Superior Index Go to the next: Chapter 32
Print Files: A4 Size.
Beloved Seekers after Wisdom's Flame:
Consciousness, when functioning properly, is a glowing orb of reality, joy, and full illumination. The individual reaching-out from the seemingly separated center of being to contact the cosmic center of life and thence the periphery of all reality is accomplished as easily as the miracle of the radiant, expanding mind of God penetrates the universe with light.
Inherent within man is the power to expand consciousness beyond the sphere of the personal self into the dominant domain of reality. This reality is shared by the myriad manifestations that inhabit cosmos; but because of the marvelous quality of "locked-in individuality," there is never any oppressive erosion of the permanent nature of man. There are only the gentle molding factors as the hand of Universal Intelligence, Power, and Love commences the process of tutoring the evolving soul personality.
Recognizing then, as beloved Kuthumi has said, how easy it is for individuals to misqualify energy and conversely how wonderful it is to begin the process of requalification, the individual self can look forward to experiencing newness of life and a sense of fulfillment that he has not known before.
Soon he will bypass the false structurings that he has created and that have been created for him by the dark overlords and their dark stars of compounded misqualification. Soon he will realize, with the joyous gurgle of a newborn babe, that the universe is a home of light and hope where the temporal manifestations of intelligence, consciousness, and identity can be welded to the Eternal even as the Eternal permeates the substance of mortality with its essential reality. Here at last mankind can come to know the permanent gift of bliss which it was the Father's joy to convey to the individual at the birth of his identity.
The Ocean could have chosen to remain the Ocean; but, by separating the tiny luminous drop from the Whole and holding it up to the glorious rays of the sun of illumination, a new ocean was begun. And so the individual consciousness was given dominion over his own world. And so man, made in the image of his Creator,1 also became a creator.
The first stirrings of reality outside of the lost Edenic state moved in the darkness, in the void of not-knowing; these stirrings of purpose were soon translated into outer action, but the fabrications of social contact unfortunately dedicated themselves to egoistic expression and a sense of struggle.
Man's rise seemed to be proportionate to his dominion, not over self, but over others and over his environment. The overcoming of environment was valid. The wreaking of destruction upon others was not. Therefore, the tribunal of justice known as the Karmic Board came into being in order to record and govern the interaction of man's humanity or inhumanity to man.
The sense of struggle mounted. Involvement in the ego became a snarl of inverted spirals, structuring within the consciousness of mankind a kaleidoscopic reverie so complex as to make the consciousness to recoil. The simple forms of grace were forgotten in the astral melodrama. Man seemed to live without, but actually he lived within the snares of his own creation; now he was infecting others with his own dilemma, and the power of contagion banished him from the heavenly state.
The ego is the seat of all man's problems. What are known as inferiority or superiority complexes revolve entirely around the pride and frustration of the ego. But although people know these things they continue to allow themselves to be victimized by the internal obstructions which they have created.
The only way out is through the door of reality. This is the escape hatch which has been provided so that the body of destructivity created by man's own negativity can be transmuted and overcome. As long as men remain involved in the ego, no matter what religious study they undertake, no matter what devotion they temporarily manifest, no matter how many good works they do, no matter what level of striving they attain, they will never be free from the illusion of the self that pursues them as a wanton ghost of struggling identity.
Only when they escape through the door (I AM the door2) into the understanding that the eternal being of God is the "doer," into the realization that God can act in them to remove hampering influences, to transmute their darkness, and to translate their consciousness from darkness into light, will they begin to know the freedom of the Self to achieve without limit.
We could set up guidelines which would help you to recognize when the ego is in command, but I think that a little honest gazing into the mirror of self and a study of the reactions of the self to the doings of others will quickly show, if one's appraisal be honest, whether or not the ego is acting.
Let all see and know for all eternity that the not-self, the shadowed-self, the named-self, the personality-self, is and always has been the snare of the ego, and that the man or woman who lives in that consciousness must die in it. There is no possibility for flesh and blood to inherit eternal life.3 Men seek eternal life because it is their true nature, the nature of God and of the divine image. Eternal life is formed independently of the vehicle of self through the process of translation, that man should no longer see death but be translated into that life which is the divine nature.
The statement that man should die daily4 to the finite, egoistic self must be followed by another - that he should live daily to the progressive glory of his eternal Self and the apprehending of all the reality which that Self can and does bring. This is the Sun we face that casts no shadow. Oh, we can and we will bring forth such an abundant wealth of spiritual information regarding the true nature of man as to almost cremate man's present consciousness! Yet we must delay long enough in this bringing forth until man has had ample opportunity to understand how necessary it is that he shed the ego.
This concept is far more than an index of words. It is a flow of the vital seed-idea into the consciousness of man whereby the consciousness itself is transformed into its natural glowing Presence. This is the Presence of God which identifies the individual, through his sense of expanding reality, with the universal consciousness of God yet never takes from him one erg of his energy or of his true selfhood.
The Father created the Son to be the beloved inheritor of all things that were made. And in reality the Son of God, or the light of God that never fails, was the means by which the Eternal Progenitor performed the creative act. "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."5
The ego that is always being hurt, that is oversensitive, full of self-pity and a sense of struggle, the ego that seeks in poring over the rubble of past lives to find some element of worth should understand that man's worth is in the Eternal Now. He should understand that the Eternal Now is in the Eternal and that the grace that man must have that is sufficient for every day was implanted within the soul with the inpouring breath of divine energy that first gave him consciousness.
In the name of Holy Wisdom I, Meru, urge upon everyone the willful relinquishing of the snakeskin of identity that has crawled upon its belly while pursuing the vanities of the intellect. Replace this by the dominant sunburst of the living, vital mind of God and that reality which God is and which you are because he is.
I AM his servant and your elder brother,
[The preceding text is taken from the book version, Understanding Yourself.]