Posts Tagged ‘Personal Development’
SPIRITUAL GROWTH AS PROCESS AND GOAL
In the processes of transformative communication and personal development, it is important to aim our efforts at the ultimate goal of human life, namely, spiritual growth and understanding. Many choose to learn and master the principles of conscious living in order to increase sales, create more intimacy, or experience better communication at work. However, if we understand that improving in these areas only creates happiness when it supports our understanding of the ultimate goal of life, spiritual growth, than the process of self-realization becomes profoundly more satisfying.
When I think back on my Satvatove experience over the past year “spiritual growth” is the phrase that comes to me the most strongly, although I did not attend to attain this. I went to the seminars because I saw so many of the people in my life enjoying the benefits I mentioned. For example, at least three of my friends participated and were able to quit their day jobs to build a brand and business around their passions. This was very attractive to me. I went to the workshops and was able to do the same thing. The Foundational Seminar supported my ability to communicate to be understood, as well as become a more empathic listener, both skills being essential to achieving my career goal. The Advanced Course helped me let go of everything that was in the way of me believing in myself to live a fully expressive, empowered life. And so, upon the completion of these two courses, I set out to create what I felt I was meant to, a book and a series class assisting those affected by specific types of trauma to overcome the effects and live the life they are meant to.
In order to “live the life we are meant to” it is essential to inquire into the nature of who we are and why we are here. Realizing this, simply knowing that I could achieve my material and career goals, while thrilling at first, became mildly dissatisfying. And while I felt very accomplished, I also wondered if I was really serving anyone by helping them overcome their life challenges without taking these two major questions relating to spiritual growth into account. After all, on the material level, I was now experiencing the full manifestation of what I always thought my life purpose was, to help others overcome trauma. I realized that without situating personal growth in the context of spiritual growth, the work I was doing was interesting only to an extent. Helping those attending my classes and reading my writing to understand their spiritual nature and identity became the new challenge. And it is a work in progress. But as the saying goes, if we don’t know where we are going, we probably won’t get there. I do know that spiritual growth as process, and as goal, creates the personal development experience as a much more enlivening endeavor.
THE SATVATOVE EXPERIENCE
Satvatove Institute, based out of Alachua, FL, offers groundbreaking personal development and spiritually based transformative communication seminars across the globe. Visit us at www.satvatove.com and find out more about our seminars, life mastery programs, and coach training school.
FROM AYATAKSI
“What I got from the course: Honest work on my present conditioned state; possibility to get some valuable tools that can really change my life, if I continue to practice them in my every day life; change in the terms that I can honestly take full responsibility for my life. A very valuable course, very basic things but unknown to many of us. I will whole-heartedly recommend this course to all of my friends. This course is so much needed in our community.
I am grateful to David Wolf for his honest work, well designed, and motivated by only one thing, the well being of others. I have a picture in my mind of a teacher that teaches you to fly with your own wings and once you are ready, happily encourages you to continue to fly on your own, in your own space, on your own way. Thank you very much.”
FROM LILA
“This course has been for me an unforgettable experience. I really loved it. I was impressed by the joyful and serious atmosphere. Some persons that I think I know since 15 or 20 years or more and I discovered them anew as there was no more barriers of false identification. I saw many participants endeavoring to reveal themselves with simplicity. That’s it. This course is helping us to develop that spiritual quality, simplicity. Thank you from the core of my heart.”
Lila
FROM MARIAH
“It was a fabulous experience last weekend to have the opportunity to participate in the Foundational Seminar for a second time with both David Wolf and Marie Glasheen and all the other wonderful people this work attracts. I had no idea what to expect for the 2nd go. The Foundational Seminar, for me, this time was both humbling and very enriching. I feel I could take it ten times and continue to benefit every time. This has helped me feel stronger and more rooted in my path. The more I use and commit to this communication, awareness, and accountability practice, the more connected I feel to myself. For this amazing gift, I wish to share my deepest appreciation and gratitude for your work and the opportunity to be a part of it.
Thank You”
Mariah
Foundational Seminar – Florida, March 2011
FROM JESSICA
“I wanted to share a few things with everyone, as they to have been profound and meaningful in my life. If it speaks to you, I am elated that it reached you, and if it doesn’t, disregard it and move forward from where you sit.
First honorable mention, Satvatove at satvatove.com, is a seminar that is held in Gainesville Florida and many other places. The founder has a book that is called Relationships that Work, the Power of Conscious Living by David B. Wolf, which is a minute insight of the courses, it is the experience that matters.
There are three parts of participation, that is the Foundational course, the Advanced course and the Life Mastery Program.
The Foundational brings many great communication tools and life tools to help a person communicate at higher level. My experience of this first course is that it truly helped me open myself to say and do what I really mean, this means not holding back, but truly I was able to express what is true for me in the moment I feel the need to. It also helped me communicate with people, where I am truly able to enter another persons world and be there to hold space for a person. In conversations, I experience that I often put in advice, questions, directions to help, but it doesn’t allow a person to fully express what needs to be said. This course has expanded my ability to express myself and truly helped me uncover why I am so valuable. I can listen with full intention of hearing in a place that suspends judgements and allows people to be comfortable. I had so many realizations and introspective outcomes, that was rooted from my childhood, and my life, and they were discovered and uncovered, by my willingness to put my self in this course and know that I was going to get the most from it. So it was….
The next course was the Advanced course. This was truly more deep, what I experienced was more than just listening tools and life tools, it was profound introspection of my many painful feelings. What I had felt was over for me in the first course was just the beginning in the Advanced, I had uncovered so many layers of life patterns and habits. There was some deep introspection as to how they have connected to my childhood, and how I truly feel about these deep things in my life. This was just the beginning of my own shifting, as I was put into hyper drive after leaving the course, there was more growth I was uncovering about myself.
The seminars begin when you leave these courses as everything you have learned is taken into your life to flourish and continue your growth. I have and continue to make many realizations in my life that are continually helping me connect with who I truly am. I am whole and complete. This uncovering of myself is continuous, as I shared in the retreat, that my most recent realization is that I avoid pain in my closest relationships, and I now know very differently. I am willing to go there in a painful situation, and be that light, love and nurturing being that I know I am.”
Jessica T.
MICRO, MEZZO AND MACRO: WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT?
Learn why in the Satvatove environment we tend to focus on the macro, (universal or philosophical principles), and the micro, (internal, psychological, spiritual and intrapersonal/interpersonal), and less on the mezzo. Hear about the distinct yet related conversations “To what extent am I giving 100%, living in integrity”, and “Do I want to stay in this relationships/job”. Listen to personal coaching and poignant discourse on a range of principles, including the essential importance of association, and the powerful effects of mirroring, in this edition of the Satvatove Radio Hour.
Relationships That Work Radio Show, December 15, 2010
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WHO AM I?
Excerpt From Relationships That Work: The Power Of Conscious Living
- By David B. Wolf
Expressions such as awakening, enlightenment, self-improvement and personal development have become household words. But what do they really mean? What is it that awakens or enlightens? What is the self that improves? Who is the one that develops?
Through science we know that the body continuously changes and transforms itself. Not one cell in your body now was part of your five-year-old body. Yet when you look at a childhood photo you think, “That is me when I was five,” although the body is completely different. So how do we recognize ourselves? Clearly there is something that remains the same, apart from bodily and even mental changes. This something indicates an identity separate from the body and mind, an unchanging spiritual essence. It is to this spiritual essence that the world’s wisdom traditions point.
The focal point for spiritual principles of personal growth is our true identity beyond the physical body and subtle mind. To be satisfying and complete, our self-help endeavors must recognize this non-physical self. It is common to lose connection with this essential self, even without awareness that we have done so. Soren Kierkegaard once stated, “The greatest danger, that of losing one’s own self, may pass off quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, is sure to be noticed.”
Athato brahma jijnasa. This well-known Sanskrit aphorism helps me to remember my spiritual identity and purpose in life. The meaning of the adage is “Now is the time to inquire into the nature of Ultimate reality.” It signifies that now that we possess a human form of life, we have a responsibility to deliberate about spiritual matters. There is some obvious importance in fulfilling the needs of the body, such as eating, sleeping and shelter; However, if our inquiries and endeavors do not extend beyond that, then we are not realizing the capacity of our spirit. If I buy an expensive computer and use it as a doorstop, it will not fulfill its actual potential. Just as the computer can accomplish much more than stopping a door, so we too can use our bodies, mind and intelligence for elevating our consciousness for the purpose of spiritual progress.
Since the word “spiritual” is used in a variety of ways, it is important to define my understanding of the term. By spiritual I mean beyond, or not limited by, materially based identifications—such as “I am thin,” “I am the mother of this child,” “I look great in a suit,” “I am a member of this religion” or “I am a very disciplined person.” These appellations apply to the covering of the spirit self, but not to the actual self.
I drive a Toyota. Naturally I care for the car, keeping it tuned up and filled with the right fluids. But if I think that my own thirst is quenched when I fill the car with gasoline, I am under an illusion and will not be satisfied. I do not believe that I am Japanese just because the car was made in Japan, any more than I would believe myself to be German if I were driving a Mercedes Benz. Clearly this is a foolish idea. Yet if we identify with designations that apply to the temporary body (the vehicle) rather than the spiritual self, we are making the same mistake. Just as the owner of the car changes to another car when the old one is finished, our spirit changes to another body at the time of death. Recognizing and attending to material designations or roles may serve the spiritual journey, just as an automobile can facilitate travel to the destination. But misidentification of the self with these designations is a diversion from our pursuit of spiritual understanding. It often leads to many unhealthy isms, such as nationalism, sexism and racism.
Bodies change, spiritual identity remains. Thoughts also change. Some bring a smile to our face, others are embarrassing. Some are practical, some are outlandish. But we are not our thoughts. So what is the nature of this thing that thinks, that uses fingers to write with a keyboard, that peers through eyes that read, “So what is the nature of this thing that thinks…”?
Conscious Living
“Conscious living entails examining what our habits have made us, and what part of the legacy from our past habits we truly want to keep, and what we choose to discard.”
David B. Wolf
7 Principles For Fulfilling Relationships Radio Show- February 27
Show Hosted by Marie-Helene Glasheen
A time for practical application of the 7 Principles for Fulfilling Relationships. Callers present their real life situation in their relationships.
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