Get real and give it to God (audio)

A spiritual talk and transformation experience, recorded in the park (20 minutes):

Essay on Spiritual Transformation, part 1

In spiritual transformation, what is it that we are attempting to transform? It is our lower self, or our ego. When we recognize the Truth, through the Word of God, we realize we fall short of the standard set for us by the Prophets. At this point, several responses might occur. A sense of guilt may be triggered--a feeling of inadequacy. We want to cover this up, so we set out to follow the laws and rules to give us a sense of worth, and so we will be seen as acceptable in the eyes of God and others. Another response might be to feel this inadequacy without attempting to cover it up with good behavior. The inadequacy may be painful, and leave us feeling exposed. We may then turn to God in prayer, read His Word, and commune with His spirit, and feel that His powerful presence wipes away our feeling of inadequacy, or transforms it into power—spiritual power which is not from our ego, but from the grace of God.

Words, concepts, and acquired knowledge often act as a veil or cloak covering our feelings. Negative feelings are an indicator or a barometer for our body and soul, revealing to us that we are in need or out of balance in some way. We avoid experiencing negative feelings so we can continue to uphold our idealized self-image and continue to receive the approval and validation from others that comes from conforming to society’s standards of how one should be. Not only are these feelings painful to experience, but when we do experience them, we suddenly find ourselves out of step with society, alone, and unsupported by those whose life’s purpose is to avoid insecurity and instead uphold the idealized self-image. We fortify and shore-up our ego self in order to shield against and ward off feelings of insecurity, loneliness, or emptiness.

So you see there is great resistance to experiencing pain. When one can allow himself to actually feel pain or shame or heartache, it is a step away from falseness. It is an act of bravery. It breaks the rigid fear that comes from constantly repressing one’s feelings in the name of trying to look good. We think this ‘looking good’ and ‘keeping up appearances’ helps others and sets a good example, but we just teach others to be fake and superficial, without real humility, and leaving no room for growth. It is actually selfish, because we are afraid to feel the inner shame and emptiness that comes when we realize we have been fake our whole lives and that we don’t know what reality is.

If we’re busy upholding an image for others, we cannot grow or transform. If we cannot feel insecurity, we cannot turn to God for security. If we’ve acquired knowledge, house, family, job, religious and secular titles and positions, relationships, possessions, and received our security and identity from these things, then there is no room for God, no way to realize that God is the only Comforter and Provider. If our heart is attached to the comforts of this world, how can we experience God as the one who bestows the joy and peace? How can we seek peace if we cannot feel the struggle inside us? If we are constantly appeasing our struggle with the pleasures and securities of this world, how then can we let God into our hearts? Even religion and our religious friends serve as worldly comforts, which perpetuates our attachment to this world. We actually use religious meetings and religious knowledge as objects to possess, which serve to build up our personal power and give us worldly security, in order to shield against feeling our inner emptiness, shame, fear, and insecurity.

We need to dig deep into our life, and recognize that we have feelings of fear, insecurity, shame, inadequacy, and this makes up the greater part of our inner self. And we’ve been conditioned to attach ourselves to our knowledge, family, job, position, house, etc., in order to prevent us from experiencing these feelings. But those inner feelings don’t go away—they just get covered up. And then we become superficial, materialistic, intellectual, and unspiritual. Then comes the creation of the false shell which may imitate spirituality, or at least imitates what the mind thinks is spirituality. True spirituality may not look like what you imagine it to be--because you can’t have true spirituality without authentic recognition and experience of that which is not spiritual—the untransformed ego self. After the arduous process of letting down the defenses against your unwanted ego self, you can spiritualize that very self, and apply the remedy of the Writings, and enter the battle with ego. After awhile, you will see that the struggle, the battle, the pain, the selfishness, is all part of God, it is all good, and it all issues from His grace. But these are just concepts until you first get real with yourself, and feel your pain and your inadequacy, instead of talking about it in your head from a safe distance.

We spend our whole lives shielding against and warding off feelings of fear, insecurity, and weakness, and especially against showing it or expressing it in front of others. Instead, we spend all our time creating false identities of power and security and attach ourselves to various things in the world which we and society as a whole consider symbols of power and security. Underneath all our anger, fear, worry, resentment, shame, and guilt is a need and desire to be loved, forgiven, and comforted. If we can let ourselves feel that need wholly, and turn to God through His Prophets instead of turning to the things of this temporal world, we will have eternal rest--the deep peace and love our souls crave.

Since it is extremely difficult to be this vulnerable in public--while working and conducting our daily affairs around people who are not going through spiritual transformation--we need to have support groups which train us in how to stay open-hearted and turn to God for our strength while still interacting with people in our daily lives. No less than intense, sustained, and regular support and cooperation among small groups of interested individuals is required for authentic spiritual transformation.

Spiritual talk in park: What is Truth? (audio)

After a busy July 4th weekend, I attempt again to find the truth, my truth, and process my pain a bit.

Essay on Spiritual Transformation, part 2

People perceive each other and behave towards each other in terms of how that other person can be used to satisfy their need to defend against feeling their fears and insecurities, guilt or shame. We all use people to shore up and fortify our outer shell, to gain a feeling of security based on worldly pleasures and worldly attachments. This is not love. This actually precludes and impedes love. This is selfishness. No matter how nice and loving we may seem on the outside—the sole purpose of the interaction has at its root the selfish desire to protect oneself from pain, hurt, weakness, fear, insecurity, guilt, or shame. Often the unconscious intention is to appear loving and good, so as to gain approval from the person or from God, or to compensate for or cover over and hide an inner feeling of inadequacy. Here, again, the goal is to avoid appearing weak and needy, and to ward off feelings of weakness or fear. Although it is right to appear loving and good, if the motivation does not come from a felt realization and communion with the transcendent realms, then it originates in the self, and it only veils the self from the realms of grace.

(I should say there are times when a person can show altruistic love, compassion, and concern for another when there is no threat, such as when someone is showing weakness and neediness, during sickness, tragedy, etc. I believe there is this natural human love, but it is not totally pure and selfless--there is always some stain of self involved. Only God's love is totally pure, and without this love, there will never be a sense of being totally or completely loved and understood.)

There is a danger that measuring ourselves to a religious standard can reinforce feelings of inadequacy, when we realize that we don’t or can’t live up to these ideals and standards. Many of us have an inner critic that condemns us when we don’t live up to ideals we have imposed on ourselves, especially from religious training. When we haven’t experienced unconditional love and grace, when we don’t feel forgiven, we have the tendency to see religious laws and ideals as judgmental and punitive, which reinforces our original childhood wounds of feeling bad, wrong, guilty, and not good enough. Of course on the outside, we show the idealized self-image, how we think we are supposed to be. But inside there is shame, guilt, insecurity, and fear of punishment for not being good enough. We do anything to cover up these feelings of worthlessness and shame. We make it our life’s goal to ward off these seemingly life-destroying feelings. Who wants their life to topple and collapse in front of them? So a sense of security and stability is created through the outer life, so that one can remain stable and semi-peaceful, while warding off the inner pain.

One of our biggest fears is public ridicule or humiliation. We definitely don’t want someone or a group of people to make fun of us in public. This we defend against with our very lives. For this alone we would spend our lives creating a mask, in order to not have to feel the pain of a public mocking. Many adults were mistreated or ridiculed as children by their classmates, peers, or even parents, and they carry the wounds of these torments. As a coping mechanism, these adults can be seen occasionally attacking or ridiculing others, as a way to compensate for the unhealed wounds and hurts they have inside—as memories of our past hurts are carried within us.

When we allow ourselves to feel our pain and unhealed wounds, we will be forced to attempt to heal them, and we will want to receive and feel the love we did not get as children and do not receive in our daily lives. We hide these wounds because there is no love in us which would heal the pain. So what else can we do in order to function through the day? We cannot walk around emotionally bleeding around everyone, so we create walls and defenses, and put a nice false self around the whole inner mess, and we go about our business. That works as long as you keep warding off all your pain, and keep manipulating your mind and your circumstances so as to not run into any bumps on the road. Inevitably, we come up against the truth that this world and its struggles have an eternal counterpart, a realm within which is sanctified from the changes and chances of life. When we feel pain, the mature soul will crave the eternal, sanctified realm, and will cry out to God for His presence and ask to be taken into His love. When we experience His love, not only as an intellectual truth, but as a bodily-felt experience, there will indeed be healing. The healing needs to go deep, so we need to feel and experience God's love deeply. This occurs as a result of our own practice of accessing the parts of ourselves which are normally hidden. When we bring to light these hidden 'demons', they become exposed to the light of truth and awareness, and then we can bring God's remedy to these 'dark' aspects. You will see that the light will transmute this darkness, and without repressing our feelings, we will change ourselves, and we will see a new creature--a spiritual being--emerge within us. This being is created by God—but we allowed ourselves to be transformed and we gave up our hidden aspects and brought them to His threshold for transmutation and purification.