You Are Faced With A Sacrifice

Ishvara:

The Consciousness as-it-is faces competition. There is competition with the intellect -- that built-in attachments to beliefs, that capacity to believe in systems and structures and to adhere to conditioning. These programs involve more than just concepts, because most humans are hard wired to accept some outside authority or to adhere to some faith, some religious principles. The programming is hard wired in the brain. It seems a formidable task to transcend these basic beliefs.

In the past, these beliefs were part of the survival mechanism for a child-like humanity which viewed the world as a mysterious, frightening place. Some hard wiring was necessary at that time in order to provide people with a pacifier, some assurance of survival. But humans have moved beyond that survival need, beyond the need to feel that there is some "other" power that is protecting or guiding them. The brain's hard wiring has become obsolete. This is in accord with the evolutionary process. In the process of evolution, certain characteristics hang around past their time; attributes continue to be created even though they are no longer needed. The hard wiring for faith, for belief, continues to be created.

This can hinder the awakening process. When you begin to feel the stirring of the core existence, True Nature, it is natural to look outside to recognized authorities or spiritual teachings, in order to try to find some validation, some guidance, but mostly what you find is an agenda, another belief, another concept, another way, and that tends to take you away from awakening.* It tends to box you into an accepted possibility, a religion, a spiritual discipline, or a belief. For the most part, that successfully guides you to some "other", but at the cost of true awakening, true realization, True Nature.

True Nature is a very individual process. True Nature is a place where you absolutely resonate with the uniqueness of Life that you are, where you discover through direct experience your potentials, where you realize your capabilities and your shortcomings. All experience serves this awakening; no experience can be denied or should ever be rejected. All of it is Life teaching how energy works.

In the past, it was most difficult to understand direct experience. There was so much mystery about the world, so much unknown, so much to fear, and as a result, stories became sufficient--stories about the origin and meaning of Life and about what happens after death. Stories assisted in bringing about a kind of stabilization, allowing a person to move through various experiences without freaking out. Something similar occurs with the belief in a Santa Claus or the Easter bunny; such beliefs are for children, to help pacify them in the face of the unknown. They serve a certain function, provide something to look forward to, provide a sense of magic. It is easy for a child to believe in those things, because the child is magical already. The child has a magical existence, but to hold onto such childhood magic is disabling as a person moves into the workaday world. Letting go of the magic seems to be a necessary sacrifice in order to accommodate the consensus world, but the superstitious stories about the "other" continue in consensus reality.

So there is a lot to compete with in presenting The Consciousness as-it-is, as it has evolved to this moment, as it is transcending the past, the systems, the structures, the beliefs, the concepts and the programming. In presenting it as it is now, The Consciousness comes into competition with all the intellectual processes, the beliefs, the hard wiring.

Yet everything serves. Every experience is a revelation of the potential that is inherent within True Nature: the possibility of evolving the brain, deleting neural pathways that no longer serve the expansion of awareness, and establishing new neural pathways that help you to see the bigger picture, to experience greater awareness and connection.

You have the constant opportunity to surrender the emotional stuff which is part of the hard wiring. As you begin to access True Nature, it is natural for old patterns to be released. It takes energy to access the core of your existence; it also takes energy to hold onto past patterns, to keep them in place. You are faced with a sacrifice: Are you going to move deeper into your core existence and face the debris which is thereby set loose, or are you going to continue to hold that stuff in place at the expense of True Nature?
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* By saying that it is "natural" to look outside for validation, Ishvara is speaking of human nature, which he contrasts with True Nature. For more information about the meaning of these terms, see the glossary at http://alayanet.org/glossary.html

Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

I have transcribed and edited the message below, from a talk Ishvara gave on January 16, 2005. - TG.

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