Summary of 6/13/01 Meeting

We must realize the importance of making mistakes, instead of berating ourselves. This basic spiritual principle abides in all the various ancient teachings, including the Bible, the Kaballah, the Koran, the Baghdavita and the Tao. The Kaballah, for example, states that the only way we can generate the energy to move to a higher level is through a “fall”. Every advancement in consciousness is preceded by a fall of one form or another. The Bible states that it is not whether or not we fall; the only concern is whether we get up.
There are two forces that reside in our universe. These forces are referred to in many different ways - yin vs. yang; dark vs. light; good vs. evil; ego vs. spirit. Our ego lives in fear of making mistakes. It knows that each time we fall we are generating the energy for growth.
Now it does not want us to move toward our spiritual self. The ego will lose its power if we align with spirit, thus anything that promotes our growth and spiritual awakening will be a threat to it. Defending ourselves after making a mistake is the ego’s attempt to lessen the fall so we do not learn or grow from the experience. The key is to appreciate those mistakes should be welcomed because they give us the opportunity to learn and grow and when we learn and grow we increase our awareness, which is the same as our consciousness, which is the fact that we are spiritual beings experiencing a human dimension. These bodies are the vehicles by which we can experience this physical dimension and take the time to become as spiritual as possible. As a result, we become more and more like the spirit that is our source to begin with and if we are able to raise our spirit enough then we can become one with our source in spirit. So when you fail to meet someone else's expectations or your own do not defend it, explain it, or let it dampen your joy. Choosing peace will deflate the ego’s power and move us to a higher level.
If we do not accept our mistakes and learn from our experiences and instead choose the path of ego, we will be given harsher and harsher blows; the shocks may be as extreme as death, severe losses, near death experiences or major illnesses. When striving to attain higher awareness there inevitably will be many obstacles and mistakes along the way. Those who actualize the most in this life will purposely tackle the most difficult of tasks just to weaken the ego and raise the level of their spiritual nature.
These falls should be viewed as opportunities to chip away at the ego, instead of things to fear or avoid; they are yet another gift from the universe to help us align with spirit. In every moment you have a choice: you can be a “host for God” or a “hostage to your Ego”.
The ego is a force that promotes separateness amongst people. There is a Sanskrit expression, “Namaste”, which is a greeting between two people that means, “I celebrate in you the place where we are both one”. Everything that separates us is keeping us apart from spirit. By choosing peace in every moment, we are choosing to be a host for God. Namaste is a wonderful saying to keep in mind when we are dealing with another person. Just as each cell of our body is part of the whole so it is also with universal consciousness that even though we look like we are separate from one another we are in realty all individual cells making up the consciousness of the world and therefore we are all one and the same.
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