nice post

Nice post beautiful presented and explained. detail oriented with nice picture. thank you for sharing

fear... it's a thing..it will be helped you to grow...if you think deeply

Great article!

Have learnt few things from your post and I will work on it.. am glad I got to stumble on this post otherwise I wouldn't have learned anything this morning from your post

I don’t believe these great learning lessons come exclusively from suffering. I’ve learned lessons from love. I practice meditation daily but strangely I learned a lot about peace from my cat! Lol

Great post as usual!

Thanks for giving the chance to enjoy this beautiful news!!

how do people react to stress?
Hawaii's reaction to the civil defense warning might be an indication.

Life with experience is the best.we learn from our experience

Great topic and well communicated. Now obviously there is no right and wrong ways to enlightenment. I don't know if you have to try and experience suffering for self realization. I think the more aware we become of human suffering the easier it is to become detached from the physical world which may assist in enlightenment. That's just my two cents on the topic. I am no spiritual guru :)

Nice

I think that "best learning is learning from hardships" attitude comes from the need to tell ourselves "OK, it's not so bad that I'm having a hard time now, because of... *something*".

I also think that self-acceptance is much more important than the self-development. The self-development will come naturally once we accept ourselves.

Cheers! : )

Excellent observations here. I had a friend who attended a Unitarian church for awhile, and the competition there was who could be the least religious. That became a new religion in and of itself.

More than one of the greats in the realm of the arts have also said/implied that the greatest works are not always done in times of poverty, starvation, and want, but often in times of plenty, when the mind is free to roam, and at leisure to explore. One of the greats in literature who implied this was George Orwell. Another, if I am not mistaken, was W. Somerset Maugham. 

Cheers for the great piece. Resteemed.

Hi, I would like to point out that to my understanding people that are into personal growth, they often take ancient literature that largely glorifies suffering like the only way to achieve personal growth. Now while it is true that thru extreme suffering people can experience the dissolving of one's ego and consequently live thru quantum leap that you mention. But I think that is only the most extreme way of achieving it. Furthermore,  the collective human consciousness- what some call the morphogenetic field of the human species is continually changing and raising its vibration, so what was truth 1000 years ago, is not a reality today, although the underlying principles are the same.  
(check this crossword puzzle phenomenon on collective consciousness https://earlybirdstreehouse.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/the-crossword-puzzle-phenomenon-by-monica-england/ )
There are so many examples of people that experience enlightenment while meditating or just walking or during any other random and not extreme event. Also, I am sure that the shift in consciousness is much more widely spread phenomenon now than 50, or 200 years ago. Today's generations of indigo and crystal children are a nice example of the overall change that humans and planet are going thru. 

Thanks for your nice post.

I agree with you entirely that fear needn't be the only teacher that leads to growth.

Maybe a more appropriate word for that growth-inducing state is being "uncomfortable". I think uncomfortable is more manageable, and a little easier to retreat from when you need a moment to breathe. Fear sounds more severe and primal in a way.

Also, I think we have quiet epiphanies about reality that aren't scary at all. For instance, a stranger and I got into a conversation at a coffee shop the other day and the topic of "being certain" came up. She expressed wanting to have guarantees in her future. I pointed out that while we want certainty, if we knew everything that would happen, life wouldn't be very fun. Simply being told this made her more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. No fear required!

I think it's wise of you to point out that over-emphasizing fear might not be wise in terms of self-development.

Great post :)

>Furthermore, do you believe self-realization or "enlightenment" has to be the result of extensive suffering?

Not in the slightest.
The only thing suffering has to offer(in my opinion), is what the old adage says...'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. 
This is true, unfortunately. It _doesn't_ make you 'more at one with yourself , man'

I'd prefer the weakness without any of  the suffering, personally !

'Enlightenment' (even if that is even a _thing_, to be honest) is best achieved through happiness, imho.

Much better just to get on with life, and stop navel gazing...

Great topic. My personal journey has always had growth from positivity, love, curiosity, and commitment.  The path is sometimes difficult and painful but during the process my mindset is positive and looking forward. I think the suffering and pain is there to remind us we were born for more and I believe it is virtue, kindness, empathy, and the willingness of others to share that pushes us forward.  Thanks for sharing!

My scary experience was only with fake self development. I even don't know how to explain it, but as a result I had a lesson "What I MUSTN'T do to reach self-development". While all productive things passed without fear and had no influence on my inner world. Oh, it's really hard to explain, probably I should try to write a long post about it:)

It differs from person to person, some people learn during their struggle life and some people learn during  their normal life. In my 2 cent opinion mostly people get panic during trouble, and they commit more mistake than in normal routine.  There is a famous proverb no pain no gain self development is perfect example of this proverb. you have to pay some thing for the development. child come in this world without knowing the art except weeping. he break his shyness  and start learning how to listen how to talk, when he grow older he try to start walking but can't do it without crawling so the life moves on. Struggle will remain there from one stage to an other. for Self development pain often comes, but it all depends how you take this pain/effort. Enlightenment comes after suffering in most cases.

that's a lot of questions!
very nice pics btw I like that of the butterfly lavender the most!


I've made plenty of breakthroughs if you don't mind me calling it.  I got a feeling we read the same books haha.  They were scary at first but later on it becomes some sort of a life style but then that's cause I changed something in me and stopped feeding the part of my brain that trigger's fear.  It's nothing special, I just stopped watching horror nor reading it as well as any violent films or programmings that make my heart beat fast.  I've changed more inside  I'd rather not discuss that but you probably know ;)  

Yes, it gave me a whole different point of view.  I used to be a worrier but these days, something difficult or stressful comes out I either asked first about what can I do to solve it or asked someone's opinion cause others may be seeing something in the "what seem to be a tough situation" that am not.

Yes, It changed my core beliefs a whole lot back when I was still a teen but I don't think I have to go through a certain suffering though I did back then but I was young and ignoramus and that's part of learning.  I guess as we get older we tend to be more tolerant, open minded and things become easy to accept than to resist from but that's my opinion 

lol on your "suffering club" I used to belong there till I changed something in me that was actually causing it which you probably know what that is ;)

Personal growth doesn't have to come at the price of pain and fear. Some lessons can be learned without them. But other lessons wait around until there are no carrots left for encouragement.

Just inside someone he or she or me know how the feeling, where is it from, how it looks like and hide or face with it!..anyhow, time still runs, so yes or no.. We still have to move! No pain no gain!