“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.” ― Eckhart Tolle

You were born into a state of mass consciousness that places a heavy emphasis on form and that downplays the importance of essence or spirit. As such, it makes sense that you might define yourself by outer, rather than inner, essential factors. It also makes sense that you would tend to compare yourself to others and make value judgments based on your observations.

You are a human being, for were you only human, a fleeting existence would be the only one available to you. You would be born, make something of yourself, and eventually disappear into oblivion, save for a gravestone marking your remains. But the fact is that you are not “only human,” you are a human being.

Your being, the wonderful One within, is an unique point of convergence of inner, spiritual essences. Being is eternal. You, therefore, are eternal. In this sense you will never die, for life does not die. Forms come and go (i.e. the vehicles for the expression of particularized focalizations of being come and go), but being is, always. Put differently, you are formed in the image and likeness of God. God is a Creator. You are a creator; you are one with the Creator, not a transitory aspect of creation.

We are, as Sting once wrote, “spirits in a material world.” This is a basic fact that most people overlook because of the dominant myopic materialistic worldview. When you fixate upon appearances, on the forms of life, rather than on their animating essence, you miss things. Important things. Big picture stuff. And when you’re in such a state you tend to major in the minors.

It was once said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish…” Myopia is a form of distorted vision. You must break free of the myopic condition of our time to restore your vision.

So where do you begin? How do you restore your vision?

You begin by making space in your consciousness for the idea that there might be more to life than what you see on the surface. You stop judging based on appearances. You cease the fruitless attempt to judge between good and evil. Wasn’t that the one behavior forbidden to man according to the ancient biblical record? Stop judging. Just stop!

The quote above about vision ends with this promise, “…but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” What law? Man’s law? No. The laws of being. The act of judgment is a violation of the laws of being. It may be hard to get your head around the fact that just about everyone on earth is breaking the law regularly, but who among you hasn’t judged yourself or another in the last 24 hours? Judgment is systemic and global misery, conflict, sickness, and death are the evidence of the presence of this law being broken day in and day out.

The moment you truly relinquish your sense of entitlement to judgment is the moment you begin seeing things more clearly. Judgment troubles the heart. Not judging calms the waters of the heart. Wisdom, that is, seeing things clearly, is principally a matter of the heart. You “[l]et not your heart be troubled” by “judging not.” It is truly that simple.

When you—the inner you, the being you are—has an untroubled heart and a clear mind at your disposal through which you can observe and express, you begin to be in position to adjudicate with what was called “righteous judgment.” Righteous judgment scratches beneath the surface appearance and looks upon the heart of the matter. Righteous judgment recognizes the connection of heaven and earth, of the invisible and the visible. Righteous judgment never condemns; it always uplifts.

Knowing who you are goes a long way to changing how you function on earth. If you are unclear about who you are, you will be unclear about how or when to act. When you begin to understand the nature of being, you stop reacting to the world around you. When your true identity is recognized, you will begin to understand the truth and personal significance of the statements “I AM THAT I AM” and “I and my Father are one.” Your perspective will shift dramatically. You will stop living reactively and start living radiantly, regardless of what is going on round about.

Let go of your ego identifications with the outer, visible world. None of these are you. Let go to the reality of you.

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash