Diving deeper into the self

Image via Wikipedia

The way to our deepest self is the same as the way to God. We cannot describe the Creator by giving names. When we say ‘the Creator’ we refer to a function of God. When we call God ‘The Great Spirit’ we speak about the invisible aspect of God which reveals through spirit.

When you give a name to someone or something, it means you can somewhere locate that person or thing and then say, this is this person or thing. With God this is impossible. God is always bigger than what we can comprehend and to give God a name is to make God small. It means to put ourselves above God as if God would be a theological concept that we studied.

There is no other way than to find God deep in ourselves. Here we cannot discover the ‘entire God,’ because all we can do is to meet God, and meeting doesn’t yet mean to fully comprehend.

When we search God deep inside of us, we must penetrate deeply, all the way to where we have put off our clothing, our habits, our studied knowledge. On the way to the Creator in ourselves, we also must pass by and overcome the energies of self-centeredness. Self-centeredness means that we make ourselves to the center. But we are not the center of the cosmos. God is the center of the cosmos and I understand God to be the always-giving one and giving to all and everything. We can also be like that, at least for certain moments. We need to give up all attachments, because each attachment also causes a restriction in our giving. We need to give up all desires that are centered on the self.

When someone prays to God for blessings, this can hardly be called unselfish. When we pray to God like that we cannot meet the real God. The real God will not make you the center of the cosmos when you have ego-centered desires. The cosmos would soon crumble.

Still we can be the center of the cosmos in a certain way. When we meet God we can receive from God the love to be unselfish and in that unity with God we unite with the center of the cosmos. This is not to be the center in the sense of being able to create or control like God, it is a unity in love. Being in that state of love, we can feel God in us and we can feel ourselves to be in the centre of the cosmos, not centred on the ego, but centred on the Creator and on loving all that is.

We cannot be unselfish unless we find God. Love that is not self-centred has a source. That source is God. When you try to be giving but you are disconnected from the Source, your giving will have a double layer. On the surface this may look like giving, but deeper under the surface you find again ego-centeredness.

Words are just words and are limited. The truth is in the spirit behind the words.

Love to you my friends.

February 12, 2008

Your own spirit self

Image by nikoretro via FlickrIf such is the kingdom of Heaven

It is through my spirit self that i relate to the spiritual world. Through my physical self i relate to the physical world.

Suppose that we would not have a spiritual self then there would be no meaningful connection between the spirit world and the physical world.

What would this mean? It means that those who died cannot anymore relate to those who are still living in the physical world. Suppose you built a family and you have children and grandchildren whom you love. After you died, they would disappear for you. You could not see them again as long as they are still living in the physical world. Spirit world would become like a prison.

Because many people living in the physical world did not develop their spiritual life and their spiritual self, they are very handicapped once they come into spirit world. For them life after death, in spirit world, feels like a prison.

Many people who died will hang around their descendants still living on earth. Although such people usually didn’t learn much how to behave in spirit world, but their love for their children and grandchildren or other people makes them come back and stay in spirit with their beloved ones. Yet, usually the people in the physical world are hardly or not aware of this. This is very frustrating for people in the spirit world.

Imagine: you want to say something to your grandchild, but that grandchild doesn’t hear or notice you. You want to warn for a danger, but it is like you speak to a wall. This is the situation for many people in spirit world.

The reason that it is like that is that both the ones in spirit world and the ones on earth haven’t learned to use their spirit selves.

God did not intend it to be like that. In God’s ideal world, there is free interchange between spirit world and physical world. As a spirit you will be able to speak to your descendants on earth, you will be able to guide them, and you even will be able to often use their bodies so that you will still have experiences on earth long after you passed away.

Because spirit world is the world of those who have more and longer life experience, it is logical that spirit world should be subject to the physical world. God’s Kingdom of Heaven is built starting from the spirit world. God’s ideal is not possible unless there are people who have full control over their spirit selfs. Such people are needed to live in spirit world and to live in the physical world. Only with such people God’s Kingdom of Heaven can be built. It is not possible in any other way.

Now, what is my spirit self? My spirit self is my real self. My physical self is a temporary self only.

Suppose that you drive in your car day and night. You drive so often in your car that you begin to see your car as your own body. You get so dependent from your car that you think that this car is your real self. You don’t think much about yourself, but you think about your car all the time. In such a situation, which is quite realistic for many people, you yourself actually become more and more a dead person. No one likes you anymore, because you always want to speak about your car only. You become more and more lonely and live for and with your car only.

There are many such people around. Some love their cars, others love money, or their house, or their computer. The center of your being is then not your spirit self, it also is not anymore even your physical self, no, the center of your being is a dead thing. All your relations to other people have to go through the center of your being, which is that dead thing. Car lovers can only relate a bit to other car lovers. Computer lovers can only relate a bit to other computer lovers. The world of such people becomes very limited and small. They live a degraded, materialistic life.

When such people die and go to spirit world, they go where their love goes, which is for instance to their car. But the car does not exist as such in spirit world. The car, as long as it exists in the physical world, only has a shadow in spirit world. Such a spirit is nevertheless stuck to that shadow. When the car goes to the car wrecker, the spirit has nowhere to go. Anyway, you are what you love. When you only love that car, and that car only exists as a shadow in spirit world, you yourself only become a shadow in spirit world. After the car is demolished, you won’t even be a shadow anymore, but you are practically non-existing.

You are what you love. When you love God and the whole cosmos, you yourself become like God and you will truly be a microcosm. You will experience it like this and your life will be full and exciting and extremely joyful.

You are what you love. When you only love a physical car that gets demolished entirely after time, you yourself will eventually be almost entirely demolished. It is only because no human being can go down so far that his being becomes identical to that of a car that still a dark cloud or a shadow will remain from you in spirit world.

My spirit self is most of all created and shaped by my love. Actually, as i am God’s creation, it is first of all God’s love which made me what i am. Then there comes the love of my parents and others who care for me. Then there is my own love resulting from all this. Eventually it will be mainly my own love, as i responded to God’s love and the love of others, which determines my spirit self.

My love expresses in my mind in thoughts, feelings and plans, which again result in actions of my body. My spirit self is created from the love in my heart as it finally expressed itself into actions. The love in my heart is originally installed there by God first of all, but eventually it is decisive what i do with the love in me.

Therefore, it can be said that my spirit self, which is what remains of me after i died in the physical world, is like a recorder of my entire life. The spirit self is created by myself. I create it with my actions. But my actions result from my thoughts, feelings, plans, and these again come from the love in my heart.

When i live a physically-oriented life, my spirit self suffers and could eventually almost die out. When i live a good spiritually-oriented life, my spirit self blossoms and it will become like God and will encompass the entire cosmos.

But what is spiritual life? I should live a spiritual live in order to develop my spirit self and this is necessary for having a gratifying existence now and ever in the future. But how must i do that?

God is God the Creator. Man is God’s Child. The most essential quality and also task that we inherited from God is that we also are creators. We must create ourselves and the world around us. Eventually God wants me to be the creator of the cosmos myself, with God living in my heart.

To be creative you must give more than what you are now. That is the special thing about creativity. It is not creative when you just act from what you are now. It is creative when in your creative act you do more than what you could yesterday. In your creativity you grow and develop. And this is only possible based on your desire to do so. Where does this desire come from? From your love for someone. You love someone and you want to give something to that person. Now your creativity comes out in a practical sense. Your desire transforms into creative actions. Through your creativity you create something new, which did not exist before. And by doing this you have grown. You try to give to others, but in the creative process of doing this, you also gave something to yourself. You gave to yourself and caused in yourself your own spiritual growth.

This is why it is the reality in spirit world that painters and music composers and other creative people all do have an advantage over those who did not develop their creativity in life on earth.

Out of God’s creativity came about the entire cosmos which has three axes. One of these axes is the axis which determines spiritual and physical existence. It is creativity that brings into being the existence of the spiritual. It is like that for God and it is like that for you and me.

More specifically, to develop my spiritual life i need to convert my love and creativity into controlled energy. When i use that energy for making a physical object, then there comes into existence that physical object. But when i add extra or surplus energy into that physical object then there comes about a spiritual creation. The more that i am aware of this, the better that spiritual creation will be.

It is through my awareness, which also is the sense of my mind, that i can bring forward spiritual creations. My awareness should be steered by my creative desire which sprouts in love for someone.

When i don’t love other people, i cannot develop my creativity and i cannot learn to live a true spiritual life. When i don’t love God, there is not the source of good love in me and there cannot come about good desire and in that case i also cannot develop my spirituality.

It is important to realize that the spiritual existence is not dreamlike or unrealistic. The spiritual existence can be seen as uncondensed energy, but it is energy that has been shaped into forms with content. The spiritual world is a substantial world. It does exist and is very real. It is not the result of dreams or fantasies. It is the result of the highest creative process that is possible in God and man.

The only way that i can experience and steer spiritual phenomena is through my own spirit self. Therefore, i must become aware of the existence of my spirit self.

My spirit self exists as spirit heart, spirit mind and spirit body. In my spirit heart is living God, and my spirit body relates to spiritual creations. Furthermore, my spirit self relates to my physical self, and through physical selves of people the spiritual world can have influence on the physical world. My spiritual self exists in forms of united masculine and feminine aspects.

Here we shall try to find out mainly about how i can develop my spirit heart, spirit mind and spirit body.

EXERCISE 1. First of all, we want to become aware of how our spirit self can be experienced apart from the experience of our physical self. As long as we live in the physical world, this separate experience is not so easy. Important to realize is that when i focus on dealing with the physical world, it is my physical self doing this. When i focus on dealing with spiritual phenomena, it is my spiritual self.

You should make yourself aware in many situations whether you are focused on physical phenomena or on spiritual ones. For example, when you wash your car, you can just physically wash it and then it is only your physical self doing this. But you could also concentrate on washing the spiritual car. Then, all of a sudden, it is your spiritual self doing this.

Try to do whatever you do by adding a spiritual component to it. When you do the dishes, do not just only wash the physical dishes, but make those dishes shine in spirit world. It is your spirit self that does this and in the process of washing the dishes spiritually you become aware of the existence of your own spirit self.

Do such kind of exercises in all what you do in life. When you put on your clothing, also put on your spiritual clothing. When you do your daily work, then consciously add the spiritual component to what you do. Remember that this is only possible when you add extra energy which must come from your awareness that sprouted in creative desire. And for creative desire to emerge you must have love centered on God.

Now while you do this kind of spiritual exercises, you must make yourself clear that such actions done in a spiritual way do come from your spirit body, and your thoughts and feelings and plans steering your spiritual actions do come from your spirit mind, and your love which steers it all comes from your spiritual heart.

In that way, in your daily life, you can practice to discover and to develop your spiritual self. This is actually true spiritual life in the fullest way. When you center it always on God, it is religious life as well. You don’t need to go to a monastery or follow courses to learn to meditate. All you need to do is to bring the spiritual component into your daily life.

EXERCISE 2. Once you have become aware of the existence of your spirit self in the way as described in Exercise 1, you should actively work to develop your spirit self. For this no exercises can be given here. You must become a religious person who lives life under God. There is not meant here a life under religious rules, but a life centered on the living God. God whom is with you and whom you experience always and ever directly.

July 1999

Shells in a personality

Photo art JE

The human mind is very complex. Just like the body has senses, also the mind has them. A body gives out by moving and acting and receives by sensing. The body also keeps itself in good shape by taking in elements from the world of nature, air, water and elements in food. The senses of the body are diversified into several such as seeing, hearing, tasting, etc.

The mind is not as diversified as the body. We usually recognize as main functions of the mind those of thinking, feeling and planning. The mind gives out and receives through these functions. These are functions of ‘acting’ as well as sensing. The mind also needs to be fed, just like the body. The mind feeds itself in interchange with products of the mind, for example thoughts and feelings expressed by others as expressed in books and forms of art and the beauty of nature. The mind also feeds itself when it comes in touch with determination in someone else.

On a still deeper level of our existence there is the heart of love. The heart is commonly not anymore divided in different sections, not when we study it in its original state. The heart loves and desires to love. The heart gives out love and it also is a sense for love. Usually we don’t have many words for love. Love is. The heart ‘acts’ love, ‘senses’ love and ‘feeds’ on love.

On the deepest level of our existence, still deeper than the heart, there is what we call the Source, God, the Creator, Cosmic Consciousness. On this level of existence we don’t even have a word to describe the functions. When we do try to do this, we get it all wrong because what we describe are expressions of God but not the original source.

Imagine the original condition of man. God lives in your heart of love, which expresses through your mind and then into various actions. Such an original person is entirely unified and all he or she does comes from the Source. There are no hidden levels in such a person, no contradictions in the mind, no doubts whether the love deep inside is trustable.

From a psychological viewpoint there is no subconscious or unconscious there and even the ego must be seen as entirely good. Self-centeredness of such a person is centered on the deepest core of the self, which lives in unity with God and therefore self-centeredness means also to be living for the sake of all and everything.

All problems in humans come from the separation from the Source deep inside. Something else has come here, something that is not united with the entire cosmos, something that is smaller and has desires to make that what is smaller stronger. This is what we commonly call self-centeredness and it makes that the mind splits into a part that thinks truth and goodness and another part that wants something not good and therefore produces untruth and what by some is called evil.

The result is confusion. Contradictions cannot co-exist harmoniously inside of us. Either the truth wins or the untruth, but as long as neither one is entirely controlling, there is confusion in the mind. Sometimes the untruth wins in a person and such a person expresses this untruth in most of his or her thoughts, feelings and actions, temporarily or for longer.

What mostly happens is that the mind and even the heart form layers. In the deepest layers there is what is hidden because it is ugly and dark. But hiding what is ugly and dark also hides what is good and original in those deepest layers of the self. Then a person begins to live estranged from the deeper self and life feels like acting. There is no direct channel anymore from the deepest love into a smile or a friendly word. Many people are not so aware that they do this. Their entire existence plays in these more external shells of the self.

Wishing each of you very much courage in the search inward where you find your deepest love but also your deepest ugliness and when the ugliness is recognized and overcome then all that remains is the Source inside which then can express unlimitedly through all what you are.

February 21, 2008