LOVE springs from SPIRIT. FEAR springs from EGO.

Forgiveness and compassion are the antidotes when

SPIRIT is applied to EGO/Shadow/Inner Child, 

and LOVE is applied to FEAR.

 

This assumes one has some understanding of the six key players in the matrix.

 

1. LOVE is acceptance and holding dear – to value without condition. LOVE is created and/or flows from SPIRIT and therefore is of TRUTH. LOVE is abundant without limitations..

2. SPIRIT is the unlimited source of LOVE. Sometimes called Divine, Intention, Truth, et al.                   

3. FEAR flows from EGO not getting what it wants, when it wants it, etc. It comes in a myriad of versions based on absence of LOVE including judgment, projection, and conditional responses, to name but a few. These versions are equated to Feeling, Thinking, Saying, and Doing Fearfully and without Love. Darkness is equated with FEAR while Light is equated with LOVE/TRUTH. FEAR resides in UNTRUTH and is limited in quantity although it may appear to be unlimited.   ​​

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 4.   EGO, a human construct, is the source of FEAR'S iterations/limitations and has                   no basis in TRUTH. Only the SPIRIT is lovingly unlimited in all ways.                                                

 5.   FORGIVENESS expresses LOVE in and to the face of FEAR.                                                                  

 6.   COMPASSION is the gentle revealing of TRUTH to UNTRUTH.

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- Self Awareness leads to Self Realization -

 

Seeking self awareness is the first essential step along the path to full self realization. We can see this as the essential Life 101 course on how to be a fully aware person set on the path to integrated realization of one's self and place in the world. There are numerous resources which facilitate the Self Awareness Process including Paul Ferrini's LightfortheSoul.com curriculum, 12 Step recovery groups, Ralph Marston's Daily Motivator, and others of varying degrees of effectivity. 

 

Let us look at the likely pathway one might discover, starting with the first faint foul scent of awareness that one's life is not unfolding in a satisfying or successful way. A general awareness that happiness always seems to be around the corner, but never shows up for us in real ways divorced from the usual distractions, diversions, and meaningless activities steeped in fear/denial - based seclusion, isolation and loneliness. This defining moment usually occurs in front of a mirror wondering "Something's wrong and it might be me". It is worth noting that very few, if any, people escape this defining moment of truth.

 

A state of satisfied being without dependence on external sources of engagement and activity is valued for its reliance on self aware feeling and thinking within the oeuvre of not needing or requiring outside influences to define ourselves to ourselves and/or others. This 'state of being' only appears after we seek and discover how our childhood experiences left us in varying degrees of denial, ignorance, and fear. To be sure, many had overall enjoyable childhoods, but no one escaped without suffering from numerous fearful experiences. Most of us found ourselves forced to adopt personas designed to help survive in the often cruel and ignorant world of adults who were acting and reacting in the same way as their parents, ad infinitum. Few of us were treated lovingly with unerring fairness and compassion.

 

But, blame must be set aside in favor of understanding that so few of us had parents who had sought and found a pathway to self awareness. We find ourselves seeking this path at this very moment. We are breaking the chain of misinformation, betrayal, abandonment, and often plain exhaustion from the rigors of making a living in order to support the home, spouse and children we have been expected to have. We have been misled by parents, family, teachers and other gatekeepers who knew less than we do of the insanity of raising children with no concept of true unconditional love as the bedrock for healthy and satisfying parent/child relationships resulting in well raised healthy adults.

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This self realized state of being is within reach for those who resolve to make it their guiding quest while living life openly and providing context for each and every learning step along the way. This is not for the faint of heart and requires continuing courage and commitment. Also, the goal is rarely achieved without fellow seekers to work with, creating mutual support and love for ourselves and each other. Those who are ahead on the path act as guides for those coming along behind. Everyone is on the path, both guides and newcomers. The idea of community is integral to a successful journey of exploration into one's very core and then out beyond the known world into the world of mystery and profound discoveries and enlightenments beyond our wildest dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- So, what does healthy loving of ourselves feel like? -

 

Since loving ourselves is the first essential skill we must acquire, let us gently ask ourselves "What does it feel like when I love myself without condition." This isn't an idle inquiry. It asks us to understand what "without condition" means? Conditions are exceptions or caveats to the expressed goal of loving oneself completely. These include a list of shortcomings we could call self - critiques, including guilt and shame along with character defects or even bad habits. Essentially, we must learn to take ourselves off the torture rack of self destructive judgements and acknowledge we are imperfect human beings with a perfect divine spark living within us. This spark can be known as the Core Self, the true, perfect and indestructible aspect of our soul being. 

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More will be discussed regarding the aspects of self denial, judgement and incrimination, including narcism and related ego driven blind spots and pitfalls awaiting the unsuspecting human who only now has realized "The problem may reside within me, rather than the outside world of causality"?

 

If so, we may see the conflict between the Core Self and the Ego/Shadow/Inner Child. Learning to forgive the latter with gentle compassionate feelings intended to stop the expected and corrosive self criticisms and hurtful emotional outbursts mimicking our parents, teachers, or caregivers is a major but essential tool of our recovery from the darkness into the light. While it is early in the process, it can be helpful to have some idea of what self love feels like. Consider the following:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Puppy In All of Us

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First, take several deep breaths while closing your eyes for a minute before looking upon the image above. With practice, this is all it takes to open your heart to the Core Self. Nothing involved or fancy, just pausing to open the heart and hear/feel the divine stirring within as outside thoughts cease, if, for just a few moments. Better if you can begin to add a minute or two each time until fifteen plus minutes go by without bringing our focus back into the outside world. But we rely on practice not perfection to gain meditative traction.

 

Imagine, you're this puppy, full of trust in you. Relying on you to take care of him/her. Now, transpose this trusting creature into the creature you are and have been, wishing to regain the innocence of yourself as a newborn babe in this world of Wonder. The feeling coming over you is the Truth of this encounter with your True Self*, the only one who can bring love to the suffering Inner Child.

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*True Self is the aware and realized Core Self.

 

This Inner Child has waited with enormous patience for the parent(s) to bestow their unconditional love on the one who has always hoped and dreamed it so. No wonder the Child grows restless and resentful as years go by and may even eventually sense the Truth; that the parents cannot or will not bring unconditional love since there is/was no model or guide for this essential gift passed along from their parents or teachers. One essence of love without conditions demands that the child be held without blame for being helpless and unable to meet the demands of the adult world they find themselves in. Mistakes are corrected lovingly rather than shaming and blaming with no end.

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Our puppy waits for love just as we did and do. Love and acceptance, no matter what. Most everyone including our puppy needs to be house trained, but lovingly so. After all, we and the puppy don't know any better about where to do what, and when. We should be lovingly informed with patience for our undeveloped senses and cognitive abilities. Our training includes being seen and perceived in a manner pleasing to all; the parent, teacher, caregiver, ourselves, and the puppy. Even if we don't have language skills yet, the information will be successfully delivered if done in a loving way rather a critical/fear driven manner - always and forever.

 

We might find it helpful to learn of the ways and means of tribal communities and their families to see how Western culture departs from loving non-judgmental relations between parents and their children. Rarely does the Third World infant leave the direct embrace of a parent until crawling and then walking are possible. This constant contact relieves the sub-conscious fear of abandonment felt by Western babies left in their cribs to wonder, without the ability to discern their actual level of safety and security.

 

We must remember that the human tape recorder is switched on before birth and doesn't switch back off until death (as far as we know for sure). Even if the infant is unable to yet have cogency, the tape is running and everything is stored away for future reference and reaction. At a minimum, the psyche comprehends the tenor and tone of everything the child feels, sees and hears; and all is quickly associated with Love or Fear - simply put, this is where consciousness rubber first meets the road, with Love and Fear becoming the two chief contact nodes of human experience.

 

When love is felt, seen or heard, the child rests easy in the bosom of divine expression. When fear is comprehended, the divine falls away to make room for the ego/shadow to absorb the blows of whatever version of fear is being expressed or occurring within the innocent nature of the child. However, this absorption triggers a visceral internal reaction and any number of fear iterations come to roost in the psyche/soul of the innocent child.

 

These seminal events begin to accumulate along with cogency and reasoned thinking and eventually the human personality buds and blossoms into a form vulnerable to external influences. These events trigger further internal emotional shaping, designed to cope with the world outside of self. The Persona* now appears to represent the amalgam of the Ego, Inner Child/ Shadow/Psyche in the affairs of living in this world. Usually, the Persona/Self sidles up to the Shadowy aspects since to pursue self awareness is not supported by the ignorant and unenlightened parents/caregivers/teachers/gate keepers within the child's circle of contact.

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*Persona - an individual's social facade or front. That of our Self we show to the world.

 

Ideally, the Persona meets the Core Self sooner than later and emerges as the True Self through intentional exploration looking for the Truth from which to reshape the Persona's aspects into alignment with Love - based Being in this world and beyond. This search embodies the pathway we are now embarked upon.

 

Finally, it is likely that the difference between the being " 'In' and 'Of' " of this world is rarely considered or adopted throughout one's life unless the "First faint foul scent of awareness that one's life is not unfolding in a satisfying or successful way" is detected and discovered to be toxic to our sense of self and well being. If we are to find our place in this world, it is likely we will concede that we are not of this world. Rather we, our souls, have arrived from somewhere else, completely Unknown and devoid of definition - the infinite Universe beyond the Known - and that concession to the Unknowable is acceptable and preferred to the limited expanse of the Known. 

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Herein lies the unbridled invitation from the divine to transform our perception and perspective from Known limitations into the realm of unimagined yet sacred sizing of all there is and is not within our abilities to comprehend. When we consider all we have discovered and made Known up to now is but a grain of sand on the beach of the Unknown, we can trade limited freedom in favor of freedom unlimited. This freedom allows us to seek and find the hidden gems available only to those who are in this world, but freely not of it. Essentially, this freedom takes us away from human conventions toward seeking and finding divine evidence and relationship with the Unknown, found and felt within our hearts to be our True Selves and eventually and essentially our Core Selves.

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A word on the Core Self and our Core Mission while here on Earth. Since we are divine creatures inhabiting human bodies, we are capable of far more than commonly believed to be possible, especially within our closely controlled religious and political communities which have shaped our cultures and communities around the globe. To be sure, we, as members of the world community, must adhere to supporting mutually agreed upon tenets and codes designed to protect us from each other and ensuring the pursuit of healthy, happy lives for all. We need to see everyone as equal holders of the sacred franchise granted to human beings. Mutual respect and abiding love for all of the Universe binds us together as responsible for each other without limiting the pursuit of life in its myriad of forms and choices. 

 

Our Core Mission, should we choose to accept it, is to be free of all dogmas and conventions favoring one class or group over another. This does not mean one rejects organized religion

out of hand, rather we support the growth of individual spirituality within or outside religious conventions. This shouldering of individual responsibilities strengthens ones' bond with the divine while relying less on the fulfilling of outside agendas unless they are proven to be of mutual benefit for everyone. While the usual attraction of organized religion is in belonging to belief based (known) communities, one needs to find similar communities founded on faith based groups favoring the unknowable. If the latter are not available, then an integration of the conditional known with the unconditional unknown is possible with careful discernment between the two while providing oneself with a community in the face of otherwise toxic isolation.

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Our Core Mission is easier to understand when focused on the specter of the Core Self. This appellation seeks to identify that which is inalienably divine, perfect, and without limits including space and timelessness. It may be regarded as the divine spark, connecting each being and inanimate thing with each and all others. In recent times we have learned of the macro and micro commonalities associated with movement of minute particles behaving in the same ways of celestial grandeur within whole universes to infinity. The questions: "How far out does it go" can be brought into congruence with "How far in does it go". Suffice to say, WE DO NOT KNOW - and that's OK.​

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- Summary of Selves -

Self - as we emerge into the world.

True Self - as we lovingly re-emerge into the world.

Core Self - as we are Love/Divine in this world and beyond.

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- Here’s how this looks when viewed slowly: -

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It is said “The TRUTH will set you FREE” and “To thy own self be true”.  So, it is the pursuit of Truth that provides the key to the lock of generational behavioral gridlock within global societies. Essentially, the key turns in the lock when this behavioral chain is reversed starting with the opening of the heart of the individual that opens the collective hearts of tribes, cultures, and finally global societies. This means we, as individual True Selves, opt to love our way through life rather than fearfully fight through it. This is seen through the lense of technology allowing everyone to have access to everyone else and learning to deal with, survive, and flourish in the wake of pandemic challenges, the elimination of war and all other denials of our mutual membership in the Family of Human Beings. These are ultimate and achievable goals found within the purview of LOVE healing FEAR with compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and all others.

 

One further precept is the recognition and acceptance of the phrase “To each his own” which says we allow and accept for others to differ from us and accept these differences without condition as long as they accept our codes of behavior in a similar "Live and let live" fashion – the way of civilized society.

 

This discussion is aimed at helping to see the futility of many old assumptions and the toxic nature of these long held beliefs in the face of our awakening society by virtue of technology. Now, for the first time, we have the opportunity to cross old worn out boundaries that define us as different, in favor of finding and revering the similarities which bind us as one with another, with species to species, and with this world and others clearly visible and invisible – leading us to a most profound answer to the key questions and their relatives:

 

How far out does it go? How far in does it go? If one offers even a non-linear answer to these two, then what’s the answer to “What is beyond that dimension or boundary?” The answer must be, with all due humility and wonder, I/WE DO NOT KNOW. Not really, not for sure, not even maybe for sure, we don’t know. 

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- Acceptance is the Key -

 

It’s important to quickly follow up this answer with the acceptance of “And that’s OK." It is OK not to really know how far out it goes into Space as we think we know it – even as we dream about what we might know about it. No, we just don’t know these answers. But then, in honor of the transformational nature of Forgiveness, we can bring compassion to ourselves and others with the acceptance of “It is OK that we really don’t know the answers to these questions”.  And, perhaps humility will allow “We are not capable of knowing and understanding the depth and width of what we call the Universe, God, Spirit, Divine or Higher Power, et al."

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- Two keys to the Lock, only One works -

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Here, we are faced with the difference between Faith and Belief. Faith is a state of acceptance of what is not known, along with an infinite number of variations of accepting the unknown, most especially the Divine. Acknowledging the Unknown is the first step to acquiring a usable conduit to the Divine living within each of us. The Known can always be detached from the Truth while the Unknown houses the Truth without conditions. The Known follows systematic inquiry, theory and empirical experiences in an effort to bring order to the chaos of the Universe.

 

This bringing of order suffers from the fact that human thinking/interaction is involved and therefore subject to a myriad of agendas and loyalties leading away from the purity of the Unknown and the Faith required to embrace it without conditions - rather to accept that while we experience a world full of expected actions and reactions, we really have no idea about what will happen before it happens. Belief enters the pitch and engages Faith in a tug of war designed to obscure the Truth with fear driven theories of systemic empirical and/or  theoretical guessing in the extreme.

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In an analogy comparing the two basic forms of fear where egoic fear revolves around not getting what/how/when it is wanted vs. fight or flight fear, where the bear is at the door and death or injury are imminent, we see that fight or flight moves toward the Known, i.e. the Believed; and Faith involves moving away from the Known towards Freedom of thought and movement. Faith helps us detach from being led by religious and/or political sources who need us far more than we need them. The object is to emerge from our safe space with a clear vision of ourselves and what we need to provide to sustain and inspire happiness, inspiration and growth within while nurturing others a few steps back along the pathway of enlightenment. We remain true to ourselves and flourish in the freedom of personal choice versus obedience to others with differing goals - usually masquerading as having the essential answers to all problems and vexations.

 

Belief is more centered in honoring and/or holding to some principle or idea rooted in the conditional nature of ego/fear driven thinking. To hold a Belief is to hold/express a 'Knowing' in the face of unequivocal 'Unknowing' for the sake of feeling more secure in the 'Known' world rather than Faith in the world of the 'Unknown'. The quest for this security can feel like relief from Fear, but in fact, leads away from the Truth towards a smoke screen of Fear driven denial, judgement and projection to which we, as humans, are highly susceptible. The result of this fakery is the exponential increase of Fear and suffering ad infinitum.

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- The Sequence of Events -

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We also need to remember the sequence of human awareness: We subconsciously feel first, then think, then say/express, and finally act or do something. Our first conscious impression follows the feeling and we are led by decades of conditioning to judge and decide by thinking to avoid feeling if it is unpleasantly rooted in pain and/or suffering. If, on the other hand, we are swept up in euphoria, we are tempted to want and work for more; not understanding that these feelings are not based on love without condition, rather they are fear based feelings masquerading as pleasure peaks, each appearing capable of being higher and more intense with each new attempt to go higher up the false mountain of joy.

 

Within the conditional and judgmental fear driven experiencing of life, we manifest innumerable forms of escape and diversion, thus avoiding the most accurate indicator of true human emotion, to Feel. So, our moment to moment practice needs to include a growing awareness of What Is, Is. And therein lies absence of fear based judgement in favor of innocent and rapt attention to all factors in and around each moment of awareness. This, without triggering fear in any form to overwhelm and obscure the Truth in the situation.

 

Given our life long conditioning to obscure and confuse ourselves in order to avoid feeling anything resembling Fear, it's no wonder that escape and diversion come to rule us without mercy or compassion. The key is to slow the thinking down long enough to feel what is emanating from within our heart or gut. The heart is home to love and the gut is home to fear. More often than not, we observe our positive/YES feelings coming from our heart and our negative/NO feelings coming from the lower stomach or gut and occasionally from the throat area. So, if we can stop thinking long enough to delineate, first, where the feeling is coming from; with practice, we can recognize and understand the source of our feeling, either LOVE or FEAR. This simple choice is buried in defensive reactions to every feeling, thought or action taken or observed. Our job as people responsible for our reactions and subsequent actions demands we begin to discern the same reactive sources in other humans besides ourselves. In fact, often it is easier to see the interactions relative to Love and Fear in others. However, we must avoid the trap of not seeing our own reactions before observing others since we really do not know what others are thinking. Many are tempted to observe, judge and project our own shortcomings onto others. See the section entitled- A few words on the dark twins of Judgment and Projection - a little further on in this discussion. Suffice to say we are standing at the nexus of Truth and Falsehood.

 

Our true emotional barometer is registered as a feeling. Consciously, we can easily be tricked into ignoring or denying the feeling and putting thinking first, bypassing the feeling in favor of fearful defensive thinking usually emanating from what can be called the "ego", "inner child", or perhaps the "shadow". This bypass sets us up for perceiving a feeling that may not be true. However, we are always subconsciously feeling the essential pure truth hiding somewhere close within the heart. The real trick is to see the cloudy subterfuge of conditional Fear based thinking, i.e. denial, judgment and projection, all seeking to obscure the essential pure truth of feeling and being. From our earliest days and months, we are learning the coping skills of survival. These include showing our feelings with pain/fear driven crying when left unattended for too long and not held closely to quell fear of abandonment lurking behind every shadow and strange noise in our room of infancy.

 

Babies cry from feeling rather than thinking, but the crying soon wears thin with Western world parents who often invoke a decree of silence rather than soothing love sounds, motions and caresses found elsewhere in Native cultures around the globe. We, as infants, instead begin to learn that certain behaviors are more easily delivered to and more readily received by our caregiver(s) in our first prepubescent blooms of Codependency*, prior to cognitive maturation. We figure out that quiet cooing and finishing our bottles of milk will evoke a higher and better response from those charged with providing what we are unable and helpless to acquire.

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*Codependency - The bargain of doing what the other wishes be done in return for receiving love and acceptance from the same other.

 

However, the bargain may be discarded if we perceive that we are in fact abandoned even for short periods of time. This feeling of abandonment is part of the fight/flight fear hardwired into our psyche. Thus begins the to and fro of our human drama dealing with (1) the hardwired fear and (2) the fear induced when we don't get what we want, when and how we want it. Back and forth between caresses and carnage, all while not knowing how to speak our minds, or even our hearts. Interestingly, we find most native third world cultures adhering to constant physical contact of the mother and occasionally the father with the infant until the child is able to ambulate for her/himself. Milk is delivered naturally while bottles only slow the availability, comprehensive quality and purity of supply.

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A little later in our development, having acquired some rudimentary cognitive abilities, betrayal comes calling to advise that we are not as highly valued as we were led to believe and that our caregivers may have more pressing agendas, causing their disconnect from love based behavior in favor of the easier, softer but faulty abandonment of themselves and their children. Thus, they embrace fear driven thoughts and actions which ultimately expose an abandonment of care, or at least the appearance of same, along with betrayal in favor of others. These expose us to the demanding world of adults trying to navigate without a compass of knowledge pointing to healthy child bearing/raising which results in trauma borne by the child left to his/her own limited devices for surviving in the world of adults. We/they just don't/didn't know any better.

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Getting back to the Sequence of Events: The thinking - first sequence of events becomes progressively habitual within this world of confusion and ignorance of the relationship between Truthful, loving, heartfelt, acceptance and Untruthful fear driven thinking and ignorance. This latter sequence is fostered by parents innocently and ignorantly filling their infants with fear of feeling while being observed not dealing with feelings in favor of no reaction or one of subterfuge and/or denial.

 

Example: "What's wrong?" "There's nothing wrong! I feel fine and you should too!"

 

Thus, the child's ego is born and begins to take control of a seemingly out of control environment where abandonment and betrayal begin to play their tricks obscuring Truth in the name of mistaken order of priorities. Namely, parents find themselves wrapped up in their own fear driven thinking and behaviors which are and were accrued from their parents, ad infinitum. These behaviors and choices quickly resolve in favor of the frazzled parents who haven't a clue about parenting other than what dysfunctional upbringings they bring to their own attempt to bear the load of raising children into fully capable and self actualized adults - a stretch by any imagination. 

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- BREAK TIME -

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Deep breathing with eyes closed to restore the Chi and calm the nerves.

 This exploration and inquiry is intensive work honored by lovingly caring for our needs -

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