The concept of ego is helpful if it awakens a present responsibility.
But as soon as there is a sense of a separate or alternate power called the ego that can act against God - against your indivisibility - then it has become a stooge behind which the mind can play out the game of two powers. And to take either side or to shift between sides according to an alternating perspective is to identify with force and density - the experience of limitation and separation.

There need be no blame for discovering egocentricity 'running', indeed such is an awakening 'Ahah!'
The sense of ego attack that 'knows' how to lay us low is linked to our desire.
We may at times feel able to be open and selfless in the flow of being - but then there can be a sense of losing a capacity to keep the ego as a sort of hideyhole or option to back off or to have access to things we have enjoyed that we feel deprived of at the sense of moving beyond.

So there is a tightening, a contracting - a desire to put the brake on and 'think' - a pausing from the connectness of our being and in effect saying "I'd rather see this my way".

And the experience of confusion, of being in some struggle or of needing to DO something before I can allow Being or justify love - serves this desire to have a limited sense of self in which I feel less threatened than the exposure of an initially unrecognised territory of being.

My sense of resistance, is of an emotional charge here that is activated out of a habitual sense of security - and that once it activates, it can reframe my perspective so as to self validate itself and hide Love's Answer.

In awareness we can nip ego in the bud - just don't go there - stay here - open - be still - listen. In thought we are acting out from a basis that itself is thought - and not FEELING the direct communion of life that makes Meaningful our experience to us. Nor indeed the faith connection with that which is Awake and with us as Guide and Teacher.

So the drama has its process and yet at some point falls away enough to allow awareness to 'surface' again and we say "what was that about?" or "how come it took me so long to let go of that".

But it isn't that we hold onto a sense of control that doesn't fall or missstep - but rather that we stay open in trust and connectedness even amidst the fears of distrust and ill intent.

When desire grows strong to be free of a sick, debilitating or self undermining habit, we find more awareness rising within it - and thus a choice instead of a compulsion. But the real choice is always not to play the game at all - whereas the compulsion is always a sense of dilemna amidst choices that keep me in the dark.

In fairy stories, the treasure is often guarded by monsters or the princess surrounded by thorny thicket - or some sort of appearance of fearsome obstacle.
The only way to pass is truth.

When all else fails, you KNOW that you have not the answer and so in natural wisdom you no longer seek or accept an answer from where it cannot and does not come - from 'my own power or from my own thinking'. Now is there a stillness that listens. Now is there a thirst for truth. Now is there an abeyance of using truth to make a better weapon to overcome gargoyles. By the grace of God the heart can hear and see and feel - free of the miasma of a sense of self that turned from a curious plaything to a mesmeric mind-trap.

To look upon the special hate relationship is to cease to hide - and therefore protect - it.
When the mind in pain of hurt or hate turns upon itself - seek and find your willingness. Not to live up to any notion of spiritual attainment - but simply to own and feel and know the true desire of your willingness for love, for true safety, for unified peace.

You will at times experience extreme resistance to listening to your willingness, and yet by its light, you are guided or prompted to whatever helps you to stay in and grow willingness - despite the pull of the current of guilt, fear or reaction. Though it seems fierce it has only the power you gave it and give it still.

Your 'holding hands' with Spirit - through your willingness - is the link to calm - despite the shout and struggle of a senseless conflicted drama that seems to be real.

To practice, is to live from willingness - actively. The forms that the dance will take are discovered in relationship - as your preconditions are released to a greater trust.

If wilfulness sneaks in, willingness is forgot - and in such misalignment will dissonance of experience become the signal to relax.

This innate signal to bring attention present , relax, and trust - has been interpreted as a symbol for guilt or proof of sin - a hateful intent - a shameful self uncovered.

This is a deception - but to see for yourself you must look within and discover if in fact and in truth - such intent is your desire. For if you fear that it is - you are still 'playing' with sin as if it could be so.

I say that God Himself is the giver of your life, your being and your true desire.

Jesus said: "Go in peace and sin no more". He speaks to awakened willingness.
From such a true desire we can see and hear and trust our way.

And the shadow of sin dissolves, to a heart redeemed.


How I love you!


In love's graceful tears

Brian

words

If even a trace of guilt is given welcome - or assumed real of me - then I (must) look out on a world that limits and see the taint of sin in whatever I write or whatever I read. For such is the effect of using the lens of judgement instead of listening in the heart.

Because this is so paralysing and obstructive of life's creative flow and function, the I-sense exerts itself in any and every attempt to mitigate and offset pain of guilt by glossing over with denial and engaging distraction - so as to play the game of life amidst a condition which seemingly opposes life.

To at least to snatch the crumbs of life in fleeting moments from the awfulness of a mean and hateful mind that the I-sense is seeking to escape, overcome or improve - but not let go.

All the force of such attempt wears 'me out' and blocks even further, the grace of the true function of life of which I have lost any direct sense due to becoming so entangled in my own thoughts made flesh.



(Hmmmmmmmmmm.... that's not what I thought I was going to write ;-)



Words have been used as the extension of definition. As if definition determines truth. But it is the movement of desire or intent that would fix or freeze life - by grasping or possession. The very concept of possession at the level of mind is a nonsense excepting that to have is to be. But once a sense of self in image and thought is accepted as if it were in fact Me - then through that self-thought can I seem to add things to myself or have them taken away.

At that level of illusion - when first embracing what seems to be the possibillities and potentialities of orphanhood (seperate self-becominghood) there is a sense of being as a god in divine play. Dressing up in the mirror and enjoying the imaginative 'life' that extends from the image in this light - or in that light.

How does a narcissistic game of no consequence become the terrible affliction of guilt?

Well it never truly can - excepting - while persisting to look in the mirror and 'enjoy' the imaginative 'life' that extends from the image in this light - or in that light.

These words are offered in attempt to sketch out so that the act can be seen for what it is. Not an act of play within the mirror - but an act of desiring to see and maintain oneself in image and story.

For while such desire is active and unseen, attention is limited to or distorted by the images in the mirror. These definitions that, in one way or another, give witness to the existence of a 'me' as a separately existing personality in a body -  rather than as the direct expression of Life's Movement to know Itself through its extension.

There is a turnabout that arises spontaneously from the seeing of self illusion just as it is.
It may experienced as pure Grace. The uncovering of Divinity - of the only Life.
This out of time awakening is not allowed while attention and desire are actively engaged in reaction - as something to possess or rid oneself of.
But it can rise through the willingness to see such a script for what it is - while it is in play - and always undoes it of an environment in which to seem to be.


When Hercules had to clean out the shit from the stables - he opened a way that the divine river flowed through them. At first - if one had stopped to report - one could have said that - worse than shit - was a river of shit. And that is why it is unwise to use externals a progress report. For fear has to be released to the flow and function of life - of a divine flow that Is - otherwise it remains a point of reference from which one says stop! and belives one is the power to limit life.

Allowing the flow is growing a relationship with the truth in you that knows the flow - AND also knows the exact nature of the entanglement by which attention has become trapped within self definition and made real to itself.

Under self direction, I cannot actually know true function - though I may think I do when things go my way. But that is a house of cards. In not using self direction, a deeper knowing guides all. How do I know I am not deluding myself?

This is in some sense irrelevant to the act of awakened willingness - because in the flow - in the trust - in the light of allowing - even the scripts of self delusion become useful to the re-awakening of being to its wholeness - instead of serving as ammunition for the prosecution or damning evidence to the judge.

When resistance is felt - stuck - paralysis - fear - there is still flow. There is always flow, for life is Life.

To let into flow is to be with what is - as it is - and not as it is defined and not from a desire or presumption of a power to define it.

An unjudgemental atmospheric is absolutely essential to knowing and sharing life as Life.

Words and concepts have a long history of squelching the feeling being - because that has been the intent behind them.

Put this behind you - and release the forms associated with it - and let them find new life in a dance that speaks of your freedom to be - all that you are.

The dream of a life calls from without and keeps you focussed on the outer.

The Life that is your Intimate truth Moves from within and calls you awake as being-within-the-Movement.

If you are still holding onto the words - as if there is something that must be understood BEFORE trust is extended and fear released, then I ask you - What can possibly be understood from a mind already made up or fixed on its own thought?

The fixation of the mind on God is not the work of the human will, but is the grace of the desire of love to be all that it is and know all that it is, in all that it is.

Loving yourself truly - Open Sesame

Regardless of how or why or when we accepted guilt's judgement for our self, it is in imposition of a mind that asserts to be 'outside' God.
And when we let that 'stranger in', we recognize nothing but a sense of loss - within which seems to be a fragment of thought which sees all things estranged, in fragmented vision - and tries to make and keep a self amidst such chaos- to keep the chaos at bay. Its as if we are the Genie and we've been locked in a bottle with the lid screwed tight. But the Wishes that summon our presence - are simply the true desires of our heart.

As we are touched by the truth - the love that truly is lovely - enables us to look upon the fearful in calm and without identifying as fragment - reacting, shutting down, pushing away. We may not feel very spiritual in life when we are moving through messy and conflicted periods, but there is a still place and it does guide us - despite the noise and clamour that we've become habituated to using to suppress the old stuff that comes up when the 'lid' loosens and - once again - we feel the chaos and find it hard to abide in trust.

I have a sense of Infinite Patience - like a hand that reaches to us in every moment of willingness, that is never withdrawn when we seem to withdraw and that never judges us by any mistake we seem to make - still less does it uphold or have any dealing with blame, shame and hate. And in aligning with this love, peace, and joy, on the inside, I become likewise inclusive, accepting and appreciative of all that is true - and let fall away all else.

The ego cannot eject itself from your home - though it will offer endless plans for anything that can keep you engaged with it. But you can effectively evict it - from the joined or aligned Will that IS the Movement of Being.

The realisation of truth sees that there is not and can never be a mind 'outside' God - and that even to entertain the thought 'as if', is a waste of the appreciation of eternity. And the realisation can come because the game of self-division via guilt has been put aside as meaningless - no matter what.

Does a habit of mind keep on despite the undoing of its root? Yes and no.
Once truth has touched you - you cannot be as you thought you were - and any attempt of ego reenactment is not the same ignorance. For there is a place in you that knows. Now it is a matter of whether you want it. If you think you want what you do not truly want, you choose dissonance. Old habits trigger guilt to account for it - and you are back in la la land. For the mind's picturing of itself in guilt is causeless apart from its own wish to love what is imaginary - against the grain of its own being.

You do love yourself. But while in la la land, such love is held in trust for you until you are ready to accept it as it is. For what you thought to make of it has hurt you. This is not your truth - and so is not you.