I am arguing that Self-Realization is our chief human value, either (A) by choice or (B) by default. If we are (A) aware enough to consciously choose Self-Realization as our over-arching human goal, then we would avoid a lot of suffering; if we are (B) not aware enough to choose Self-Realization, then by default we invite symptoms and suffering.

My guess is that probably 90% of the human race falls unconsciously into the erratic default path of trial-and-error detours, ridden with unexpected symptoms and suffering.

Let us look at how our story affects our financial values. Let’s say that for 40 years, an average person makes $36,948 a year , which would total $1,477,920 in a lifetime. Suppose then you spend the national average, after taxes, of: $478,846 (32.4%) on housing; $274,893 (18.6%) on automobiles and transportation; $206,900 (14%) on food; $78,329 (5.3%) on apparel and services; $73,896 (5%) on entertainment, $79,807 (5.4%) on medical and health expenses; $135,968 (9.2%) on personal insurance and pensions, and $147, 190 (10.1%) on other expenditures. ( Alcohol 1%, $14,799; Reading .06%, $8867; Tobacco, .09% $13,301; gifts 3.4% $50,249; Education 1.6% $23,647) (Household Spending, National Network for Family Resiliency, 1995)

90% of our expenses then are devoted to the care of the body: housing, transportation, clothing, food, entertainment, healthcare, career education, etc. Our story shapes and often controls our values: the way we earn and spend money. Self-knowledge appears in many ways to rank very low on the scale of our values. Yet self-realization is the only enduring value that surpasses a lifetime. On the average we probably invest less than 1% ($14,799, which is about what we spend on either alcohol or tobacco) specifically on our personal growth and self-realization, but in the long run self-knowledge is worth more than everything else put together. Suppose we spent 10% ($147,990) specifically on our self-realization, such as through spiritual pursuits, personal growth, psychotherapy, consciousness courses, self-awareness books, religious studies, coaching, etc)

I asked my group therapy members this koan: suppose God gave you the responsibility to choose for all of humanity one of the three following gifts (1) unlimited money (2) unlimited energy, or (3) unlimited information., which would you choose for all of all of humanity? I was surprised to learn that most of them chose (3) whereas I would have expected then to choose (1) since none of them really have any money.

David Hawkins’ research shows that the average person only progresses 5% in a lifetime as far as consciousness development is concerned. And when we factor in the estimate that the average person is only using 5% of their ability, we wonder what is blocking the other 95%. If we are 95% blocked, no wonder we have such severe health, relationship and behavior problems. When we take note of the stress, frustration, violence, criminality, poor health, suicides, substance abuse, war, natural catastrophes, and other forms of human suffering, we can see the need for self-realization very clearly. The fact that 80% of our doctor’s visits are due to stress is also an indicator of the need for self-realization.

Suppose that the purpose of life is to move from our ego story to self-realization, and that we are largely blind to this purpose and its possibilities, and therefore we trudge along grabbing whatever survival values and pleasures we can find. However, since we are spiritual beings, even though we may not be aware of it, we are bound to develop symptoms from this unconscious default story of ego perception that we are living by. Accurate symptom-diagnosis therefore becomes one of the most important forks in the road on your life journey. For most of us, this is how we meet God. Like Saul of Taurus, we are galloping down the road on our self-appointed mission to save, capture, control, or destroy. We are struck blind by some self-created symptom. . We have a crisis. Why are you persecuting me, victimizing me, we are asked. If Saul was to become Paul, he had to re-diagnose his acting out program. We do not realize that in our ego view of the world, we are attacking our own real Self, the Christ within. We had no idea we were hurting ourselves in the name of self-preservation and self-defense. From that point on, some people devote themselves to Self-realization and spiritual transformation as the supreme value in life, even while taking care of the body and the planet.

As spiritual awareness is contracted, symptomatology expands, in inverse ratio. The dissonance between spiritual awareness and technology explains a lot of our dilemmas. We are able to more efficiently and powerfully imagine and create self-defeating programs. Note how drug-dealers use communication technology and how dictators become capable of deploying biological missiles.

Even though ego enhancement seems to be the supreme value, deeper investigation proves that this is not so, because even if ego enhancement seems to be our major preoccupation, it is not the overall conscious, subconscious, and superconscious supreme value. Symptomatic dilemmas prove to the open mind that the search for God, whatever form it takes, is the supreme human value, desire and motivator. The way we spend 99% of our income on the body is actually the unconscious search for our spirituality. Our excessive consumption is just a symbol of our search for the infinite. The important thing about how we spend our money and time then is not the number of dollars and hours, but the conscious purpose of our activities. Each dollar and each moment of time, even when spent on chores, can be directed to Self-Realization. Not one dollar or hour needs to be wasted. Who is mopping this floor? Who is mowing this lawn? Who is driving to work? Who is sick? An infinite being in a supposedly finite world? A god in a human body among other gods in human bodies?

The finite does not exist per se, except in our illusory story. In our polarized story, we split the finite world into opposites, into me and not-me, into want and don’t want.

Thorwald Dethlefsen

One side of each polarity we identify with as "me" or "mine" and "I want it", and the other side we tend to reject as "other" or "not mine" or "I don’t want it". All that we reject becomes our shadow side and is projected onto the world as different, unknown and somehow threatening to the accepted part, or ego. But this self-deception, this involuntary lie, is the basis of all conflict, inner struggles and outer wars. The tension between our story and reality is the birthplace of our symptoms. Most of us do not like that tension and so we bury this necessary conflict even deeper by denial. You know, the old ostrich-with-his-head-in-the-sand and the old elephant-in-the-living-room scenario. (1) Tension-awareness then is the first essential step in spiritual psychotherapy. (2) Acceptance of both sides of the conflict as belonging to me is the second step. (3) The third and most necessary step is the awareness that both sides of every conflict and polarity arise from the infinite.