Absolute Devotion

As the elephants walk by my window and I read deeper into The Bhagavad Gita, the insanity of it all continues.  Thought I might google Self Realization just to see if there is something simple to grasp as a life line on the path. At the moment, it appears that the only peg to move forward on the board is Absolute Devotion.  Devotion stirs up the vision of drinking Kool-aid.  Although, now there is a shift with that image.  If I decide to drink the Kool-aid (not sure if "I" is really involved in the committee), it will be out of a voluntary surrendering of the self.  I have sampled the step a few times and the results have been life changing each time.  Why then the hesitancy?  There cannot be an attachment or expectation with the step and there cannot be a fear of what may or may not unfold. At least, those are the thoughts showing up for the moment.

Self-realization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Happiness and self-realization

The concept of self-realization states that it is the ultimate goal of a human being to attain permanent happiness and complete independence and freedom from all worldly bondage, and that true happiness is then the result of self-realization.

The concept defines true happiness as the manifested Self. It only seems like a result because it is not felt or known permanently before the ego is removed. As explained by Ramana Maharshi,"Happiness is inherent in man and is not due to external causes. One must realize himself in order to experience his unalloyed happiness. All spiritual scriptures are meant to make man retrace his steps to his original source."
Awareness in self-realization

As taught by Ramana Maharshi, awareness plays a key role in achieving self realization; with awareness, self-realization should be extremely easy to achieve.


Qualities of self-realized people

According to Maslow, self realized people share the following qualities:

• Truth: honest, reality, beauty, pure, clean and unadulterated completeness
• Goodness: rightness, desirability, uprightness, benevolence, honesty
• Beauty: rightness, form, aliveness, simplicity, richness, wholeness, perfection, completion,
• Wholeness: unity, integration, tendency to oneness, interconnectedness, simplicity, organization, structure, order, not dissociated, synergy
• Dichotomy-transcendence: acceptance, resolution, integration, polarities, opposites, contradictions
• Aliveness: process, not-deadness, spontaneity, self-regulation, full-functioning
• Unique: idiosyncrasy, individuality, non comparability, novelty
• Perfection: nothing superfluous, nothing lacking, everything in its right place, just-rightness, suitability, justice
• Necessity: inevitability: it must be just that way, not changed in any slightest way
• Completion: ending, justice, fulfillment
• Justice: fairness, suitability, disinterestedness, non partiality,
• Order: lawfulness, rightness, perfectly arranged
• Simplicity: nakedness, abstract, essential skeletal, bluntness
• Richness: differentiation, complexity, intricacy, totality
• Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving, or difficulty
• Playfulness: fun, joy, amusement
• Self-sufficiency: autonomy, independence, self-determining.