Self-actualization is the ability to reach that higher place of consciousness, from which all our activities and creations originate. At this stage we are far beyond satisfying our basic needs for food, shelter, and social contact. We now are at a place where our full human potential can be realized.
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We are now free to be creative and innovative, profound and wise. We no longer have to slave for our daily food and we can go beyond the day-to-day survival game. And yes, it can be lonely there. Even though modern life offers so many comfortable advantages, not many people are ready to make the effort to go beyond the search for daily satisfactions. Or they don’t know how.

The media are screaming for more attention to our outer appearances and very little attention is brought to finding contact with our souls. Not a lot of economic value is placed on understanding who you are as an eternal being, endlessly connected with the underlying order of the cosmos. When was the last time you saw a spiritual master’s enhanced and filtered selfie go viral?
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Perhaps the rarity of self-realization makes it that much more precious. Yet everyone has the potential for it. For self-realization is never measured against what others achieve, but always relates to how much more we have grown within ourselves.

It could be. Our spirit guides find many pathways to communicate with us. Sometimes our waking consciousness is too filled with barricades that do not allow the world of the spirit in. This is why many people are visited by their guides and spirit animals before they go to sleep, in the middle of the night, or early morning. Their skeptical and self-doubting minds are at rest and they are open and receptive to messages from beyond.

We are more sensitive to the world of the spirit when we are not so consumed with all the things we need to get done and all the sensory input from the noisy world around us. Meditation offers that moment of inner silence. And into that peaceful vacuum can come your spirit animals to pay you a visit. Sometimes you may just feel their presence. Not everyone is visual in they way they perceive them.
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This is especially true for beloved animals that have crossed over yet are still protecting spirits for their human companions. They may appear only as sounds, a feeling of their presence, or even their scent. They are pure spirit but appear in the form that is the most appropriate.

The mind is a miserable master and an excellent servant. If we just let it have its way we are sure to go down a path of misery. But if we gently control it, it can yield miraculous results. Meditation is the art of allowing the mind to assume its rightful place in the governance of our lives.
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Lying in bed and just letting any thought come to us is not meditation. It is just thinking and paying attention to what the mind comes up with. This is problem solving, memory, or whatever else flits across the screen of our perceptions. Meditation is going beyond the mind. It is rising above it.

During meditation, thoughts appear but we don’t attach any weight to them. Meditation is not a problem-solving session. It is going beyond whatever problems exist in our lives and finding a reserve of deeper consciousness from which we can ultimately make our decisions. These decisions may not be based on what is the most practical or economical solution. They are usually soul-based and have to do with delight in our inner growth and sense of meaning.

It is important to be trained in meditation. Everyone thinks they can do it because they think it is just sitting around contemplating or thinking. But it requires techniques and practice.

Yes, when you find the deepest peace within the silence of meditation, your reality will be transformed. It takes practice, but you can go to that place again and again until no matter what is going on in the world, you don’t lose your inner peace.
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Staying in peace takes discipline and understanding about the ups and downs of emotions. You can still feel emotions deeply, so its not like you’re walking around like a zombie. It’s just that you recognize the fleeting nature of these emotions. You can be very sad, then go to anger, then to thoughts of hatred, and all these emotions are causing lots of changes in your body such as an increase in blood pressure and a release of stress hormones.

You recognize that a thought preceded these emotions. That’s what triggered them. You think of something someone said to you. You should have said such-and-such back to them. Your heart starts pounding faster. All from a thought. That person isn’t even in front of you. Now you move from them to all people and suddenly your reality is a living hell.

I meditation, you learn how to go deeper than these thoughts and their triggered emotions. You find that place that is one with the peace that lies at the structure of the cosmos and Universe. Your reality then become one of inner peace as you participate in life but do not get taken down in the undertow. You still experience all the colors of the emotions but it is in the context of deep peace.

Consciousness shares some aspects of quantum phenomena in that in cannot be seen or studied directly, using scientific instruments. It can only be postulated.
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If we try to examine an sub-atomic particle (or wave) with a scanning electron microscope, we will alter the atomic structure as we shine light onto it. In other words, the viewer interacts with what it being viewed. This is true for consciousness as well. It cannot be seen and if it is, it is uniquely colored by the perceptions and interpretations of the experiencer.

We cannot locate the place in the brain where consciousness occurs. But we all know when we are conscious and aware. Some say there are only three states of consciousness: Deep sleep, dreaming or REM sleep, and waking awareness. In that sense, we are talking about physical consciousness. The brain kicks into gear during waking consciousness and we join the world of activity. One day we can no longer manage waking consciousness and we die.

But does our consciousness die with us? No. Too many people who have had near-death or even death experiences and have returned, tell us that they are still aware, they are just floating unseen above their bodies. That kind of consciousness is our eternal Soul. It can never die, even if the body fades away.

All we can do is go by our own experience and by what others have sworn to. If you can feel the cosmic consciousness that endures beyond the decay of the body, you have encountered your Soul. And like the invisible particles and waves that make up the atoms in our very convincing physical reality, we cannot see or measure this level of consciousness.

A squid changes colors to show emotions. A chameleon changes colors to camouflage itself. Both are unconsciously channeling the underlying intelligence of the Universe that underlies all of life. Animals don’t consciously decide, “I’m going to turn pink now.” But if it is appropriate for an animal’s survival to turn red, it will do so. It is merely the instrument of a huge chain of actions and reactions that are out of most of our controls.
The same idea applies to humans. We cannot willfully make ourselves turn pale or even blush but if our emotions or physical circumstances call for it, we will blush or look as if all the blood has run out of our faces. So many things are out of our conscious control. We cannot beat our own heart or demand that our pancreas secrete hormones. Most of what we do actually happens to us, as the Universe works through us. We just think we are in control.
The Universe is a huge dance of many mysteries and secrets that humans are always trying to decipher so we will feel that they we are in control. But so many things are out of our control. Squids, chameleons, and humans all are under the sway of the Laws of the Universe and only a few things are within our conscious control. Moral choice is one of them (but could also be unconsciously conditioned by culture and upbringing).
You may say, the squid is consciously deciding to eat that small fish over there and therefore it propels itself towards it to gobble it down. Yes, but what is propelling the squid to do this? It is not saying to itself, “I am going to move all my legs by stimulating their nerves with my ganglia to eat that tasty-looking minnow.” The same is true for humans. If you had to consciously tell each arm, leg, finger, hand, to move towards some food, it would take hours.
We are propelled to perform most of our actions for the sake of our survival, just as with the animals who magically change colors. It is one of the fantastic attributes of the Universe that it doesn't have to be so incredibly colorful and beautiful to continue the dance of survival. It just is.