A guru at the hindu temple on Kauai put it all so simply years ago when Karen was visiting one sunday. “We are all beings of light but we have overcoats on that hide the light.” This is the truth. We have all constructed a false self or separate ego. It came into existence when we went to sleep believing that we were limited human beings living solely in a physical world. Believing this, we lost touch with the inner reams and our vast, multidimensional nature. Most humans have come to firmly believe we are that false self, at least to a large degree. Due to traumatic experiences, often in childhood and past lives, we recoiled in fear and separation from the pain and submerged parts of psyche or human soul that experienced wounding or abuse. We hid them to protect ourselves and because we believed there’s something wrong or bad about those parts of ourselves. These parts of the personality became suppressed, denied and relegated to the basement of our subconscious. They constitute our “Shadow” self. It is not who we truly are. It is one aspect of the illusory self sense.
We simultaneously began to sculpt an outer personality, often called the “mask”, that would help us to feel safe, get approval, love and have our needs met. We quickly learn as a child what our parents, authority figures and culture reward and punish. Those personality aspects that get the positive re-inforcement we identify with and hope that the world(and our self) will believe this is who we are. This too is part of the false self. All the while hidden deeper than these two layers of false self, Mask and Shadow, lies the radiant light and presence radiating from the core of our soul, the true, eternal Self. We don’t experience it because our perception is obscured by the opacity of the veiling of our mask and especially the shadow. We also don’t tend to search deep within because we are identified as the surface level personality or mask self and we are afraid to look deeper where the buried, denied shadow self aspects are hidden. The positive identification with the false mask self and denial or negative identification(we believe it is a negative part of us) with the false shadow self provide the perfect psychic cul-de-sac to prevent us from going through and beyond them into the core of being where the true Self lies. We cling to one, and run from the other which keep us trapped at the outer levels of our being. As we begin to awaken, the divine presence in the core of our being begins to move and expand outward. To come into our conscious awareness it must break through the encrusted layers of false self. That means pushing the repressed, denied shadow material to the surface. That’s why our stuff starts to erupt even more frequently and strongly when we start to awaken. Our ego is severely threatened by this, as it’s job is to keep us believing where are the nice, good, sweet, strong, etc, persona and are not the angry, fearful, wounded, distorted shadow selves we have been hiding. Understanding this dynamic process is key to grasping the the nature of the inner path. It is simple and direct. We must die to and dissolve the false self in order to find and realize the true Self that is attempting to penetrate, dissolve and re-integrate the false self and thus become our conscious, embodied true nature. We are asked to drop our clinging, attachment to all our mask personalities, yes, even the “spiritual” ones. We must stop denying, running, from or trying to rise above all the repressed pain and dis-ease that is attempting to surface from our subconscious shadow realms. For what is pushing it all to the surface is the infinitely intelligent, loving and powerful movement of our Soul and beyond. This is what is hiding just beyond the veils of “stuff” that are surfacing. Our soul knows exactly what it needs to bring to the surface to be embraced, and healed in the love and oneness of our true nature. It’s the source of all the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual dis-ease we experience. It won’t go away until we deal with it. It’s also not about getting rid of any of it. All the dark negative stuff of the shadow parts of our psyche are wanting to be transformed into the divine soul expressions they were originally meant to me. To become the luminous, Christ conscious human that is our destiny we absolutely need every aspect of our human nature healed and made whole and divine through union with with our soul, oversoul and soure levels of being. Our work is founded in these understandings. We have come to know that the most profound doorways to the soul are right through the deepest, darkest, most painful passages. Our first book, “Soul Awakening: The Journey from Ego to Essence” contains many stories that relate the truth of this. If you resonate with this understanding and approach this work is for you. One of our chief goals is to assist you to gain the inner strength, spiritual capacity and consciousness skill to face, embrace In our session and group work we utilize “stuff” that is arising in your journey as the classroom in which we assist you learn mastery in facing, embracing and transform whatever arises. It is a crucial capacity on the path to Self Mastery, which means first of all mastery of the false self or ego and it’s hold over us. We walk beside you on your inner journey supporting and guiding you, holding a sacred space in which you find the innate capacities latent within you to master you inner journey. We see ourselves as “training wheels”, and seek to see you sovereign in your own journey as quickly as possible. |