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in your lecture about foundation you told that we shall define ourselves if we are able to do so. to show who we realy are.
but sometimes the picture other have from us is better than our own, without lack of selfconfidence.
e.g. at work we get feedback each year from our supervisor. i know i´m good and i know that many colleaques ask me for help and guidance on working matters. still they judge me better than i really am.
in this kind of cases i´m asking myself if it´s necessary to destroy the wrong idea or rather try to become as good they think i allready are.
in "conversation with god" it says that we shall not try to find out who we are, but decide who we want to be. (german book page 45)
you said that our foundation is spirituall and out of our controll.
walsh says we just need to remember what we actually know and act according to it
he means the life is not a process of discovering but a process of creating ourselves.
if i understood you right (?) you meant we shall accept what we are.
could you get this points together ? is it maybe more important to decide every question from another point of view to reach oneself step by step?
I can easily understand how these points appear contradictory, but they are not.
We do not need to find out who we are or to discover ourselves since we already are. This is not word jugglery. We are who we are. When we are not relaxed, it is due to our accepting stress from the external world and integrating it into our consciousness. This clouds our capacity to feel at ease and is a form of dis-ease. When we are not living in our elemental energy, we are accepting things that are external to us. Therefore, we do not require a process of discovery of who or what we are, we require to rid ourselves of what we are not by simply letting go (relaxing) and accepting our energy as it is.
Obviously, you cannot create yourself since you already are. Considering the eternality of spirit, which negates the possibility of creation, the idea of creating oneself cannot refer to the self; rather, it must refer to something that is within the changeable aspect of our existence.
This means that what I have stated in the lecture and what is stated in the book refer to entirely different aspects of the self.
Let me then respond to your question without reference to the seeming contradiction. If others respond to your actions in a manner that suggests that they see you better than you see yourself, you could conclude that either they are flattering you for some hidden purpose or they are correct in their observation. If they are correct, and I suspect this is true, then the question is, "Why do you have a lower estimation of yourself?" This lack of self-esteem is a significant problem for people. Dealing with this requires letting go of your fears and anxiety and accepting what you are without judging and condemning yourself. Obviously, when you let go of the external causes of stress it facilitates letting go of the internal ones. When you are free from stress, both external and internal, you feel just as you should. This is another way of saying you feel yourself as you are.
There is an inherent limitation in language which blocks clear expressions of the process of feeling oneself as one is, for this concept does not exist in our culture. The eastern traditions refer to it as Brahman, and we have been told this is connected with self-realization, but this phrase also clouds the true meaning of what takes place. By definition, the self cannot realize the self since the self is the self and cannot be anything else. The idea of samadhi implies stillness and quiet ecstasy within, and almost always refers to those yogis who are on a high level of realization, so this word also is not applicable to our discussion. One could say, ‘self-satisfied,’ yet this tends to imply that one does not need anything or has no need to experience anything, and this tends to create an impression of passivity without the motivation to attain experiences in life (although such a person might want to be of service to others out of love). Although this is close, it can create confusion since this phrase is usually linked with other concepts that are not specifically related to discussions of evolutionary experiences for everyman. It seems to me that the best way to phrase this is to say something like, "When the consciousness is allowed to be what it is without distortion."
Allowing yourself to be what you are without distortion is a process of removing those things that impose on you the energy (either through demand or inspiration) to be something else.
Now creating yourself refers to the process of your evolution. The self is energy. Energy is not static and is always flowing, for static energy is dead. Flowing living energy has life, has motion, and has a natural urge to evolve since it is the unavoidable nature of living energy to evolve. The process of evolution can be described as a struggle, much as the caterpillar’s freeing itself from the cocoon is a struggle. The act of evolutionary work implies struggle because nothing valuable comes without struggle. Even if you get something valuable due to past deeds, if you define karma in that way, still the initial act that created the good result was a product of struggle of some kind. Struggle does not exclusively imply pain or fight, although these elements may be within it, as much as it refers to the process by which something difficult is accomplished. Accomplishment in this sense also does not necessarily mean that a positive outcome or success was achieved. It can also refer to dealing with loss, acceptance of that which cannot be changed, admitting fault or mistakes, or dealing with one’s own external ruination. Evolution can come through many doors and manifest in many flavors.
When one is to create oneself in the grandest version of the greatest vision one ever had of oneself, one is meant to have a goal to be the best one can be and to aim for that. As one is moving through the steps required to attain that goal, one also strives to be at every moment the next greater version of that person who is evolving towards that wonderful vision one has of what it means to be oneself manifesting one’s potential in a most magnificent manner. As you can see, this is quite different than discovering the self.
What I have explained here also is compatible with the idea that we have nothing to learn for everything is already within us and we are simply remembering it. The self is, as is our energy. We are an axiomatic truth. When our energy flows in new directions, we feel inspired with our lives and this inspiration nourishes us in an exciting environment. This flow into new experiences is what is life and it is the basis of all evolution. It is not really a growth in the sense of ‘it was not and it has become,’ for the seed contains the tree not yet manifested. In one sense the seed and the tree are not different but are the same thing over a function determined by time. A person who wishes to plant the tree easily will appreciate the seed more than the developed tree whereas a person who wishes to sit under the shade will appreciate the tree full of leaves. Only the viewer sees one as better than the other for the energy of the tree is the same in both cases. Certainly, there is the biological growth from something small to something large, but that is not necessarily related to evolution as a small tumor is not superior to a large one.
Therefore life is about experience. Experience always leads to growth. Guiding that growth essentially means to facilitate that which is already there by supporting and nourishing the potential and removing all obstacles in the way.
