Pain: The Power to Shift Now

Yesterday pain got the best of me, and it brought out the worst in me. Compressed nerves in my neck have been causing pain in my neck, shoulders, and arms for a long time so I’m used to it. Yesterday was different. The pain got so bad that none of the usual treatments helped. It just kept getting worse. By 9 pm all I could do was weep. That’s when the shift began.

Are You Willing to Be Self-Centered?

What thoughts and emotions arise when you consider that question? Do you have judgments that being self-centered would make you a bad person? Or do fears come up about how others would judge you if you were self-centered? These reactions are normal, but they are based on a false definition created by the ego and passed on generation after generation. What is the true definition of self-centered, and why would ego manipulate it?

What Opportunities are Being Offered to You?

Do you know that there are opportunities being offered to you right now? I’m not talking about business opportunities, although that could be included. Life is always presenting us with an opportunity to expand our awareness, change our perspective, and experience life in a different way. We usually call these precious opportunities by another name.

Losing the Experience of Awakening

One of the most common experiences in the process of spiritual awakening is feeling frustrated because you had an amazing experience but can’t get back there. I know that feeling well. Incredible and profound gifts of awakening have blessed my life but each one faded after a few days, or a few hours. The contrast between those experiences and mind-bound living was so stark that I wanted desperately to get back to the blissful, expanded state I had experienced. I never did, and that’s perfect.

It is very rare for awakening to be complete in one experience. For most of us it is a series of leaps in awareness that may continue for many years before we reach a point where we are living full time as our true essence. As much as we think we want that blast of light that transforms us forever, it really is not in our best interest. Dramatic change requires dramatic adjustments. It is much easier on us to shift gradually and make adjustments over time.

Disorientation and Spiritual Awakening

In a previous post I asked you, the lovely readers, to post questions about awakening so I could write about what you want to know. One of you posted what I think is a common experience for people who are in the process of spiritual awakening, disorientation. As we begin to awaken to the true essence within part of that process involves a disconnection from the false identities create by the ego. Basically, it feels like you don’t know who you are anymore or what you want out of life.

Until we experience our true essence the mind creates identities from thoughts. They include likes and dislikes, beliefs, associations with groups or ideologies, and every thought about everything we’ve ever experienced. The bottom line is that all of these are thoughts. None of them are who we are, but we believe they are because we don’t know any other reality for ourselves. As we begin to discover the true reality within we see more and more that who we thought we are is not at all who we are. Our sense of identity dissolves, but it’s important to remember that it was all false identity.

No Meaning, No Purpose, No Limitation

Meaning and purpose are popular, and over-used, buzz-words, and the ego loves this. In every different area of life social systems tell us we must have purpose and there must be a meaning for everything. Not so, actually. It’s only the ego demanding more mental food for its identity. The truth is, assigning meaning or purpose to anything limits it, and limits our ability to experience the full potential of it.

“But what would be the purpose of life if it had no meaning?” Ah, you see how the ego grasps at a mere thought as if losing that thought form would mean destruction? Who created the idea of purpose? And who assigned meaning to things? The ego aspect of the human mind. They are mental concepts, nothing more, thoughts attached to thoughts about things. The ego uses thoughts to create an identity, then attaches other thoughts to them through association and assigns meaning and purpose to the whole bundle. Yet, they are only thoughts, without substance, less than wisps of smoke.