Three Times
We ARE the self-worth that we unconsciously seek. Denying this is like Peter’s denial of Jesus. Peter can be viewed as a reflection of the ego and Jesus a reflection of the soul. The soul gives us life but the ego denies it. Why would a living person deny dependence on their soul for existence? Perhaps we fear the infinite and eternal nature of our own power and strength. We might secretly feel burdened by the responsibility. We might not feel good enough to handle it. We might be accustomed to judging our mistakes, failures, and weaknesses as bad. What is to stop us from also judging our existence as bad and then judging the judgement as bad? How easy is it to get to three?
The part of us that distinguishes between good and bad is the personality. It has eaten of the fruit of the tree of good and evil and believes it has the ability to judge the difference between right and wrong in all circumstances and situations. Protection, control and and separation are its objectives. Avoiding feelings of emptiness and worthlessness are its most important goals. There is a reliance, dependence and attachment on certain conditions to be met in order for it to feel “normal”. Uncontrollable factors keep the personality off-balance. It is a decoy trying to replicate the harmonic nature of the true identity of the soul.
Denial and resistance are among the tools the personality employs to sooth its feeling of not being good enough. It will deny the truth of the soul way more than three times. The soul threatens the ego’s defensive posture and is therefore an enemy. Here is the unforeseen action of denying Jesus. Christ is a very real part of us that is necessary for our overall health. He is a symbol for the soul. This is the way, the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through Him. Placing our faith in something else is unwise. One glance and we instantly know the soul is the manifestation of the kingdom, the power and the glory which are His forever.
The significance of the rooster crow goes much deeper than expected. Hardly no one realizes the severity of the real problem. Denying the soul is like a low-grade fever that almost seems normal. The temperature is turned up slowly. Without knowing that our self-worth is missing and without knowing that the personality is trying to compensate for this loss, we are dead even before the game begins. Awareness and acceptance are essential. As an allegory for the soul, Jesus Christ represents the origins of our pure everlasting love and value. He is indeed the light of the world which illuminates the higher meaning behind the gospels. It is undeniable.
I Lack Nothing
Living from our natural state gives us the feeling of “I lack nothing”. What gets in the way of this and are we willing to let it go? Here is where we find what needs to be done, or more accurately what needs to be undone. Disintegrating the barriers of the personality requires incentive, however. It must be worth it. How will we know if we never try? How will we try if we never know? The true message of Jesus Christ has been rejected, buried and forgotten. It is the soul that gives everlasting life and salvation. The personality is in direct opposition and this causes feelings of lack.
The personality is a bundle of defenses. It hangs on to anything to avoid the soul. It judges its feelings of lack and labels them as bad. It labels itself the same. On a subconscious level it disowns and then projects its fears. What is needed is the willingness to let go of the need to control its feelings of emptiness and worthlessness. It takes practice, patience and gentleness for the iron walls of guilt and shame to finally come tumbling down. Once the personality releases the desire to grab on to what it has been holding, we can begin to receive something much much better.
That something much better is the soul. Relief, satisfaction, fulfillment, wholeheartedness, contentment, abundance, integrity, liberation, perfection and gratification await. One must experience it to believe it. Everything we’ve always wanted and needed lies within. We do not have to define ourselves with not being good enough. That is only a limiting belief we picked up from the conditioning of our childhood which has been passed down through many generations. The associated feelings of fear remain like a scar that leaves a permanent mark in the subconscious. The ego’s job is to protect us but it has overstayed its welcome.
Identification with the ego leads one to assume that we are worthless. The soul is the resolution to this. WE ARE the resolution because WE ARE the soul. What do we get in exchange for denying this? What is honestly going to resolve the lack self-worth? It is our duty to stand up and claim the true identity without delay. Perhaps we don’t feel we deserve it because we don’t know any better. It’s time to change this no matter how long it takes. ALL the barriers to self-realization must be addressed one by one. When we finish we will stand firm in the conviction that “I lack nothing”.
Ye Of Little Faith
How far are we willing to take the verse in Matthew 6:33?: “…seek first his kingdom…and all these things will be given to you as well.” Who is willing to give over their livelihood, their instinct for survival and their very identity for the sake of finding true life? Is not His grace sufficient or do we depend on something else for our sustenance? The unwillingness to fully risk it all is like the doubt that Peter experienced in Matthew 14:29-31. If we don’t have faith in ourselves then we we don’t have faith in God either. We are one and the same. Disbelief is refusal to accept the fact that we are proof of God’s existence. It is possible to know this because of the soul.
There are many distractions that turn our attention away. Our survival depends on the presence of God in the soul, not on money. Which do we truly serve? Are we trusting His grace when we put in more hours creating an income than we do connecting to the soul? Perhaps the soul is too inconvenient and uncertain for us. Maybe losing control over the identity would make us feel like we are not good enough. What would be left of us if we were to lose that identity? We need to find out for ourselves. Judging the feelings of nothingness as bad and moving away from them distances us from the single most important ingredient of our lives.
Avoiding the fear of nothingness is apparent in the act of reaching for something to hold. A dependence forms as we crave something to make the feelings of not being good enough go away. Once we let go of the need for control we have the chance to recognize the wide open expansive nature of the soul. Living without the root of our self-worth and encouraging others to do the same cannot be justified. Why pretend? Recognizing and understanding the soul needs to be a top priority but the personality makes it seem as if there is something more important.
How easy is it to lose hope O ye of little faith? The power of the enemy seems untouchable because it buried the soul when we weren’t looking. Our holy grail goes missing and we hardly notice. It’s common to live with a slight depression and think that it’s business as usual. Without awareness we will lose confidence. Even the slightest degree makes a difference. Yet all it takes is a tiny nugget of faith for our consciousness to explode outward into limitless domains pouring forth light and love at rates far too serious for human comprehension. Once we are honestly and consistently willing to let go of EVERYTHING in a very literal way, we begin preparing for the universe to show us what God is really all about.
False Fear
Fear is largely a lack of self-worth in disguise. The ingrained habit of judgement creates an illusion of control. Judging its own feelings of emptiness and deficiency, the personality feels compelled to do something about them. Acceptance is not in its vocabulary and has not been developed. Guilt, shame, wrongness and badness must be fixed. Here is mankind’s downfall. For the most part we judge ourselves as not being good enough. A great deal of fear is generated around “missing the mark”. What is often not recognized is that the fear is caused by lack of self-worth.
Without connection to the soul, we feel no real self-worth. We feel deficient, bad and unworthy and then project these feelings towards ourselves and others. Everywhere we turn we feel the urge to judge. We assume God does the same because that is what we have been taught. It’s quite a pleasant surprise when first-hand experience contradicts this. Typically we avoid God and the soul because we fear losing the personality which we have come to depend on for self-worth. We don’t feel we will survive without it. The feeling that we will not survive without the personality is lack of self-worth in its nakedness.
Anticipating failure and pain because of its nakedness, the personality latches onto whatever it can. What needs to be understood is that the empty naked feeling is a natural part of the human soul. Instead of avoiding and judging it as bad we can learn to relax into it. There is no need for resistance as it is part of our infinite nature. Feelings of worthlessness do not make up our entire being because we are inseparable from God’s presence via the timeless material of the soul where no fear can abide. The temptation to judge, the desire to “hit the mark” and the urge to relieve feelings of worthlessness make their exit.
Sweet Christ Jesus who takes away all sin becomes very apparent in the soul. It fuels our passion to experience liberation in God’s Kingdom. Though it may seem dormant at times, the soul does not fail. We need to be consistently reminded so that our will does not get hijacked by the enemy. Thoughts of non-survival and non-existence indicate disconnection which translates into the fear of not being good enough. This is lack of self-worth appearing in disguise as fear. It is unhealthy to live our lives without knowledge of self-worth. For what reason should we deny the super-miracle of the impeccable soul?
Tall Order
The final frontier of spiritual awakening is releasing attachment to the personality. Examining the depths of attachment is something most people do not want to do while they are alive. It is such a tall and daunting order that many would would rather be dead. The personality’s grip on itself will often not flex, no matter how painful. This is not sustainable in the long run. The tendency is to either rationalize away the existence of the soul as an inconvenient truth or to postpone dealing with it until conditions are more favorable. Big mistake. The soul IS salvation and it is freely available to each and every one of us right here and now.
Viewing the personality from every possible angle eventually shows that it is not real. What is real is an eternal presence of unsurpassable peace. The personality is an alter ego that is trying really hard to convince us of something different. We do need to be very careful and gentle for it will not hesitate to get violent. The personality swears allegiance to its assigned identity even after its cover is blown. It hangs on with the most subtle of attachments. It will invent lies to hide behind in order to convince itself and others that it has avoided detection. Ego is an imitation of something much greater. That something much greater is the soul.
The personality is partially an accumulation of psychological defenses. It defends against deficient feelings of sinfulness and vulnerable emptiness which it assumes to be part of its nature. Personality is an overreaction to feelings of non-survival. The overreaction is both an inward and outward projection rooted purely in fear. It is only real to the personality, however. Behind the perception of fear is judgement. Here is the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden. The personality is sure that it knows the difference between what is good and evil. It feels it can justify its behavior and need for control at any price including its own soul.
Breaking the personality’s grip is a tall order. Loosening the connection is often judged as wrong, bad and dangerous. Fear of the unknown, peer pressure and pride are typical barriers. Not many will risk the investments that have been made towards security in identity. It seems like too much to lose. The truth is just the reverse. We really can’t afford NOT to do it. The gate to true life is a lot narrower than expected. Non-belief is just one out of many possible downfalls. Waiting for something to happen before we can experience God is another. The personality will go through a lot of trouble to convince itself and others that the soul must be avoided at all costs. Don’t believe the hype.
Self-Preservation
The jealousy of God is meant to describe the fact that we cannot serve the personality on one hand and God on the other. A basic and simple premise yet very difficult to practice. One eventually faces the question: Why would we abandon the foundations of the personality in favor of what appears to be uncertain? Perhaps it would be helpful to rephrase the question as: Why would we NOT abandon the foundations of the personality in favor of what appears to be uncertain? Self-preservation ranks pretty high on the answer list. Let’s examine this a little closer.
On the surface, self-preservation appears to be the indisputable champion of priorities. But we don’t usually think about or honor what enables us to have the instinct for self-preservation in the first place. The misconception that we can somehow be apart from the soul and therefore apart from God is part of the problem. Many people don’t believe in the soul because they cannot feel it and so it is trampled upon. The rejection and burial of Jesus points to this. The soul also challenges the personality’s survival and self-preservation overrides its importance.
The intensity of the desire for self-preservation generates fear. The fear comes from the ego’s projection of its own judgements against whatever threatens it’s survival. This is one case where the fear might not be helpful. When it is directed outward the personality will play the role of a parental authority figure. When the fear is directed inward it will play the role of a victim-child. Neither are the true identity but the personality usually doesn’t know any better. It will not risk giving up on the roles it plays because it feels like death. The fear guarantees the true identity’s burial.
It’s difficult to admit to the problem. It almost seems nothing can be done. Hanging on to a desire for safety blocks the personality from experiencing God and the soul. No one is encouraging to do away with the personality altogether. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of how the priority of self-preservation blocks us from feeling true self-worth in the soul. The scramble for survival has adverse results as the soul becomes increasingly easier to overlook. Investing too heavily in self-preservation is like digging one’s own grave. Freedom from bondage to the personality becomes next to impossible. It takes a miracle and an act of God and the soul is exactly that.
No Equal
The soul has no competition. It is one and the same as God. At first, the personality experiences a tremendous fear of non-existence as it approaches the soul. More often than not, it resists. It will judge itself as unworthy and declare war because of its failures at experiencing the soul. This is a mistake that makes things much worse because it reinforces the personality’s tendencies and strengthens its defensive structures. An alternate personality may surface which judges the original. Situations as in Luke 11:25 and Matthew 12:44 are the last thing we want. Yet no matter how bad things get, victory is sealed because the soul has no equal.
Disowning the soul for any reason is biting the hand that feeds us. It makes absolutely no sense. Why should we be convinced otherwise? The father of lies has prevailed over humanity for far too long. It has gone undetected in a host of attractive disguises scourging everything it touches. If this doesn’t motivate us to change for the better then we are allowing the enemy to keep us paralyzed. Fear, greed, anger, hatred, destruction and violence join the party. Please understand that we don’t have to be perfect because the soul has already accomplished perfection for us. We begin simply by choosing the soul over everything else because there really is no equal.
Let us not frustrate our own awakening. It’s important not to force anything. This is exactly the kind of mentality that has to be undone. Watch the personality as it attempts to struggle. That is all it knows. It always feels it has to do something but the truth is that it has to stop doing something. What it has to stop doing is acting on its desire for control. That desire is rooted in lack of self-esteem which is only truly resolved by connection with the soul. Faking it does not count. As it quits projecting itself into the future and fixating on the past, the personality aligns with the eternal presence of what IS. It’s simple but not easy because of conditioning.
The rewards of the soul are unlike anything one can imagine. There is no match. Struggling against it will only prolong our own agony. This is really unnecessary but sometimes we have to see for ourselves. Trial and error is not the easiest way to learn but it still works. Remember there is no need to beat ourselves up for anything at all. We choose to love the unacceptable parts of ourselves without condition. Doing so is a reflection of our divine Father in heaven and a direct reflection of our true nature. Once we get a taste of the soul we will want nothing more. All misunderstandings end here. From this point forward we should know it’s not in our best interests to choose against the soul for there is no equal.
Illusion Of Control
The personality resists giving up its illusion of control at all costs. It will not give up unless it is forced. It pretends to have the power to manipulate and control reality but the power is an illusion and is not real. The authentic experience of real power evades the personality because of disconnection from the substance of the soul. It settles for something less because it’s easier than facing the fact that it has no control. The cost is devastating and results in violence. This kind of movement gathers similar forces, strengthens, becomes popular and is considered normal after a while. The trend multiplies and ravages the earth.
Usually the personality hangs on to its illusory sense of control because it fears losing everything that it has worked so hard to become. The attachment to its own identity is a defense mechanism to protect it from feelings of worthlessness. It must always defend against the feelings but it really longs for peace and rest. Underneath all the reaching and grabbing is a lack of self-worth in which the desire for control is born. The desire for control is not an indicator for power, but an indicator for weakness. It is a method to avoid feeling vulnerable, disorientated and petrified.
Here is where things get intense. After some time, the fear of vulnerability becomes overwhelming. Most people give in to the compulsion to judge the powerlessness as bad and as something to be avoided. Nothing could be further from the truth. These are the beginning stages of our inheriting the universe. We become one with what IS. An omniscient force begins to influence our lives for the better. One has to pay careful attention to notice it and to cultivate the good ground where seeds can grow. In time, fear will be cast away by love. Getting comfortable with permanent exposure to helplessness does take considerable practice, patience and faith, however.
Life transpires on a new level once we open to the soul. It feels like a never-ending waterfall of joy pouring into the heart erupting everywhere at once, leaving us in a familiar child-like state of innocence. Only attachment to the mind and its ideas, beliefs and thoughts separates us from the original glory we left behind so long ago. Somewhere along the way the way we lost trust in ourselves. Somehow we fell victim to the idea that maintaining control is more important than maintaining contact with the soul. We must admit the error and develop the willingness to let go of the illusion of control. Only then will we realize our true identity is the infinite eternal splendor of the soul which is forever one with the only reality there is.
Attachment In Disguise
One of the hidden messages we received growing up includes the idea that we are not good enough just the way we are. This makes it feel as though we must earn the qualities for which we long, such as love. Constantly looking for fulfillment outside ourselves is a recipe for disaster. What we most desperately seek dwells within. Sure we can get some love from the outside but it becomes a different animal when one depends on it. As the saying goes, if we feed a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day but if we teach him how to fish he’ll eat forever. Learning to connect with the soul shows us that its presence is unconditional. It does not depend on us being good enough.
The soul has always been with us exactly right where we are in this exact moment but the personality blocks our awareness of its presence. The survival of the personality downplays the soul’s importance. The personality feels pressure to remain attached to something at all costs. Here is the lack of self-esteem disguised as attachment. The personality does not believe it will survive if it lets go. It obtains the illusion of survival from the attachment. Unfortunately the survival is more like spiritual death because it encourages disconnection with the soul, the source of real life.
Reverse engineering the personality’s defenses and questioning its motives reveals secret feelings of lack. The objects of attachment (money, cars, identity) are the disguises it uses to cover this up. Attachment is a way for it to resolve its problem of never feeling good enough. Without being able to release the attachment it remains mostly blind. It cannot see the truth of the infinite eternal substance of God in the soul. Lack of value and worth creep in and create wounds. The pain becomes so unbearable that it is disowned, projected and discharged in all kinds of unconscious ways. It’s not always immediately obvious as to what is wrong.
Sometimes the personality is TOO good at what it does. Its defenses are difficult to see through and cannot be broken without the soul. We may need to ask the universe for help. Just remember the more we hang on to anything, the more stuck we become. The heart becomes hard and resists but 2 Corinthians 12:9 states the strength of God is made perfect in weakness. We need to test this out for ourselves. Notice how the personality justifies the grounds that it is okay to live without knowing the source of true value. It doesn’t work. Understand that attachment to anything at all indicates a breach in self-worth which can only be resolved through the immortal substance of God in the soul.
Because Of The Soul
The personality will often rationalize away the existence of the soul because it challenges its identity. It has tempted humanity away from God for far too long and the consequences have been devastating. Fear has taken control as the soul gets crowded into the background. The irony is that whatever we are scared of is not real. The only reality that exists is the reality of the substance of God. Attachment to the personality fools us into believing otherwise. We are in conjunction with the eternal oneness of God because of the soul.
It takes consistent effort to disengage from the personality and its self-hatred. Underneath our everyday awareness is the struggle to avoid a feeling of inner emptiness. It is the fear of this emptiness that secretly controls our behavior. The emptiness is lack of self-worth in disguise. We don’t think we could last a second if we were to let ourselves go fully into it. We could only last for so long before having to reach for something. That desire to reach is the personality in action. Notice how the emptiness does not go away. It lingers in the background. Allowing the emptiness to operate in this manner seems preferable to facing it all at once. This is a gradual recipe for low self-esteem and self-hatred.
Fear often seems to be unchallengeable. It is because of the soul that we have a chance to overcome the fear. Releasing the desire to avoid pain and hang on to pleasure seems like it will only make things worse. It feels like the end but it is actually only the beginning. If we can stop looking for heaven and salvation in the future and stop running away from the things that haunt us from the past, we will have the opportunity for the eternal present moment to become one with us. The personality’s bondage to fear is loosened. We are freed by the truth because of the soul.
Because of the soul, there is more than enough grace and mercy to fuel our spiritual quest. Once we understand the personality, we can quit falling for the same old lies. The lies include buying into the feeling that we are not good enough. The soul is proof that we are. One must solidify union with the soul as the true identity because there is nothing more important. How many different ways can we be convinced to the contrary? It’s important to find out for ourselves through first-hand experience that fear does not exist except inside our own minds. Do it no matter how long it takes. The soul is patient and it is waiting for us to do our part.
Resurrection And Judgement
A certain part of us has to die in order to experience spiritual awakening. This is the symbolism behind the crucifixion of Jesus. We often don’t even know that we are in a state of spiritual deadness. Notice how badly the personality resists. The level of resistance is the exact intensity of our attachment to the false identity. It is the very thing that needs to be undone. Struggling will only make things worse so it’s best to remain still. Consider how much the personality does not want to experience spiritual death. It feels just like the real thing. Let’s not, however, be convinced that we’re too weak to make it through the fear and pain.
Facing our own personal day of judgement is the realization that we will have to face exactly what we have put out into the universe AND what we have not. If we’ve wronged someone we will eventually be made to feel the same vibrational energy we put into that action. If we hold back our feelings, we will have to face that too. We resist because we know it’s going to hurt. There really is no judgement involved, except the criticism we to give to ourselves. The longer we wait and the harder we resist the worse it feels when it finally comes time. It’s beneficial to do the work now and understand why we are putting out negative energy in the first place.
Vulnerability and weakness cause the personality to turn its back on the soul. It thinks it will be smashed because of all the wrong it has done. This is a projection of its internalized authority figures. It’s an outcome of the civilization process it received in childhood. Harsh attitudes of punishing discipline are passed down from generation to generation. Childhood fears linger into adulthood and the notion of a cruel and vengeful God becomes popular. Here is the source of many of our fears against God, the soul and spiritual awakening. Understand that there is no fear or anger in God whatsoever. This is the truth behind Jesus’ being born of a virgin. Like the Father, the Son (the soul) knows no fear or anger.
The soul is not exclusive. God’s love is forever universal. We need to experience this for ourselves. There is no waiting for a literal day of judgement or for a literal resurrection of the dead. Heaven exists in the timeless eternal present moment. God gave us His only begotten Son for a reason. The soul is meant to be shared and its fruits are to be spread among us. It is an interactive phenomenon that requires active participation from everyone. The universe jumps for joy when this happens. Healing is available if we are willing to get out of the way. Self-hatred and lack of self-worth are no match for the power of the soul for nothing can stand against the purity of God’s love.
Foundation
The soul is a miracle. It is a state that is like the Garden of Eden. Biting the forbidden fruit and resorting to judgement lures us out of the Garden. We are tricked into believing we are no longer one with the infinite, eternal and divine. Lack of self-worth creeps in slowly. Attachment to the false identity and its need to offset a perceived lack of worth overtakes us quietly. We barely even recognize this as a problem. It’s difficult to fix because we don’t even know it’s there. The ironic thing is that the lack of worth is not real. The personality only thinks its real because of its judgement of how bad it feels when it lets go of its foundation.
Building a comfortable foundation can be unconscious pride when the desire for control becomes more important than the soul and therefore more important than God. Placing spirituality somewhere other than first on our hierarchy of needs is a misunderstanding. What were to happen if we subtracted the soul out of the equation altogether? The hierarchy would collapse instantly because we wouldn’t even be alive. The life-breath of the soul is the single most fundamental requirement for our lives. We would be dead without it. We need to recognize this important fact and not allow unconscious pride to hide it.
The personality gets comfortable with rejecting and burying the soul because everything around it indicates that it’s okay to do. Displacement of the soul is widespread in churches, schools, financial, political, and social systems. Just because everyone else is denying and suppressing the soul does not make everything alright. We need to speak up about it. This makes a joyful noise unto the Lord. The true identity needs to be first and foremost. No one can serve two masters (Luke 16:13). Neglecting the importance of this statement causes many downfalls. There’s no use trying to cover it up with a band-aid.
Almost all of our foundations are based on a lack of self-worth. It is pervasive because we’ve been pretending the soul doesn’t matter. The intensity with which we defend against the soul is the evidence of our low self-esteem. The ease and convenience of keeping this in the dark is enticing. It costs us a diminished quality of life with madness and painful violence. Not dealing with the soul now also affects future generations. The personality’s craving for the comfort and security of a foundation seems harmless but it can be just the opposite. No one is recommending to change things overnight. We can however, slowly make progress together. We begin by slowly letting go of the personality’s need for foundation in exchange for the miracle of the soul.
Self-Sabotage
Internalizing our disciplinary relationships without thinking often holds us back from experiencing our divinity. Adopting either a victim or authoritative identity seem like the only options. Attachment to either one neglects the true identity of the soul and our relationship with the most important part of us shrivels and withers. We long to regain that wondrous innocent feeling. Unfulfillment of this longing arouses anger, rage, hatred, bitterness, resentment and despair. No one would do this to themselves if they knew better. We need to feel the depths of this lost connection to the soul and see how greatly we suffer because of it.
The personality will often get hostile and belligerent when facing the soul. Its posture is ready to go to war but it is really only a program for self-sabotage. The personality is either stuck in the identity of the authority figure or the child-like victim. While in authority-figure mode, it reigns itself back from experiencing its full divinity because that is part of its role as the disciplinary party. It warns of possible impending danger. This is mostly a useful feature but it’s easy to overdo it. On the flip side the child-like victim mode is run by lack of worth. Either way, attachment to the personality is a recipe for quiet self-sabotage because it is rooted in fear.
As it approaches the soul the personality may flee with violence as seen in Mark 5:13. Going through the layers of the Tootsie pop too quickly may be disturbing. The vulnerability can become overwhelming so a safe environment is important. Self-realization often begins with heavy grieving. We cast off the personality’s shackles and align with the collective universal power at our center. Here is the reality of John 17:21: “…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” The personality resists through the entire process because it is the adversary. It doesn’t have a choice but to bow (Romans 14:11 and Philippians 2:10).
Self-sabotage is not always violent. It is mostly unnoticeable and that is the way the enemy likes it. The enemy cannot survive in the light of consciousness so it avoids attracting attention at all costs. This character morphs into roles and disguises itself as an angel of light. It distracts us from awareness of our divinity because it feels there is something more important. We need to notice how the personality secretly sabotages our relationship with the true self and quit falling for its tricks. Once we become aware, we become awake. A supreme intelligent force takes control of our guidance system and eventually shuts down the self-sabotage program. We are made to feel measures of joy that extend forever.
“I Have Overcome”
Conventional wisdom has determined that we are nothing without our beliefs. There is something that needs to be seen underneath this. It is the feeling of dreaded terror when letting go of our foundation. It seems as if there will be nothing left but a deep and dark abyss. The personality takes this as proof of its deficiency, sinfulness and unworthiness. It needs something to hang on to. No one would be crazy enough to allow themselves to reach the bottom of the abyss. Here is where eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of good and evil and developing the habit of judgement has turned us sour against our connection to the divine.
Placing ourselves in position to face the feeling of damnation or annihilation is not something we take lightly. However, the smallest fragment of faith and the tiniest morsel of willingness can turn things around completely. Allowing ourselves to reach the bottom of that dark abyss multiple times, seeing what it feels like and then fully accepting it yields surprisingly unexpected results for our quality of life. It is the beginning of a connection to something that is far beyond our wildest dreams. We have to feel it for ourselves to know it is serious business.
Thoughts such as we are not good enough pop up constantly. The self-rejection generates fear and life feels meaningless. We begin looking for salvation where it cannot be found. Imitations abound but chasing these shadows keeps us trapped in a state of time and judgement. We must experience our oneness with the true unconditional and universal power of God through the soul. Disbelief is lack of acceptance. Resisting the irreplaceable feeling of value found in the soul is self-denial because we settle for less than our infinite eternal glory. Rarely do we think about how this affects our sense of worth.
Our natural state is timelessness and indivisible love. Remember that the soul is the Son of the God of the living and not the dead. Permitting ourselves to be alienated from the soul for our entire lives has little justification. We can use the scriptures and the traditional version of Jesus to assist children, for example, but if we depend on these things for self-worth our entire lives then we will have tragically missed the point. The point is the soul is the living manifestation of the verse in the scriptures that says: “…take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Our Own Voice
Trusting that all other things shall be added to us if we seek the Kingdom first is a challenging barrier to spiritual awakening. Feelings of lack and uncertainty bubble up. Our own true voice cries for liberation but the cleverness of the personality drowns it. We need to feel just how attached we are to this personality and understand that it is not us. It is what separates us from the soul and creates doubt in the power of seeking the Kingdom first. Seeing this is a huge step in finding our own voice.
Attachment to the personality and its fear of lack silences the true voice. Seeking the Kingdom with all our hearts becomes less important. Dependence on something other than the soul for self-worth becomes almost unnoticeable. The source of our own true voice IS self-worth and it comes from the soul. Enmeshment with the personality makes it very easy to forget this. The enemy’s deceit manifests as lack of self-worth causing spiritual deadness by pulling attention away from the soul. Alertness is necessary as the personality uses many distractions.
God’s love is without interruption but the personality plays a mean game of defense and defense wins championships. Seeking the eternal in time where it cannot be found is common. Disappointment awaits as we reach the limits on our capacity to feel unconditional everlasting love. Its convenient to settle for less because of the risk of death, eternal damnation, or rejection for being wrong. Maybe we don’t realize that God has been residing inside us the entire time. Nothing is more important than dedicating our whole entire lives to this voice which keeps calling.
Purity of purpose in seeking the Kingdom is part of finding our own voice. Releasing our attachments and identifications is the job of a lifetime. Undertaking this kind of work is the best charitable contribution we can give to the world. Our brothers in Matthew 5:23-24 include those who have experienced the destruction caused by a lack of connection to the soul. Reconciliation begins by hearing the inner voice which unconsciously calls to us. If we trust and seek this voice more than anything else in the world, we just might find the keys to the universe falling on our laps.
Trusting Uncertainty
Trusting uncertainty sounds paradoxical. Attachment to our identification with the personality makes it feel as though nothing good will come out of our circumstances. The personality has good intent but many of its actions are misguided. A life without self-worth drives it to madness of which it is largely unaware. Failure to embrace what seems like uncertainty, doubt and instability heightens the madness. Acceptance is not always easy, especially at first. However, if we practice trusting uncertainty with the little things in our lives we will be more prepared for the bigger things.
Every step on the path to spiritual awakening verifies that we are an important part of the universe which is always under construction. Trusting and embracing the constant change is easier said than done. A large part of the personality’s job is to resist change. The desire to fix things according to it’s own idea of perfection causes attachment and frustration. Unconsciously blaming the circumstances and situations of our lives for not making us happy is common. What we really want is to be in union with the source of happiness. The feeling of worth or significance ceases to be a moving target when we realize WE ARE the infinite value which we seek.
The personality doesn’t trust it. It believes the universe does not work with its best interest in mind so it reacts to extend pleasure and limit pain according to its own liking. If we remember that the universe is a work of art that is always changing and our stay on earth is temporary, then we can begin the process of accepting what IS. There will be times when we do not like what IS. Conditions are not always favorable for the personality’s tastes. It judges a permanent lack of control as bad. Feeling the eternal glory of the soul negates the desire to judge the lack of control in the first place. Here is the path to trusting the universe and the flow of our lives.
“In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33.) We are called to experience the certainty of these verses for ourselves. The need to be good, right, perfect, better, stable, safe, secure and in control tempt us away. We prevail by applying biblical principles to our spiritual lives along with a little faith and trust. Our own personal miracles transpire and erase doubt. Experiencing the soul equates to what Jesus said to Thomas: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27).
Higher Meaning
The correlations between the story of Jesus and the reality of the soul are not an accident. Matthew 5:17 advises “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” At first glance, the soul seems to go against the conventional interpretation of the New Testament. With time however, we can see that there is a much higher meaning than what appears on the surface. Many of us grew to depend on the literal belief of Jesus that has been passed down through the generations. The moment when we identified with the role of being sinners in need of salvation was invisible. Our attachment to this identification prevents us from seeing the higher meaning of Jesus Christ.
The basic idea of the story of Jesus is he was born pure of a virgin and had not sinned. He was both fully human and fully divine. He also performed all kinds of miracles which are difficult to believe at face value. In addition he was rejected by the religious leaders, was crucified, died and was buried but was resurrected. What would be the moral to the story were it taken to be a description of the soul? Could the virgin birth be symbolic of the universal and unconditional love of God that is within the soul? Can the soul miraculously cure the hidden plagues in our subconscious? Have we unknowingly participated in rejecting the cornerstone? What about this theme of everlasting life?
Perhaps the story of Jesus is trying to tell us something that we’ve overlooked. What could that something be if Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father? The similarities between the soul and the story of Jesus are too strong to ignore. Yet we’ve been doing exactly that for centuries. Maybe there is incentive in keeping this information from reaching the general population. Profits have been derived from keeping the masses subservient, in fear and ignorant of the truth. The soul has been overshadowed by a more popular and digestible version of Jesus for the glory of enterprise. Enterprise is good but not if it displaces the soul.
How likely is it that the story of Jesus, as a parable to convey the truth of the soul, has been distorted like a bad game of Chinese whispers? We discern the need to extend forgiveness. The healing will be a long and arduous process. Let’s not make exacerbate the anger and hatred. A good first step is to play our part by doing our best to understand the higher meaning to the story of Jesus Christ. We no longer have to play the role of victim or oppressor because we know our true identity is the soul. Philippians 4:13 suddenly breaks through like the beacon of hope that it was meant to be when we understand the story of Jesus Christ’s higher meaning.
Concealment
Why is it that the soul often goes unnoticed and unappreciated? What happens to our relationship with this part of us when we become adults? Do we ever stop to wonder why the world is in shambles? It’s difficult to come up with answers to these questions because of how easy it is to forget about the soul. Attachment to the personality ensures we are almost always focusing on what is wrong or bad. The fear this creates conceals the infinite treasure of the soul. How is one to feel the power of this treasure if the heart is occupied with fear? Resistance to the fear often takes the form of a million thoughts firing inside the head at once. Then the concealment becomes even stronger.
It takes on-going effort to disengage from the behavior that encourages concealment. Reminders are helpful. Periods of mental non-activity put us more in tune with our natural connection to the soul in this exact moment, right here and right now. We leave behind our thoughts, worries, feelings, ideas, plans and desires. Liberation of this sort helps to expose what is concealed underneath the activity of the personality. It might not always be pretty especially in the beginning. One may find that reaching for heaven and moving away from hell is based on a secret lack of self-worth. Hardly no one ever thinks about this. The stealth of the enemy’s tactics are its secret weapon.
Maybe we are too proud to admit to a lack of self-worth. Maybe we don’t think the verses of Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31 and Matthew 9:12 apply to us. The personality conceals its pride so well that it doesn’t recognize the lack of self-worth as an illness. It whispers to us that everything is fine but the symptoms prove otherwise. The personality thrives on evading detection. Preoccupation with what is coming next or with something that happened in the past is another example of the many methods it uses to keep us trapped in the mind without our awareness. The personality feels that it will evaporate into nothing if it ceases its activity.
When the personality is exposed it will amp up its defenses against what feels like its death. In reality, allowing this feeling of death to be there and feeling it in its entirety is exactly what is needed. The fear is quite understandable but all it takes is a tiny bit of the soul for a miracle to occur. In that tiny bit, there is an infinite amount of grace. We begin to feel supported by this universal force we call God. The personality’s concealment of the soul becomes weaker and we slowly realize our unity with the treasure we’ve been seeking all our lives. Now is our chance to halt the damaging effects that this terrible secret of lack of self-worth has caused on our sacred planet.
Partial Truth
The personality believes it is sinful, not good enough and is missing the “mark”. This is true but it is not the whole truth because it does not account for the soul. The grand hoax is a white lie that only shows us part of the truth. We believe we are no good because we cannot feel the value of our soul. We cannot feel the value of our soul because we’re too busy subconsciously looking for value elsewhere. The part of us that goes looking for value elsewhere is the personality which has taken itself to be nothing. We need to know that the deficient feelings are only temporary. Breaking free from the personality’s need to compensate for its feelings of inadequacy can be done through awareness of the greater truth.
The greater truth is that our core self is part of an eternal reality of infinitely substantial worth. Experiencing this eternal reality first-hand gives us a sample of the true identity’s significance. One must be willing to give up ALL desires and allow the process to unfold in its own natural course. The result of NOT doing so includes attachment to a false identity and the forsaking of our souls. The quality of our lives suffers unnecessarily. Exactly how is one to recover from the loss of connection to the soul? There is no amount of belief in religion, no amount of money, no amount of time, or no amount of anything that can even come close to filling the gap. EVER.
Settling for anything less than the soul is settling for only part of the truth of who we are. Who we think we are is the personality. Unfortunately this part of us derives its identity from a sense of deficient emptiness. What we get in exchange for the soul is non-reality based in fear. This non-reality is a fragment of the entire picture in which the personality feels frozen. A terrible feeling of loss follows. Deep down we know there is something missing, but we don’t know what. A part of us tells us there is something more to life yet we don’t know what to do or where to look. It’s convenient not to have to deal with what seems to be missing and to settle for less than the entire truth.
Selectively perceiving only a few angles of the entire truth becomes familiar and comfortable. We don’t want to consider anything that can cause doubt to our precious beliefs. The risks are too great. Letting go of the identity we have made up and assigned to ourselves is not an option unless there is a guarantee of something better. The desire for a guarantee makes sure that we miss the point: we ARE the guarantee. Distrusting the existence of our truest self causes hesitation because we don’t think we’re good enough. Gibberish. It is the whole entire truth of our being that has the power to shift our perspective of sinful deficiency into salvation. We resolve the desire for a guarantee of our divinity by becoming one with the elegant and untarnished true identity of the soul in its complete fullness.
Blind Spots
If we take the time to sit back and watch the personality in action we can see and feel its desperate need to hold onto something to justify its existence. This is totally normal. What’s not normal is when we unconsciously believe this feeling of desperation is the bottom line of who we are. Its difficult to loosen our identification with this. It is one example of several blind spots. For another example, we almost never notice how much of our self-esteem is controlled by what other people think of us. We are overly engaged with a system in which the personality is desperate to get its needs met. It is starved for something that will relieve the feeling of its missing soul. The temporary nature of the false replacements reveal the blind spots.
It’s often too painful to look into the blind spots without turning our backs and cowering for protection. One must actually allow them to simply be there. It’s not easy to get used to that kind of vulnerability. Noticing the intensity of how badly we are latched to avoiding the blind spots seems like it will only make things worse. The mechanisms of the personality seem to become enhanced. Understand that adherence to the personality’s false sense of self is not as mandatory as it seems. Just continue to watch it without judgement. THOROUGHLY question ALL of its motives until the consciousness is stretched enough to provide some distance. It doesn’t matter if the distance is only a fraction or lasts only an instant for this is the yeast in Matthew 13:33 that permeates the whole dough.
As the personality perceives the hidden things in its blind spots it will feel an overwhelming sense of threat due to fear of the unknown. It will run and hide, kick and scream, punch and throw, spit and curse, etc. Again, take the time to watch it thoroughly and question EVERYTHING it thinks and does without judgement (some of the answers come in funny ways). The universe begins to tilt in our favor when this kind of inquiry becomes a way of life. Non-significance, unimportance, non-survival, abandonment, rejection and failure do not seem to be problems after a while. The personality begins to see the whole pie instead of just a slice. It sees the whole iceberg instead of just the tip. It then becomes progressively easier to look into the blind spots and accept what is there.
Some people perceive awakening to the soul as dangerous. Quite the contrary. It is dangerous NOT to awaken to the soul. Notice how the personality will try to convince us that orthodoxy is safer, more convenient and more palatable to the masses. The enemy does not abide in the truth because there is no truth in him. Without consideration for the soul and with disregard for the true identity, the personality unconsciously seeks to ease its wounds with disguised viciousness. Identifying blind spots is very very far away from its agenda. The antidote is to connect with the true identity at all costs. Remember that the process cannot be forced, however. Reducing the gaps in our blind spots benefits us. We crush the head of the serpent and cloak ourselves with the dazzling light of the majestic soul.
John Dominique 