Self-Growth?
From Barry Long’s article ‘Self-Growth and the Spirit’ first published in the Australian magazine ‘Nature & Health’ 1987 Autumn Issue. Reproduced as a chapter in his book ‘The Way In’.
Many of the men and women who come to me have been involved in some aspect of the self-growth movement through workshops, groups, therapies, counselling and the like. Few are aware of the essential distinction between self-growth and the spirit.
You can grow in self, which is the burden of ordinary selfish life. And you can grow in understanding. But you cannot grow in spirit.
This is because you are already spirit, now, in the deepest reaches of your being - in the unconscious. To descend consciously into that pristine state of yourself while still alive, to realise it without the possibility of ever being separate from it again, is the unconscious motivation of all human endeavour.
Living Together