Spiritual
blindness – the main challenge presented by the ego
The least you should know about the ego, Part 1.
A discourse by Jesus
NOTE: This
teaching was given on April 15, 2006, after the NEW
DIRECTION was implemented.
It is my intent with this series of discourses to give you a brief overview
of the challenges that the human ego presents to all spiritual seekers,
no matter which outer teaching or religion they follow. This is, so
to speak, “the very least you should know about the human ego.”
Why do I give these discourses? Because overcoming the ego is the central
aspect of the spiritual path. No matter which outer teaching or tradition
you follow, you MUST overcome the ego in order to attain the higher
state of consciousness that is the ONLY key to rising above the need
to re-embody on Earth. The basic reality is that the human ego simply
cannot enter “Heaven,” or whatever you prefer to call it.
Thus, even if a spiritual teaching does not talk directly about the
ego, any true teaching is designed to help you separate yourself from
the ego and build a new sense of identity that is not based on the ego.
One might think that I should start out by defining the human ego, but
when you understand the ego, you see why this is not the most fruitful
approach. The reason is that the main challenge presented by the ego
is that it distorts the way you “see” everything. The ego
forms a filter that “colors” the way your mind perceives
everything, and this filter would distort my attempts to define the
ego. Thus, I choose to first address the issue of spiritual blindness—for
until you start seeing through this blindness, there truly is no point
in saying anything else about the ego.
What is spiritual blindness?
When you normally think of a person who is blind, you think of a person
who cannot see anything. Thus, you might think that spiritual blindness
means that a person cannot see the spiritual aspects of life. Perhaps
such a person would be an atheist or a scientific materialist, either
denying the existence of God or denying that people have a spiritual
nature. However, that is not the true definition of spiritual blindness.
In reality, most of the people who are spiritually blind are completely
convinced that they are religious or spiritual people. A substantial
portion of them can be found in Christian churches every Sunday. Others
belong to the orthodox branches of other world religions and some of
them belong to various New Age movements. Common for all of these people
is that they are completely convinced that they belong to the only true
religion or that they are following the highest possible guru or spiritual
teaching.
These people are completely convinced that they will be saved, ascend,
enter Nirvana, attain eternal life or however they define the final
outcome of their religious efforts. In reality, this belief is based
on an illusion created by the human ego. The ego has, so to speak, put
a veil over these people’s eyes, causing them to see a distorted
vision. The simplest possible illustration of this is that you put on
a pair of colored glasses. Everything you see through the glasses is
tinted by the color of the lenses.
Now imagine that a baby had a pair of yellow contact lenses put on shortly
after birth. The child would grow up seeing everything through the yellow
lenses, thus thinking the sky is green. The child would have no reason
to question whether its view of “reality” is accurate, thus
being completely convinced that the sky really is green. This is essentially
how the ego has distorted the spiritual vision of every human being
on this planet. Every person has grown up with a distorted view of “reality,”
but most people have never seen an alternative and thus have no reason
to question their world view.
The essential problem with the ego
This explains why so many people consider themselves very religious
or spiritual, being completely convinced that they will be saved. Yet
in reality, they are following a path that can never lead to salvation.
The reason being that this false path is created by the ego, and thus
it is exactly what the Bible describes as follows:
There is a way
which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of
death. (Proverbs 14:12)
Does that mean I am saying
that most religious/spiritual people on this planet are following a
false path? That is exactly what I am saying, and I am simply repeating
what I already said 2,000 years ago:
13 Enter ye in
at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that
leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth
unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew, Chapter
7)
The wide gate and the broad
way is the path created by the human ego. The ego has created an illusion,
namely that you can be saved without overcoming the ego, without doing
the hard and unpleasant task that I described as follows:
3 And why beholdest
thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the
beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out
of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's
eye. (Matthew, Chapter 7)
The essence of hypocrisy
is an unwillingness to change. However, no hypocrite ever realizes that
he or she is unwilling to change. The reason being that hypocrites always
accept the illusions of their egos, meaning that they firmly believe
they do not have to change. They base this belief on the fact that they
belong to the only true spiritual/religious movement and – because
they fulfill certain outer requirements – they are guaranteed
to be saved. When you believe your salvation is guaranteed, why would
you have to change? This is the wide gate and the broad way that leads
to destruction. How can you avoid following this false path?
Your only way out
If there was no way out of the illusions created by the ego, I obviously
would not be giving this discourse. There is indeed a way out, and we
might say that it is a safety mechanism that God built into the design
of the universe. In order to discover this way out, you have to reach
beyond the veil of illusions created by the ego. The only way to do
that is to establish a contact between your conscious mind and a mind
that is above and beyond the ego. That mind can be called by many names,
but the term most commonly used by the Ascended Host is the “mind
of Christ.” That is why I said:
Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you. (John, 6:53)
While this is an expression
adapted to the consciousness that most people had 2,000 years ago –
and while I fully understand it sounds strange to today’s spiritual
seekers – it carries a core of truth. You simply need to realize
that the “flesh and blood of the son of man” refers to the
Christ consciousness. The Christ mind is a state of consciousness that
is completely beyond the human ego. Thus, only when you partake of this
state of mind, only when you allow it to enter your consciousness, can
you free yourself from the ego. The reason is that the Christ mind is
the only mind that can see the reality of God.
No man hath seen
God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18)
Thus, only the Christ mind
can give you a sense of co-measurement that will empower you to see
through the illusions created by the ego. Only the Christ mind will
allow you to experience the Spirit of Truth. That is why I said:
24 Therefore whosoever
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto
a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon
a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them
not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
(Matthew, Chapter 7)
The rock is the Christ consciousness,
and the sand is the consciousness of the ego. If you base your sense
of identity – your house – upon the illusions of the ego,
you will not be able to withstand the trials – rains –
of life.
How can you contact the Christ mind? You already have the ability to
do so, as I have explained elsewhere.
This ability is your personal Comforter, your Christ self that can connect
you to a higher part of your being, namely your I
AM Presence. The very fact that you have found this website shows
that you have already opened up some connection to your Christ self—otherwise
you simply would not be open to the teachings I present. What you need
to do next is a twofold action:
-
You need to strengthen
your connection to your Christ self. I give teachings and tools
on how to do this throughout this website, but you might start here.
-
You need to become more
conscious of the ego and the illusions that it uses to trap you
in spiritual blindness. Only by consciously seeing through the illusions
of the ego will your inner vision, your spiritual vision, be opened
so that you can rise above the ego and put on the mind of Christ.
The discourses in this section
are designed to help you get started on seeing through the illusions
of the ego.
The basic illusion of the ego
The basic problem with the ego is that it distorts your spiritual vision
so that you cannot perceive God’s reality, God’s truth.
The essence of the Christ mind is that it is always one with God, and
thus through the Christ mind you can experience – directly –
the One Reality, the One Truth of God. That is why I said:
God is a Spirit:
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
(John 4:24)
The Christ mind perceives
the Living Truth of God and it realizes that this truth is constantly
growing, expanding and transcending itself. And because the Christ mind
is experiencing this Living Truth, it has no need for a description
of truth. Thus, you now realize that there is a difference between a
description of truth and truth itself, namely the Spirit of Truth.
To help you understand this, let me give you an analogy. Imagine that
you had never tasted an apple. You have heard people talk about apples,
you have seen them on TV and you have read about them. Yet what you
have received from these sources are only descriptions. Some of them
may be very vivid descriptions of the delicious taste of an apple, and
if they are really good they might make your mouth water. Yet no matter
how good the descriptions are, they are not the same as the actual taste
of an apple. In other words, not even the best description can make
you taste an apple; no description is a substitute for the direct experience.
Yet once you hold an apple in your hand and take a bite, the need for
a description fades away. Why would you still read a book describing
the taste of an apple, when you can just as easily take a bite of the
real thing?
This is the central problem with the ego. As I will later describe in
more detail, the ego was born when you separated yourself from God.
The ego was born out of a division between yourself and God, and over
time you became so blinded by the ego’s illusions that you no
longer have the conscious experience of the “Spirit of Truth.”
Thus, instead of experiencing God’s truth directly, you have come
to rely on descriptions of God’s reality in the form of religious
and spiritual teachings.
Do you see my point? The central problem you face as a spiritual seeker
is that you need to get back to a sense of oneness with God—for
unless you have this sense of oneness, how could you possibly enter
God’s kingdom? To do this, you must get back to the state of innocence
in which you can directly experience God’s reality, so that you
no longer need any description.
After you lost the direct contact with God’s reality, the ego
created an – almost – infinite number of substitutes. Because
the ego cannot experience God’s reality directly, it has created
descriptions of that reality. No matter how good these descriptions
might be, they can never replace the direct experience, which is why
I said you must worship God in spirit and in truth. Unfortunately, the
ego cannot fathom this truth, and thus the ego believes that its description
is as good as the real thing—in fact, it believes the description
IS the real thing.
The central problem with the ego is that it has substituted the reality
of God with a description, yet it believes that if you keep following
its description, you will eventually enter the kingdom of God. Billions
of people see themselves as being very religious and they are convinced
that they will be saved. Yet they are following the broad way that leads
to destruction because they believe in the illusion that the ego’s
path will take them to Heaven.
The Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada, the Tao Te
Ching and the teachings of the ascended masters released over the past
century – including my teachings on this website – are all
descriptions of truth, but they are NOT the Living Spirit of Truth.
If the ego manages to convince you that following one of these teachings
will get you to Heaven without giving up the ego, then you have fallen
prey to the central illusion of the ego, the very illusion that the
Serpent used to trick Eve – as a symbol for your soul –
in the Garden of Eden.
Yet it is a fact that as long as you remain trapped in the ego’s
illusions, you will not have eternal life. You can NEVER enter the kingdom
of God without letting the ego die and putting on the wedding garment
of the Christ consciousness:
11 And when the
king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on
a wedding garment:
12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having
a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and
take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.
14 For many are called, but few are chosen. (Matthew, Chapter
22)
In reality, all are called,
but few choose to enter the straight and narrow path that leads them
beyond the illusions of the ego. Thus, they remain in the mental darkness
created by the ego in which life becomes a struggle. Therefore,
“Choose life!”
Part
2. Why the ego cannot see the forest for the trees
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© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
