2.  A Developed Self Is Where True Power Lies

As mentioned, I believe that a fully developed self is the most powerful part of a human being. What do I mean by powerful? We all would like to be someone who touches, inspires, and motivates the people we meet in life. Often, we face situations where people are not touched, inspired, or motivated by us. We wonder what we could have done, what else we could have said. Why, we wonder, had we not moved them? We feel frustrated and helpless. We might even blame them for not responding to us.

When we love someone, we do not get frustrated, we do not get impatient. That comes from the mind and an undeveloped self. We might feel sad; by communicating our sadness (which comes from our heart-self) rather than our frustration (which comes from our mind), we can touch the other person’s heart. I am using heart and self synonymously. Only touching one’s heart-self is effective. It connects someone with the truth that they deserve to love themselves and it is only from that place that someone can do something beneficial for themselves. That is what I mean by touching another.

Touching someone means that their self has fully felt your love to the point that they realize they deserve not only your love but their own. It inspires them to look inward, to develop more awareness, to take action or to do something that will benefit many. The more developed one’s self is, the more lives it touches, inspires, helps, heals, nurtures, and teaches.

This is true because a developed self realizes everyone has a self that is identical to theirs and is connected to them, connected to the whole. All selves need loving and they need to feel connected to other selves. This is like gravity — you can count on it anytime, anywhere. The developed self knows this and cares about all other selves. It no longer sees others in terms of color, religion, race, gender, nationality, or social position but as selves with similar needs to love and be loved. 

I was looking for logical evidence that life span is in fact a three-stage developmental process, that each stage develops to a higher potential of a human being. I believed that it was important to prove that each stage, including that of a developed self, gives us greater control and greater power over our lives and over our environment. I believe that greater control and greater power develop as we move from using the body’s full potential to using the mind’s full potential, and finally by developing the self's full potential. I theorized that the potential of each stage of development was exponentially greater in power and effectiveness than the stage before.

The developed mind’s potential and power is greater than the developed body’s potential. We can immediately see that it gives us greater control and power over our lives and environment.

Let’s compare the physical power of twenty of the strongest people in the world with a small, physically weak person who has a machine gun. A machine gun is a mental construct. It shows what the mind is capable of creating. We know that even though it’s twenty people against one, it is still no contest. The individual with the machine gun can destroy all twenty stronger people and then some. The power of the mind always triumphs.

Think about all the tools the mind has invented to assist the body with doing tasks. Cars, trains, boats, cranes, telephones, television, machines that assemble with pin-point accuracy, not to mention flying machines. These accomplish feats which the body could never accomplish alone.

It is easy to see that the mind has exponentially increased human beings’ control and power over life and the environment. This led me to contemplate how I can prove that developing the self's full potential can take us to an exponentially higher level of power and control over our lives and environment.

As you ponder this question, know that it took me over fifteen years to answer it. Yes, you read it correctly — fifteen years. I knew that if I didn’t answer this question, I would doubt the strength of my theory of life span and my theory of self. If I did come up with the answer, I would have, with absolute certainty, validated the theory of self and therefore the effectiveness of my whole theory of human development. So, you can see a lot was riding on discovering the answer.

That piece of the puzzle finally fell into place. What is the most powerful thing a human being can do? Is it power as a display of strength, force, or speed? But there didn’t seem to be any examples of the self creating anything like machines, which enabled the mind to transcend the power of the body.

I looked for those we all consider to be the most powerful people in the world, those we hold in highest regard. And it dawned on me. Their feats of power had nothing to do with physical or mental force.  I followed that line of thought and the answer was waiting, like a ripe, juicy apple ready for the picking.

The most powerful thing one human being can possibly do is to touch another human being. Touching us inside in a way that brings out the best, most compassionate, loving part of us. Touching us in a way that we feel fully connected to our own feelings and that of every other human being. Touching us in a way that moves us to action on behalf of ourselves and humanity. Touching us in a way that our personal self diminishes and our collective self takes on paramount importance.

We know about prisoners of war who chose to die rather than submit to the enemy. You cannot make people do something against their will. Yes, you can threaten people with harm and death, and most will succumb to the fear, but that is not moving someone — that is creating a malcontent who will wait for a chance to plunge a knife in your heart. And yes, you can bribe and manipulate them, but once you are discovered, they will loathe you.

Truly moving people takes a different power, one we all respond to. One that touches us deep at our core, actually touches the self in us, and inspires us to follow and do great things. One that makes us love not only the message but the messenger.

It is power of insurmountable dimensions that no physical or mental force can accomplish. Nothing has been ever invented that substitutes for this power. Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, Gandhi, Mandela, Kennedy, King, Mother Teresa, and countless famous and nameless have done this. Men and women who have touched us and led us to greatness.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest power known to humanity, and it resides in the self, its potential waiting to be fully developed in each of us.