In my book, The Silent Master: Awakening the Power Within:
We first work to bring our body and mind as one so that we can apply and focus ourselves to learning. So often we are distracted and unfocused. In order to dedicate ourselves to self-discovery, we must unite our whole being in this task.
Next, our second step inward is to seek the truth in ourselves and in the world around us. We look at who we really are, not who others say we are. This introspection helps us to discover both our strengths and weaknesses. It also allows us to discover what our real goals are. As we glimpse who we are, we discover the things we want to change in order to become who we want to be.
The third step is purity. As we recognize our fears and weaknesses we build the desire to remove these impurities. Our goal is to purify our bodies, minds, and spirits from the chains we’ve imposed on them from our lifestyle, attitude, and environment.
The fourth step is to learn to love ourselves with a pure, accepting, and spiritual love. We build on ourselves–overcoming our weaknesses, developing our strengths, discovering our potential. As we see ourselves through our inner eyes, a growing sense of beauty and acceptance forms within us, ultimately leading to inner peace and self-contentment.
This love for ourselves multiplies our self-worth and makes our goals and development become priorities, so next we develop a loyalty to ourselves and our growth, to our beliefs, our purpose, and our path.
Sacrifice is the sixth principle in our lives: to eliminate unnecessary activities, and to make decisions about where to spend our energy, time, and money so that we achieve our goals. We realize that many of the things we originally thought would be sacrifices turn out to be distractions sidetracking us from our ultimate goals.
Finally, we develop patience. Through the growing process of self-discovery we become more patient with ourselves and others. We learn to be content with the path we choose, our direction, and our progress. We stop living for tomorrow and live and breathe the journey right now, weathering life’s surprises and disappointments, remaining at peace with our direction and ourselves.
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