We have been exploring the power of our beliefs and their ability to significantly influence our lives; both positively and negatively. In this edition of the Stonyhill Newsletter, I would like to explore with you the destructive power of our “because beliefs” and their ability to turn unconditional love and compassion into a harmful judgmental, conditional love impulse.
If you want to be a happy person; a person who lives life with a “smile on their face kind of happy”; if you want to say goodbye to the stress, anxiety, and depression that leaves you overwhelmed and exhausted at the end of the day; if you are tired of conflict with family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, then you will want to continue reading.
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you are going to want to develop the simple skill of discovering the “because beliefs” that all of our primitive ego’s use to convert unconditional love into conditional love. Our primitive ego’s are very narcissistic and each is convinced that it is always right. To understand how “because beliefs” work, we need to restate some simple realities that we have been exploring.
First, there is the simple truth that says consciousness always precedes the creation of all form. In other words, without Consciousness there would be no form. Because of this reality and the fact that we are a self-conscious species capable of Co-creating form, we need to remind ourselves that each of us has a choice as to the forms we are going to be creating. Essentially, we can create love and compassion, or we can create conflict, pain and suffering; for ourselves and others. As reflexively conscious beings, we create form from our beliefs whether the beliefs are conscious or unconscious.
Ok, now that we have established the fact that we are Co-creators with the ability to create form, lets go back to the beginning of time.
At the moment of the Big Bang, the Initiating Consciousness we call God created, out of nothing, the matter or form that we call our Universe. At that moment, the essence of the Creator was infused or poured into the energy and elemental particles that ultimately became our Universe. In other words, the Initiating Intelligence became an integral or immanent part of all creation. As a result, all of Creation contains the sacred.
In others words all created form is sacred. All matter is sacred. The idea that some things are sacred, and other things are not, no longer makes sense when we understand the Creator to be Immanent. In the same way, the arguments and violence between various religions as to whose God is the “right” God ceases to make sense when God is Immanent rather than a Theistic Being. Of course, God is still God, only our human understanding of God has changed.
When we understand God in this way, the concept of soul or “essential self”, that part of us created in God’s image begins to make more sense. In other words, our essential self is the sacred, core part of each of us that contains the essence of the Immanent Creator.
Our essential self is that part of us that is capable of manifesting unconditional love; a sustainable love that has no limiting “because beliefs” attached to it; a love that is pure compassion. To get a better understand of how a “because belief” works in the description that follows, you can view a Mind Model of our essential self and our local ego by “CLICKING HERE”.
As we can see in the Mind Model Diagram, when our essential or authentic self attempts to manifest an impulse of unconditional love, it has to pass through the conditioned material of our unconscious primitive ego and all of the learned and conditioned material of our observing adult ego.
The unconditional love energy of the Creating Consciousness of the universe flows freely as a gift through all of creation including the essential self of all reflexively self-conscious minds. Because we have free will and choice, we are capable of Co-creating form with the Initial Creating Consciousness we call God. Many people are very uncomfortable with this reality. They would rather just let God be responsible for what gets created.
The un-conditional love of our essential self is simply the pure love of the Creator; a love that has no ego “becauses” attached. However, when the unconditional love impulse of the essential self picks up an ego “because” as it passes through the conditioned material that comprise the various aspects of our ego, the pure uncontaminated impulse of unconditional love becomes corrupted and distorted. It becomes a conditional love impulse.
For example, I love you unconditionally right now “because” you agree with all of my beliefs---you are so wonderful. In fact, you are just like me! I love you, “because” you love me and never tell me I am wrong. As long as you stay this way, (the “condition”), I will continue to love you.
Stated simply, our local ego, especially the primitive ego, very quickly manifests a harsh and judgmental sense of “otherness” when “others” have the insensitive audacity to disagree with our firmly held beliefs. The person who disagrees with us is quickly labeled as one of “them” and emotionally becomes the “enemy”.
The conditional love of our local ego manifests as anger, aggression, rejection, criticism, judgmentalism, and shaming. It creates violence and conflict. Conditional love is always judgmental and creates categories of “otherness”. The judgmentalism and conflict created by conditional love is the source of virtually all of the pain and suffering we see in the world today.
Unconditional love is always compassionate, gentle, accepting of what is, and sees all of creation as sacred.
To be happy and stress free, to live without anxiety and depression, it is important to pay attention to the “because beliefs” that limit our ability to manifest and sustain unconditional love. Fortunately, the “because beliefs” and the conditional love they create are easily identified within us when our goal is the authentic spiritual growth that comes from growth in self-awareness.
“Because beliefs” are present when we are upset or angry with others; whenever we are telling others who they should be; what they should do; what they should not do; what they should or shouldn’t believe in; what is ethical or moral and what is not; what God wants or does not want; what is right and wrong; what is good or bad; or what sin is or what sin is not. All of these rigid black and white categories of right or wrong represent the “because beliefs” of our black and white primitive ego. This includes our religious beliefs. When we pay attention to our emotions we will get insight into the “because beliefs” that we are using to create the form called conditional love.
When our adult observing ego begins to mature through intentional growth in self-awareness, we will find ourselves manifesting the skill of simply sitting comfortably with “what is”. We will have learned to be non-judgmental. We will have developed the skill to be consistently identifying and maturing our rigid primitive ego “because beliefs”. We will be capable of manifesting a gentle non-judgmental middlepath spirituality that seeks the truth on both sides of any issue and embraces “not-knowing”, mutuality, radical diversity, and the acceptance of all things. Our observing ego fully accepts the sacredness of all of creation.
As we learn to identify the “because beliefs” that convert our unconditional love impulses into judgmental conditional love impulses, we will find ourselves happier, less stressed, and less anxious. Our depression will turn into a joy of life. Over time, the conflict and pain in our relationships with others, and ourselves, will change into an unconditional love energy of compassion and creativity. We will become Co-creators with the Creator effortlessly manifesting unconditional love, peace, and justice for all of creation; not just the parts that agree with us.
As one writer once put it, life is easy. It is only hard on our beliefs, especially the rigid black and white “because beliefs” of our primitive ego.
The path to happiness and authentic spiritual growth is easily found when we become intentionally self-aware.
(Readers can go to www.stonyhill.com for in-depth articles and past Newsletter discussions on the subject of our inner-child’s primitive ego, happiness, and authentic spiritual growth.)
Personal Thoughts
I try to intentionally pay attention to my emotions and identify the “because beliefs” of my inner-child’s primitive ego, but I find that they are slippery and sometimes difficult to control. They tend to unconsciously “knee-jerk” themselves into my day to day life.
For example, I often find myself attempting to be non-judgmental in my behavior with others, but at the same time I find myself “thinking” judgmental thoughts internally. Unfortunately, my silent mental judgments often limit my ability to be as loving and compassionate as I would really like to be.
Twenty five years as a Therapist have taught me that it is virtually impossible for me, or anyone else, to hide our internal judgments from others even when our outward behaviors are “appropriate”. Unconscious facial expressions or other subtle physical behaviors will almost always give us away.
We all have the ability to know, at some level or awareness, when others are being judgmental or harboring a silent “because belief” in their interactions with us. We might experience the judgmentalism as a lack of “warmth” or “genuineness” in the other person’s interactions with us. Sometimes it’s what others don’t say that signals their judgmental “because beliefs” and their “conditional” lack of acceptance. If we can sense it in others, Iwe have to know that others can sense it in us.
The spiritual practice that has helped me the most to stay aware of my “because beliefs” has been staying present to the “sacredness” of the other person; learning to pay attention and experiencing the immanence of God in them and in all of creation. The Buddhists call this namaste. Namaste means that the “sacred” in me recognizes and honors the “sacred” in you. I try hard to include animals and the earth in this way of seeing the world.
There is an old saying that I like. It says that no matter how hard you try to change the world and others, you will never be successful. But the day that you change yourself, the whole world will change. Becoming more self-aware of my primitive ego’s many “because beliefs” is an ongoing work that I take seriously.
Namaste also helps me to remember that all of us are wounded. All of us carry the emotional scars and fears that come from childhood and life traumas. All of us have an unconscious inner-child and a primitive ego that manifests a very primitive and pathological narcissism. In other words, we are all human. We are all limited in our ability to manifest unconditional love.
We are all in the process of “becoming”. Namaste helps me remember these realities and to be more gentle in my compassion and acceptance of others when they are simply “being human”. When I can hold onto a namaste awareness, it allows me to be more genuine and warm in my interactions with myself and others.
I am grateful whenever I meet truly genuine and warm people because they are the people that remind me to keep growing in self-awareness so I too can someday become as unconditionally loving and caring. They represent to me the meaning of enlightenment. They are always happy, unstressed, and smiling. I love being around them! They embody “hope” for me.
The primitive ego of our inner-child is not bad. It is only trying to keep us safe. Unfortunately the survival skills of childhood are rarely effective or helpful when we try to use them in adulthood. We must learn to love the child within, but we may not want to let it continue unconsciously attempting to control our lives. Growth in self-awareness is the most important work a reflexively self-conscious Co-creator can undertake. The survival of our species and our planet may well depend on how well we do.
The spiritual path toward enlightenment is only found when we are willing to become self-aware. When I am willing to identify, then sit with and own the rigid “because beliefs” of my inner-child’s primitive ego I find that my life gets “lighter”. I find myself enjoying life and smiling more.
Let me leave you with another Nasrudin teaching story that I especially like.
The king and Nasrudin were in a strange town."Nasrudin" said the king, "let usstroll incognito into the city so we can see what it is like."Nasrudin readily agreed and they went into the city. People did not recognize the king in his disguise, and paid him no attention, but they smiled at Nasrudin.When they returned, the king said "Nasrudin, you told me you have never been here before, but it seems you know a lot of people here!""Why, your majesty?""Well, I saw many passers-by smile at you today!""Oh, that's simple, majesty. You see, I smiled at them!"
Quote:
We are consumed with the other and never with ourselves…………. people are just moving as zombies, functioning well, faltering sometimes. Attentiveness is found in some degree in a very small number of individuals; the majority is justbereft of it. We are not trained to be attentive. The society wants people who can function within the given slots only. Attentiveness is to be cultivated. Higher quality of attentiveness is to be brought and then this will slowly mature into sharp attentiveness and this further ripens into witnessing.……………..witnessing is being in the moment, being aware, when the observer is detached from the observed. It is knowing the distance between the knower and the known. One who is seeing and the one who is being seen and the bridge in between - when that is known it can be called witnessing. It isn't what you do, it is how you do. To be a witness- first you have to be!………….knowing your core. Paraphrased from Anandmurti Gurumaa at www.gurumaa.com
A Spiritual Practice
To understand how the beliefs and thoughts of the primitive ego can so radically limit our ability to be happy and manifest compassionate behaviors such as acceptance, empathy, mutuality, and unconditional love, it is necessary to define who we are spiritually; our essential self. Doing the following exercise often leads to helpful insight on this important question.
First, make a list of everything that you can think of that your ego uses to define who you are, or by negation, those things you think you are not. Include your career, your family, your hobbies, your friends, your education, your personality traits, your physical attributes, your name, your childhood, and your experiences. Then take all of that away. Continue this process of definition and removal until you cannot come up with any more definitions of who your ego thinks you are, or by negation, who you think you are not. Then sit quietly and pay attention to the only thing that’s left; the pure attention and observing awareness of your pure consciousness. The part of you that is often referred to in spiritual practice as “The Observer”.
If we sit with this observing awareness long enough, we will awaken to the experience of simply being; a pure observer of what is; or reality itself. This is who we are at the level of our authentic or essential self; a pure local consciousness empty of all local ego and simply sharing in the Consciousness of the Creator. Authentic spiritual growth, enlightenment, and our happiness is dependent on our ability to live our lives through the more enlightened vision of our observing ego; unattached to our ego and its never ending illusions.
Our ego’s sense of who we are has undoubtedly changed over time, but our essential or authentic self has never changed. We are the same conscious observing-self we have always been. Some would call this our soul or the part of God that lives in our hearts; a wave of “i am” in the ocean of “I AM”. Whatever way you are comfortable, understanding your essential-self or pure observing consciousness is fine.
The important reality is that this essential-self is the source of our authentic spirituality. Our essential self is the only part of us that has the ability to love unconditionally. The same essential-self resides in every reflexively self-conscious person. Everything else is learned and conditioned ego; beliefs, assumptions, certainties, expectations, fears, personality, roles, habits, prejudices, self-identity, fantasies, and illusions. As we saw above, our conditioned ego radically corrupts the unconditional love of our essential self and turns it into a judgmental conditional love; when it attaches a dangerous “because belief”.
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