We are here to forge an identity.
Our quest thru (at least this part of) manifested reality is to evolve, ascend, grow, transform into "god-hood". To develop a specific personality - an identity!
This idea frequently gets thrown out with the ego-bath water... That is a mistake.
Integration.... That is the key to god-hood.
Without integration there is no mastery. To wholly embrace everything, every experience - this defines god, this defines your place in god-hood, as god. The counter to integration is escapism. Avoidance. Being so great and mighty and powerful as to "get out of" things is not "god". By definition, god is omnipotent, omniscient, & omnipresent... How can anything "escape" that!? To be aligned with, in accord with, attuned with, in agreement with "god" is to know no limits... In any direction! In every direction. God is ALL, and for us to "be gods" we must know this, feel this, "believe" this... and experience this. And the choices we make in these experiences expand our god-hood and define us as parts of god.
Ego is the "personality" that results from thinking, from logic and reason. This is a mechanical product and not the real you. In that sense, ego is of little ultimate value to personal evolution. What gets lost in the ego concept is the fact that the very same tools that create ego - the mind, the brain - are essential to living in a manifested reality.
When the mind is driven by the soul - the individual awareness of a person - it becomes the vehicle of experience. Thought is still happening, but it is not happening independent of the soul, the conscious life force that is our identity. A life being driven by the soul is conscious, awake, aware, feeling, creative, intuitive. An awakened soul is aware of its universal connection to spirit - the source of life, the energy of existence. This energy is the source of all things - of god, of earth, of people and all the accessories that we call "the world" and "the universe".
By experiencing "the world" we are given the opportunity to make choices. These choices begin to define us. In order to separate ego from soul, we are challenged. Not as punishment or a basis for reward, but rather as a proving.
As a society, we can condemn a crew of professional bridge builders when a bridge collapses and upon investigation it becomes evident that the builders did not use the correct methods or materials to create a sound, long lasting bridge. Even tho the builders finished the bridge, even tho it looked like a bridge, even tho a few vehicles successfully crossed the bridge - which is its purpose - ultimately the bridge was NOT what it appeared to be. It was "proven" to be false by use, by experience. It was false because of the choices made by those who built the bridge, therefore indicating falsehood in individual personality. THAT is who those people have become. That is their current identity, based on their choices. Choice defines our identity.
In the same bridge building scenario, if the builders had made all the right choices, the bridge would not have failed. It would have served its intended purpose and stood the test of time. These builders would be regarded as "good", "skilled", "worthy".
All of this is defined by personal choice.
But wait.... Are those builders really good, skilled and worthy?? Maybe there's one more scenario... What if the builders made all the right choices, used all the correct methods and materials, and the bridge functioned very well. For a short time. But then this "right" bridge also failed. What now? Challenge.
True identity is forged with yet one more often overlooked component - intuition. In the course of building the bridge, one person gets a really bad feeling about a certain load of materials. On paper, everything is correct, checked, and double checked. Still one person feels that something is wrong, for apparently no reason. NO REASON. (No thinking. No logic.)
Stop here: If this person allows the building to proceed, we end up with the "right" bridge that mysteriously fails. But if this person persists in following their intuition, their curiosity leads them to investigate the materials in question. This may require some work, and may irritate the other workers! Because this person is not looking for the obvious! Else everyone would have noticed a problem. No, this person is going beyond manifested reality. Manifested reality shows that there is no problem. And those that do not operate on intuition but instead on ego, do not understand or accept those that "break the rules", "get outta the box", "question authority".... so on and so on....
If this one builder continues to be true to themselves and follows this intuition to the end, going against the tide, eventually they discover cracks or decay, or size imperfections, or materials that appear correct but are not made of the right substances for this purpose due to someone else's choices...
This is god-hood. Confident, integritous, genuine, skilled, lasting, without conflict, with nothing to hide. There is no fault. This is the bridge that will stand the test of use, of experience.
In this last scenario we see that we are indeed connected to the universal source of all energy. Intuition. Awareness. Consciousness of who one really is. The soul, not the mind, recognized and acknowledged this intuitive, universal information. The soul made a choice, and the mind followed.
This builder now has even greater definition from this experience and the choices they made in it. The spirit and the flesh became integrated. There were no angels doing miracles in this scenario. There was a human being, feeling their divinity, listening to the one universal spirit, and choosing what actions to take. The existence of angels or spirit guides does not excuse anyone from making choices and expanding into god-hood.
What of those who are unwilling to make choices? Are they "wrong" or "bad"? Absolutely not. They just further themselves from god-hood, from enlightenment, from evolving... they further themselves from peace, satisfaction, love... and that is their choice to allow this to happen. "Not choosing" is a choice just as well as actively choosing is.
Will these "non-choosers" be punished? Absolutely not. But what will they feel and experience when challenges come...? They may indeed feel punished! But its only the way they choose to perceive things that will define their lives. Its all in their head.
Our quest thru (at least this part of) manifested reality is to evolve, ascend, grow, transform into "god-hood". To develop a specific personality - an identity!
This idea frequently gets thrown out with the ego-bath water... That is a mistake.
Integration.... That is the key to god-hood.
Without integration there is no mastery. To wholly embrace everything, every experience - this defines god, this defines your place in god-hood, as god. The counter to integration is escapism. Avoidance. Being so great and mighty and powerful as to "get out of" things is not "god". By definition, god is omnipotent, omniscient, & omnipresent... How can anything "escape" that!? To be aligned with, in accord with, attuned with, in agreement with "god" is to know no limits... In any direction! In every direction. God is ALL, and for us to "be gods" we must know this, feel this, "believe" this... and experience this. And the choices we make in these experiences expand our god-hood and define us as parts of god.
Ego is the "personality" that results from thinking, from logic and reason. This is a mechanical product and not the real you. In that sense, ego is of little ultimate value to personal evolution. What gets lost in the ego concept is the fact that the very same tools that create ego - the mind, the brain - are essential to living in a manifested reality.
When the mind is driven by the soul - the individual awareness of a person - it becomes the vehicle of experience. Thought is still happening, but it is not happening independent of the soul, the conscious life force that is our identity. A life being driven by the soul is conscious, awake, aware, feeling, creative, intuitive. An awakened soul is aware of its universal connection to spirit - the source of life, the energy of existence. This energy is the source of all things - of god, of earth, of people and all the accessories that we call "the world" and "the universe".
By experiencing "the world" we are given the opportunity to make choices. These choices begin to define us. In order to separate ego from soul, we are challenged. Not as punishment or a basis for reward, but rather as a proving.
As a society, we can condemn a crew of professional bridge builders when a bridge collapses and upon investigation it becomes evident that the builders did not use the correct methods or materials to create a sound, long lasting bridge. Even tho the builders finished the bridge, even tho it looked like a bridge, even tho a few vehicles successfully crossed the bridge - which is its purpose - ultimately the bridge was NOT what it appeared to be. It was "proven" to be false by use, by experience. It was false because of the choices made by those who built the bridge, therefore indicating falsehood in individual personality. THAT is who those people have become. That is their current identity, based on their choices. Choice defines our identity.
In the same bridge building scenario, if the builders had made all the right choices, the bridge would not have failed. It would have served its intended purpose and stood the test of time. These builders would be regarded as "good", "skilled", "worthy".
All of this is defined by personal choice.
But wait.... Are those builders really good, skilled and worthy?? Maybe there's one more scenario... What if the builders made all the right choices, used all the correct methods and materials, and the bridge functioned very well. For a short time. But then this "right" bridge also failed. What now? Challenge.
True identity is forged with yet one more often overlooked component - intuition. In the course of building the bridge, one person gets a really bad feeling about a certain load of materials. On paper, everything is correct, checked, and double checked. Still one person feels that something is wrong, for apparently no reason. NO REASON. (No thinking. No logic.)
Stop here: If this person allows the building to proceed, we end up with the "right" bridge that mysteriously fails. But if this person persists in following their intuition, their curiosity leads them to investigate the materials in question. This may require some work, and may irritate the other workers! Because this person is not looking for the obvious! Else everyone would have noticed a problem. No, this person is going beyond manifested reality. Manifested reality shows that there is no problem. And those that do not operate on intuition but instead on ego, do not understand or accept those that "break the rules", "get outta the box", "question authority".... so on and so on....
If this one builder continues to be true to themselves and follows this intuition to the end, going against the tide, eventually they discover cracks or decay, or size imperfections, or materials that appear correct but are not made of the right substances for this purpose due to someone else's choices...
This is god-hood. Confident, integritous, genuine, skilled, lasting, without conflict, with nothing to hide. There is no fault. This is the bridge that will stand the test of use, of experience.
In this last scenario we see that we are indeed connected to the universal source of all energy. Intuition. Awareness. Consciousness of who one really is. The soul, not the mind, recognized and acknowledged this intuitive, universal information. The soul made a choice, and the mind followed.
This builder now has even greater definition from this experience and the choices they made in it. The spirit and the flesh became integrated. There were no angels doing miracles in this scenario. There was a human being, feeling their divinity, listening to the one universal spirit, and choosing what actions to take. The existence of angels or spirit guides does not excuse anyone from making choices and expanding into god-hood.
What of those who are unwilling to make choices? Are they "wrong" or "bad"? Absolutely not. They just further themselves from god-hood, from enlightenment, from evolving... they further themselves from peace, satisfaction, love... and that is their choice to allow this to happen. "Not choosing" is a choice just as well as actively choosing is.
Will these "non-choosers" be punished? Absolutely not. But what will they feel and experience when challenges come...? They may indeed feel punished! But its only the way they choose to perceive things that will define their lives. Its all in their head.
And they are just as free to choose as everyone else... No matter the circumstances, great or small. There's always an opportunity, there's always a choice to make.
And it's always your own.
And it's always your own.
