The Art of Self-Realization, Part 1 – a compilation

An Excerpt

We present a selection of quotations on the theme of the Art of Self-Realization from Maitreya (Messages from Maitreya the Christ, andMaitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life), Benjamin Creme’s Master (A Master Speaks), and Benjamin Creme’s writings.

“Be what you are. Do not follow one another. If you practise honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit and detachment, you will know your Self, you will know Me, you will know the Lord.” (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life)

Maitreya says He has come to teach humanity the art of Self or God-realization. He equates humanity with the Self, and the Self with God. He says: “You are the Self, an immortal Being.” Our pain, He says, our suffering, our problems, are the result of the fact that we identify with everything and anything other than the Self, the immortal Being of which we are a physical-plane reflection. He says: “Ask yourself: ‘Who am I?’” You will find that you identify with the physical body. We look in the mirror and say: “That is me.” In this way we are subject to all the limitations of the physical body. The physical body is mortal; it lives so long and then it dies, and we have to come back into incarnation in a new body. So we cannot be the physical body, it is only a vehicle.
Or we identify with our feelings, our sensations, our energies, our emotions. These are not us: they were not there yesterday, perhaps they will not be there tomorrow. They are unstable, never the same. If we are an immortal Being, they cannot be us. Or we identify with our mind, with the creations of our mind, our memory. We think we are Mr or Mrs So-and-so, with so many children. That is not us, that is our memory, the creation of our mind. We say we are Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist. That is not us. That is a belief, an ideology. We are an immortal Being and therefore not subject to the limitations of the physical body, the emotional body, or the mind. We are not a fascist, a democrat, a Christian, or a Buddhist. These are all constructions of the mind. We are, above all these transient beliefs, an immortal Being.
How do we become that immortal Being here and now on the physical plane? Maitreya says His way is the most direct, the way of growing awareness. It involves the practice of three attitudes. One, honesty of mind. Almost no one has honesty of mind. It is not just being honest and not stealing other people’s property. All of us think one thing, say something else, and do something else again. For honesty of mind, what we think, what we say, and what we do must be in a straight line. Two, sincerity of spirit – being who we are, distinct and individual. Not trying to be like somebody else, not imitating other people, but speaking from the heart to the heart. Not speaking to provide others with some false idea of ourselves, manipulating them so that they admire or like us. It is being honest in oneself, sincere. Few people are truly, inwardly sincere. The third attitude to practise is detachment. Detachment is the awareness that we are not the body, the feelings, or the mind – gradually detaching ourselves from that kind of identification. If we are attached to our emotions, for example, and someone plays a dirty trick on us, if our reaction is one of strong indignation and anger, then we are not detached. If we are detached, we will not react with indignation and anger at such a slight.
What we find in practice is that these three attitudes are mutually supportive. The more aware we become, the more honest we become, the more sincere. The more sincere we become, the more honest we manage to be. The more sincere and honest we become, the more detached we become. The more detached we become, the more sincere and the more honest. These three work together, like a yeast.
When Maitreya is teaching openly in the world, has declared Himself and begun His programme of stimulus and guidance in the political and economic field, He will also teach humanity the Art of Self-realization. The more we practise these three attitudes, the greater Self-awareness develops. The more Self-awareness develops, the more Self-realization becomes possible. Self-awareness leads to Self-realization. What is Self-realization? It is not a religion, an ideology, or a belief. It is the goal of life, which, when achieved, makes us a Master. All of the Masters are Self-Realized Beings. (Benjamin Creme, Maitreya’s Mission Volume Three)

“Your destiny is freedom. No one is ‘born in sin’. Rather, the Self is subject to conditioning during the process of evolution. The process of evolution is the Becoming.
“If you follow the three principles of honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit and detachment, evolution proceeds naturally. Your ‘second nature’ is conditioned nature, but practice of the three principles will free you from conditioning. No one is ‘condemned’ to conditioning.
“Please do not presume things. This amounts to ‘a soft landing’ which satisfies the mind. Isms are like small pills that give the mind little breaks in life. Mind, spirit and body feel a bit ‘high’, a bit happy. But the realities of life can never be comprehended via isms. They can only be experienced. Experience and vision go together.” (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life)

Most people think one thing, say something else, and do something else again. There is no direct line from their thoughts to their actions. This leads to confusion and destructiveness. This is not honesty of mind. Honesty of mind leads to honest speech and honest action. Peace and happiness can be achieved through this harmony.
Sincerity of spirit means not imitating other people, not pretending, not trying to appear different from what you are. Sincerity of spirit is not taking on somebody else’s ‘garments’, not imitating your favourite film or pop star. It is simply being yourself.
If you are an artist, musician, writer or poet, the most interesting thing you can be is you, not somebody else through you. Imitation in art and music is looked down upon. Imitation in life is somehow not looked down upon, but it is just as important. Art, music or literary expression are part of the life expression. This is certainly as valuable and personal, and has to be as original, as you yourself are. Each person is unique. You have to give expression to that uniqueness. That doesn’t mean you have to do everything contrary to what is normally known and accepted, but it does mean you have to be yourself.
When you see Maitreya you will find He speaks directly from His heart to your heart. Your heart centre will resonate in response to what He has to say. It will seem so pure, so absolutely, essentially, true. You will have no difficulty in accepting what He says because it will penetrate to the very core of your being. That is why it is expected that once He speaks openly to the world it will not be long before the Day of Declaration occurs. (Benjamin Creme, The Great Approach)

“You have been given mind, spirit and body,” says Maitreya, “to express My Being and Becoming in thought, speech and action.” Any action performed with dishonesty of mind, an insincere spirit and attachment is destructive. For example, when you think one thing, say another, and do something which is different again, you are lost. Honesty of mind leads to honest speech and honest action. This harmony leads to peace and happiness. “Whether you are a thief or a saint,” He counsels, “you can begin right now.” But, people have asked, “How do we begin? How do we practise sincerity?” Consider an expression which is often used, such as ‘having a heart-to-heart talk’ with someone, Maitreya responds. What does this mean? It means you will express yourself as you really are, you will communicate from the centre – your centre – the Self. Practise this. It will transform you and those around you. The heart is never tarnished or touched; it is the seat of the soul. It is the mind that leads us astray. Peace, bliss, happiness and grace are the qualities of the heart. “By tuning into the ‘feelings of the heart’,” Maitreya teaches, “you are able to experience your natural innocence, that innocence you had as a child. Do not ‘visualize’ the heart. For that is only the mind seeking to find the source of light with a torch.” (Maitreya, Maitreya’s Mission Volume Two)

To be honest, sincere and detached is to experience oneness with God. But so often this oneness is interpreted by people as loneliness and something to be feared. Yet the feeling of loneliness is the supreme blessing in disguise because it shows that a person is approaching oneness with the Lord. (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life)

That Self is an immortal spiritual Being. It reflects itself as a human soul, which in turn reflects itself at this level as the human personality. The path of evolution is the reuniting of the personality with the soul, and the soul/personality together with the Spark of God, the Divine Self. The more detached you become, the more these things can take place. Maitreya says: “When you are detached all becomes possible. Where you are attached you cannot know Me. There I cannot be. But where you are detached there I am always with you.”
These three, honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit, and detachment, if practised seriously and consistently, together with the Prayer for the New Age, can bring a person quickly to an understanding and experience of him or herself in a new way: a new freedom, spontaneity and directness, and a growing absence of fear and conflict will gradually make their presence felt. (Benjamin Creme, The Great Approach)

Detachment is detaching yourself from identifying with yourself as body, mind or spirit. It is not saying to yourself: “I mustn’t feel emotions.” Many people suppress their emotions. To suppress your emotions is just as bad as indulging your emotions. What you have to learn to do is to look at your emotions and not indulge them and not suppress them either. Not repress them but simply look at them, not identify with them; and if you do not identify with them you detach from them. It is like creating a space between you and them. Most people immediately identify with their emotion, whatever it is. They have done so all their lives and so they take it for granted. They feel every negative emotion and they think it is their right to experience them. In fact some people think it is their duty; and I suspect many psychologists tell their patients that it is their duty to ‘emote’. The point is you have to be detached, not by detaching from life but to be very aware, to look very seriously at what is happening but not to identify with it. This is difficult because it needs a degree of detachment to do it – you have to be there before you can get there! But it takes just a little space to create a bigger space. The best way I can think of is to study Krishnamurti. If you put into practice what you read as you are reading, you create that space. Look at what you are feeling, allow yourself to feel it but do not indulge it and do not suppress it or try to get rid of it. If you fight it, it is like the trials of Hercules: every time he cut off the Hydra’s head two grew in its place. That is what comes from repression. What you have to do is to lift it up, as he did, finally, into the light of day (the light of the soul), and the Hydra died of its own accord. Simply look at the feeling and say: “That is not me. It wasn’t there yesterday, it won’t be there tomorrow, it is not me,” and it will go away. Every time you do this you weaken it. You withdraw nourishment. Every time you identify with anything, your energy nourishes it. Whatever you focus on, your energy will flow to it and you will strengthen the emotion. You have to reverse the process and the emotion will die a natural death through lack of nourishment. Detachment is the way to bring about the honesty of mind and the sincerity of spirit which Maitreya teaches. (Benjamin Creme, Maitreya’s Mission Volume Two)

If you follow others instead of being yourself, you lose your sparkle; you cannot reflect the light of individuality. Without that light, there is no progress in life. Similarly, when you experience the Self within and come to know you are an immortal entity, completely separate from mind, spirit and body, you learn to use these temples of the Lord creatively, with awareness. Processes of healing follow automatically.
This is why Maitreya has said that even people with AIDS will be healed through prayer and through the practice of honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit and detachment.
Without detachment there is no salvation. (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life)
….

The task ahead is clear: open the windows of the soul and let the soul’s light illumine your lives. Through the awakened intuition allow the soul’s knowledge and purpose to be expressed. Know the meaning of compassion and spread that love abroad. Allow your soul’s wisdom to banish all illusion and become a light for your brothers. That is the task of all who would tread the Path of Light. Awaken the intuition and see clearly the Plan; awaken the intuition and dissolve the darkness; awaken the intuition and cast out all fear. (Benjamin Creme’s Master, from ‘Reason and Intuition’)

Nothing belongs to you. Everything belongs to the Lord. If you are honest with yourself, you are honest with the Lord. If you are sincere with yourself, you are sincere with the Lord. (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life)

“The Self is endless. Awareness is endless. Mind, spirit and body have a beginning and an end. With detachment, the Self experiences phenomena in mind, spirit and body, but it does not get attached to the miraculous powers of which mind, spirit and body are capable.
The laws of creation are in the mind. The universal energy is in the spirit and the forum for the materialization of the creation is the physical body. In effect, when the Self observes God’s powers it is detachment which saves the Self from imprisonment in the bondages of life.
Detachment is the most powerful ‘drug’. It becomes so effective that it immunizes the Self from the processes and proceedings of mind, spirit and body. To learn detachment is an art. A scientist, with detachment, will learn the laws of physics and chemistry (the laws of creation) and will apply them, creating things which constitute God’s work. The artist, with detachment, will be able to describe God through his own experiences.
The destiny of one and all is to be, one day, free of mind, spirit and body. This in itself becomes salvation.” (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life)

Stage by stage, century following century, man will build a civilization which will demonstrate his growing manifestation of divinity; a culture in which the beauty of the divine creation will be expressed in all its aspects, a mirror in which the Divine Idea will be reflected in all its glory.
Thus will man take his true place in the scheme of things under the Divine Plan. Thus, under the inspiration of the Christ, will he transform this world – separated by fear, dogma and hate – into that in which the Law of Love governs, in which all men are brothers, in which all that pertains to the divine nature engages man’s attention and controls his life. Thus will man’s dreams of divinity be realized, his potential be achieved, his destiny fulfilled. (Benjamin Creme’s Master, from ‘The new civilization’)

The Prayer for the New Age
I am the creator of the universe.
I am the father and mother of the universe.
Everything comes from me.
Everything shall return to me.
Mind, spirit and body are my temples,
For the Self to realize in them
My supreme Being and Becoming.
Benjamin Creme writes: The Prayer for the New Age, given by Maitreya, the World Teacher, is a great mantram or affirmation with an invocative effect. It will be a powerful tool in the recognition by us that man and God are One, that there is no separation. The ‘I’ is the Divine Principle behind all creation. The Self emanates from, and is identical to, the Divine Principle.
The most effective way to use this mantram is to say or think the words with focused will, while holding the attention at the ajna centre between the eyebrows. When the mind grasps the meaning of the concepts, and simultaneously the will is brought to bear, those concepts will be activated and the mantram will work. If it is said seriously every day, there will grow inside you a realization of your true Self. (Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life
Source: Share International