“Just as the tiny acorn contains within it a mighty oak tree, you have within you greatness beyond your wildest imagination.”
J.Sewell Perkins
DISCOVER YOUR INNER SELF
An Exploration of Inner Self
By J.Sewell Perkins, SCI
An interesting thing, the human mind… men and women throughout the ages have gone to great lengths and devoted their lives to a variety of discoveries without ever exploring their inner selves. While we surely must pay homage to those who have discovered continents, life-saving vaccines, outer space, etc., isn’t it interesting that discoveries outside ourselves seem so much more interesting and important to us than the exploration of our inner selves?
Many famous people throughout history have contributed much to our world as we know it today and yet so many of them never took the time to get to know themselves. There were, of course, those who devoted their lives to discoveries outside themselves and still managed to explore their inner selves as well. Those were the magnificent ones and we should seek their written works and biographies and learn from them…and that brings to mind one of my favorite quotations, actually it’s an old Zen saying…
Do not follow in the footsteps of the masters. Seek what they sought.
That’s great advice but only if you’re sure that what they sought is what you seek. Hopefully the thing you seek first and foremost is to discover your inner self.
Once you really know your inner self everything else you do will be easier. Too many people live and die without ever really having engaged in that exploration. They lived off the cuff, so to speak. By that I mean that they were as straws in the wind. When the winds of fortune or failure blew one way that’s the way they went. When the winds shifted to another direction, so did they. Never really discovering your inner self relegates you to the life of someone to whom things just happen, things over which you have no control.
So, what does this discovering one’s inner self really mean? How does one even begin to do it? Well, it starts with understanding why you do what you do, why you react to certain things the way you do. It’s important to understand why you’ve never realized your dream…if you ever even had a dream. You need to know why things rarely seem to work out for you the way they seem to work out so well for others.
The answer lies in what you think about and the way you think about it. We need to delve into how success or failure; happiness or misery; loving or loveless lives are a direct results of the thoughts you have about them. Yes, your thoughts do actually determine your destiny.
Memorize the following words until they become so much a part of your life that you know them as well as you know your own name…then begin to live them daily.
Be aware of your thoughts; your thoughts become your words.
Be aware of your words; your words become your actions.
Be aware of your actions; your actions become your deeds.
Be aware of your deeds; your deeds become your habits.
Be aware of your habits; your habits become your character.
When we know ourselves, truly know ourselves, it is then that we will know success.