Healing and counseling sessions
Self-realization: say YES to I AM!
August 2008
Eternal Trinity,
Godhead,
mystery deep as the sea,
you could give me no greater gift
than the gift of
yourself.~ from On Divine Providence, by Saint Catherine of Siena
Contents:
- Believing vs. knowing
- Trying to separate the inseparable
- The path to God is through Christ
- To Be means to express ourselves
- Two challenges of a developing soul
- What is unconditional love?
- How do we multiply our talents?
- God mirrors who we are
- How do we have dominion over Earth?
- The power of who you are
Jesus repeated what was already said in the Old Testament "Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Yet, many religious people cannot accept this statement and even see it as blasphemy. Because how can the little insignificant me be the great almighty God? Well, the truth is that we are not the fullness of God but we are endowed with a divine spark, which means that our essence is God. Therefore, God is in me, an inseparable part of me.
Feeling the presence of God should be a natural state for all people, like feeling our heart beat. But many of us are so separated from our true nature, that we cannot recognize it any more.
Many people see God outside of themselves and separate from themselves. They "believe" in God but have never made the effort to KNOW God. To go within, to become very calm, and then feel the presence of God in their heart. And that is because going within requires facing ourselves, facing the illusions that cover the reality of who we are.
When we go within, the first thing we encounter is the ego - a force in our mind that opposes the reality of God and the reality of who we are. The ego is blind to the reality of God - it has its own ideas about God, but all of them are based on the belief that we are separated from God, that we exist outside of God's Being, in two separate "bubbles", so to speak. God is up there in the sky, I am here on Earth, and we have or don't have a relationship. But this relationship always implies distance.
Because the ego doesn't see that my bubble, my sphere of self, exists within the greater sphere of God. And that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that exists outside of God's sphere. In mathematical terms, we are a subset of God, not a separate set. It is only a belief, an idea in our mind, that there is a separate reality outside of God. And that we can live and even thrive in that separate reality, always keeping God at a distance.
2. Trying to separate the inseparable
And why do we want to keep God at a distance? Because when we are caught in the ego, we don't trust God. We see God as an outer entity who wants to impose his will on us. And we fear that God's will might not be the best for us. We fear it might involve pain and sacrifice and things we don't want to go through.
We in fact project our own psyche onto God, believing that God has human characteristics. Therefore we think that God wouldn't refrain from even hurting us if it's "for our own higher good". And because we don't want to be hurt, we are afraid to let God into our lives. We are running away while seemingly running towards. Which makes us a house divided against ourselves. We are caught in a dualistic state of consciousness – the basic feature of the ego.
We are divided because we have adopted a false image of God. The image of an outer God who wants to impose his will on us. But the truth is that God is within. Because we are extensions of God's Being. We exist in the sphere of God's Being. And there is nothing outside of that sphere. We can believe we are separated, and live as if we are separated, and experience all the struggle and frustration which accompany such a separated life. But the truth is that there is no separation. Only the ego wants to stay separated.
Imagine you are a child. And you have a Father whom you haven't seen for a long time, since you were a baby. And you have set an appointment to meet him. You can hardly wait to see him and put your arms around him. But then someone comes and claims that this person is not really your Father. He tells you that he is a fake. That he wants to cheat you. That his intentions are bad. ... Well, this person is the ego.
The ego wants to ruin your relationship with your source, with your Creator, with someone who is inseparable from you. Your Father wants only the best for you, he wants you to grow healthy and strong, to lead a happy and fulfilled life. He wants to see you thrive, and he is willing to help you and be there for you. He loves you unconditionally – even if you made mistakes. He doesn't want to punish you or withdraw his love. He wants to help you heal, help you stand on your feet again, and grow. Which means be who you are, and be ever more.
The ego was created in blindness, when we started doubting God and his intentions, when we were led to believe that there is life - an even more abundant life - outside of God's laws. Outside of who we really are.
3. The path to God is through Christ
When we were first created as spirit sparks, our self-awareness was limited. Meaning the awareness that we are an offspring of God, and that we have a potential to rise to the fullness of God, to be God-like. To be God-like means to attain God consciousness, to have the same mind as God. Not in the sense that we would be the exact same replica of God – that the contents of our mind would be the same – but that we would have a very expanded state of consciousness where we would understand the deepest reality of who we are and what life is. We would have a full understanding of the spiritual and material universe and the laws that govern creation. We would see the big picture, like God sees the big picture.
But the path to God consciousness is individual for every soul. Each of us goes through different experiences to get to that point. There is a path, a gradual path where we, through our own experiences, learn and internalize various aspects of God consciousness. Where we learn what is unconditional love, what is compassion, what is peace, what is freedom... and so on.
We are created with limited self-awareness, because the whole point is that we consciously - through conscious choices and a deeper understanding – create ourselves to the fullness of God. God gave us the seed, we need to grow that seed to the full tree. God gave us certain talents – we need to multiply them. Which means use them in a way that will enhance our growth and take us closer to God consciousness. And because we will at some point realize that we are a part of a larger whole, all connected on a deeper level, we will understand that the only way to grow is to serve - to help others become aware of their divine origin and the underlying reality of God. We will realize that by raising ourselves we raise others, and by raising others we raise ourselves. And we do it not out of calculation but out of love.
In other words, we are created like a drop of water in the ocean. We are of the same basic substance, but our self-awareness is limited to our individual drop. In the beginning of our path we see ourselves separated from other drops, unaware of the greater ocean in which we are all immersed. And in which the entire creation is immersed. As we grow in consciousness and self-awareness, we realize that we are made of the same building material - spiritual light - as other drops, and that we are a part of a greater whole. We become aware that we are all children of One God, and have the same essence as our Creator.
This state of consciousness is called Christ consciousness - being aware of ourselves as a son or daughter of One God, of equal substance and equal value as other sons and daughters of God, and coming from the same Source.
So the first step towards God consciousness is Christ consciousness - being aware of the fabric of life, of the All, and of our individual role in it. Feeling one with the All. No better and no worse than others. But of equal origin and equal worth, and yet unique in our talents. Because no two water drops, like no two snowflakes, are the same. Each is beautiful in its own way. And therefore, there is no comparison, no competition, but only love and mutual respect.
4. To Be means to express ourselves
Why are we called co-creators? On one hand it is because we are here to express ourselves - our talents - and bring more of God's presence into the material world. To co-create the world. Because one of the main qualities of God is self-expression. If God didn't want to express himself, the world wouldn't have been created. There wouldn't have been anything. There would have been just the Void as a field of unexpressed potentials. But there wouldn't be anything created. Including us. So our task is to express our divinity, to express who we are.
As we express ourselves, we bring more Spirit into matter. But our main purpose is not to create a perfect physical world, but to grow in consciousness, to grow towards the fullness of God. That is out true task. And because being God is a choice – a conscious choice – we need to have situations which will enable us to make that choice. And the first choice that we will need to make is whether we are willing to walk that path towards God consciousness. Whether we will even recognize ourselves as sparks of God, as Gods in the making. Because it is also our right to say no, I don't want to. I don't want to be who I was created to be. God, leave me alone. That's a possibility too.
Because we cannot become God-like through force, or through fear. But only through love, through desiring to be the fullness of God, the fullness of who we are. And that involves a) the recognition that we are divine sparks and that we have the ability to be God-like, and b) the willingness to go through a gradual path of learning and expanding our consciousness. We need to be willing to always transcend ourselves and never put ourselves (or God) in a limited mental box.1
If we want to rise to the fullness of God, the first precondition is to accept that we have the potential to do that, i.e. to accept our divine origin. We have to consciously and willingly accept it, which means that there has to be a possibility that we also reject it. And that's one of the features of the material realm – it gives us a possibility to reject our divine origin, to reject who we are, to reject even the existence of God.
5. Two challenges of a developing soul
Material realm is a sphere where God's presence is not undeniable, where it is not so obvious that everything is made of God's light. It is a sphere where darkness can co-exist with light without being immediately consumed. It is a sphere of choices. We can choose – because we feel an inner drive, an inner knowing – to recognize ourselves as son or daughter of God. And to grow from there. Or we can choose to reject it.
That's the first challenge for every soul that grows towards God consciousness. To say "Yes, I AM. I AM a child of God, I AM God in the making". This is where the desire and the drive for growth comes from. "I desire to be who I AM! I want to be all that I can be in God!" This state of mind where you recognize yourself as an offspring of God and want to participate in God's plan for the universe with all your heart and mind is called Christ consciousness.
The second challenge is to be willing to always transcend ourselves, to always become more. Willingness to let go of all limiting beliefs, both about ourselves and God, is the second challenge of a developing soul. Some people reach a certain understanding of God and the spiritual realm, and then they stop, thinking that they know all there is to know, both about themselves and God. And then they start behaving in a certain way, how they think a religious or spiritual person should behave.
But one cannot know God by observation, by theorizing, by reading books and scriptures. Because that always involves distance from God. It involves "believing" but not knowing. The precondition for knowing is the willingness to go beyond ALL false images about God. And that means the willingness to surrender all aspects of the ego. Because the ego is the one who created those false images. The ego is the one standing between us and true God, between believing and knowing.
It doesn't mean we have to be completely free from the ego before we can know God. Because to know God means to feel his presence within. So what we need to do is to be willing to go within. And in our meditation or visualization, surrender ourselves to God. Decide that we want to follow God's will. Understand and accept - on a deeper level - that God's will is our highest will.
In other words, there should be no resistance to God. We need to be willing to let go of all the remaining aspects of the ego, of all limiting beliefs, of all false images, of anything that stands between us and God, between us and our true selves.
Willingness is the key. We need to be willing to lose our life - our limited, mortal sense of identity - in order to open the way towards a new sense of identity, based on who we truly are in God. The identity based on the Christ.
6. What is unconditional love?
Material realm provides us with a possibility to choose to be who we are. What does it mean to be who we are? It means to express our talents, express what is at the core of our being. It means express our God flame, the seed of God consciousness that we were endowed with at the moment of our creation. We recognize ourselves as a spirit spark, as an offspring of God, and then we express it. And then God smiles at us, and says "Well done, my child!" Like every good parent does. And when we do something not so great, then God doesn't scorn us but lovingly tells us how to do it better next time.
He doesn't withdraw his love, or put us down, or mock us for our mistake. He lovingly shows us a better way. Like every good parent should. Unfortunately, many of our parents were not like that, but that's another story. But God's love is unconditional. Which means that no matter what we do, he never stops loving us. There is nothing – no condition – that could possibly make him stop loving us! And there is nothing – no condition – that could make him give up on us. Ever.
Only when WE shy away from him, when we reject him, when we turn our back on him, only then he needs to withdraw. Because he respects our free will. But he doesn't give up on us. He is with us, although we are not aware of it, holding a higher vision for us. That we will eventually turn around and want to come back. And once we do that, he will be there with open arms to receive us.
7. How do we multiply our talents?
So whenever we do something good, when we express our talents, God says "Great job!". And when God says "Great job!", our heart expands and we love ourselves more (because God, our Father, loves that who we are), and we are motivated to become more of that who we are. The same is with children – they always need a confirmation for what they do ("Mama, watch me do this! Papa, watch me do that!") And if the parents confirm that this was good, and praize them, then the child is happy and proud of itself, and enthusiastic about learning more, achieving more.
In psychology this is called mirroring. A parent needs to mirror – to confirm – what the child expresses. Because by mirroring it, he acknowledges that particular expression of child's being, and approves it as good. And then the child knows, "this is good, this is what I want to develop more". And the first and basic quality that the child sends out is joy. If the child is fed, rested and clean, they will simply smile at you and coo and be happy.
And if we don't mirror back that joy of simply Being – well then the child will perceive it as wrong. It is wrong to be joyful about life. It is wrong to be joyful about Being, about existing. And here the problems already begin. And then later, when the child starts learning and expressing their creativity, if again we don't acknowledge their self-expression, they will start thinking that something is wrong with them. Something is wrong with who they are. And another layer of problems is created.
Same is with guidance2. Children are very much open to learning, in fact they ask for guidance all the time! They want to know what kind of behavior is good, and what is bad. What is in line with God's law, and what isn't. The problem is that most of the parents today are not aligned with God's law. They themselves are wounded children who cannot provide a balanced and loving example to their children.
Nevertheless, children need guidance. And that's why if often happens that if the parents tolerate everything, every kind of behavior, fearing not to "traumatize" the child, the child will become very naughty, a little tyrant, because they are pushing the limits ever further, waiting to finally hear a parental no, a parental standard of what is okay, and what is not. Children need a guiding rod to build their personality on. But they also need examples. Unfortunately, many children today don't have good examples.
8. God mirrors who we are
So we see that raising a child and raising a soul has very much in common. That's why we are so much affected by our experiences in childhood. And some of us got so wounded that our life missions got almost aborted. Because we didn't receive that mirroring of who we are, and the confirmation that we are loved for who we are. And then we lost the will to Be.
But God is a perfect parent. We are spiritual beings, and beside our physical parents, we also have spiritual parents. And no matter what our experiences were with our physical parents, our spiritual parents were and are perfect, and love us unconditionally. And because we are spiritual beings, no conditions in our material lives can affect our ability to experience the unconditional love of our spiritual parents. We have the ability to connect with our spiritual parents and to receive their love. And to be healed from all wounds and all wrong conclusions about life that we adopted while growing up.
Life is really a relationship between us and God. The developing child and the loving Father-Mother God. If we turn to God, he will always mirror who we are. He will always smile at us and say "well done, my child!" And when he smiles, our heart will expand and we will love who we are, and we will want to Be More.
And that's how we multiply our talents. We express ourselves, God smiles at us, we rejoice and go to expand our talents. But we also receive a new portion of creativity and inspiration from God. So it is two-fold action, a collaboration between us and God. First we give a gift to life - by expressing who we are - and then we receive more from God. This is how we multiply our talents. It always starts by giving something from ourselves first. We need to smile at God first - meaning affirm the reality of who we are - and then God will smile back at us and inspire us to Be More. That's how we co-create ourselves.
By expressing ourselves, we also create the world around us. We add more beauty, more love, more harmony, more peace... And so we serve as co-creators with God. The perfect physical world is a consequence of our Being who we are, it is a consequence of our consciousness. Therefore Golden Age starts first in the minds of individuals. It starts in our mind, through our will to Be.
9. How do we have dominion over Earth?
We were created to "multiply and have dominion over Earth". Multiply doesn't mean to procreate but to multiply our talents. And we do that by Being i.e. by expressing who we are, and maintaining a loving relationship with God who mirrors who we are so we are motivated to Be More.
At our core we are a spiritual flame, a God flame, a unique aspect of God's Being. In order to express ourselves in the planes of matter, we have four vehicles: ideas, thoughts, emotions and physical body.
Everything starts with identification: Who am I? I AM an offspring of God. I AM a spiritual being and my origin is God.
Then come thoughts: What does it mean that I am God? It means I can create anything I imagine and have a life that I want for myself.
Then come emotions: How do I feel about that? I feel great! I love life!
And then physical action: I am writing this article.
Let's take a look at the second part of God's commandment: "have dominion over Earth". Earth represents the four layers of the material realm and the corresponding four layers of our lower being, our material self. It represents our ideas, thoughts, emotions and actions.
Dominion over Earth means that our ideas, thoughts, emotions and actions express the reality of who we are. That they reflect our true being. It means that we embody our true being in all four quadrants of the material realm.
In Eastern traditions they talk about the elements of fire, air, water and earth. Those correspond to the realms of
ideas (fire – our being at its core is spiritual fire),
thoughts (air – thoughts fly through the air like clouds),
emotions (water – emotions are like water: a peaceful lake or a raging sea),
physical body (earth – our physical body is made of the elements of "earth", i.e. from biological material)
Our goal is to align those four realms with our true being. So that who we are in matter reflects who we are in Spirit. So that we achieve "as Above so below". And that is self-realization. Realization of ourselves as God.
How do we start the alignment? We start from the highest realm – the realm of ideas, i.e. the identity realm. Because right identification – I AM – is the key to everything else. If we don't acknowledge who we are, our thoughts and emotions will be confused. When we acknowledge who we are, we can start pondering on what it really means, and then we can start changing our feelings from those of lack and frustration to those of abundance and joy.
If we understand the purpose of the universe and the purpose of our lives, we can relax in knowing that all is well. In the sense that we have the power to change our lives. We are not victims of outer circumstances. We don't have to be tossed and turned by the events in our life, but can find an anchor within, a point of balance, a point of peace. Where we know that we are more than any of those events, and that we ultimately have the power to set our lives on the right course. We can create the life we long for. And not just through positive affirmations, but through understanding the deeper reality of who we are.
Affirmation "I AM a spiritual being and my source is God" is the truth of who you are. It is the ultimate truth. And if you start accepting it, or rather, if you stop resisting it, you will see changes in your life. You don't need anything else than that. No other affirmation but that.
But before you can fully accept it and let it work in your life, you need to clear the blocks and resistances you have towards it. Wrong images about God and yourself.
Remember, life is a relationship between you and God. Your wrong ideas about yourself affect your ideas about God. When you say "I am worthless", you are in fact saying that God would create something worthless. When you say "nothing can help me, not even God", you are saying that there is something more powerful than God – because obviously he cannot help you. When you say "I cannot be the Christ", you are saying that you are not a child of God, you are denying who you are.
Whenever you put yourself in a box, you put God in a box too. To Be who you are means to dismantle all boxes – around yourself and God.
This always goes together, because you are God, and God is you.
___________________
1 Therefore we need guidance of teachers who are higher in consciousness than we are, and who walked the path of God-realization before us. Those teachers can be outer or inner. Jesus was one such teacher - an outer teacher. And after his ascension to heaven, he left us the Comforter, the faculty through which we can know God, i.e. feel the presence of God in our heart. It is a still small voice within that whispers the truth of who we are.
This Comforter, also known as the Holy Ghost or our Christ Self - is the inner teacher, the Spirit of Truth, the key of knowledge of God. And it is always accessible to us - if we are sincere about it - which means that nobody can take away our ability to know and experience God directly.
In fact, this faculty to know God always existed in human beings - because of our very nature as spiritual beings. However, before Jesus it was practically impossible to access it because the level of collective consciousness was very low. Jesus showed us that it is possible to be the Christ - a fully willing son of God - in embodiment. His example shines like a light and gives hope and guidance to all willing sons and daughters of God, ever since.
2 Basic principles of the Montessori method of education can be found here.
