If our heart longs to see a shooting star, that day will come when we\u2019ll see one blaze across the heavens. If we keep looking for physical gold, by panning a stream or breaking through rock, chances are our search will be rewarded, but when we seek the more valuable gold of real self-knowledge, we are guaranteed to find it. It is there in abundance just waiting to be uncovered.<\/p>\n
Opportunities for self-study \u2014 and the changes these discoveries yield \u2014 present themselves endlessly, with new ones arriving with each new moment. The key point here is that if we don\u2019t undergo the changes within ourselves that we say we desire, it\u2019s because we are not awake to these unfolding opportunities. In other words, our attention is on something else. It\u2019s easy to have our attention sidetracked in this way. The truth is that even though we may feel a strong pull in the direction of self-study, and long for the special freedom it alone can grant us, there also exists quite often an even stronger pull away from it.<\/p>\n
Constantly shaking ourselves into new self-awareness \u2014 and then struggling to snap out of the gravitational field of negative influences we find ourselves in \u2014 can be an exhausting experience. As long as we remain unaware of just how vulnerable we are to these influences while asleep to ourselves, it seems easier to just remain in psychic slumber. This is a state to which we have all grown accustomed, and the inertia that tends to keep us locked in it is very powerful. As a result, we\u2019re easily convinced that a little self-pampering is just what the doctor ordered!<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel up to working on myself today,\u201d we might hear ourselves say, or, \u201cI\u2019m too tired. Besides, there\u2019s no point in trying to quiet my mind when it\u2019s in such a whirl. I\u2019ll just wait for a better time when I\u2019m more alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
We must not fall under the power of these deceptive voices coming to us from within our own minds. We must refuse to accept that the weakness claims as being ours is the same as our own. If we wait to do our self-study until we \u201cfeel like it,\u201d we\u2019ll never do it at all. We must engage in the process of self-study as a volitional act, deliberately embarked upon regardless of whether we wish to or not. We cannot wait until we feel the time is right for self-work. We must do our self-study consistently, making efforts every day to observe ourselves in action. Now is always the only time there is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If our heart longs to see a shooting star, that day will come when we\u2019ll see one blaze across the heavens. If we keep looking for physical gold, by panning a stream or breaking through rock, chances are our search will be rewarded, but when we seek the more valuable gold of real self-knowledge, we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[672,1],"tags":[19,11,1474,1472,972,347,203,844,1401,1473,201],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-changetransformation","category-enlightenment-self-realization","tag-attention","tag-awareness","tag-determination","tag-negative-influences","tag-new-years","tag-new-years-resolutions","tag-persistence","tag-self-knowledge","tag-self-study","tag-vulnerability","tag-weakness"],"yoast_head":"\n