ON DISCOVERING WHO WE ARE

I am getting a late start and I won't be finishing this blog until afternoon. We had a change in schedule and I will be busy most of the Morning. Some three hours later;  is now 1:20PM. Oh well, we will see what I can come up with.

I have been thinking about discovering who we are. I could write a great deal from the literature. We can read what our spiritual mentors say, and there many people who have speculated. But, what if we want to discover for ourselves; what would it be like to function without the incessant prompting of the ego? What would it be like, to automatically see through the disguises people wear, to the pure spirit they really are? How can we see love everywhere?

I would guess that we need to embrace Oneness before we can 'see'. How can we appreciate, who we are, when we still think we are separate? If we want to experience who we are, rather than peer through a foggy glass at someone else's idea, we need to get our own act together.

We have much more invested in separation than we realize. Our separation has been reinforced continually from the time of our birth. Instead of seeing Oneness, there has always been the Other. Our minds love to evaluate and in our separated state, evaluation leads to judgement.

My conclusion is, we have to give up judgement, in order to 'see'. If you are like me, you are on this journey. One of the discoveries we make is that we have to give up judgement of ourselves, to effectively be free of judgement of others. That means we need to be, so free of judgement, of ourselves, that we see only love when we look inward. This is where, giving up the past, and being in the moment, becomes crucial. Again, if you are like me, a whole myriad of thoughts flood the mind, to remind us of what rapscallions, we have been. We can be going along, happy as a lark, when something reminds us of something we did, or didn't do, twenty years ago, and be filled with shame or guilt. Reminders of our inadequacy and unworthiness come in all shapes and sizes; but, they are always referencing the past. When we experience one of these events the temptation is to suppress it, hammer it down or hide from it. However, to get over it, we need to feel the feeling, understand it's meaning and FORGIVE, ourselves and all others involved. If you have any idea that forgiveness frees the other, give that up! Sure to some degree, the other is freed from our judgement, but the main beneficiary is the forgiver. All our judgements big our small reinforce separateness. They create a wall around us keeping us from knowing ourselves.

If we constantly remind ourselves we are ONE. It will help in navigating our daily experience. Every time we criticize ourselves we cast aspersions on the whole of human kind. Every time we judge one person, we judge all.

As long as we live in this illusion of separateness, we see the protective shell around people, that they have erected to protect them. These shells are thick and thin, cloudy or transparent, our real selves peer through the barrier to the 'other'. The more we love ourselves, the thinner and more transparent our shells become, and the better we can see through the shells of other folk.

I know I am getting better at disregarding the barriers of others. More and more I can look beneath the surface and not react to the disguise. It is true that the slings and arrows of others do not need to hurt us.

The afternoon chore time is on the horizon and I need to quit. I want to say much more about this; it is time for us to appreciate who we are.

Love and Peace, Gregg