Step to the Infinite Self Within
Author and lecturer Stuart Wilde is one of the real characters of the self-help, human potental movement. His style is humorous, controversial, poignant, and transformational. He has written 16 books, including those that make up the very successful Taos Quintet, which are considered classics in their genre. They are: AFFIRMATIONS, THE FORCE, MIRACLES, THE QUICKENING, and THE TRICK TO MONEY IS HAVING SOME. Stuart’s latest book is INFINITE SELF: 33 STEPS TO RECLAIMING YOUR INNER POWER. Stuart’s books have been translated into 12 languages.
Our spiritual process through life is the journey from ego to spirit. Because the ego is usually insecure, it has many needs and impulses to gratify, and many fears it must assuage. The ego has to sustain its ideas and the precious image it has of itself. Attitudes become sacrosanct.
It is natural that the human personality, and the ego that dwells within that personality, would gradually, through self-confirmation, crown itself king or queen of all it surveys. Over time, orders and desires of that royal personage become edicts that cannot be challenged or broken. Keeping the king happy and giving the ol’ slob what he wants become “Job One.”
If a person is very bright or quite successful in human terms, it doesn’t usually take him or her long to elevate oneself to the status of a demigod. Once the ego/personality has invested itself as a god, then extremes of self-importance flow from that. Orders are given, demands are made, and situations are manipulated. Softness, spirituality, and appreciation are repressed. Anyone defying the king and queen’s edicts, or the image they hold of themselves, will feel the full wrath of a despotic regime.
Our modern society breeds despots. Compared to our ancestors, things are cozy and self-indulgent. All the ego will ever need is at its fingertips. We don’t dig for food, chop trees, haul sewage—things are provided almost effortlessly. In these conditions, it is natural that humans would lose sight of gratitude, investing instead in accolades and importance; we become slaves to the effort of trying to keep the ego-king or queen happy.
And there you were, suddenly, a spiritual being in a diaper, born into a strange world of gratification and self-importance, indulgence and mayhem. One so young has no way of challenging the collective legislation of the ego. Soon you were trained to compete and strive and demand. You were taught the need to keep the ego happy at all costs.
History is the story of conflicting political egos and their struggle for importance and power. Your personal history tells of the same wars and struggles, treaties that were written, territories that were conquered, the struggles you went through sustaining the kingdom of self. In the turmoil of these self-centered laws, the sight of God is lost, and the reason and meaning of life are set aside. Spirituality, for most, is an underground resistance movement that scurries about in dark alleys when the ego sleeps.
So what of the quest for the holy grail, the sacred journey? To me it seems to be a journey of just under 12 inches, as we travel from the head to the heart, from thinking into feelings, from demands and gratification to appreciation and humility. The spiritual journey culminates in the death of the ego and the crowning of spirit.
As I mentioned in my book Whispering Winds of Change, the story of the crucifixion is a symbolic teaching that represents our spiritual journey. You see the ego/personality epitomized by the Nazarene, dying on the cross, racked with anguish. Mary Magdalene and the other women at the foot of the cross represent the yin softness of our infinite, spiritual self that can do nothing to save the ego. The women can only wait.
Once the Nazarene dies, he is placed in a tomb for three days. That is symbolic of silence, meditation, and prayer. It represents introspection, discipline, humility and gratitude—qualities you take on as you journey inward through the dark caverns of the inner self. During the introspection and healing, you prepare for the awesome presence of the Holy Spirit, the return of God in your life.
After the three-day period in the tomb, the Nazarene rises from death to ascend into heaven, at which point he assumes a new identity—he becomes Christos, the Divine Light—infused with the living spirit, immortal, returned once more to the presence of God.
Our journey is the same. On this holy journey, we heal ourselves, and we contribute to the overall healing of the planet, for nothing will be right until the ego is deposed.
Put away foolish things that cannot last. Embrace spirit with humility and gratitude, and step to the infinite self within. It seems to me a beautiful thing, that deep within us all, we each know how to make that sacred journey.
I feel truly thankful to live in this modern age, so cozy and fairly effortless. It is such a perfect time in history for making personal breakthroughs and spiritual transitions. Cool, utterly cool, in my view.
