In Tune with the Inner Self - Essay Example

? In Tune with the Inner Self First Being in tune with the inner self is being in unison with both you and with the surrounding environment. This environment encompasses fellow human beings, plants, animals, and a being that is supreme and a controller of everything. To be this way is not easy at all as it involves one appreciating that there is a controller of life in whose hands, everything comes from. Belief is the ultimate attribute that a person has to have in order to be able to be in tune with his soul. Being in sync with oneself is a slow process and not an instant act; there are several steps that has to be followed to achieve this state. Some have done it subconsciously and achieved this state of being while some have achieved this through reading of scriptures written by people who have done it and have been able to achieve it through discipline (Waldo, 2007). This article tries to analyze the view of one author of a book that enumerates steps that a human being can follow to achieve this state of being while I investigate these views and offer my personal take on the steps that this author gives. In his book, “In Tune with the Infinite Self”, Ralf Waldo is trying to point out the steps on can take to be able to be a complete human being. He starts by offering that there is a golden thread in all human beings that when a human being discovers it, it will change the person`s life forever. However, this golden thread can only be realized by those who reach for it; those who are willing to trade their weakness and suffering for strength and health, their pain for peace and calmness, and their poverty for fullness. Waldo looks at this state as the state of being in oneness and in tune with the inner self or the part of oneself that cannot be seen because according to him, everything starts from the unseen before it becomes seen and it is the unseen that controls the seen and thus getting to know the unseen is what every human should aspire to know. To achieve this the Waldo has highlighted the following aspects: Human beings should understand the: 1. Supreme facts of the Universe. 2. Supreme facts of Human life. 3. Fullness of life i.e health and vigor. 4. Secret, power, and effect of love 5. Wisdom of interior illumination 6. Realization of perfect peace. 7. Coming into fullness of power. 8. Laws of prosperity 9. Ways that men have followed to become prophets, seers, and saviors. 10. Basic principle of all religion In so doing, a person will be able to enter into full realization of lasting riches. Most of these things are visibly clear from a human point of view and it takes a step by step self discovery to realize and understand the next level. The writer says that everything is right but what differentiates these things are the different points of views that we as human beings have, it is however worth noting that if all human beings achieve this state of being in touch with the inner self, the point of view will be one; what the writer calls “oneness” (Waldo, 2007). One example he gives is that of optimism and pessimism, according to Waldo, both a pessimist and an optimist are right in their own sense with the difference being that a pessimist`s point of view is dimmed by ignorance while an optimist view is illuminated by wisdom. To start understanding one self, Waldo advises that an individual should first understand the supreme fact of the Universe; that there is an infinite source of life and all things be it spirit, wisdom, hope, to mention but a few. According to him, there is only one source of all this and that source is God. Being certain that some would disagree with this opinion, Waldo says that to him God is a name that can take different forms like the “provider”, the “omnipresent” for the believers and thus even the non-believers would agree that there is someone in their own understanding that provides for them but they chose to have a different name for that someone (Waldo, 2007). On human beings understanding God, I am of the opinion that goes against Waldo`s view; it is impossible to comprehend God (Tozer, 2009a). Whereas the believers argue that we were all created in the likeness of a supreme being and thus that we are His creation, I do not think it is possible for a being that controls everything in this universe including the words that we speak can be easily understood. Religion Scientist and Historians say we know only a fraction of our creator, possibly 1% of God`s nature. If it were possible for human beings to understand God, then we would not be having all these diseases, deaths and catastrophic events in the world; we humans would have all explored the outer space, seen these wonderful planets and where it is said that life cannot exist, recreate it in the form that life can be lived there. Then, we can say that we know God and we are like Him. How can we claim to understand God, yet we cannot even understand the language of other people in different parts of the world, how the animals communicate, how the plants happen to be in different forms and so on. My point is that God is such a complex supreme being that we cannot comprehend Him. Having taken the view that God is the source of everything, the writer goes on to say that as humans, we are either created as God or as His likeness. To illustrate this, the writer uses the example of a water reservoir; one large water reservoir that is located upstream in a river and several smaller reservoirs located downstream but get their water from the upstream reservoir. In this example, the writer tries to illustrate that whatever the size of the downstream reservoirs, they are still reservoirs and all depend on the upstream water reservoirs which means that he views we human beings as created as God and so take His likeness (Waldo, 2007). The above background understanding led to the writer pointing out the supreme facts of human life, which accordingly, it is closely related to the supreme fact of the Universe, that states that the Supreme fact of life is the “coming into conscious, vital realization of our oneness with the infinite life and opening ourselves fully to the divine inflow” (Waldo, 2007). The writer here is trying to show that divine flow is the flow of the Infinite Life from without to within our inner souls; that as the reservoir example shows, the downstream reservoirs are able to be referred as such because they are receiving water from the upstream large water reservoir, God connects with human being in that He directs His divinity to we, the human beings, through the divine inflow. However, human beings have a limitation of realizing the same state with God because of either shutting out the divine inflow or limiting its flow. There is an example that Waldo gives to this effect. One about a friend who created one of the most beautiful water ponds ever seen in his garden by directing water from a nearby stream and making an inlet that was able to let in sufficient water to feed the fish in his pond and water the flora in his garden. The friend even put a welcome sign for all and thus this pond was visited by everyone without restriction as he confided that his joy was to see all the people in his garden having fun and being in harmony with the plants and the fishes. The friend later rented this beautiful garden to a person who the writer terms as one that had a “practical” mind (Waldo, 2007). The tenant was the exact opposite as he abhorred visitors, shut down the water inlet which in effect destroyed the plants and killed the fish in the garden. This was the writer`s way of portraying the effect of welcoming the divine inflow and shutting it out. In the first instance, the person who welcomed the divine inflow was at peace with everything but the second person who shut out the divine inflow destroyed everything. The writer`s take on “thought” is also interesting. Waldo says that thought is not the indefinite abstraction that some of us seem to think of it, “thought” is the most vital living force it the universe. It is a force because it has quality, substance, and power. To Waldo, thought is everything as everything is conceived from thought; that we first have to think up something before it can be realized just as he started by pointing out that everything comes from the unseen to be “seen” (Waldo, 2007). He wants us to think of the person “building castles in the air” as one who is on the thought process and is actually visualizing the “unseen” part. To him, this kind of person should not be seen as mad but rather should be encouraged to actualize this “castle in the air” by putting it on the ground. Though can be actualized in very many ways and one way that the writer points out is via the words we speak which must have a connector between it and the thought. This means that the writer views “Words” as the effect of a thought; without the “thought”, we cannot have the “Word”. Where do we conceive the “thought”? Thoughts come from the mind. Therefore, the mind is a very powerful thing. The writer says that the mind has an effect on the whole body of a human being; we change moods after seeing something terrible or being told something nasty because our minds tells us to do so. The writer says that to be able to work towards being in peace with the inner self, one must appreciate the importance of the mind and know how to control the mind. He says that the mind is the source of everything that manifests its effect in the body (Waldo, 2007). “The mind is the natural protector of the body” (Bengalli, 2001). So when the mind takes a certain cause like, say fear or worry, our bodies effects this by closing all the channels that would have produced the counter-mechanism for this, like courage and calmness. Waldo (2007) in essence demonstrates that whenever there is something wrong, deal with the cause not the effect. The cause is the originator of everything good or bad, like the “thought” while the effect is the manifestation of the cause in real world. To understand this, the writer gives an example that if you appear to have a stiff neck, which came as a result of you trying to look in only one direction because your enemies are in the other directions, the stiff neck is not the problem. The problem is your enemies; they are the cause of your stiff neck and so deal with the enemies. In so doing you will have dealt with the cause and so you will experience few or no stiff necks as opposed to dealing with the effect and still doing the same thing; looking in one direction. To further appreciate the power of love, we have to love. That is the secret that Waldo gives in his analogy of the “secret, power and effect of love”. He says it takes a God to recognize a God which means you have to be good to appreciate good things and to Waldo, the source of this is the infinite self. Taking an example of hatred, he points out that once we come to the full realization of the effect of the force of hatred and entertains this thought then we are likely to see its manifestation in us by being hated ourselves. Just as the saying goes, “he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword” (Waldo, 2007), if we embrace love we will find love and be loved which means we will reap the fruits of doing good and bear the burden of bad things if we entertain them. Waldo also warns against revenge, he opines that meeting hatred with hatred only intensifies it. In this he tries to say that whereas a good gesture deserves a good gesture, a bad act cannot be countered by the same bad act but rather a good one. He advises that to be able to be in oneness and unity with God, we should strive to do good at all time even if we are wronged by others. This advice from Waldo I totally agree with because as he say, if we chose to love we will be loved, which means it is a matter of choice and every choice has a consequence. In my opinion, the soul is the most important component of a human being and if the soul is at peace, then everything will fall in place (Sha, 2009). If we want to preach love, the soul has to love; if we want to forgive one another, our souls have to have forgiveness from within. And with all these being choices from within, it is imperative to note that we can rejuvenate and inspire ourselves to be good by changing our souls and accepting the infinite Life (Sha, 2009). I thus agree with Waldo that love can be found and the secret lies with us appreciating God and all good things that He wants us to have and be. One starting point is turning our souls to Him, the supreme Being. The writer offers that self realization is not hard and that the reason why most of us have not been able to achieve it is because we have chosen to make it hard. Reading through his work in “in Tune With the Inner Self”, it is possible to notice that this process is actually achievable. In fact, there are only two easy steps to be followed according to Waldo. One is to be open; to open our minds and hearts to God as this puts us in a receptive state of mind which is conducive for a person to receive the divine inflow. Once we are open, we need to sincerely desire to have God in us. To be able to reach this state, the writer advises starters to take a few moments everyday and go in a quiet place away from any disturbance as this is the best place to be in tune with the inner self (Waldo, 2007). Once in this state, we can be able to feel God`s manifestation in us and this draws us even closer to Him. Waldo advises us to consistently and sincerely follow these easy steps and reap big in terms of realizing our Godliness. He says that if we do it consistently enough, we will find that after some time, we can easily find sync with God even while we are walking in the streets or in a busy office where there are certain levels of disturbance. This state he calls it the birth of Christ within us or the second birth; the spiritual birth. As it has been all along his text, Waldo gives these steps as a wholesome religion steps in that even a Buddhist can achieve this in his own Buddhism as well as a Christian in Christianity (Waldo, 2007). This is the part of the writer`s point of view that I would like to differ with because in some form of religion, it is practically impossible to achieve this without some conflicts being discovered. Take a case between Islam and Christianity for example; if two people, a Muslim and a Christian set out to perform these steps to self realization, wont their religious doctrine come into conflict at a certain stage, considering that one would see the other as not following the right path to Heaven? Yes the two all recognize that there is heaven, but their teachings are quite different to the sense that whereas their respective religions teach that it is easier to be with God than not (Doron, 2008). They will not be at peace with one another which fundamentally means that they will not be at that state of being in tune with the environment. I thus believe that being in sync with God is one thing while being in sync with fellow human beings is another. If it were so that the two were possible and directly related, then I would imagine that the universe was to have only one religion and anyone who disagreed would be in a different corner; the corner for non-believers. Lastly the author of “in tune with the inner Self”, Waldo, demonstrates to how people become prophets, seers, sages, and saviors; he says they did and do become these things by finding their true identity and oneness with God through the above highlighted process, start living through this realization until the person becomes a prophet or a seer or a savior. He says God does not choose these people as we would believe because God is impartial. What God does is he creates all human beings as equals and gives us the powers to determine how we would want to live our life. So the people who recognize these gifts from God live the life that they want to be while those who do not recognize are constantly given the chance to self discovery so as to achieve the eternal life (Waldo, 2007). The greatest savior in the life of a Christian is Jesus Christ, and the writer goes to great lengths to show how Jesus took a human form and was born in this world so as to demonstrate to humanity how to achieve everlasting life and be in union with God. The children are the most innocent form of human beings as they have not yet mingled with the world long enough to be contaminated by it and thus the writer says that when Jesus told people in some of His preaching that “unless we become like children, we shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven”, Jesus was in essence preaching humility and innocence as a factor to be in tune with oneself. Prophet Muhammad was likewise a very important figure in the life of Muslims and as a prophet, Muhammad got through this state through constantly being in full realization of his personality with God until he became more than just a being, he became a founder of a world religion. There are other great people that the writer points out as ordinary men who through sheer determination and resolve, turned out to be great men of God. Men in the bible such as David and Solomon are examples that the writer gives. He also writes that God does not favor any nation but nations that respect God have found favor coming their way; nations such as Israel respected God and received good things from Him. On the other hand, God does not wish bad things among His people and so in the case of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, it is not that God hardened Pharaoh`s heart so that he became disobedient and thus plague befell Egypt, No! the Pharaoh hardened his own heart and the consequence of this was the plague. Here, the writer`s view is that God is a provider of goodness and the evil is wished upon human beings by human beings themselves. I agree wholly in this point of view because when you wish someone bad, that bad thing is not likely to happen to that person unless the person believes the bad thing and in a way, wishes the bad thing to happen to him or herself. God loves everyone, those that believe in Him and those that do not. I am of a similar opinion because it is well documented that God loves us all (Tozer, 2009b). In conclusion, to be able to be in tune with the inner self, a person has to identify that God exists and that it is this God that is the provider of everything good. If we therefore want to be in sync with Him, we should aspire to open our mind and heart for Him to manifest in us His Godliness. In so doing, we can be able to be greater human beings like the prophets and the sages. References Bengalli, N. S. (2001). Magnet Therapy: Theory and Practice (4th ed., pp. 60-62). New Delhi, India: Jani Publishers. Doron, A. (2008). Oneness: A United State of Mind. N.p.: Authorhouse. Sha, Z. G. (2009). Divine Soul Songs: Sacred Practical Treasures to Heal, Rejuvenate, and Transform You, Humanity, Mother Earth, and All Universes. New York: Heaven`s Library PublicationCompany. Tozer, A. W. (2009a). The Attributes of God (pp. 56-61). Fort Worth: Wing Spread Publishers. Tozer, A. W. (2009b). The Pursuit of God (pp. 48-60). Forth Worth, TX: RDMc Publishing. Waldo, R. T. (2007). In Tune With The Infine (pp. 1-210). London: George Bell & Son. Read More