RESPONSIBILITY 3

RESPONSIBILITY 3

We began from the added information from our last email, expanding a little bit on this model of the self. Without going into a lot of detail, let us just assume that most of us have learned and been taught to identify with our personality selves. Because of that, we do not even realize that the personality self is simply a creation of our own mind, made up of all the should’s and shouldn’t's, all of the fears and all the vulnerabilities, and created in such a way that it attempts to protect us from hurts that might come our way.

The question that haunted me as I was doing this work was, “How does this imperfect and limited self become so wrapped up and compulsive about being perfect?” Setting a goal for itself that is essentially impossible and the result of which is just more frustration. Here is the outcome of my process, and please know this is simply a model and may not even be true.

This personality self that we have created, at some point, almost in a flash, like the shutter of the camera gets a brief glimpse of the divine perfection that you are. The personality self has no means of comprehending what this is, but the sense of perfection that is revealed to it spark the compulsion to achieve that perfection itself. And so we have, what I believe the course calls, a confusion of levels. My personality self is seeking the perfection of the divine self that it cannot reach or cannot comprehend.

It is only when we realize the perfection we seek is in embracing of the divine perfection we truly are good we begin to consciously move in the direction of our soul’s purpose.

The way the Dalai Lama put it was that “In the Western world we attempt to get our spiritual needs met through the material world we live in. Again setting the stage for confusion and frustration.

To add the seeming confusion, the should, this reflection of the divine self is also “driven” to a deeper and deeper realization of its Truth. Augustine once became aware of this inner drive of the soul by saying “You have made our hearts restless and they will never rest until they rest in Thee.”

And Jesus spoke this very simple lesson, “Store up for yourself treasure in heaven where neither rust nor moth consume.”

It is so easy for me to lose track of these divine directives. How often have I attempted to think myself into a spiritual state of being. To figure things out; To get an answer I could grasp and hold onto and continually remember that would somehow receive the pain of my yearning? Being in the present moment is not only grooving on this Holy Instant. It is also standing on that razor’s edge of embracing the Divine within and also opening to more.

You see the paradoxical nature of some of the statements above. They all require a sense of surrender of letting go of our attachment and our identification with our personality selves and allowing the divine self that we truly are to do its mysterious work. The image I used Sunday morning was picking up a block of ice and putting it in the sunshine. I need to do the work of picking up the ice and carrying it to the proper place, but after the I need to let go and allow precess unfold.

I have noticed that much of my prayer is asking for things. Good things. Help comfort, nurturing, peace, love, acceptance— all of those things. And yet they all come with the prerequisite that somehow or another I know what I need.

How subtle that is. The “me” that thinks I know what I need is not my spiritual self but my personality that has learned how to disguise itself as my spiritual nature.

More often, these days, when I remember it, my prayer is “Lord help me to be open to the grace to let me realize and be open to what it is that I truly need. Even here, I do not want to get caught up in judgment because how easy that is as well. Merton said is so wonderfully in his marvelous prayer “I hope that the desire to please you doesn't fact please you.” How beautiful. Within that prayer is continually expressed the wonderful paradox we are both connected to the divine and yet sometimes lost in the personality and the masks that we have created.

Choose Once Again:

“The planet that you live on is in a time of transformation. And the transformation, as we see it, is man in relation to her own identity as the aspect of the Creator manifested in form. As you attend to this truth, you become accountable to it as the creator of your world. The belief that you hold, that each of you hold, that this must not be so is where you get caught. It is the trip wire you fall over again and again as you scramble for freedom. “But I cannot go out the door. Out the door is something I don’t know. If I go out the door, I will not know who I am.” Now, we have told you who you are, again and again, and we will continue to as you allow us to. But you need the experience of yourselves as the one in choice to know that this is so.

Thank you all!