Spiritual development and growth require that one make many sacrifices. And none seems greater than the sacrifice of one’s self for the betterment of others and the world.

Often misunderstood as depriving oneself and giving to others when it hurts oneself, sacrifice is best understood as relinquishing one’s individuality to a universal spiritual identity.

Sacrifice means renouncing one’s individual mind, rejecting as incomplete and ignorant the mental voice in one’s head. One transcends the ego by attending to and abiding by the stillness, intuition, wisdom, and love of one’s true self witness awareness.

In sacrifice one detaches from the world, not in a cool, distancing manner but with presence and without attachment to outcome, circumstance, or condition. Using the empty witness awareness that one is, one accepts what is now.

Sacrifice means willfully choosing to renounce the world, which at its most basic means one loves the world for what it is, as it is, not for what it gives one personally. This results in the loss of participating in the world as others do, and is replaced by the pleasures of good fortune, goodness in the world, and spiritual intelligence.

Desired and valued experiences are treated as gifts or blessings from Spirit and are returned shortly after received. One does not hoard or treasure them, let them inflate the ego, or boast of them. With gratitude one lets them pass into history.

Sacrifice is devotion to God, and can be practiced by framing all one’s actions as dedicated to or done for Spirit. By removing oneself from the equation in this manner one is lifted and carried through all demands, enabling one to go beyond oneself.

Pain from life experience is prevented from turning into suffering by one’s union or identification with Spirit in which feelings are tempered and darkness lightened. In this regard sacrifice requires approaching and consistently maintaining relationship with God/Spirit.

Sacrifice also requires commitment to the principle of altruistic giving to others and being love in their presence. This sacrifice benefits the world by positively shaping the collective karma of all humanity and creation.

To resolutely sacrifice one must not only be determined to benefit the world, but to have faith there will be liberation from the confines of one’s individuality; that a new self will emerge that lives in, enjoys, and loves all existence unconditionally and eternally.