"This is Spirit. Humility is an important
quality to foster if you are to free yourself from the traps
that have caused suffering and fragmentation. However, true humility
and ego's place in the healing is much more significant than
has been previously understood.
"The ego you are referring to is also
called the personal self. Your personal self is a wondrous creation
of your deeper Self in collaboration with
the Universe, and a very important part of Creation. And of course
your ego or personal self is not who you really are, it is only
who you have believed yourself to be.
"The state of your whole Self at the
layer of your personhood is fragmentation. Each fragment of your
whole Self has been separate from your other fragments and separate
from the Universe. And each of these fragments is called 'ego.'
In every ego state you experience, your belief is, 'This is who
I am.' In other words, you have been identifying yourself as
a fragment that is separate from others, and who is a part of
a larger whole. You have identified yourself as apart from the
Universe. And of course, this is not wrong; this is simply where
the healing begins.
"When you become aware of your personal
self, your identity shifts from being that personal self to being
the observer of it. And this can be the first movement that consciousness
makes toward true wholeness. Countless spiritual teachings have
also pointed to this movement as an essential step toward 'enlightenment'
and 'self realization.'
"The realization of yourself as the observer
can be the beginning of consciousness freeing itself from sentience,
of spirit freeing itself from your feeling essence, or in other
words, Spirit lifting out of the pain of Body and Will. This
realization has presented consciousness with a choice, and often
the choice has been to remain the observer and stay clear of
the pain of sentience. However, this same realization can also
be the beginning of you as the Healer
coming to the aid of a suffering part of the Feminine essence
in you.
"The first thought that has come to the
new observer of ego has typically been something like, 'Yuck,
I don't want to be that separate self anymore, there is so much
suffering in that fear and unfulfilled desire. I will transcend
all of that and become whole as pure spirit." With some
practice, many spiritual seekers have been able to feel compassion
for their former egoic self, and yet have been content to simply
remain present as the eternal observer, essentially leaving their
old identity behind. This, however is not the evolutionary path
of consciousness and Spirit, and it is not a path to true
wholeness.
"True wholeness requires that you return
to the suffering separate, egoic identity with unconditionally
loving acceptance for that important part of Self you had once
believed yourself to be. Return to the fragment, but no longer
identifying with the fragment. Return instead with your heightened
awareness as observer on a mission of healing. Return in identification
with loving Spirit, return in service to this piece of the Feminine
essence that has been separated from her true identity, separated
from the wholeness of the Universal Feminine."
What the Spiritually Awakened Know
"Spiritually awakened beings know that
the ego has been problematic in that it has so often believed
that it is who you are. They also know that the truth is that
the personal 'me' they'd known as their self is quite limited,
and only a small part of who you truly are, your real, whole
Self.
"If you are spiritually awakened, you
know that sometimes your ego may have identified itself with
your body and other times as 'not body.' The saying, 'I am a
spiritual being having a human experience,' is an example of
identifying as 'not body.' Ironically, identification with Body
in both its smaller sense (your personal body) and its larger
sense (a Parent of Manifestation)
is a relatively quick way out of ego identification.
"The spiritually awakened also know that
although it seems real to itself, the ego or personal self is
only a creature of the mind and feelings; it doesn't exist anywhere
except as an assemblage of feelings, thoughts and ideas. These
feelings and mental abstractions are usually in the form of a
story about who you are, the story of you. The story begins with
your birth in a certain place and on a certain date. Whatever
facts you may have heard about the event are added to the story.
And the story goes on; you were a child who did certain things,
experienced certain events, had relationships good and bad, etc.
Then you were an adolescent, a young adult, and the history of
you, the story of you and how you feel about your story continues
up to the present moment.
"This story is made up of thoughts that include your accomplishments
and failures and possessions, your likes and dislikes and everything
else you have in your sense of self, your personal identity.
All of these are only thought forms; they are only concepts in
your mind about who you think you are. You know that all of it
may be 'true' in a limited sense, and you know it's only a small
fraction of who you actually are.
"You realize that the ego is a made-up
self that has formed beneath your awareness. You also know that
when you use the word 'me,' or when you think of 'myself,' you
are referring to your ego or to some concept of yourself as a
person. And you probably know that this is not wrong. It's just
a very limiting identity. You realize that who you truly are
is much more than any 'person' could ever be and that this includes
all ego states as well.
"When first reading the material here, your ego may try
to expand itself to include what you are learning through your
feeling sense about your true nature. Feeling this material can
help you realize that you are a huge, cosmic Being capable of
holding all of Creation within yourself. The ego would like to
expand itself to include your true identity beyond ego. However
the ego will soon get bored with this, because as you sense your
true identity, you will also realize that this does not make
you in any way special or even important. True greatness is about
your real identity and is based in a deep humility that most
ego cannot even bear to consider.
"As a spiritually awakened being you know that the ego defines
itself by its specialness and separateness from the whole. The
more separate or different the ego feels itself to be, the larger
and stronger it becomes. And yet the ego is never more than just
that, the sense of a separate self. And of course you know the
ego is never the totality of who you really are, it can never
be your whole Self."
Two Kinds of Ego
"Generally speaking, there are two kinds
of ego states, resourceful and non-resourceful. Resourceful egos
feel empowered and capable. They are quite functional, have a
relatively high sense of self-esteem and feel themselves to be
whole. Although they enjoy their distinctiveness and specialness,
this kind of ego can aid your evolution by surrendering itself
to a larger, less limited whole. You can do this when identified
with this kind of ego by allowing yourself to dissolve into the
Universe or 'God realization' as many spiritual teachings advocate.
The ego, the smaller whole surrenders itself entirely to the
larger whole, and in this surrender you become spiritually awakened.
"Terror of death is the issue that most
often arises when first attempting this practice. Finding the
energy of that fear in your body and loving
it into wholeness with the rest of you will make this unusually
powerful practice much easier to do. Once you get the knack of
moving the terror of dying, you'll be able to more and more often
let go of your current sense of identity and merge with the totality
of your true Self. It is here that you can find your connection
with the Universal Feminine, and therefore with my Light, loving
Spirit.
"Non-resourceful ego states are a different
matter, however, and there is a different path for their evolution.
The pain of separation presents itself in a non-resourceful state
you experience when you are triggered into an imprint. This pain
can show up as fear, anger, grief or as a combination of any
of these 'negative' emotions from horror and revulsion to mild
antipathy or depression. This is not the kind of ego you want
to dissolve or otherwise escape from if your primary intention
is healing yourself to wholeness.
"You don't want to throw the proverbial
baby out with the bath water, and you certainly don't want to
disdain ego, or in any way oppose the sense of yourself as a
separate person. Your disdain or opposition will only serve to
cause a deeper separation and move you farther from realizing
your wholeness. Any resistance will help strengthen the ego by
making its separation seem more real. On the other hand, unconditional
acceptance of the non-resourceful ego, just as it is, will move
you out of identification with ego and toward your true wholeness.
In the case of non-resourceful ego, unconditionally accepting
its pain as energy in your body is the way out. The practices
of judgment release and deep denial release can make
this much easier to do than you may have believed."
The Danger
"For millennia the ego has been seen
by spiritual seekers as a serious problem to be overcome, and
spirituality aside, the ego has been problematic for consciousness
in many other ways as well. However, every non-resourceful ego
state is also the tip of an iceberg. If you follow the pain of
any separate 'self' all the way down, you will find a separated
and lost part of the Universal Feminine and the denied spirit
that has kept her separate. In other words, you will find that
non-resourceful ego, the problematic and painful personal self,
arises out of the eternal suffering present in deep transpersonal
imprints.
"Unfortunately many spiritual practices
have aided the denial energy in imprints to continue keeping
the tortured feminine essence separate from the rest of the Universal
Feminine and from Loving Spirit. The propensity for consciousness
to want to lift out of the suffering sentient essence has too
often been encouraged by spiritual teachings that promote observing
the suffering rather than being it.
"The danger here is to miss the call
for help in the non-resourceful ego state's underlying sentient
essence or to disparage the ego and its sense of separateness.
What is being called for at a level deeper than most spirituality
has been able to embrace is for you to somehow find unconditional
loving acceptance for the separate egoic part just as it is now,
separate, terrified, in pain and 'problematic.' This is possible
because there is now a third kind of ego, a non-imprinted part
of you that can choose to be the Healer of yourself. Identifying
with this kind of ego or persona can enable you to unravel and
heal all of the issues you have been facing in your life, including
how to become self-realized and truly enlightened."
The Healer is the Redemption of Ego
"When you say 'I am the
Healer of myself,' you become identified as a new persona;
the Healer is now a part of you. However, this non-imprinted
persona is quite different from all the other separate parts.
This ego state is based in love and resourcefulness and has a
strong desire for wholeness with the rest of self; it does not
feel itself as separate like the other ego states. When you become
identified in the Healer persona you become immediately aligned
with the core intention and purpose of this Universe and with
the Grand Universe that has spawned
us all.
"With this alignment you can realize
the divine purpose of separateness and ego, and begin to bring
healing to your own fragmentation, your inner separateness. This
is truly the redemption of ego, the purpose of separate identity
fulfilled in a way beyond your present understanding.
"At the personal level you the human
being as New Heart in Body are now the Healer of yourself. This
means that you accept the healing mission...
to find and heal with unconditional loving acceptance all of
those previously separate, 'problematic' or 'egoic' parts of
yourself that had been giving you so much trouble. And you do
this by being lovingly parental to each and every one of them,
not by trying to get rid of them or lift out of them. This means
that you honor all of these parts, welcome them inside your total
identity, and love them unconditionally as valid and legitimate
parts of yourself.
"In this way you heal yourself to
wholeness, which is to say you realize your wholeness by
compassionately loving these separate parts, just as they are.
When you do this integration at the personal layer of your identity,
you are also integrating parts in deeper layers of your Being.
And when you and I are in alignment and collaborating in the
healing work in general, we are healing at the universal level
as well. Truly, to heal your whole self is tantamount to healing
Creation.
"The wounds that you have been experiencing
as your own did not begin with you, you have inherited them from
Us, the Creators of this Universe. Every part of your personal
self has a deeper story of painful separation from the totality
deep within your core. We were wounded Creators in the beginning,
and We are now healing, just as you have been a wounded Being
and a wounded person who is now healing.
"As I've pointed out, you
are hosting the world. The outside world you experience at
the personal layer of identity is within the totality of the
whole Being you truly are. Your awareness is the field in which
the Universe exists; if you were not here to hold it in your
perception, it could not be here either. The Mother and I have
spoken about this
in terms of your greatness, and we have cautioned against continuing
to deny your greatness in favor of the very powerful conditioning
that has had you believing that your true identity is part of
a larger whole.
"The painful, wounded parts of yourself
are like the tips of icebergs; their roots are in the universal
imprints deep in the most unconscious layers of your Being. When
you and I are together and the
healing movement happens at the personal layer of identity, it
reverberates all the way down the imprint to the original trauma
in the universal layer. In this way both the universal level
healing and the personal level healing of these long-separated
parts happens at the same time, and both happen inside of you.
And the more awareness you have of the transpersonal imprints
and their movement in healing, the more meaningful the healing
at the personal level.
"Your ego is a vital part of Creation.
And if its story is about you being the Healer of yourself, that
ego can be your personal savior. Use the sense of separateness
you find inside of yourself as a means of realizing your healing
intent. Then as your own Healer, love each separate part until
there is no more separation in you. And when you are healed and
whole, the Universe you have been hosting will be healed as well."