Books to Remember: The God Seed by M. Catherine Thomas (UNFINISHED)

 p. 139 - The Natural Man , Ego

 The Lord defines two minds within man, the "natural" and the "spiritual." We will here relate the ego-mind of the false self to the natural Man. The natural mind is described as a part of Man that exists in opposition to God (Mosiah 3: 19) and to sets itself up in opposition to one's true self, enthroning itself as God.

Man, therefore, has these two opposing minds in himself, the one aligned with God and the other which, when understood, is seem to be merely a compilation of unexamined habits of perception, false interpretations, fears, positionalities (i.e., opinions held as fact), and entrenched habits of thought.

 

In scriptural language, the ego-mind is the mind of vanity and unbelief, of the darkened mind (as in Alma 26:21 and D&C 84:54). It is the state of being spiritually asleep, as in: "Behold, he changed their hearts; yay, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God (Alma 5:7). It is a condition of spiritual unconsciousness, as an Alma where the Lord awakens the Laminite king from his spiritual stupor by casting away the dark cloud of unbelief so that the king might be infused with joy (Alma 19: 6). Most of us labor under this cloud.

 

When a person is born into this world, the ego, with its own agenda and urge to control, begins to enlarge itself unveil the openness and freedom of our original spiritual mind. Instead of seeing things as they really are, we see by the dim light of our ego dash concerns and fears. Perhaps the main characteristic of the ego is that a behaves like a frightened child.

Page 158 -Loving God

I do not love God. For if I loved God I should be continually thinking about God with heartfelt joy. Every thought of God would give me gladness and delight. On the contrary, I'm much more often and much more eagerly think about earthly things, and thinking about God is labor and dryness. If I loved God, then talking with God in prayer would be my nourishment and delight and would draw me to unbroken communion with God. But, on the contrary, I not only find no delight in prayer, but even find it and effort. I struggle with reluctance, I am in feebled by sloth, and I'm ready to occupy myself eagerly with any unimportant trifle, if only it's shortens prayer and keeps me from it. My time slips away unnoticed in futile occupations, but when I am occupied with God, when I put myself in God's presence, every hour seems like a year.

When person's love one another, they think of the other throughout the day without ceasing, take picture the other to themselves, they care for them, and in all circumstances this beloved friend is never out of their thoughts. But I, throughout the day, scarcely set aside even a single hour in which to sink deep down into meditation upon God, to inflame my heart with love of God, while I eagerly give up 23 hours as fervent offerings to the idols of my passions. I am forward and talk about frivolous matters and things which degrade the spirit, that give me pleasure. But in the consideration of God I am dry, bored and lazy. Even if I am unwilling ly drawn by others into spiritual conversation, I tried to shift the subject quickly to one which pleases my desires. I am tirelessly curious about novelties, about civic affairs, and political events; I eagerly seek the satisfaction of my love of knowledge.... But the Law of God, The knowledge of God and of religion, make little impression on me, and satisfy no hunger of my soul. I regard these things not only as a non-essential occupation for a Christian, but in a casual way as a sort of side issue with which I should perhaps occupy my spare time, at odd moments.... I do not love God.

p 160

He points out how easy it is to offer mock prayers, which are prayers offered without expectation of communication.

       A good help to avoid this dilemma [of being deceived by Satan and receiving false          revelations] was, for me, always to put myself through a test - a test that was actually defined by the Lord... According to Luke 14:33: 'So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.' Christ is literally cutting a knife into our soul, making it clear to us that there is no middle way, and that we have always to ask ourselves where, exactly, do we stand. When we can, in all honest reflection, say, yes, I am a disciple of Christ, I'm willing to sacrifice my own will, my habits, attitudes, and selfish desires, and endure the hurt and the pain that such reflections cause, and bring to Him as a sacrifice, a broken heart and a meek spirit, '[He] will baptize [us] with fire and with the holy Ghost 3 Ne 9:20,' and we will not be deceived.

Page 181

There's a little story that comes from ancient wisdom literature which illustrates that we cannot really know whether a situation is good or bad. Someone factors are always involved in the events of life. They may be unknown but they are not random. Trying to manipulate situations according to our desires or aversions may run counter to higher purposes:

A poor farmer's horse ran off into the country of the barbarians. All his neighbors offer their condolences, but his father said, " how do you know that this isn't good fortune? After a few months the horse returned with a barbarian horse of excellent stock. All his neighbors offered their congratulations, but his father said, "How do you know that this isn't a disaster?" The two horses bred, and the family became rich in fine horses. The farmer's son spent much of his time riding them; one day he fell off and broke his hip bone. All his neighbors offered the farmer their condolences, but his father said, "How do you know that this isn't good fortune?" Another year passed, and the barbarians invaded the frontier. All the able-bodied young men were conscripted, and 9-10ths of them died in the war. That's good fortune can be disaster and vice versa. Who can tell how events will be transformed?

P 166-169

Each of us has within us a certain reservoir of suppressed and repressed fear. This quality of fear spills into all areas of our life, colors all of our experience, decreases our joy in life, and reflects itself in the musculature of the face so as to affect our physical appearance, our physical strength, and the condition of health in all the organs in the body.

Thus the need to investigate our fears and bring them to light.

Deepak Chopra writes similarly of a descent:

The shadow exists out of sight. To find it, you have to be dedicated to a journey of dissent. Think of this journey as going back to retrieve parts of your life that have been abandoned because you felt so ashamed or guilty about them. The anger [for example] That erupts from the shadow is attached to past events that were never resolved. Now those events are over and gone, but their emotional residue isn't.

This shadow is the hidden place where we all repress things we feel guilty about or ashamed of, as well as stored humiliations and other pains we cannot face. Ken Wilbur explains:

It is astonishing that... I can take parts of myself, my I-ness, and push them on the other side of the self dash boundary [into the unconscious], attempting to deny ownership of those aspects of myself that are perhaps two negative, or perhaps two positive to accept. It pushing them away does not actually get rid of them, but simply converts them into painful neurotic symptoms, shadows of a disowned self come back to haunt me, as I look in the mirror of that which disturbs me about the world out there, and see only the shadow of my disowned self.... Those things in the world that most disturb and upset me about others are actually my own shadow qualities, which are now perceived as "out there."

That is, the average human would much rather hide his shadow from himself and project it onto the world and then condemn the world and see it as evil, rather than to face it and take responsibility for it himself. Wilbur's observation is that we are upset by those things, and only those things, that are reflections of our own shadows.

This doesn't mean that others do not possess the qualities that I happen to despise... If the negative qualities of the other person merely inform me, that's one thing; but if they obsess me, infuriate me, in flame of me, disturb me, then chances are that I am caught in a serious case of shadow boxing, pure and simple.

Faces of the Shadow

Anything can be stored in the unconscious where the shadow resides. Whatever is stored in darkness becomes distorted. Things can be hidden, pushed away, but not destroyed. Shadow energies remain alive. They still lurk beneath our awareness and necessarily affect our spiritual efforts until they are accepted and released.

The shadow can be seen as sealed up energies that leak out at the most inconvenient and distressing times. We see our shadow at work when we are suddenly unaccountably angry ( " I'm a nice person. Nice people don't get angry"), or sad, or controlling, or seductive, or any number of emotions that we do not understand or accept in our self. How often, for example, we see the politician campaigning vociferously against homosexual practice or adultery, only to find out that he has these very issues in his own life.

Anger hidden in the shadow off and arises as the symptom of depression. The depression recedes as the true anger underneath is brought to light and accepted.

The goal of psychotherapy or spiritual development is to identify, face, and re-own the shadow. This is a complex issue but my goal in this discussion is only to raise awareness of and even acceptance of our dark side. Of course these dark energies are not to be acted on in a way that would injure ourself or others, but spiritual progress and spiritual wakefulness move forward much more readily as these dark energies come into the light of awareness, our compassionately accepted, and released.

Some of the trials that show up in our lives may be their expressly to expose the shadow. Rohr continues, "So we absolutely need conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies, or we will have no way to ever spot or track our shadow self. They (others) Are our necessary mirrors. " Taking your own honest inventory is about seeing your stuff first, " so you can stop blaming, accusing, and denying, and thus displacing the problem. " It is about seeing truthfully and honestly and fully. Thus, " God brings us - through failure - from unconsciousness to ever-deeper consciousness and conscience. "

Rohr points out that

The very fact that anyone can do stupid, cruel, or destructive things shows that they are at that moment unconscious and unaware. Evil proceeds from a lack of consciousness... You cannot heal what you do not acknowledge, and what do you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within, festering and destroying you and those around you.

We acknowledge gracefully that there are Forces continually operating add many levels to bring us to an increasingly healthy state, and every aspect of our being - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. As a result, the shadow wants to emerge. It wants to be known. " Repression says,'If I don't look at you, you will leave me alone.' To which the shadow answers, "I can do things that will make you look at me," Paying attention is just what is needed, casting the light of compassionate awareness over the shadow's secrets. Awareness can undo and remake any impulse. " The shadow in all its forms requires consciousness in the form of light and love, and the only limit to healing is how much of ourselves we are willing to give to the project. "

We can see why all this excavating is an essential tutorial. Because one of the things that can happen as we do shadow-work is that we increase in compassion for all others who have, like us, dark energies to deal with. We become less judgmental. That doesn't mean that people don't need to be held accountable for crimes against society; it does mean that we can from our depths understand how the most unthinkable evils could be perpetrated by one person against another - because each of us is ultimately capable nearly anything. As the Roman poet Terence said, " I am a human. I consider nothing that is human alien to me. "

P 188-189

The Savior reveals by His own life that imitation will not suffice. He says that He not only knows the Truth, but has become the Way, the Truth, and the Life ( John 14:6). He says, "Behold, I am the law, and the light" (3 Nephi 15:9). That is our model and our destiny, if we will accept it.

Here are examples from two different authors about working with different forms of spiritual materialism. The first author, Michael Langford, sees intellectual "spirituality" As a substitute for actually becoming the spiritual principle. He recognizes our vulnerability to accepting intellectualization of gospel principles instead of being changed by them; he writes:

It is important to understand the difference between insight and intellectual understanding.... Many people fail to see that their primary reason for studying "spiritual" teachings is (that) They enjoy the concepts. The desire to go quickly to the next concept and to gather more and more information and to read more and more spiritual books and to think about what has been read and to discuss what has been read and thought about, or symptoms of the intellectual appetite and intellectual "spirituality"... (because) The ego likes to scatter attention; thinking scatters attention. To bring the attention to a single point and to dwell on that single point for a very long time is the way to awaken insight. Insight is not thinking and insight is not belief. Insight is a permanent new perspective.... Choosing belief instead of Direct Experience Is one of the ego's tricks.... Spiritual concepts do not lead to freedom. Only practice [that leads to Direct Experience)  leads to freedom.

Direct experience is gained by becoming the principle. Otherwise it's just theory and not really a part of our being (see John 7:1).

A second to author, Terry Warner, catches himself in his "spiritual materialism," That is, in an ego trip under the guise of spirituality.

My problem did not lie in my objectives. My objectives were lofty - never stooping to dishonesty, not compromising my principles, standing forward to defend the right and make corrections when things didn't go as they should. The problem was that pursuing these objectives was a project too much in behalf of myself. I could not see it then, but in a very subtle way my quest continue to the very preoccupation with myself I was trying to overcome. And it twisted my goal of being true into the goal of being true to me, and being true to me, for my sake often came before the interests and needs of others.... My way showed itself as I responded in a hurried manner to a student's question in the hall - because, after all, I had important things to do; and in a conversation with a colleague, thinking of what I would say next instead of listening appreciatively; and then becoming inwardly indignant about a brother's false doctrine and priesthood meeting. no matter how rigorous, a quest to be true went undertaken on one's own behalf can ever put to silence the disquieting voice that says, 'You're not honest, simple, solid, and true. You're still in it for yourself. It's your own agenda that you care most about.'

Getting free of the tricks of the ego has to do with refusing the payoffs we've gotten from our self-deception. As mentioned earlier, we are used to getting certain "perks" from our various ego programs - power, gain, praise, pleasure, superiority. But the Spirit of Truth leads us to see that all are protective and self-promoting programs, are acting against archery nature, our self betrayals are:

"A decision against acting for the welfare of others and in favor of the (supposed) gratification of ourselves"

P 192-193

Not to imply that this overthrow can happen overnight or that it is easy to identify ego - motivations and to let go. These ego-programs are deeply rooted and tangled up with our thoughts and impulses, and they don't go away easily. But as we practice increasing internal awareness, we find that they do yield more rapidly. The shocker is to see how very much of our life is colored by these mental afflictions.

It is appropriate to be non-judgmental about ego behaviors, but it is also essential to recognize that we are entirely responsible for the way we deal with them. We adopted these behaviors perhaps unwittingly, but they arose from within our agency and our subject to the Law of Restoration. We cannot dissociate ourselves and our responsibility completely from what has arisen from within us and found expression. Even while we understand the egos origin, we are responsible for all motivations and all behaviors.

Of course, accountability for ego programs rises with understanding and development. And even though our responsibility varies with accountability, and we have lived much of life oblivious to what we were thinking and doing, even so, the consequences of ego-motivated behaviors take their toll on the spiritual quality of our life. Let us remember that you and I are reaching for a higher and higher degree of accountability before the Lord.

All major spiritual traditions find that with humility the ego dissolves. Here it becomes obvious why the Lord identifies humility and trust in Him as the path to freedom. Father Keating observes from his own direct experience: "anyone, anyone at all who brings himself to nothing will find out who he is." He elaborates:

Jesus's wisdom sayings need to be reinterpreted: "If you try to save your life you will bring yourself to ruin; If you bring yourself to nothing, you will find out who you are."

"No-thing means no possessive attitude, roll, even spiritual role. The eye of a needle is a symbol of that - you won't get through it unless you reduce yourself to energy. There is no future for the false self. How do you convince people about this? A lot of people are initially excited about this possibility, but then the huge impact of the negative social influences is like a dead weight.... The false self is the only self we know. It is painful to face the conscious and then the unconscious attachments we have to false self activities and motivation. That is the great problem"

Were we, as he says, to feel ourselves as primarily energy, the energy we wish to develop, we would feel much of the old false self slip away. So we take care not to try to "be" anything or look like anything or make anyone think something about us. Our motto can become: "Seek to serve, not to impress."

At whatever point along the path we are, it looks like there is no viable option to becoming the real thing. Then we see the path open up out of the house of mirrors.

Currently on pg. 237