To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/09/24 21:02
Subject: Re: [K-list] ego, identity, and transformation
From: Blackswan
On 1999/09/24 21:02, Blackswan posted thus to the K-list:
Regarding that recent quote painting an image of the transformed life:
"First of all, you will not experience needs beyond those that
you naturally need: air, food, and love. You will know that your
mind condition, whatever it is, is perfect even when you have
judgments to the contrary. You will not depend on others to
pronounce your life worthy. You will not depend on others to
pronounce your life worthy. Criticism will be of no concern to
you. You will not be criticizing others and you will not be
attached to their criticism of you. You will be in the
experience of loving others. You will know that life is not
serious and that it is profoundly significant. You will know
that others contribute to your life and you will acknowledge
them for it. You will truly have what you own in life through a
willingness to not have it and a willingness to share it with
others. You will live in the present moment and not be attached
to your memories of the past or your schemes for the future."
Compare that image of an enlightened life to this great quote on
ego / identity / transformation from the book "Real Presence" by
Leanne Payne:
"Presently you begin to wonder whether you are yet, in any full
sense, a person at
all; whether you are entitled to call yourself "I" (it is a
sacred name). . . You find that
what you called yourself is only a thin film of the surface of
an unsounded and
dangerous sea. But not merely dangerous. Radiant things,
delights and inspirations,
come to the surface as well as snarling resentments and nagging
lusts. One's ordinary
self is, then, a mere facade. There's a huge area out of sight
behind it."
"So it was that Lewis discovered God to be no impersonal force
that he also found his
view of human personality changed. Each man's personality is
divided within him
and needs to become one before he can know who he is. Lewis saw
that whatever
else is involved, finally our human will determines whether or
not our personality is
made one.. . . It is consciousness that gives man choice--to
obey or not to obey. And it
is when man is obedient, when we wills to unite himself with
God, that he finds
himself to be one person--a person whose choices are continually
changing him from
the very center of his being into the perfected person that
shall be."
"For, of course, the personality is being perfected. That man or
woman who we really
are will come into ultimate personhood only in heaven. . . .
personality is eternal and
inviolable. But then, personality is not a datum from which we
start. The
individualism in which we all begin is only a parody or shadow
of it. True personality
lies ahead. . . We are are God's work of art, and we must suffer
ourselves to be
molded. Only with our willing it can He create in us the person
He intends us to be.
Paradoxically, it is only as we obey, as we become "slaves of
obedience" [a reference
to Romans 6:13-19] that we come into that incredible freedom of
the realized and
integrated personality. Only then, by virtue of our being
indwelt by God, are we fully
free to collaborate with the Holy Spirit; only then are we truly creative."
"Human will becomes truly creative and truly our own when it is
wholly God's, and
this is one of the many senses in which "he that loses his soul
shall find it." [a
reference to Matthew 10: 39,40 and Matthew 16:25-27] In all
other acts, our will is fed
through nature, that is, through created things other than the
self--through the
desires which our physical organism and our heredity supply to
us. When we act
from ourselves alone--that is, from God in ourselves--we are
collaborators in, or live
instruments of, creation. . ."
"The realized and integrated personality finds its identity only
in God, and, no longer
seeking it in a role, in a career or profession, or in a class.
It is no longer shaped or
determined by fears of failure or by what other think of it. Its
justification is in God
alone. This redeemed personality is freed from the
superimposition of sins, misdeeds,
and foibles of others and of those of its own past and in its
present. It is truly free:
free to love--even its own enemies; free to create--in spite of
fears and the hate
surrounding it. This personality no longer attempts to relate to
others on the basis of
expertise of any kind, for it no longer finds its identity in
that expertise. Fears,
outward pressures, undo domination by others, no longer shape
its internal life, nor
even--over too long a period--the circumstances of its outer
life; SECURE within its
inner being, it is enabled to confront and to deal with these
things rather than be
shaped by them. It has, insofar as its finiteness permits,
WILLED to be one with God.
Its will one with its Creator's it can, therefore perfectly
collaborate with its Creator.
Paradoxically appearing to have lost itself, the personality
finds itself for the first time
truly creative."
Now put the two quotes together. Notice how similar they sound.
This provides
freedom to be with grace and power! “Transformation” and
“Enlightenment” are
nothing less than being filled with divine love and being a
selfless contribution to
others as a purposeful and creative celebration of new life! The
access is not
self-effort or figuring it out, rather the breakthrough comes in
surrendering to
allowing God's radical presence to live our hearts (innermost
being)--it is an act of the
will that chooses to align itself with God's will. It is what I
call a faith-choice. Now,
"love" is not reduced to intense but unreliable feelings; love
is a person who makes
His home in our hearts. The very places where we sense our
hearts are "not enough"
is the opportunity to let God empower, enliven, and be His heart
in and through us.
Any inadequacy or insecurity becomes the opportunity to enjoy
His surpassingly secure
love/presence/life.
He is the source, we do not "cause" it in one sense of the word.
We do and we do not. As I choose to let Him "cause" and
"enliven" me and then, as
He lives in and through me, when people see me, they are not
seeing some identity I
designed, they are seeing a real-world and real-time expression
of the very face of
God that is my higher self. Too cool! Suffering is transformed
into training and
preparation, happiness is "upgraded" into joy, fear is reframed
as the access to what
there is to give up, and freedom to be myself is something I can
wholeheartedly
embrace at every level of my being with unending gratitude!
-- black swan
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