In Defense of EGO: The Power of Imagination

EDITOR'S NOTE: Each month in 2014, we will focus on one of The Twelve Powers In Man. We start in January with The Power of Imagination.

Self Confidence: "Confidence in oneself and in one's powers and abilities." 
EGO: "A person's sense of self-esteem or self importance."

We clearly see that without one, the other cannot exist. Yet, so many disparage the EGO and would have us all believe that having an "EGO," the Latin term for "I" (=I  AM) is destructive to our spiritual evolution. 


Following many leaders in the spiritual community, many people, including me, also felt that having an EGO was wrong. What I eventually realized is that when an EGO is missing, we can and will run into trouble.

Credit: Gorgeous Picture. Note the item: EGO- kill it!

The way I see it, "EGO" should be defined as "pride in oneself." The day we stop having "pride" in the self within us is the day we begin to slowly go down, not only in our own eyes, but in the eyes of the world. We MUST have a sense of ourselves and where we fit into the world!


To care about ourselves and developing our

God-given gifts to serve the world does not rob God of his role in our lives. This self connection...to our Soul... directs us to the POWER of God, the gifts, within us.   

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he," Proverbs 23:7 

It's easy for those who have reached the pinnacle in their careers, indeed lives, to believe that an EGO is unnecessary. (Indeed, many believe that they are the true GOD! Let them have their illusions.) But then...there are the rest of us.

 I tell you: 

Aspiring to not have an EGO is pure nonsense!

Lose your EGO, and you lose your pride in all that you do and accomplish. Indeed, losing the EGO is to turn your back on the gifts of God.

Being EGOTISTICAL is miles away from having an "EGO."  There is a huge difference between having pride in oneself and being puffed up about yourself. An egotist is self-centered, focused on self, believing that he or she is better than others. At various times in our lives, we may be an egotist. But as we grow in Spirit, we lose this disconnection with Soul.

One who recognizes his EGO and has pride and confidence in SELF is connected to his Soul and also recognizes that this trait, this pride, this confidence, also should reside in others. To take these attributes away is to destroy the very Soul of a person.

We should not strive to remove our EGO, our confidence. (See this piece: "Authentic Being and Conscious Living") Rather, we should strive to recognize that the sense of self that we feel is present in others, too. So, we should recognize that whatever gifts we've been given to navigate the world equate to different gifts given to others. 

We should stay vigilant to see where we think our gifts are "better" than someone else's and work hard to overcome feelings that would separate us. The easiest way to do so is to take the "Namaste'" attitude: honoring the light of God in others. 

Recognizing that our "brothers and sisters" are also infused with the Spirit and Light of God, we should be able to settle into our EGO without becoming EGOTISTICAL.

Through my studies at Unity School of Christianity, Lee's Summit, MO,(Unity School of Christianity), I learned about The Twelve Powers in Man, as taught by Unity's co-founder, Charles Fillmore. 

Those twelve powers are:
* Faith *Strength *Wisdom *Love *Power *Imagination *Understanding *Will *Order *Elimination *Life (itself)

Credit: Unity Worldwide Ministries: http://unity.org. For more information on the 12 Powers, check this piece: http://www.unity.org/resources/articles/twelve-pathways 

We will be highlighting one  of the twelve Powers each month throughout 2014.

Let's begin with:

According to Unity teachings: Bartholomew, the apostle, represents Imagination, whose nerve center is found in the space between the eyes. 

The Power of IMAGINATION, (delineated in June, colored in blue, in the chart above.)

This power allows us to CREATE the next steps in our lives. We always are "creating" in our lives. So, if our thoughts are negative and pictures bleak of what we expect, guess what? We are creating negative experiences for our future. The converse also is true: have positive expectations; create positive experiences. 




Connecting to the Spirit within us, we begin by MEDITATING on the results we'd like to see. Most of us are unaware that the images we focus on are dictating the path for our future. 

Tyler Perry chats with Oprah Winfrey on her OWN network.

Listening to Tyler Perry chat about his past on OWN, it's clear that he began creating his tremendous success by visualizing a better world than the one in which he was living in his childhood. Perry said he did this to escape the pain of physical and emotional abuse. The world he's now living in is an out-picturing of that visualization. 
  
 Then, using our imagination to TO VISUALIZE (SEE) what we'd like to accomplish, we focus our thoughts on achieving the results.

We next call upon the POWER of FAITH* (= Confidence) in Self (=Ego.) This moves us forward to the next step in manifesting. By holding fast to what we can only now imagine, we are able to realize only our dreams.

We often hear, "Thoughts are things." Truthfully, though, "pictures are things."

Imagine what your life, with your dreams fulfilled, would look like. Begin to use the Power of IMAGINATION to "image" the new life.

Master Teacher Neville Gooddard, throughout his writings, promoted the concept of the  power within us and emphasized Faith and Confidence to help us carry our dreams through. Once we begin to practice these attributes, beginning with IMAGINATION, then we will begin to see our dreams realized.

Without the power of IMAGINATION, fueled by our EGO and CONFIDENCE, we can accomplish nothing in this world.

What we will begin to see as we move forward within the year 2014 is that ALL the 12 powers, noted by Charles Fillmore, are connected and critical for our success.

Don't leave any of your gifts behind in 2014. I especially urge you to bring along your EGO for the ride, as we take pride in the gifts given to us by God.

Happy 2014! 

Let a wonderful year of unfolding our 12 Powers BEGIN!

Namaste',

Che' 

*NOTE: In February post, we'll focus on FAITH, as the 2nd of The Twelve Powers in Man.

God Does Not Answer Your Prayers: YOU Do! (Wake Up: Part III)

GOD is THE Wind Beneath Your Wings! 

Photo Credit: Rosa Alquimica

We go about our lives for the larger part of our lives...mostly in a fog. 


We know we walk, but 
we don't fully know the mechanics that 

 


got us from being babies, held in our parents arms, to crawling...to walking upright....to being full adults.

But we keep on walking...without stopping to pause and discover how we do what we do. [Many wake up only when somethng drastic happens in their lives.]

It's time to wake up, KIDS!

If you have no spiritual leanings, and especially if you're not religious, you may not want to hear this, but it's TRUTH: 

The mystery that is GOD is the wind beneath our wings, if not, our very wings.

We can "fly" because of God.

We can "speak" because of God.

We do what we do because of God.

God is the beginning and the end of all that we do.

God is the energy that vibrates and operates throughout our Being!

Do we think we walk... because our parents showed us how to do so?

Do we think we speak... because we mimicked what we heard?

Stop and think.


The mechanics of all that we do lie within us: It is the spirit of God! 

God's spirit is so active throughout our being... and as us... that we do not realize its Presence. So intertwined is the Spirit (Energy) of God within us that we cannot differentiate our human actions from this very spirit that does all on our behalf. So, like we do with all things we obtain without asking, we take the Spirit of God within us for granted. But... it is there and it is the essential part of ourselves. God's spirit is the energy...the Essence... that is us.

"God is the name we give to that unchangeable, inexorable principle at the source of all existence." - H. Emilie Cady

God's energy permeates the entire Universe, making things happen.

We must accept this!

Once we accept this, then we're able to see that when we PRAY, we're essentially praying to that greater part within ourselves.

But...here's the key: in order for our prayer to be answered, we must first find the activation button in our center!

That button is called: FAITH!

This button is the trigger that moves all mountains out of our way.

The first step in any deliverance of our prayers is to:

Have Faith!

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...." - Hebrews 11:1

The second step in having prayers answered is:

Change our consciousness about our power and abilities!

"Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live." -Neville Goddard, "Your Faith is Your Fortune." 

The third step in realizing our prayers is to ACT!

"We talk to God---that is prayer; God talks to us---that is inspiration."- H. Emilie Cady, "Lessons in Truth"

"In the Flow of Life," Eric Butterworth writes about the impact of some religions teaching about God outside ourselves.

"Subtly, but certainly, we are trained to think of life as a 'getting' experience. Like Buddhist monks, we are given the psychological counterpart of the little begging bowl by which to go into the world to seek the 'gifts of God' from our parents, our schools, our religion, our work.

"No matter what hunger or desire, we invariably go begging 'out there' for fulfillment. Paul seemed to know better. In 2 Timothy 1: 6, he writes, 'I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you.'"

If we're discerning, we should eventually get to a place within ourselves that we realize this:

Life happens only as we bring it forth. In essence, we learn that God is Life, and he is in the activity of our very life.

This requires us to go forth to do and be and act "our natural selves," so we can experience the presence of God in our lives. It is critical that we have confidence in ourselves.

"We come into the world as living souls of infinite potentiality to be discovered and released, for life is lived from within-out." Eric Butterworth.

Relying on prayers to activate the presence of God within us is a sure way to get back into the flow. When we pray believing in consciousness that all prayers will be answered, we rest. This brings forth the power (spirit) of God within us.

"We have no power to demonstrate health or supply for anyone, but we can demonstrate the presence of God. We can get very still within and, with patience, come to a state of consciousness where we feel the very living presence of God, where we feel the stir and the activity of God within, where we feel such a complete release from human fears that we know God is on the field."  Wrote Joel S. Goldsmith in "Living The Infinite Way."

There's no source or force from outside of us that comes to our aid; the power (and the answer) comes through us.

Imagine then, when our spirit gets so low and we stop believing in ourselves...stop activating the power (spirit of God) within us.

That's when our lives become dormant and stagnant.

Faith in a God outside of ourselves leads us to complacency and failure. We have all heard the saying, "God can only do for us, what he can do through us." It is critically important for us to understand this and to know that confidence in our God-imbibed selves is what makes our lives work!

The only presence and power in our lives is God. If we stop believing in ourselves, thus stop connecting to the source and force within us, death surrounds us in every way in all ways.

We must remain active in life to have all of life become active through us as us.

Resting comfortably in God only becomes a reward when we have the consciousness to assume the habitat for which we've prayed: We must pray from the consciousness of having already received the desired thing. Without dwelling in the habitat of that which we seek, prayers and faith are for naught.

"The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the ship that carries you over the unknown seas to the fulfillment of your dream. The assumption is everything; realization is subconscious and effortless." Neville Goddard writes in "The Power of Awareness."

He urges, "Assume a virtue if you have it not…

"Act on the assumption that you already possess that which you sought."

Like the other forces in nature, relying solely on what's within them to grow and thrive: there honestly is no power outside of us that will rally to our aid to help us through life's crises. This is truly when "failure" occurs: waiting with faith in God outside of ourselves to deliver us.

Jacques Lusseyran, born in Paris in 1924, was blinded at age seven, yet at age 16 led an underground resistance of 600 youths during the German Occupation.  In his book, "And There Was Light," Lusseyran wrote about being blind and seeing "the light." This passage, about when he and others were finally caught by the Germans, is especially poignant:

  

"All of us were naked, if not literally, to all effects. We had no rank, no dignity, no fortune left…and no face to save. Every man was cut down to himself to what he really was. And, believe me, that created a real proletariat…"The camp was the witches' well. They had thrown them all in there together, the Benedictine monk, the Kirghiz shepherd who prayed to Allah three times a day with his face to the ground, the professor from the Sorbonne, the mayor of Warsaw…the good and the evil. The only thing was…and you had to get used to it…all these categories were dead and gone, for we had passed over into a different world…."The religious searched everywhere for their faith. They did not find it again, or else they found it so reduced in force they could not make use of it. It is a terrifying thing to have called yourself a Christian for 40 years and then to discover that you're not a real one, that your God no longer served them."The people who had generally been respected ran after their lost respect, but there wasn't anything left of it. The intellectuals, the cultivated men, the great brains, had great sorrows.  They didn't know what to do with their great learning for it didn't protect them against misfortune. They were submerged in that great broth of humanity."How many doctors and sociologists, archaeologists and barristers needed comforting. And it wasn't easy to console them. They could not understand anything more readily than the fact that their intelligence was out of season."Our rich at Buchenwald were the devil and all to find in the crowd, for they had no label. They were neither religious men nor atheists, neither liberals nor communists, neither well nor badly brought up. There were just there, that was all, mixed up with the rest. My one idea was to find them."Their wealth was not made of courage, for courage is always suspect or a consequence of something else. The rich were the ones who did not think of themselves, or only rarely, for a minute or two in an emergency. They were the ones who had given up the ridiculous notion that the concentration camp was the end of everything, a piece of hell, an unjust punishment, a wrong done them which they had not deserved.They were the ones who were hungry and cold and frightened like the rest, who didn't hesitate to say so on occasion---why conceal the real state of things?--but who in the end didn't care. The rich were the ones who were not really there."Sometimes they had removed themselves entirely by going crazy."

We don't have to go crazy to get to a state of bliss.
Neither do we have to escape through the use of alcohol or drugs.

We can get to a place of rest and peace and joy and happiness.

We do so by living moment by moment and through the conscious realization of connection to the ONE presence and power in our lives that resides within us.

This affirmation from Silent Unity is a powerful one for all situations:

  "God is my Strength.

                                       
                                                God is my Supply.

God is my Source.

God is my Substance."

In this season of the Christ, I invite you to WAKE UP to peace and wholeness by discovering the truth about YOU!

"He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world."
"It is not I, but the father within me who doeth the work."
"Peace, Be Still."

Merry Xmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays. May this Season of celebration be with you, knowing that within you lies the answer to all that you seek to do, be and achieve.

Namaste',

Che'

When Darkness Comes: Hunker In...It's a Wild Ride! (Wake Up: Part II)

"Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that growth does not take place in the sunlight." Joan Chittister, Uncommon Gratitude

The above image and quote, notwithstanding, sometimes, even to ourselves, life simply does not make sense... sometimes.

We're not talking here of little day-to-day trials, or even short periods of darkness. We're talking of when the curtain comes down on an entire period of your life for months, even years, where you have to keep on walking but you have no clue where you're headed and why.What "you know for sure," though,  is that you have to keep on moving, whether it's seemingly on the treadmill of life, or you're actually making strides in some direction "of which you know not of." You sense there might be a protective presence right there with you, but again, you are no longer sure.

This is the journey  of the "Dark Night of the Soul," covered by St. John of the Cross in his book of the same name. The translation we will use to understand the depth of this journey and its stillness is by E. Allison Peers.  

Spiritual literature abounds with the promises of enrichment that follows the person on a spiritual path.

Promises of simply "thinking and growing rich"  are everywhere in self empowerment books, while others may say you simply have to look within and the road will open up to greet you.

Perhaps these positive things happen right at the beginning of the spiritual journey, when people first discover there's an entire part to themselves that they've been missing. They then begin to go within by starting meditation classes, reflecting in quiet moments and doing things they previously had not done before. By staying positive, even when things go awry, they do see good changes happening in their lives.

These are the good times.

Stop there. 

Truly stop there and go no further, especially if there's no compulsion in your Soul to know more. You'll continue to fully enjoy your life, if you just stop there! Any dark nights you encounter should just be a natural part of life.   

Image of diver, doing free diving, where divers test their limits 
with death-defying free dives. See 60 minutes episode:"Free Diving"

(THE PREVIOUS WARNING [from October] IS WORTH REPEATING
Please always keep in mind
this caveat as you walk the spiritual path: We should
not give up our lives to go "looking"
for God. Rather, live our lives with the consciousness
of Spirit within! There's real danger in going "looking." Live your life by doing what's right moment by moment; connecting within should be the only "looking" you do. If you find yourself wanting to give up careers, jobs, husbands, wives and/or children, you've traveled into dangerous territory.)

For those who truly feel called to go much deeper to connect to the within and those wanting to understand more about the mystery of life, there's a strong likelihood that you'll encounter "dark nights." But few spiritual leaders dwell upon the darkness that often results from following a deeply authentic spiritual path.   [A"dark night" experience is more than a bad day/night. Nevertheless, this Deepak Chopra story makes interesting reading:  ("My First Job: My Dark Night As a Real Doctor")] 

Check out whole libraries, and the literature is scarce on the dark side of spiritual enlightenment. It's as if the teachers are reluctant to share that part of the journey, or, they simply have not reached that point in their own evolution. Indeed, they may have stopped journeying inward, as they encountered light, and more light, on their path. Positive thinking does work! Many DO Think and Grow Rich!

There may be a reason that even those willing to talk about the darkness stay silent for long periods after having gone through the dark night. Most need to process the experience for a long time afterwards; many are reluctant to share such a period they know is "grace." 

The "dark night of the soul" has unspeakable horrors, as well as unspeakable joys.This is the time in our lives when all the spiritual muscle we've developed before atrophies and becomes useless. Nothing works!

Church doesn't work, prayer doesn't seem to work, the bible offers some comfort but not enough, affirmations and all that we may have once believed as "Truth" no longer work. Indeed, even the very selves we knew begin to disappear. The road becomes so dark we doubt we'll make it through to the other side.

To imagine this dark road, try to see your hand when all the electricity in your home has been turned out and you have no candles to light your way. Imagine trying to go outside and it's darker still, as the street lights are not working and there's no moonlight.
Imagine the darkness of such horror.
Imagine, too, that somewhere in the stillness of the darkness, you hear a faint, very faint voice, calling you to move in its direction. As you keep traveling towards it, it seems to grow clearer and clearer...But you know, you've still got a far way to go.

St. John of the Cross, a great Spanish and Carmelite monk in the 16th century, spoke of the dark night in as clear a fashion as anyone can share.

For St. John, this is a period of God's abiding love for us, yet, it is the most painful, as it a purifying period. Pride, avarice, envy and other human imperfections are held up to the light, so we can expel these negative traits from our Soul.

For those who are faint of heart, this is not a journey to be undertaken without much forethought.
Even for those who undertake it, unknowingly, and wish to turn back at many times, there is no way back.

The beauty of the "dark night of the soul" is that as it expunges the impurities, there comes more light, more wisdom, more joy, more beauty of the Soul and a deepening love for God.

This is the same light that Jacques Lusseyran in his book, "And There was Light,"* explains as a different vision that comes to the blind child or person.

"All of us, whether we are blind or not, are terribly greedy. We want things only for ourselves. Even without realizing it, we want the universe to be like us and give us all the room in it.
But a blind child learns very quickly that this cannot be. He has to learn it, for every time he forgets that he is not alone in the world, he strikes against an object, hurts himself and is called to order. But each time he remembers, he is rewarded for everything comes his way."

There are unspeakable horrors, as one's missteps are held up into the light. Who really wants to see the ugliness of their behavior played out on a movie screen that is their mind and heart?

Yet, there's the unspeakable, unparalleled joy of wisdom and insight and the glory of being held, however briefly, by God.

No one can speak of this journey of darkness to illumination.
Few do.

If you're privileged to get that far in your journey, you'll understand why, too.

And you'll know that all you can do is to hunker in...through the darkness...as the glory will come...the light will come...eventually. 

While you're at it, I strongly recommend as your companion, "Dark Night of the Soul," by St. John of the Cross. You will learn from him to give thanks through it all, and you will be grateful for the journey.

 "A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experience and therefore knowledge, that we could not possibly achieve in any other way." -Deena Metzger, Healer

Happy Thanksgiving!

Namaste',
Che'
NOTES:
*We will cover this book in more depth in December.
**Via Gratefulness.org, Friday, Nov. 1, 2013. Deena Metzger is a writer, poet, essayist, playwright, novelist, counselor and healer. According to Wikipedia, she has been teaching for more than 45 years and has developed therapies called, "Healing Stories."