Gazing in the Mirror

October 19 - The Living Presence

Every human being is intended
to have a character of his own;
to be what no others are,
and to do what no other can do.
~ William Henry Channing

I know that the vitality of
the living Spirit flows through
my personality, invigorating it.
I know that all the warmth and
color and beauty there is,
is pouring through it.
~ Ernest Holmes

The Spirit of Life individualizes Itself as each of us and lends a spark of uniqueness to each of It's reflections. It's great un-manifested energy is portioned out as personality and yet as those lesser bits we can be aware of the greater well from which this is being poured out into our individual expressions. Most of us wear many masks that represent our various roles on the stage of life – child, parent, spouse, sibling, gender, profession and even our religion or ideology.

Ernest Holmes says that "We should learn to sense this greater Self, for It is what the Bible means when it speaks of Christ in us". Christ is that spark of the Divine Nature rather than a single human expression which has been known variously as Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed or Krishna. The un-manifested Spirit of Life can only express It's warmth and color and love, unity and peace, joy and happiness through such physical incarnations limited as they might be. This larger sense of Self that extends beyond the physical incarnation is a level of beingness that is beyond the mere population of the Earth with forms – plant, animal, etc. All mobile sentient forms are imbued with Life's energetic motion but not all of these have Divine understandings of Life's truest expressions.

Holmes goes on to say – "There is a pattern of God behind our personality seeking unique expression through it, and to this we should surrender everything that we are, for this surrender will not lead us away from Reality. It is not an escape, but a revelation and an application of something greater than we appear to be". Some years ago, I decided to undertake the challenge of what John Randolph Price called a 60-Day Experiment. I was to so surrender the ego's structures to this Indwelling and Encompassing Presence so as to allow It total expression while relegating my ego to merely looking on – a role reversal of the Witness and the Actor and allowing the taking over of this form and its limited human mind by the higher Eternal Self.

I will admit that at first this felt very contrived and it required an enormous amount of mental energy to keep this ego structure out of the way of that indwelling Presence that was being invited to take center stage in my own Life's unfolding. This is what is referred to as the Gift that must be received, must be accepted, for we are given the free will to choose instead to live simply from the Earthly natural expression of sentient life controlled by the culture and society of our historical time period and molded in the format of the family tribe that we were birthed into physical existence through. The Witness never takes over the physical form without some kind of acceptance and surrender from that developed Ego structure first. That surrender and intentional invitation to express coming from Ego to the Higher Self was the purpose of the "experiment".

For my own self, after a few days there came a noticeable shift and I actually felt lighter and less weighed down by the cares of my normal life. Those other people around me still needed for me to play those "roles" because that was all that they were used to interacting with and they were not aware of what was happening within me. In the beginning this also felt happily quite novel. I noticed that suddenly all kinds of information including much that I had been reading for years and years took on a "deeper" meaning. As I re-read many of the 365 Day contemplative reflections coming through a diversity of channels which my spiritual community at that time called "our Daily Guides", I found that these took on a satisfying added significance. I discovered added layers of meaning, purpose and quality that of course had actually been there all along but which I subsequently realized must be "recognized" in order for one to receive those blessings. This was a bit of a surprise to me but a wonderful gift to receive from a minor amount of willingness to believe in a concept that can't ever truly be proven, touched or totally explained but ended up being very real to my own self in experience.

This Presence is the burning bush that spoke to Moses or the serpent that spoke to Adam. This is the God that gave the 10 Commandments to Moses or told Noah to build an Ark to preserve some species of life that were in danger of being destroyed in a flood. It really matters not whether one believes these stories as reality or myth. For my own self, this Presence took the form of a benevolent entity seated in a beautiful garden whose demeanor was full of patience and unconditional love. That Presence now inhabits my heart's expression as the Soul or Source from which I came and to which I will return when this Earthly form no longer functions well enough to remain physically incarnated on this planet.

~ perspective

There is something greater than
I am which is intelligent and full
of personal expressiveness, this
Presence is the spark of Living
Spirit embedded in my physical body.
I am always and forever connected
to this Source and can go within to
ask It questions and to receive
Its guidance.
I can trust the still small voice
of reason and insight to give me
the wisdom and knowledge that
I need to make any decision which
comes to me for discernment.
It is a joy to have the companionship
by understanding this Presence is
with me always, available 24/7, and
lovingly caring about all that happens
to me.
I am grateful to surrender to a kind
of Life that goes "beyond" what the
five senses can know.

#Christ #ego #individuality #LifeForce #meaning #Presence #reality #source #shift #witness