Concept
Self-realization
Overview
Self-realization is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology, and spirituality; and in Indian religions. In the Western understanding, it is the "fulfillment by oneself of the possibilities of one's character or personality" (see also self-actualization). In Hinduism, self-realization is liberating knowledge of the true self, either as the permanent undying Purusha or witness-consciousness, which is atman (essence). In Buddhism, it is knowledge of the absence (sunyata) of such a permanent self.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
But a fixed law of connection, making the sensations occur together, does not, say these philosophers, necessarily require what is called a substratum to support them. The conception of a substratum is but one of many possible forms in which that connection presents itself to our imagination; a mode of, as it were, realizing the idea.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Self-realization is; the author is tied to Self-realization in the knowledge graph.
A soul _per se_ or isolated is not possessed of ideas. It is merely blank, undeveloped, formal unity, of which nothing can be said. But like other realities it defines and characterises itself by antithesis, by resistance: it shows what it is by its behaviour in the struggle for existence. It acts in self-defence: and its peculiar style or weapon of self-defence is an idea or representation.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
States what Self-realization is.
Other methods of deliverance from evil are in the excessive acts of penance performed by the Indians, to which a retreat within themselves is added. Now when the Indian thus internally collects himself, and retreats within his own thoughts, the moment of such pure concentration is called Brahma, the one and the clearly supersensuous state, which the understanding calls the highest possible existence. When this is so…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Self-realization is.
Philosophers who discussed Self-realization
Related ideas
- Ātman (Hinduism)
- Hinduism
- Western philosophy
- Indian religions
- Samadhi
- Karma
- Kundalini
- Moksha
- Los Angeles
- Karen Horney
- Śūnyatā
- Anattā
- Brahman
- Psychology
- Guru Nanak
- Sigmund Freud
- Shaivism
- Sikhism
- Spirituality
- Purusha
- Advaita Vedanta
- Buddhism
- Carl Jung
- Erik Erikson
Place in the tradition
Part of Indian philosophy.