Who are you?

Throughout history, every culture has questioned the nature of the eternal self and the soul. We’ve kept a dialogue running from one generation to the next, handing off our best scientific observations, psychology, and religious convictions about who we are and how we fit into a vast plan, a plan that gives us assurance that we are more than what we see in the mirror. It doesn’t matter if we reach consensus or not. As long as we are judgment-free, everyone’s ideas have merit. It’s designed to be an exploration process.

Religious diversity gives us an opportunity to reach across conceptual miles and discover common ground in our imagery and saviors, inviting us to open our hearts and embrace similar ideas. It’s an ongoing process of self-definition enhanced by the flavor of whichever scholarly thought you subscribe to. To date, membership in an exclusive club is not required – no one has cornered the market on knowing the Divine.

The true nature, or true self, has always been naked within us in its perfect design. It is our spirit song. We are all going to sing differently. Thank goodness we have our own instruments, or life would be mighty boring, but the song operates through us. It’s interactive and tactile, and in the earth world, it comes from the heart as an individualized rendition. To express the true self, internalize the concept of who you are and allow it to become part of your fabric of being. Through emotions, we’re going to live the idea and wear it well. It’s a living idea.

Body, Soul, and Spirit

When we identify with the elements of our spirituality, we can understand our purpose. We are composed of body, soul, and spirit. Our physical body, or physic, is our flesh-and-blood physical body, or our outer self. It’s what we see in the mirror, a vehicle for movement that houses the soul, or the psyche. Psyche is a Greek word meaning “soul.” Think of your soul, or your inner self, as a unique thumbprint of divine expression. At the core of your identity is spirit. The ancients called it pneuma/nous, or spirit/intellect. Intellect does not refer to the mind or what emanates from the mind in the form of thought. It refers to the witness of experience – spirit witnessing life through us. The mystic philosopher Plotinus described the nous as the “knowing principle,” or what we have inside us that “knows.” It is the glue, our center, the subject of every experience. It is our “sense” of being, and our common essential identity.

The Gnostics referred to the pneuma/nous as consciousness. Consciousness is the state of who we are – knowing who we are while being in the body. It means we are capable of having an awareness of spirit that extends beyond our physical reality, hopefully, more often than not. So, by the Gnostic definition, we don’t have a physical body that is sometimes conscious; we are consciousness that is sometimes aware of having a physical body. Our true identity, or our true self, is spirit, or consciousness, which witnesses what our soul experiences.

Knowing the true self means basking in the realization that we are capable of being one with consciousness. It is about coming into being, or becoming, within the dynamic experience we call life. We don’t realize our true self, or experience spirit, by sitting on the couch and watching what the world is up to on network television. We bring spirit through us by experiencing life through the soul and the body. If you accept this translation, it means that your origin stems from being spirit, and that the gift of life, or your soul journey, is to allow it to live through you. You are inviting spirit, or your true self, to express its self. In that way, you become conscious of spirit through the choices you make. You begin to enter a state of alignment with spirit. You are working toward being.

What is Consciousness?

Consciousness is like light. If we take light into a completely dark room, its energy illuminates objects in a room. These objects reflect the light, giving us the ability to see them, so we can view the furniture, windows, and rugs. We have a sensory experience; thoughts and feelings arise as a result of what we see. Did we like the colors? Was the space pleasing to us? Could we improve the room? But without light there is nothing to reflect. It’s the objects that make the light exist. Consciousness is like the light because it is defined by the objects that reflect it.

In non-metaphoric terms, what illuminates consciousness, or gives it experience, so it can define itself? You do, through your individual stories, your triumphs and travels. We are an entire collection of souls, each of whom brings a unique angle to the whole process. Having a soul and a body helps define consciousness in ongoing and diverse patterns. It’s the most basic soul work we all do, which is astonishing. Next time someone asks you what you do for a living, tell them you are helping to define consciousness by experiencing your point of view. Without you, the system can’t work. You are a co-creator with spirit. Feel delight, and know you are free no matter what your situation. Live with the potential for ultimate joy as you define consciousness and permit it to unfold in your life.

How We Block Our Music

I think we get into trouble when we narrow our lens and allow our spirituality to become a dogmatic concern, overcomplicated by rules. Our spiritual status, and consequently the positive image of our selves, has unfortunately been skewered by fear: of the opposite gender, color, alternative philosophies, death, the unknown, different cultures, sex, making mistakes, those who we imagine have power over us. Fear enables us to hold our selves back. It negates the spirit within us, which we do have choice in expressing.

Lately our society, in the spirit of mutual respect, free speech, and religious tolerance, has adopted a “hands-off” posture toward spirituality. In order to work together and attend school, we’ve decided we can’t talk about spirit, our source, our reason for being here, or our “beingness” because we can’t agree on the interpretation. Fair enough – we can’t all have the same image of the Divine. How man and woman came to be is a touchy subject. Thus we’ve detached and formed an illusion of separateness that has stripped away all identities of who we are at a primary spiritual level.

Losing Your Mask and Discovering Your Self

Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, envisioned the self as the central organizing archetype in the human psyche, the center of the unconscious. As we engage in an effort to define self (the process of individuation), we bring together all the qualities we develop as individuals, both conscious and unconscious. The first part of the process involves the symbiosis of the healthy persona, or mask, that we adopt in the first half of life, in order to cope with the demands of society, with the discovery of comprehensive meaning and wholeness in the second half of life. Essentially, we complement our strengths with their forgotten opposites, as we reconcile our persona, or outside presentation, and tell the ego to take a back seat in organizing what we show the world.

In order to discover your authentic self in a process to become “whole,” there is no choice but to cast off Jung’s mask and take a peek at your shadow side. What has laid stagnant for too long; which ideas no longer serve you about who you are? Do you feel that your inner world defines your outer world? All we see in the outer world is an expression of our inner selves. You are a Leonardo da Vinci of the creative force of All that exists, and you honor it by being your true self. In an abstract sense, it is an awakening to your own divinity. According to Shakespeare, we can choose to be or not to be every day, by opening our rational minds to the possibility that we are divine from the minute we come on the scene – we’re just creating additional content. Everyone has the capability of being who they are. Be all you can be, which is nothing less than your true self.

The Authentic Self Versus the Socially Constructed Self

There is a big difference between the authentic self and the socially constructed self, or the personality. Defining our selves by what we see does help to form our personality and is a consequence of living in a physical world. Our self-opinion, self-image, and self-confidence are partially shaped by other people. We’ve all taken personality tests, or analyzed our personalities, and selected friends on the basis of their personalities. From the minute we come home from the hospital, our personalities begin to be defined – by our environment, by others of influence, or by our own hand.

However, the personality is not your true self; it is a role we adopt along the way in order to cope. It tends to be fragile and thrives on approval, sometimes seeking to be sustained by power. If we choose to identify our entire being with an outer presentation, we make our biggest mistake. The true source of our power is not the ego or the personality, it is our authentic self, our true self, or spirit. When we reach a point in life where we look to spirit or consciousness as our foundation, we know we are not what we see – we are enlightened only when we know we are pure spirit underneath.

Never claim your physical identity as your true self. You are not the body, and even though you have a soul that may help cart you around, you must reach beyond your individual soul to realize your true being. Stay focused on consciousness as your essential nature: it is the reason for being, the reason for the reason, the step in your groove. You will be enlightened by knowing who you are: a state of complete light and love, which is spirit.

Two Fundamental Assumptions About the Divine and You

Here are two common assumptions that help us make sense of who we are:

1. The Divine is All (everything) and we are part of All that is; therefore, we are never separate from the Divine. This is the tallest hurdle for most people to overcome: why do we have difficulty seeing ourselves as divine beings? We are part of the Divine and already know what being is about. The Divine is All. That means everything that was, is, and is about to be. If the Divine is eternal, that means timeless and without intermission, including the previews as well as the sequel. The Divine cannot be something separate from us, higher or lower; it infiltrates every aspect of our being, at all times.

2. Because we are part of the Divine, we are the same substance. That means we’re divine too. Science gets us thinking about ourselves in a universal perspective, surprisingly, by picking apart our essence through reductionism. What science has uncovered through holograms and their implications for the ideas of part and whole lend further insight as to who we are.

A three-dimensional hologram is created by bouncing a laser beam of light off an object, then bouncing another laser beam off the reflected light of the first. The interference pattern – the area where the two beams come together – is captured on film. When the film is developed, and illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears. What’s remarkable is that if a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser beam, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. If we keep dividing that rose, over and over again, each film would contain an intact, although smaller, version of the rose. Every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole, implying that the idea of separateness is an illusion.

What Does It Mean to Be Divine?

Let’s forget about woman power, man power, teen power, military power, and flower power for a moment. We would do well to express divine power more often, by grasping the meaning of the higher self, or the “divine I.” Those who explore the Gnostic gospels find lessons that explain why everyone has the power to impart gnosis, direct experiential knowledge of God, by realizing that we are more than part of the whole. The Gnostic gospels were among a collection of documents found at Nag Hammadi, an ancient city in upper Egypt. They predate the Bible. Among them is the Gospel of Truth, written by Valentinus, an Alexandrian Gnostic poet in the second century. Valentinus taught that when the human self and the “divine I” are interconnected, they achieve perfection and eternity, two fairly powerful ideas.

In Vedantic philosophy, a branch of Hindu mysticism, we discover the Mandukya Upanishads, considered to be the work of Indian sages who lived between 3,000 and 2,500 years ago. They are among the oldest collections of spiritual messages on record, referring to the self as a unitary consciousness. Undifferentiated unity is the self: a single mind, void of all contents, a place where the individual self merges with the universal self, or Brahman. It is a world soul, beyond duality or multiplicity, where the soul realizes its own identity with the Divine. “All this is Brahman; this self is Brahman” means that the self is God.

In Hinduism, as in many world religions, the unitive nature of the divine ground, which I interpret as the abstract space where we congregate with God, is achieved through an act of choice. We have the potential, the choice to become what we already are. We can be unified with the Divine not in some revelation in an afterlife, but here and now. We can demonstrate our divine substance here on earth, in the form of our work, through our relationships, and by loving one another.

So by identifying with God, as the Divine, we discover who we are in our soul studies. Are you ready for your exam question?

Q: Who are we?
A: We are one, we are a unitive, divine substance. Our authentic self is our true self, which is divine.

For 100 points extra credit, if you answer in five sentences or less:

Q: Where do we find the true self?
A: It exists inside of us. We are inherently divine substance by having an awareness of that substance. We are everywhere. We are the total sum of the entire life force, of all energy in existence. And there is no separation at the fundamental level.

To Be or Not to Be

To be conscious, you must focus on the permanent presence of what constitutes you, the source, who is witnessing your experience. Stop focusing on what you experience. When you allow the presence within you to be your witness, you will allow consciousness to flow. You will become conscious of consciousness. It is natural, effortless, and spontaneous to exist in a state of consciousness as long as we know we are witnessing the soul/psyche who appears to be a person. The Gnostics taught that even though we are active participants in the world, we are also a witness to that experience through conscious awareness.

If we radiate from inside as a stream of consciousness, our life experiences bear witness to our soul. At first glance, we appear to one another as separate individuals. Remember, life itself is not the illusion – that is the mistake you will make in thinking that all we’ve got to do is transcend to a higher realm. Don’t forget about the work that needs to be done here and now. The illusion we are born into is that of separateness, because we all look different, have different bodies, and have unique personalities. If we go deeper within, beyond the light, back into darkness and even before appearing, we would simply “be.” We’d find ourselves simply in a state of beingness.

Every day and always, you exist and are as important as everyone else. Not easy, when you look at what’s on your plate. But if we get in the habit of resetting our thinking while engaged in living life, and become consciousness expressing itself through a series of experiences, we become part of what we are choosing to do and also part of our beingness. We are achad, a united one, one power, one presence. And that means we are connected to one another, and to our source, always. There is no other way to be.

Using Affirmations to Find You

Don’t ever be afraid to take a look in the mirror. Initially, you may create a definition of you that is based on illusion. You are not your clothes, you are not your wrinkles, and you are certainly not the body. You are not where you live, how much formal education you have, how much money you make, or who you know. Your worth is not determined by possessions or by holding a position of organizational authority. You can’t demonstrate a life-giving force in every action and thought if you identify yourself solely by what you see. Finding self is about allowing your essence to express itself at an intuitive level, knowing what you like to do, what you are good at doing, and cultivating those inherent qualities with love. Know where your true power resides and regularly affirm that you are rising above your circumstances.

Love God, love the Divine, love your consciousness, and love your authentic self. That is why we affirm: I am conscious of who I am. I am my true self, I am loved and beloved, and I am in love with my self. I am a marvelous spark of the Divine and celebrate my remarkable learning journey. I am timeless, living without boundary, and full of my beautiful, unique, and divine self.

Taking Spiritual Inventory: What Constitutes Your Authentic Self?

ANALYZE. Have you allowed people, jobs, relationships, or circumstances in your life to create a definition of who you are? List your sources of influence, with the most powerful at the top of the list. Ask yourself:

– Has this situation led me to discovering more of who I am?

– Has this person supported me in bringing out my best?

– What is the single most important thing I do that makes me feel I am expressing my true self? Have I spent enough time cultivating my gift to the world? How often do I spend time in my self-expression?

Affirm the existence of your true self by centering your awareness and feeling the source of spiritual power. Ask whether you have allowed anyone, or any circumstance, to take away your power to create the life you want. Do old hurts keep manifesting in your relationships? Affirm to release those feelings and affirm that you are empowered with divine love.

Loving my true self
Because I love my self, I release old hurts forever, making it easy for me to demonstrate the Divine in my every action and thought. I play an important part in the world’s work, which helps to evolve my soul. I nourish my self when I am in a state of self-love.

Self honor
My soul magnifies the Divine through experience. I am awakening to my own sense of purpose and to my higher self. I am connected to my source through my experiences. I honor my soul and the All by working to expand the idea that spirit is in everything I do.

Now write your own affirmation that allows you to feel empowered by spirit.

Walk the talk. Frustration with life is sometimes a result of expecting too much after we fill our minds with doing instead of being. What will you do this week to begin an expanded state of awareness and surrender to your soul journey? List three areas where you can permit life to happen through you, without fighting upstream.

Share the spirit. What changes can you make in your life during the next year that will help you express your true self? List those changes, after sharing your beliefs about your concept of spirit at work in your life. Have those beliefs facilitated your self-expression, or inhibited you? Have you been able to grow with those beliefs intact? Discuss the idea of being one with All that exists. If you accept that idea, how has it changed your life so far? How could it change your life now? If you can’t accept the idea, talk about why. Share any experiences in your life that may have brought you to that conclusion.