Welcome to the ULC Minister's Network

Stephen Kaufman

Understanding Selfishness

  • From the book Self-Revealization Acceptance - An Introduction

    by Stephen Kaufman, Founder

     

    Chapter 2

    Understanding Selfishness

     

    M

    any people have problems when they contemplate voluntary change. This is because they fear inconveniencing others for the wrong reasons, such as the aforementioned negative sentiment and manipulative grace. As a result they unwittingly seek an excuse to keep the status quo. By ignoring their true feelings and negating their desires, they create additional frustration and confusion for themselves. This is because they do not understand the virtue of selfishness, either pure or impure. Incorrectly used, selfishness is your enemy. When it is intelligently cultivated, selfishness is your best friend.

                Pure selfishness is the best thing, as it is the giving of any aspect of yourself with the sure knowledge that the equivalent good, or preferably better, returns to you without your having to wonder where or when it is going to come. It is a form of giving that is without expectation of reward and is a mature, intelligent, logical and realistic attitude to have. By your very act of giving, all good things grow through you as new experiences while opening new areas of consciousness that you may never have been aware of. This includes money and love, the two things that everyone wants, but many people fear having because of insecurities as a result of negative sentiment and manipulative grace. Pure selfishness is based on self-love, but it must be correctly understood. It is an expression of appreciation to the Creative Power of the Universe.

                When you love yourself first and foremost, it is easy to love others without restraint or condition, and you should continue to do so until the object of your love proves unworthy according to your feelings, and your feelings alone, at which time you can withdraw it and love something else if you are so inclined. Assuming you have a healthy mind, you will eventually get past the emotional impact of the object of your love. However, make sure not to love superficially. Love completely, and if you are rejected for any reason, release that person or thing from your consciousness without a second thought with a self-revealization acceptance to alleviate the condition. It will not cause disharmony.

                Love is a genuine part of everyone’s life, and though this should not be a revelation, the reasons for misunderstanding love may be. Think about the things you truly love or think you love. If necessary, construct another list. By the way, writing lists is how you come to terms with those things in your life that matter most because words precede function. Ponder the things you are most selfish about. Are they the same? Consider the reasons for both, and in the order of importance, find the connection between what you love and what you are most selfish about. For now do not be concerned about your motives being pure or impure.

    Contemplate the order in which you thought about these things. Did you select yourself as number one in both lists? If not, there is a good chance that you do not have the self-esteem you think you have. Regardless of what others may think about you, it is important to see yourself as first and foremost in your life: before wife or lover, before children, before job, career, or anything else. This may seem like a harsh statement, but when you think about it, you will see that if you do not acknowledge yourself as truly number one in your life, you cannot adequately provide for the needs of anyone or anything else, material goods notwithstanding. You will still be seeking your own self-acceptance. Acceptance of yourself as the number one priority in your life must be understood as the prime factor for being. An attitude of pure selfishness puts you in accord with the values you place on everything else.  

                Impure selfishness is foolish as well as debilitating. It is a form of being in love with yourself, and being in love with yourself is not to be confused with loving yourself. Being in love with yourself is demeaning and evidences a true lack of self-esteem. It is loaded with arrogance, conceit and false pride, along with a general contempt for everyone and everything else. Impure selfishness destroys the good in your life whether you realize it or not. It limits the good that can come to you because of the general “comes around, goes around” principle. When you give something with impure selfishness, you give with a closed heart in the hopes of receiving it back in like amount, perhaps from the source you gave it to. You secretly hope you will not be losing what you are giving away. Hope, incidentally, is based on wishful thinking and is a limitation of acceptance. 

                When you give in the purity of totality and completeness, there is never a need to worry about losing anything. Knowing that all is returned in abundance and that the universe is not limited, anything and everything you could ever desire is available in larger amounts than can ever be conceived of or accepted. There is always more of everything, and with sincerity of giving as mentioned above, you don’t have to know where and when it will come from. On the level of the Absolute, the Creative Power of the Universe, everything already exists and needs only to be accepted.

    Nothing can be created that does not already exist. Things become tangible as you focus your mind on them. This has to do with perceiving the Universe as total and complete, irrespective of time and space, which is only based on your finite and physical needs. This idea has nothing to do with illusion, allusion, or delusion. It has to do with the perceived reality of a personal acceptance of unlimited abundance. Once you demand of the Spirit of the Thing Itself to deliver to you what you desire based on sincerity of that desire, you need only accept it as already done in your life and act that it is so.

                It is all worth repeating. People who give through impure motives are expecting the same thing to come back to them and, therefore, limit their own good by not thinking in terms of better and more, irrespective of appearance. When giving, know that the same returns in equal or better share, positive or negative, depending upon your attitude. Likewise, building up ideas that no one appreciates you reinforces limitation and should be avoided at all costs. Not having self-trust in the Creative Power of the Universe causes you to seek gain from others instead of yourself. This leads to ever increasing arrogance, conceit and false pride, which again results in misery based on limited joy. It is an erroneous perspective of magnificence because you cannot overcome the tragedy of your singular inconsequence. As an individual, you are too important to the overall aspect of creativity to restrict yourself for any reason, especially one that limits total joy and freedom in life. If you want to be miserable, fine, but at least get some pleasure from it. You can think you’re happy and not know the difference.

                There is nothing negative about having a better life today than you did yesterday and you shouldn’t feel guilty if you desire it. Impurely selfish people lose the perspective of attainment in their lives. When we insist that we want something but demand that it be on our terms, we create a block. We can make all the right contacts with people who are willing to give us what we want, yet we fear to accept it thinking we will have to repay it in kind. You may hoard all of your money and in that manner become rich. But if you do not let it go, you will not enjoy the pleasure it can bring. The same applies to love. If you cannot give it, you cannot get it. Thinking that no one will maintain their affection towards us once they get what they want is a foolish attitude based on not knowing what love really is. If we were purely selfish and gave of ourselves unconditionally, we would enjoy all the love there is. We would be love, and we would enjoy the emotional aspects as well as the physical, which includes great sex and comfort.

                Give with pure selfishness and know that everything returns either equivalent to or greater than the amount that went out. The universe is always expanding, and the more you give, the more will be returned. Prosperity constantly increases, unless you shut if off. Pure selfishness is one of the truths of the universe.   

                Even though everything already exists, the Creative Power of the Universe continues to grow in individual consciousness depending upon personal desire, and based on that desire and being aware that everything already exists, it is not too smart to impose limitations by holding back Its expression of good in your life. That is one of the reasons great producers of anything are constantly seeking to expand their experiences through individual creativity. By opening up you will begin to meet up-lifting people while consciously enlarging your ideas about the pleasures of life in all aspects of good. This can only be done through pure selfishness and the desire for a continually growing awareness of your self. 

                Look at it another way. If a farmer plants one bean, he reaps one bean. He can then complain about working too hard and not getting enough in return. If he plants to the maximum of his land, he will obviously reap more. Then, if he is prudent (an aspect of pure selfishness), he will seek more land to develop a surplus. When he has a surplus, he can give away what he does not need. He can give it away to the poor and needy, which is a good idea at times, or he can sell the surplus for money. When he realizes a profit, he can use that money to increase his productivity and at the same time have enough to buy a new toy or gift as his personal reward and so on. He will become more selfish and want to do even more. This is called growing. It is called life needing to know more of itself and is a mature understanding of the self in relation to the universe as individualization striving for perfection in abundance. Keep in mind, however, that pure selfishness is not to be confused with greed. Greed, as an aspect of impure selfishness, is denigrating to the overall good of everyone regardless of seemingly apparent good will expressed by the greedy person. 

                Think of the ways you have expressed pure selfishness and impure selfishness. There is no need to feel guilty about something you did because you felt it was right, even though you may not have been completely sincere. If you were to do the same things again, would you do it the same way? You may be surprised to learn that what you did because of fear, lack of belief or self-doubt could have been accomplished with ease. More could have been accomplished with better rewards had you done it with pure selfishness. 

                This self-revealization acceptance will help you develop pure selfishness. Read it aloud, slowly, being certain to include your specific desires as you develop the ability to eventually create your own self-revealization acceptances. 

     

    The one complete and unlimited source of all supply constantly seeks to express more of Its reality in me, through me, and as me. I accept this statement as the complete truth as my individualization of the complete and unlimited source of good in ever increasing supply. This is now established as truth in life, and I express more of myself through love without condition to receive and accept an unlimited supply of the bounty of the universe. Through pure selfishness, I know that the more I give, the more I have to give while still more is returned to me. I make this choice freely, knowing that what I give is returned to me in ever-greater measure. I now know that I will always have what I need, and what I desire in any form, I desire it without restriction or delay. I will continue to define my desire to bring more good into my life while accepting more of my desires as done. Accepting myself as living in pure selfishness, my belief grows in the acceptance that I will always have all that I want and it will all be good. I do not have to know where anything is coming from and I refuse to be anxious about it. I raise my consciousness through pure selfishness and accept my will as done. I remain open and receptive to new ideas that I can either accept or reject, and I decide now to accept only the good while denying authority to anyone and anything that would attempt to limit my divine right to live in joy and freedom. I replace all thoughts of limitation with ideas of abundance, knowing that these words are released to the Spirit of the Thing Itself, knowing that my desire is delivered. I choose to live a life of pure selfishness and will repeat this acceptance for my growth, modifying it as I must for the total opening of my consciousness. By my divine right to live in joy and freedom, pure selfishness permits my life to unfold in ways I may not have previously thought I was worthy of. Accepting all of my desires in abundance, I give unlimited thanks to the Creative Power of the Universe for my new awareness.

1 comment
  • Jennifer Hinch
    Jennifer Hinch Thank you so much for this blog. It is truly special.
    March 25, 2014