Achariya George Adams
Speaks on "Seven Aspects of Spiritual Self-Mastery"
Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 11:00am
We live in exciting times. Externally we have come along way since the age when most of humanity believed that the earth was the center of the universe. Self-driving cars, planetary exploration, intelligent robots, the internet, advances in biology and medicine are but a few of man’s many material achievements. Internally, examples of highly advanced souls like a Gandhi, a Jesus, a Buddha, a Mohammed and many others hold the promise of our future evolution as a species. These supreme souls have demonstrated the higher spiritual laws that govern our evolution and have taken us to a new level of understanding regarding the universe and ourselves.
The question remains given our true spiritual nature: How do we achieve our highest spiritual potential? How do we find a path to external and internal spiritual enlightenment? In the words of the blessed Nazarene: how do we become “perfect even as the Father in Heaven is Perfect”?
To achieve our highest potential requires a transformation of our life inside and out. It requires a universal ideal and a universal philosophy that accommodates all truth, all knowledge that reconciles the differences between spirituality and materialism. It requires that we discover our highest self and manifest that self in our life. It requires that we govern our life by the laws of our true nature namely, oneness, eternality and illumination born of love, life and wisdom. It requires the self-discipline of wisdom and all encompassing compassion. it requires a spiritual practice that will help us grow and unfold the noble qualities of our soul. It requires that we enter within and truly discover who we are and our relationship to the universe and that we manifest that discovery in our life.
Truth is not the dictate of a religious authority, or other temporal power, or a mere speculation, it is direct experience! Truth is real! Self realization is realization. It is making real,the bringing into our awareness, awakening to that which is real. Truth is God. God is Truth. Truth is the realization of the Absolute within our consciousness and manifesting that Truth in the world.
The ultimate spiritual goal of our life is to fully realize that we are one with the creator and to manifest that divinity at its highest level. It is our blessing to realize that God, Truth, is everywhere and in all of creation. It is our blessing to realize that not only are loved by God, but that we are love. It is our blessing to be able to transmute and transcend that which is transitory and finite and unite our consciousness with that which is the One without a Second, the Source of All. It is our blessing to be an instrument to manifest that divinity into the universe.
—Achariya George
From the Gurus and Swamis: AUM
"Experience is the only source of knowledge. In the world, religion is the only source where there is no surety, because it is not taught as a science of experience. This should not be. There is always, however, a small group of men who teach religion from experience. They are called mystics, and these mystics in every religion speak the same tongue and teach the same truth….
"The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart. The sage is often ignorant of physical science, because he reads the wrong book—the book within; and the scientist is too often ignorant of religion, because he too reads the wrong book—the book without."
—Swami Vivekananda, Notes on Science and Religion
"The Realization of the supreme Self, which is indestructible, eternal, without beginning and without end, destroys the illusion that the self is annihilated at the highest state of self-realization.
"As the self progresses toward the realization of its absolute perfection of wisdom, existence and bliss, it passes through various states of consciousness. Leaving the lower behind, it enters the higher states in which it finds greater joy and new inspiration.
"Passing through the stages of duality, the Yogi realizes himself as above all dualities and free from their effects. He realizes himself as birthless, deathless, all-pervading, and free from the chain of cause and effect. He realizes that he is eternal. Yet he finds himself unable to express this realization in words. Here all suffering ceases, and the Yogi attains the state of eternal, conscious bliss."
—Srimad-Bhagavad Gita,Translation and Spiritual Interpretation by Swami Premananda
Noble Thoughts:
"In the cosmic process, we find that life uses matter for its instrument. Similarly mind uses the living organism. The highest order of being called spirit which is mind illumined by the ideals of truth, goodness and beauty is rooted in human intelligence and grows from it. The universe attempts to realize these ideals and cannot be understood except in the light of them. They are not only the goal of the universe in the temporal sense but are the timeless principles in the light of which alone the universe becomes intelligible."
—S. Radhakrishnan, The Spirit In Man
"If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning."
—Mahatma Gandhi