Awakening is a Threat
Awakenings are always heart-breaking. The reason for this is that the ego, as it begins to ground itself, forms something like a shell, a protective avatar that is designed to protect you in the world. The ego and all its attachments and systems are attached to the heart space, like skin is attached to the body – it keeps it together, protecting it, and nourishing it. The ego is programmed to do this in many ways – it makes sure it belongs in society or groups within society, follows all the rules, is considered good, valuable, and productive etc. This does work for a while – until it doesn’t. Awakening is not something that we choose. It is something that happens to us. As a result, it can be a shock to the egoic system. It doesn’t like it at all, because something is urging it to come out of its protective shell. And the ego would be exactly right, because awakenings are a natural process of expansion, the expansion and growth of consciousness. The world, meanwhile, doesn’t make it any easier. The world encourages us to stay in our egos, because they attachments we create through ego want us to stay where we are. They too don’t want to lose what we feed them. There is not a single society in history that welcomes consciousness expansion. Socrates was sentenced to death for it. Jesus was hung on the cross for it. Pythagoras’ work was destroyed. Plato’s school was burned to the ground, killing many of his students. The struggle to be allowed to grow out of old structures is real, and it is what has driven all of what we call the history of human kind, in its attempt to control, dominate and prevent the awakening of human consciousness.
Resistance and Surrender
It is always up to the individual, to either allow the soul to expand, or to remain within the confines of ego. But if the individual resists, they will find themselves in a life of pain and difficulty. They will never find true happiness, because the soul cannot possibly be happy and joyful in a limited egoic structure that doesn’t it allow proper expression and expansion. This is why many people, when they experience awakening symptoms will revert to many addictions and distractions to rid themselves of the urge to leave behind what has become comfortable to them and comfortable to those around them. They will use the mind to make excuses, to keep it going, to keep the lie alive – anything to avoid the scary prospect of expanding in a direction they don’t feel they can expand to. The more limited the ego, the more restrictive and co-dependent, the more difficult it will be for them to expand out of it. However, the results, if they manage to finally escape, will be enormous joy, a sense of freedom and love that is beyond comprehension.
When the time comes, and the consciousness is willing to let go of the ego, awakening is a natural process of the soul to shed that ego-skin once again, recognizing that the skin is not who “I am”, and never was. This is where the heart-break is experienced, the thing the ego was resisting before. The heart-break comes because this period usually means that the ego’s relationship to the world begins to shatter, and fall apart. The universe, at first, is very kind during this process and will always give you an opportunity to easily and willingly lose the attachments to the ego-skin, but most of us don’t hear our soul’s calls, and we dismiss them, simply because we don’t want to let go. We want to hold on to the belief systems, the relationships, the agendas, and even the familiar worries and preoccupations. This is what is often referred to as attachment. Letting go of attachment, is a letting go of the ego that no longer truly feels comfortable – it actually begins to feel foreign. When the consciousness sees this ego as foreign, it naturally and more easily lets it go. It stops resisting and surrenders to the process.
The Problem of Other People
Many will try to allow the expansion of their soul, but hold onto the old attachments at the same time. This is also called trying to have your cake and eat it too. This too brings on much pain, because the old ego’s ways are no longer able to fit into an expanding universe that is beginning to express itself in wider, different ways. This pain can easily turn into anger and frustration that others are not willing to follow you on your journey, or even anger at yourself for not being willing to keep your old ways for the sake of those others. If you observe yourself wondering when others will catch up or wake up, you can be sure that you are holding onto what was once your own state of sleep. The egos – and yes, we formulate many in any one lifetime – are by nature an unawakened state, and we generally, once letting go of the ego and its structures, soon find another to take its place. This is why to be awakened is very challenging, because it is only possible if we are able to completely remain unattached to any egoic structures of any kind – including people around us. The good news is that it is often the case, that those people will eventually rise with us. However, they will not do so if we force them with expectations or anger. It is always best to let them just be in your presence, and to allow the process to flow through you and into them. That is where the true magic happens, because when you begin to align more with your soul, you are giving permission to others to do the same. All of us are on different stages of our own special journey. There is no right way or wrong way here. We are all headed towards the same destination, which is to completely embody the soul, without attachment to an egoic structure. Jesus and Socrates were purported to be individuals who were able to embody their pure light soul energy while on earth. Both men knew that they were eternal souls, and were only hear to serve others in their process of growth and expansion. Neither was interested in fame, followers, fortune, or popularity.
Experiencing the Pain of Contrast
The rest of us, who are not yet egoless manifestations of soul, are in the process of working with our egoic structure and the natural flow of our soul. That means, we must confront both the shadow and the light of our existence. The contrast of shadow (ego) and light (soul) is a powerful experience that the universe uses to assist you in the process of letting go of the old ego skin. It can kind of be like using your own soul against (actually for) you! Your soul is light after all, and what shows the shadows better the light of your own soul? For example, perhaps you have ideas about what success looks like, and how you have to get it. Your ego programming had you running around, reading books, taking seminars, trying to find a way to get your business or project started, to get the money and the notoriety and respect. You spend a lot of time networking, and making contacts in the hopes of getting the word out. All of this stuff is great, but this is not how the soul operates. Yes, the world likes loud, splashy, and catchy, but the soul does not. Your soul knows that every opportunity that has come your way, has come your way like magic, like a gift from the universe, regardless of what the ego does or doesn’t do. So, here is how the universe might provide contrast to you. Imagine you have allowed your consciousness to follow your soul’s calling – life seems more positive, more beautiful, more magical. However, the next day you wake up, and feel some kind of negative emotion. You lost that “lovin’ feeling” somehow. This is an indication that you haven’t quite let go of something, that you are still holding onto something attached to the ego. Your soul will help you get to the bottom of it, if you work with it and ask – pay attention to your dreams especially. Many dreams provide contrast by putting yourself into situations and mindsets that you had when you were younger. These mindsets actually still hold onto you, beneath your consciousness, within the subconsciousness. Your soul is using your newly found bright light to reveal this situation to you. It can be painful to go “back to the past” like that. But this is a gift, and it is also a realization that you never left it in the past at all, and that it has been with you all along. Once you see the contrast, you will see the problem, and that will enable you to clear it. It is really that simple. The contrast experiences happen very frequently, and it is very common to think that you have back-tracked or have lost your way. This is far from the case. Knowing the truth of who you are involves knowing the whole truth, comfortable or not!
All Work, No Play Makes Ego a Dull Boy
During the awakening process, when we begin to work as soul instead of ego, and allow the ego’s expectations and habits to go by the wayside, we experience our work as something joyful. Life, when we work on that level, is very much like when we were children, just daydreaming while looking at the stars, or playing with stuffed animals, creating all sorts of adventures, or playing house like the adults do. Joy is the nature of your soul, joy in all aspects. The ego however, regards joy as being a limited commodity that is only present under certain conditions. The ego says: “I will be happy when I get this deal.” “I will be happy when I get famous or rich.” “I will be happy when my business takes off.” “In the meantime, I don’t have time to be happy.” “Only rich people are happy. I am poor.” To the ego, everything takes time and hard work. And that makes sense, because the material plane of existence is slow and does run on linear time. The material plane is also designed to keep you experiencing yourself as a being that doesn’t have enough resources, skills, or knowledge to be successful. It has gotten so bad that there are sections of the population who are creating timelines that tell people that they are victims of other people, or are somehow prevented from having what they want in life because of certain circumstances that are out of their control. These are all lies to keep most of humanity under control, unawakened, and resentful of those who attempt to awaken them.
Fun with Frequencies
The soul – our true nature – doesn’t work in the material realm – It works on what could be called the invisible realm. Some people call it the fifth dimension and upwards, but dimensions are just more egoic constructs so that egos can feel good about being higher up the totem pole than other egos. The truth is, dimensions or not, we are all energetic beings of all sorts frequencies, from low (material realm) to high (energy faster than light). When our consciousness is focused on the lower frequency realm, things happen slowly and seem hard – it’s always a tough slog, this earth. Mind tells soul it is limited because of the limited body and timelines. When our consciousness, however, is focused on the higher frequency realms, our thoughts don’t take a long time to implement. They happen at a rapid pace. This is why raising your frequency is important – it helps you shed the ego skin quicker, because you can change your entire world with a simple shift in thought programming. In the denser frequencies this is not as easy and usually ends up in frustration and failure.
So, as we rise in frequency, we become more aligned with our soul essence. This does not mean, however, that we leave our bodies behind. No. Our bodies are our home on this planet earth. It does mean, that we begin to experience our body in a different way, as we start to intuitively understand its purpose in relation to soul expansion. Ego, after all is not your body. You don’t want to leave your body. Your soul, as it expands, naturally heals your body in miraculous ways. It will make you feel and look younger, heal old stubborn wounds, aches and pains. When you expand your soul, and let go off the false limitations and doubts of the ego, that you once held, your soul can work absolute magic in your world, without you having to anything other than change your thoughts. This is what is meant by creation, and creativity. The more you consciously connect to your soul, the more you realize who you are unconditionally, and what you want. At that point, you know that you choose the thoughts that you want to work for you in the world.
About that Manifestation Thing
The idea that you can create your world through thoughts is often called manifestation. I don’t talk much about manifestation, even to myself, because you don’t need to talk about it. The soul really isn’t interested in manifestation, because manifestation to the soul is like child’s play or breathing. The soul is by nature a manifester. In fact, the soul already knows it has whatever it already desires – all that’s left for it is to play! Isn’t it an absurd idea to tell a child who likes to play, to learn how to play with proper technique? The ego, on the other hand, is the one that wants to gobble up as much information as it can on manifestation techniques. It has lost its sense of play, and so it needs to learn how to do it. That is the nature of manifestation and the way it is sold as spiritual guidance. It is really just ego-guidance. So that’s about all I have to say on that topic.
Embodying Your Soul
As I mentioned above, the purpose of this earth-school is to learn how to master the energies here. Our mastery is derived from our joy, the joy of expanding and creating and witnessing the creations of others. As our soul expands in that manner, we begin to see that the soul of whole shines through all things, the dark or the light. That is why neo-Platonists talk about emanation as being a function of the One Light, the highest consciousness, or Source/God. We, as individuals are just fragments of that light, and each one of us can shine into any object we place or focus upon. This is why it is so important to shine our light wherever we can, bring our joy no matter who laughs or grows angry. Each one of us is asked to dare to be ourselves unconditionally, with unconditional love, no matter rich or poor, high or low. As souls, as light we are all made of equal substance. Don’t let the world’s tricks make you forget who you truly are.
THE ONE THING YOU MUST DO
Rumi, The Soul of Rumi : A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It’s as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It’s a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It’s like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, “But look, I’m using the dagger. It’s not lying idle.” Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, “But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest.” But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don’t, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You’ll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.”
Soul in the machine 