Prince Was Fully Self-actualized

[Consept]

Admittedly apart from listening to a few songs here and there I hadn't really paid too much attention to Prince, mainly because he was big before my time. But having listened to him in interviews and clips since his death he really comes across as a completely liberated individual that just did things that were part of his being rather than following trends or what society or labels would've wanted from him. 

I actually feel really inspired by him, I feel he lived to the maximum of his being and was a completely self actualised person. We should not only learn from yogis and speakers but I think we have a lot to learn from people like prince also. What you guys think?  

[charlie2dogs]

43 minutes ago, Consept said:

Admittedly apart from listening to a few songs here and there I hadn't really paid too much attention to Prince, mainly because he was big before my time. But having listened to him in interviews and clips since his death he really comes across as a completely liberated individual that just did things that were part of his being rather than following trends or what society or labels would've wanted from him. 

I actually feel really inspired by him, I feel he lived to the maximum of his being and was a completely self actualised person. We should not only learn from yogis and speakers but I think we have a lot to learn from people like prince also. What you guys think?  

what does being a liberated being mean to you, if you don't mind me asking

[DakotaBaba]

Idk I'm not sure if it's possible to be reasonably happy and fulfilled if your still unenlightened and living in a state of delusion. Prince was a Jehovah Witness and believed in a religious doctrine which is most likely false and has no reasonable evidence to support its claims. I also doubt he achieved any long term consistent states of self-transcendence ;therefore, his whole life he was living a lie believing he was a separate entity and a perceiver of reality .

But if the goal of being self actualized is to live a happy satisfying life than i guess if your dumb and naive enough to believe in your egotistical lie and you have high self-esteem, religious faith (read belief on insufficient evidence ) ,and you have enough money to afford a consistent endless amount of materialistic things to keep you in a high state of excitement and stimulation and minimize the low states of boredom and craving, then maybe you can live a life where your getting high off all that stimulation so much that the low's are minimal or maybe even close to none.  If prince did that he could have possibly felt he was content with the amount of highs in life and died with the final thought "I'm happy with my experience of life and I have no regrets" .

But personally, I have too much self-honesty , skepticism, and intelligence to be content with such a lie and call that a self-actualized life (for me ) , if I die and I haven't developed a high level of mindfulness and became enlightened,  or at least had a few self-transcendence experiences , well then I'm gonna die one regretful mother fucker lol . I still value normal and materialistic things like success , money, living your passion , contribution, love , etc. but my life can't be truly complete if the whole time I never even experienced who and what I truly am . 

[Consept]

Overall the reason why I say he was self-actualiized as a person is that he seemed to be uncompromising in who he was, meaning he just wanted to make music, whether it made money or not (there were a few albums given out free to fans). He didn't seem to be bothered with fame in the later years and didn't really care about labels, politics etc. 

@charlie2dogs

Being liberated to me means being who you are regardless of any societal pressures, in general there's a huge amount of pressure even on normal people to conform in various ways, dress, opinions etc etc. I say prince was liberated because he seemed to just do things he wanted without any consideration of societal norms, I would imagine as a famous person there would be even more pressure on him to conform which he didn't seem to have felt. I mean for a staight, black male in the 80s to wear make up and the clothes he wore was pretty much unheard of, let alone fashionable. 

@DirtbagDakota

I get what you're saying but I think it's a bit presumptions to say he was deluded or was not in touch with something deeper. I think a lot of truly creative people are in touch with something deeper and are able to tap into stillness to come up with creative ideas. Many musicians speak about this, when they try and write it doesn't come to them but in moments of stillness it feels like it almost comes out of them. 

Also your desire to experience what you want to experience is no different than any desire to experience anything, you still have desire there and an assumption that enlightenment is the goal as oppose to just being. So your salvation is still in the future rather than right now, meaning you'll always be chasing. 

I also don't believe he was distracted by material things to a great extent, he seemed to be very about the music. Also it's come out now after his death, that he spent a lot of time doing charitable works, in fact a lot more than you'd think, but he specifically never talked about it. 

With regards to religion, yes organised religion is not something I buy into personally, but it's a bit arrogant to say that you can't tap into a certain spirituality with some of its messages. For example a lot of what Jesus said was similar to the buddha, and in fact if you take out the dogma and look at the bible as symbolism and metaphor (as i believe its supposed to be interpreted) there's a lot that makes sense. So you don't know how he saw the religion, obviously he wasn't strict on it or preached it publicly. 

My whole point in this post is that within self-actualisation or spirtuality in itself can become quite dogmatic, as in you can only be enlightened or self actualized if you do certain things, ie meditate, read books from yogis etc. To me I think it's very possible for someone to be self-actualized and not even actively work on it because they're too busy just being, whether that's as prince or pauper (see what I did there). 

[Isle of View]

@Consept

If I get you right, you say that self-actualization, finding ones true purpose in life and really living it regardless of the social indoctrination and then winning big in life, as Prince did, is valuable in its own right?

I agree!

Prince embraced his passions and brought it up to a level of mastery. He realized what he set up himself to accomplish.

He manifested his visions (at least many of them) and he was a great performer and an inspirational figure. He was self-actualizing.

Enlightenment is beyond self-actualization. It is going beyond the self.

So they are not the same "things".

He was not enlightened in the sense most of us here think about it.

 

So what?

 

~Chris

 

[Consept]

@Isle of View

Exactly, I never said he was enlightened I just said he reached self actualisation, as in the definition of something like Maslows 'psychology of being'. This in itself I believe has value, if you've read that book you'll know what I mean. 

But here's a question for you, if he lived every second of his life fully in the moment and completely being who he truly is, (which maybe he did maybe he didnt), even he's not conscious of it on an intellectual level, isn't this in itself enlightenment? It would strike me that if hes not actively desiring to be enlightened, thats at least one less desire. Also the manifestation of his enlightenment if he is, is not ours to define, it could easily be the manifestation it was, music etc.  There are a couple of interviews where he's talking about not being attached to anything he does or owns, this is a very transcendent attitude in itself. 

I do get what you're saying, enlightenment is beyond self but my point is this could be achieved in many different ways 

 

 

[Isle of View]

@Consept

You are right, it could.

But as for Prince, I really can not tell. It may very well be that he has transcended many layers of deception, let go of many attachments and/or identifications in the process. Artists often do rise above the average peoples way of thinking and being.

The dedication for aesthetic expression in itself is a legit spiritual process (see The Artists Way - book).

-Chris

[charlie2dogs]

1 hour ago, Consept said:

@Isle of View

Exactly, I never said he was enlightened I just said he reached self actualisation, as in the definition of something like Maslows 'psychology of being'. This in itself I believe has value, if you've read that book you'll know what I mean. 

But here's a question for you, if he lived every second of his life fully in the moment and completely being who he truly is, (which maybe he did maybe he didnt), even he's not conscious of it on an intellectual level, isn't this in itself enlightenment? It would strike me that if hes not actively desiring to be enlightened, thats at least one less desire. Also the manifestation of his enlightenment if he is, is not ours to define, it could easily be the manifestation it was, music etc.  There are a couple of interviews where he's talking about not being attached to anything he does or owns, this is a very transcendent attitude in itself. 

I do get what you're saying, enlightenment is beyond self but my point is this could be achieved in many different ways 

 

 

You said: But here's a question for you, if he lived every second of his life fully in the moment and completely being who he truly is, (which maybe he did maybe he didnt), even he's not conscious of it on an intellectual level, isn't this in itself enlightenment?

No this is not possible.  You dont become liberated, self realized, enlightened, and not know it, it is impossible.

[Consept]

@charlie2dogs

Why is it impossible? 

@Isle of View

Yeah its hard to tell, I think in general true artists would be more in tune with that 'source' or whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't have thought of the question for many other well known artists, there's just something about his non-conformity and also how he comes across in terms of the music being the most important thing, some ones might be Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and John Lenon, funny how they always die young. 

Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out. 

 

[charlie2dogs]

4 minutes ago, Consept said:

@charlie2dogs

Why is it impossible? 

@Isle of View

Yeah its hard to tell, I think in general true artists would be more in tune with that 'source' or whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't have thought of the question for many other well known artists, there's just something about his non-conformity and also how he comes across in terms of the music being the most important thing, some ones might be Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and John Lenon, funny how they always die young. 

Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out. 

 

It is impossible to experience self realization, enlightenment, and not be conscious of it, you are moving from functioning as the identity, controlled by programing, false beliefs systems, and warp perceptions of life, to becoming a being of consciousness, who functions in a conscious, present, aware state of being able to function in the moment of now, and that cannot happen by accident or not knowing. It is the greatest and highest experience of this physical existence, there is no way to not know.  The problem is most have no understanding of what self realization really is, is about or how one functions as a  self realized being.  Understanding this on a deeper level will change things for you.

[Consept]

@charlie2dogs

Ok but, Eckhart Tolle for example had a sudden realisation (according to him) when he was about to commit suicide, he was not aware of what this was on intellectual level and actually researched a while afterwards. For him it was a switch in thinking but he was not aware of what exactly had happened, but didn't care as he was just being. So it literally did happen by accident for him as he wasn't specifically aiming to be enlightened as he didn't even know what that meant 

[charlie2dogs]

3 minutes ago, Consept said:

@charlie2dogs

Ok but, Eckhart Tolle for example had a sudden realisation (according to him) when he was about to commit suicide, he was not aware of what this was on intellectual level and actually researched a while afterwards. For him it was a switch in thinking but he was not aware of what exactly had happened, but didn't care as he was just being. So it literally did happen by accident for him as he wasn't specifically aiming to be enlightened as he didn't even know what that meant 

when tolle was contemplating suicide his consciousness had a realization, it wasnt enlightenment at that moment, but a realization of something relating to something that was happening right then.  at that point he had no idea what enlightenment meant or understood it, but the realization that was occurring began to expand in tolle's consciousness, all that had previously been rooted within his consciousness wasnt resisting this realization and it allowed for this realization to expand within consciousness, that brought change.