Preparation before Self-Realization

There needs to be a significant change in perception before you are able to feel God. Basically, we need to stop identifying with the ego and thinking the way it does. You can't just start meditating right now and have your body fill with light. After I had experienced the ego to the extreme while I was manic, I knew that I wanted to see thing differently. I was somehow curious about spirituality and our true nature after being delusional. I started in a strange category, reading things like Ramtha and New Age sorts, and even though I learned that we are a lot grander than we think we are, I still didn't know how to manifest that greatness.

Luckily, after running into Gary Renard's books, I was introduced to A Course in Miracles. This book has probably caused the most change in my life than any other source. Since I've started that book, I have only seen more of the same. The statements are in such a clear package that I can see every major religion fit into it. Since I already knew quite a lot about Western belief-systems from being born Christian, I decided to investigate Eastern thought. What I have found there has also influenced me a lot, after reading about Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Some great Eastern scriptures are the Dhammapadda, The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and The Tao te Ching. My favorite translators are Swami Prabhavananda and Eknath Easwaran. Besides the classics, there are some recent spiritual masters that should be read about also. Paramahansa Yogananda's books are phenomenal and anyone works from Ramakrishna's disciples were great, too. Here's an image I made that shows the relations of the Eastern masters:



Besides those, I recommend everyone experience A Course in Miracles. Read the whole thing, and you'll see how the ego can't take it. This shows that you are changing your perception for the better. Once you start doing the workbook, you might have some interesting experiences. The book might be hard to tackle and hard to understand for most, but there are so many secondary resources that can help immensely. Gary Renard's books focus on A Course in Miracles, and Eckhart Tolle's works have helped me a lot. While I was reading his book, The Power of Now, I experienced this intense peace in my whole body before I fell asleep. It's beyond words. And I know it's just the beginning for me. Another author that might help is Kenneth Wapnick. He has been the main teacher for A Course in Miracles ever since it was written, and was one of the main people of the Foundation for Inner Peace. You can also check some Podcasts on iTunes that are free and help a lot. One of them is Gary Renard's podcast, and the other is called A Cloud Does Not Put Out the Sun.

As reading A Course in Miracles is bound to change your life, you will inevitably get in the habit of forgiving things that bother you. I have talked about this before in an earlier post, and it is perhaps ACIM's main focus. I'd like to say that forgiveness works the same way as Jnana Yoga does, which focuses on discrimination. This type of discrimination is not the negative type that we are familiar with - it sifts out Atman from non-Atman, or the real Self from the false Self. This is really important to use when something in the world is bothering you at the moment, because it will take your worries away. You will know that anything material is not real, so it can't affect you since the Self is unstained by what happens in the world. Like I said, this is very similar to ACIM's forgiveness.