a part of our experience of life. To learn what they are, if we need them or if we have outgrown them. And if we do need them how do we use them to be beneficial in our self discovery and self learning processes. But before we know what is useful and what is not, we have to learn about them. The mistakes we make too often is too reject something or accept it just out of imitation, following someone else without truly knowing why, or because of anger, fear, and other negative emotions. Nothing good comes out of these; they may give a sense of temporary relief but it is not the real cure. The real cure is within each one of us, uniquely. We have the capability to discover what works and what does not. Too many times we become just a follower and do not discover what we behold. After we reach this self actualization level, there comes another level called self transformation. Maslow reports that only 2% of people get to be self actualized, if that is the case, imagine how many can get to be self transformed. To refer back to our example of water, this level of self transformation is like when the water steps out of its solid stage ice, and melts down only to have found a path to flow in. It is still the same water, but going through the solidification process, it has now found a path and is destined to go and join the ocean rather than staying still somewhere and becoming useless. It is even more liberating from the self actualization stage. There is a sense of unity, inner freedom, and being one with the ocean that the self transformed person experiences. Again, each person has a unique way of finding it but only through becoming self actualized, one is able to find it. Reaching true inner liberation needs self discipline first. Nothing good in life comes easy, so there is work to be done if one wants to experience this. Any other way beside that is the Ego ruling the person making things look like they are real. Such a person may think s/he has transformed only to feel that sense of inner instability because s/he is only looking for a way to feel secure. That is not true liberation. This book is for anyone who wants to learn about herself or himself in a personal way—a way that includes reason and love, not imitation and fear. This book is about a journey from me to “I,” a journey that is a lifelong process and into the beautiful ocean of the unknown.