RE: What is "Mastering Yourself"?

I very much enjoyed your post Merc, there was much in it I agree with. I really wish I could focus enough right now to comment on it, but between this past month and the holidays I'm just about completely drained. So instead I'll limit my comments to a few points.

I agree, self mastery is a journey and a process as you and others have variously put it. I commented earlier on the poem If and for me it is a sort of personal standard. I discovered that poem when I was a teenager and its had quite an impact on my life as I've pursued its merits. The irony is I don't think there has ever been a day in my life yet where I have fully lived up to that lofty goal (but as another poet said, "though my troop fell thence vanquish, yet to have attempted a lofty enterprise is still a trophy.."). It remains something I still strive for... always a little better understanding of myself, a little more control, a little more understanding of others, a little more patience and compassion when needed, a little more hardness when necessary, a little more perseverence, a little stronger, a little faster, a little smarter, a little wiser... You could say I'm rolling my very own stone up an endless hill, and for me that's what self mastery is in many ways, yet it is no burden at all... I relish this duty.

Reading over all these comments something else occured to me. That how we each define self mastery is very much colored by our own personal challenges. Some have talked about letting go of the need for external validation. I agree, that's part of it, and yet it didn't occur to me until I saw someone else write it down... for me that wasn't a significant challenge in my personal journey... for others it may be a big one. There is self-acceptance, self-trust, self-understanding involved... how much depends on who you are. What I'm trying to say in my round about way is that for each of us the journey to self mastery is different because we are all different. What comes easy to some may be a mountain to climb for others.

There are so many who never climb those mountains at all, having at most reached the foothills and there stopped supposing that surficed; and having stopped there, ceasing to strive, never see what lies beyond those peaks and cannot understand those who, having gone onward, now see life from a different view.

And yes, I agree also with your final point, that sometimes that journey takes you to a place where you find yourself alone. Finding a companion to share that with is, for some of us, that last mountain to surmount. But that doesn't mean it is a lonely place to be. To quote Robert Frost...

I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true.