According to Buddha, What we think we become. The more often we dwell on anything, the more proficient we become in it and the more we come to master it or realize it. This is a common worldly experience for us all. This also applies to spiritual life: If we want Self-realization we must think about it often.

But isn't spiritual life too high to reach, too difficult, strange or remote? No,  we can start here and now with a thought. We are changed and perfected by thought. So if that is all we can bring to the challenge, it is enough.

Just a thought .… then feeling comes—an emotional urge to do something, to commit oneself, to awaken.

Eventually action flows out of this desire to awaken. A sense of purpose starts to grow; a pattern begins to develop—more action is fueled by more desire.

Gradually, as the process continues, a habit begins to be formed. We are saved by some habits, doomed by others. But this is a creative, willed, and purposeful habit we have longed to form. With the help of reflection and a systematic method of meditation, one day it is formed and established.

Then the character is affected … change comes slowly … little by little … then more and more … then still more.

Then the light beckons: it is no longer a dream. We are within sight of the goal, though it may seem distant. Thus, a new, ever-waxing momentum has been created and has been launched, and moves forward, riding us towards the creation of a new character and a new destiny.