Personal growth

"Your relationship with your mind and your body are the primary arenas where healing and empowerment must occur. These are the arenas for growth."

"Some people wish to create Heaven on earth and have no more war, but they also advocate tremendous personal growth for everyone. Well, if you advocate tremendous personal growth, you will advocate change, and change brings conflict, and conflict breeds war."

"Your life is attempting to move into true position. All personal growth is only for this purpose and not simply for self-indulgence. In fact, personal growth is really not even for you personally. All of this self-exploration and development of skills—they are not for you. Why would you need to do all that? You’d be happier sitting on the beach drinking beer!"

What personal growth is for

"Applying yourself to tangible things enables you to reclaim your self-respect and to build a foundation that is sound and firm. That is what personal growth is for—to build a foundation for Knowledge. What other value does it have? The person you are attempting to improve will be shed like a garment when you leave."

"You were sent here to work, to give and to help resolve conflict. You were not sent to the world to work on yourself. You were sent to the world to work on the world and to work in the world. You work on yourself as you go along. The only work you need to do on yourself is to make adjustments along the way so that you can participate in life and maintain an open mind, freedom from judgment and adherence to Knowledge in yourself and in others. That will provide all of the personal growth you can ever imagine."

"We can assure you, there is not enough personal growth in the universe to justify endless involvements. What takes you beyond personal growth is that you become very tired of it, and you now seek refuge, relief and inspiration from something greater. Personal growth is very disappointing because you cannot expand the personal side of you very far. It always has great promise, and it is always very exciting when you are embarking on personal growth, but it quickly begins to get very difficult. Personal growth is natural when you are developing Knowledge, for your mind and body must now accommodate a Greater Power within you. This is the context in which personal growth has value and is governed by necessity and not by preference.

Therefore, relationships for personal growth are by definition very limited. They are limited by your own ambivalence towards growth. They are limited by your objectives, and they are limited because you and the other have somewhat divergent motives. Your personal growth will not yield the completeness of being together that is so very nourishing, for you are trying to use the other person to grow and they are trying to use you to grow. Sooner or later you will realize you do not have the same purpose."

Personal growth as a justification

"You will find many situations where you almost fit with another person, but not completely. And you will be tempted perhaps to force yourself together and to deny or overlook the obvious reasons why you cannot join. Here you may justify your efforts in the name of personal growth, especially if there is a spiritual resonance between you and the other person."

See also

Interdependence

Personal needs

Further study

• Wisdom from the Greater Community, Book 1, Chapter 18: Higher Education

• Wisdom from the Greater Community, Book 1, Chapter 2: Relationships and Sexuality

• Wisdom from the Greater Community, Book 2, Chapter 34: Walking The Way of Knowledge