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"I was really struck by Abraham Maslow. He is the guy who came up with the hierarchy of needs, and at the top of the pyramid was self-actualization, which for me was self-realization, and these higher being needs. So I was fascinated by the being needs, the meta needs. I was looking at the top of the pyramid. I was fascinated that actually there was an evolution in human consciousness that would result in self-actualization. And so he studied the most self-actualized people he could find, both living and deceased, to find his research for this. And the interesting thing that he found was that for those that were in the self-actualization state of mind means and end were the same, that means and end were actually joined together, almost like in the Course; cause and effect are together, the Father and the Son are together, means and end are together. The more I read about it, I said, 'What does that even mean, means and end are together?' I am so used to thinking of means coming before the end that I could hardly imagine what that would even mean; means and end are together. Like the destination is now. Like you are right here and right now, and everything that you even need to experience, this experience is given to you simultaneously. That the means are given with the end. And you aren't really afraid of the means, you are afraid of the end. It's like, where is this heading? It's the scary part. If you could just really give in and accept where this is all heading, then the means would be -poof- like right there. But it's the resistance to where it's heading that makes the means difficult to discover. You think about sometimes, 'Please, give me a sign, make it clear, and how do I do this? How can I get from A to B?' And he is saying, 'Well, A and B are actually the same point', and when you put it out into the future it is very difficult to put that together, to formalize it, to have a formula, because you still are seeing the means as apart from the end. These people who were self-actualized they seemed to have no concern about the end in form, or outcome. Like, for example, a musician who is so in the divine flow of performing whatever they're performing, or the singer or the athlete... The athlete in the zone is the same thing, that there is such a joy in the moment for the athlete who's having that experience that there is no sense of setting a record or bettering a performance or achieving something that nobody else has ever achieved. There is such a sense of contentment."
David Hoffmeister
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