The words of a man who was both a philosopher and a Roman emperor will close this chapter. Marcus Aurelius disdained thoughts of violence and refused to go to war; in fact, he presided over his empire with a philosophy of peace and respect for all of his fellow men. Here, he speaks of the things we’ve forgotten when we’re uninspired or not focused in-Spirit.
When thou art troubled about anything, thou hast forgotten this, that all things happen according to the universal nature; and forgotten this, that a man’s wrongful act is nothing to thee; and further thou hast forgotten this, that everything which happens, always happened so and will happen so, and now happens so everywhere; forgotten this too, how close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race, for it is a community, not of a little blood or seed, but of intelligence. And thou hast forgotten this too, that every man’s intelligence is a god, and is an efflux of the deity; and forgotten this, that nothing is a man’s own, but that his child and his body and his very soul came from the deity; forgotten this, that everything is opinion; and lastly thou hast forgotten that every man lives the present time only, and loses only this.
Use his words as an inventory of things to remember as you seek to find your way back to inspiration.
CHAPTER 7
INSPIRATION AND YOUR OWN MAGNIFICENCE
“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”
— ABRAHAM MASLOW
“You are a primary existence. You are a distinct portion of the essence of God, and contain a certain part of Him in yourself. Why then are you ignorant of your noble birth? You carry a God about within you, poor wretch, and know nothing of it.”
— EPICTETUS
IN THIS CHAPTER, we’ll look at our Divine magnificence and examine the ways in which we can view ourselves in these terms for the rest of our life.
It’s imperative to eliminate self-perceptions that might cloud our vision or make us question our Divine magnificence. The quote from Abraham Maslow above sets the tone for what we can do: If we want to move from disenchantment to inspiration, or from apathy and indifference to passion and enthusiasm, then it’s necessary to alter our awareness of ourselves.
I’m a people watcher, and every day of my life I observe how others carry themselves and treat their body, what they eat, and how they move; I also listen carefully to the seemingly nonchalant verbal utterances that reflect their opinion of themselves. I’m fascinated by what people think of themselves—it’s the rare individual who reflects the image that Epictetus describes in the opening quotation.
So what prevents us from seeing ourselves as containing “the essence of God” and knowing that we’re of “noble birth”? Only ego, and only when we allow it. A non-ego-based point of view must be firmly in place on the journey to an inspired, passionate life. We must make a decision to see ourselves in the same manner that we knew to be true when we were in the formless dimension contemplating our transformation into a physical being with a purpose.
Who am I? is the “big question.” We’re so accustomed to identifying ourselves by what we have, what we accomplish, what we earn, and what others think of us that we’ve lost touch with our original self. The answer to this question is: I’m a unique portion of the essence of God. I originated in-Spirit, yet I’ve forgotten this fundamental truth. With this kind of awareness, we’d all be determined to seek our ultimate calling and live an inspired life. Our perception of ourselves would be of a spiritual being who’s free of limitations and who trusts that Divine guidance is available at every moment. If we don’t currently feel this way, then it’s vital that we do what Dr. Maslow suggests and change it.
Changing Our Awareness of Ourselves
How would we think and act in daily life if we were truly aware of our Divine essence? Obviously there wouldn’t be room to reproach ourselves because we wouldn’t doubt our abilities. In fact, we’d never look in the mirror and feel anything but love and appreciation: We’d see ourselves as fully capable of attracting all we desire; we’d treat our body with reverence and care, giving thanks for its Divine design; we’d celebrate every thought we have, knowing its Divine origin; and we’d become aware of our enormous talents and be awed by all that we are.
We need to encourage the awareness of our magnificence in every regard. When that awareness has been reawakened, the seedlings of inspiration will begin blossoming. Here’s a way of expressing these fundamental truths, offered to us by the writings of Bahaullah, of the Baha’i faith: “This most great, this fathomless and surging Ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life-vein! Swift as the twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but wish it, reach and partake of this imperishable favor, this God-given grace, this incorruptible gift, this most potent and unspeakably glorious bounty.”
There’s no way to be in-Spirit without a changed awareness—so when we accomplish this, we give ourselves the gift of moving from being flawed, limited, lacking, and imperfect to being completely comfortable with our magnificence.
This unspeakably glorious bounty is so close to us . . . all we have to do is to make a few “twinkling-of-an-eye” adjustments, so why not begin now?
Following are three of the most obvious and important changes in awareness that we can make.
1. Changing the Awareness of Our Magnificent Talents and Abilities
I want to emphasize an extremely important point: I’m not writing about self-esteem here, nor am I referring to levels of confidence. Rather, I’m saying that we need to keep the important question Who am I? in the forefront of our mind. This question doesn’t revolve around previous life experiences, has nothing to do with what we’ve been told our special qualities or unique abilities are, and isn’t related to how worthy or worthless we feel about ourselves—it has to do with a simple truth.
As Epictetus, a philosopher in the 1st century A.D. said, “You carry a God about within you, poor wretch, and know nothing of it.” Just like Epictetus, who was born into slavery yet became one of our most profound teachers, we came into this world with an inexhaustible supply of talent. Our abilities are as limitless as God’s are because we’re a distinct portion of the essence of Him—and there’s an infallible way to begin entertaining those abilities and creating as He does.
That way is to become aware that anything that excites us is a clue that we have the ability to pursue it. Anything that truly intrigues us is evidence of a Divine (albeit latent) talent that’s signaling our awareness. Having an interest in something is the clue to a thought that’s connected to our calling—that thought is a vibration of energy in this vast Universe. If something really appeals to us and we feel excited, but perceive ourselves as devoid of the talent we think is necessary, it’s probably an even higher vibration.
Anything that’s causing excitement within us is evidence of a Spirit message that’s saying, “You can do this—yes, you can!” If we react to this message with anything other than “You’re correct—I can do this! I have the ability to do it,” then we’ve selected the vibration of resistance and ignored the vibration of excitement and interest that spoke to us.
How could it be any other way? We wouldn’t think of things that are interesting and exciting to us if we didn’t have the inherent ability to act on these thoughts, especially since we’re a portion of the All-Creating, All-Capable, All-Wise Force. Just the fact that we’re interested and excited about doing something is all the evidence we need—this is inspiration right in front of us, begging us to pay attention to the feeling. Therefore, we need to change our awareness in order to take note of our stimulation, rather than of the opinions of others. We need to ignore the scores on some standardized test, or worse yet, our own inventory of past experiences that led us to conclude that we’re untalented and incapable.
Our thoughts about who we are, what excites us, and what we feel called to be and do are all Divinely inspired and come with whatever guidance and assistance we’ll need to actualize these go
als. The decision at this point is: Are we willing to listen to these Divine thoughts that pique our interest, or do we go on listening to the false self that’s made us what Epictetus called a “poor wretch”?
Rather than case studies of which I have only secondhand knowledge, I’m going to use some examples from my own life that illustrate listening to the false self.
My background would appear to be an unlikely one for what I’m calling magnificence. Here’s what it would look like on paper: Fathered by an alcoholic who abandoned his three children; childhood years spent in foster homes; a classic underachiever educated in public schools; grew up at the low end of the socioeconomic scale; no financial advantages; no examples of, or ambitions for, higher education; four years as an enlisted man in the United States Navy; admitted to a university on a provisional acceptance at the age of 22 due to lower-than-average grades in high school; worked his way through three advanced degrees by being a cashier and stock boy in a grocery store in Detroit. This isn’t exactly what you’d call a prescription for becoming the best-selling author of 40 books and a successful public speaker.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many teachers of creative writing and speech gave me low grades for my efforts in these fields. All I can say for certain is that I’ve always had a knowing about my interest in writing, and have been excited by the prospect of entertaining and informing an audience—any audience! By all of the “accepted” standards, I didn’t have any writing ability. What I did have (and still do) was an interest and a passion for writing: It inspired and thrilled me, and I simply loved it. From the perspective of inspiration, I had the ability to do it, and that’s all I needed to know.
Then, as now, I trusted that the Universe would handle all of the details, including: Will I be published? Will the critics approve? Will my book be a bestseller? Will my mother approve? Will I get an apology from any of my old English teachers? But really, who cares about all this? The fact that writing excites me is all I’ve ever needed to know. When I follow that thought and stay with it, I conclude that I have the ability and the talent . . . and so do you.
Like me, it’s easy to find what excites you. What do you find intriguing? Does learning yoga and becoming an instructor interest you? Then you have your answer. The issue isn’t about ability, it’s about being matched up in-Spirit with your current thoughts and behaviors. I still remember the excitement I felt at being admitted to a doctoral program. Despite the fact that no one in my family had ever entertained such a possibility and I didn’t know one single person who had entered, let alone completed, an advanced-degree program, I was excited beyond what I can convey to you here. I knew that whatever I needed in the way of ability and talent would be there.
So how about you—do you live with resistance, or do you allow your enthusiasm and excitement to be a vibrational match to what intrigues you? Keep in mind that as one of God’s glorious thoughts, you’ve originated out of an energy field that knows only possibility. So stay in vibrational harmony with this idea and know that your thoughts—which emerge as interests, excitement, inner thrills, and illuminating sensations—are indications that you have the necessary ability to merge with your magnificent creativity. You came from magnificence, and you are magnificent still.
2. Changing the Awareness of Our Magnificent Physical Presence
During the writing of this book, I was engaged in a passionate tennis match when I overheard a woman on her cell phone saying, “I can’t believe she would even say something like that—she’s such an unattractive person herself.” I was getting ready to serve the ball to my opponent and actually had to stop to make a note to write about this incident and the question it raises. How is it possible for a creation of God to be unattractive in any way? I wondered.
I thought about an apple pie: One slice must be the same as the entire pie—it can’t suddenly be pineapple or banana. The same logic applies to all of us: If we came from Source, how is it possible for us to be different from It? I doubt that the woman on the cell phone would ever deign to call God unattractive, yet that’s exactly what she was inadvertently doing. And we do the very same thing when we place pejorative labels on our body, the magnificent temple we occupy.
In the previous section, we answered the question Who am I? in spiritual rather than physical terms. Now let’s ask a similar question regarding our physical body. Even though we’ve been living in it ever since we began as an embryo, it’s still relevant to ask, What is this body that emerged from Spirit?
Our body is made up of chemicals, far too many for me to elaborate here, but some of them are iron, magnesium, calcium, nitrogen, hydrogen . . . and on and on goes the list. These chemicals are part of a finite supply here on Earth, so what flows through our veins is part of that finite supply. To that end, the iron that’s in our blood was once somewhere else—perhaps in a dinosaur, in the body of Jesus, or in a mountain in Afghanistan—and now it’s in our body. And when we leave our body, our iron supply will reside someplace else on Earth as a part of that finite supply.
In other words, our entire planet is made up of the exact same chemicals that constitute our physical makeup. Chemically speaking, there’s no difference between humans and rocks, trees, orangutans, or distant stars—grind them all up and their chemical composition isn’t what distinguishes one from the other. Our physical presence is a spiritually directed conglomeration of a hodgepodge of chemicals, and the end result is that we’re beings made up of the same stuff that makes up the stars. We’re made up of stardust. That’s right, the stuff of dreams—twinkling, magical, beautiful, light-filled stardust!
Remember that the Spirit from which we originated can create anything, including worlds, so why would it choose ugly or unattractive creations? We’re here in the perfect body for our time in this incarnation, and it’s a living, breathing miracle in every way. It’s guided and being directed by an invisible Force that directs everything and everyone in the Universe: It beats our heart, digests our food, circulates our blood, grows our hair, and repairs our cuts and bruises, all independent of our opinions.
I wrote earlier about being independent of the opinions of others. Well, we aren’t beautiful or attractive because of how we stack up against a runway model—we’re beautiful because we came from beauty, so we must be the same as what we came from. All labels such as unattractive, ugly, homely, and unbecoming (as well as pretty, attractive, handsome, and beautiful) are judgments designed to compare one person to another using artificial standards set up by ego-dominated people and organizations.
Living in-Spirit means that we see our body with all of its unique characteristics and feel thankful for the perfect temple that’s temporarily housing our true “primary existence.” If it’s short or tall, bald or hairy, stumpy or slender, extend loving appreciation to it every day. If it can’t see or hear, resides in a wheelchair or a hospital bed, has crooked teeth or only three toes—whatever—love this collection of stardust! A prayerful thought might go like this: I think of my body as a piece of the eternal, an individualized expression of God. I live in-Spirit, inspired because I’m the same as the loving energy that created me, which is perfect.
Think about the logic of what I’m saying here. Obviously we can’t live a life of inspiration if the physical shell we take with us everywhere is perceived as anything other than a Divine, perfect creation. Our attitude toward our body, along with how we feed and exercise it, must match up with Spirit. We came from love, so we must extend that love and appreciation to our body at all times in order to be genuinely inspired.
3. Changing the Awareness of Our Magnificent Personal History
This third and final element of our inspirational magnificence is perhaps our greatest challenge. How can we look upon all that we’ve done (or failed to do) and view it through the lens of our magnificence, especially when we’ve been trained to feel shame and self-reproach as a result of our perceived failures or flaws. Early on we’re taught to evaluate our worth as a huma
n being based on how well we fit in, what grades we get, and what merit badges we acquire. Then, as adults, we’re measured by the amount of money we make, the promotions we receive, whom we’ve pleased or disappointed, and what sins we’ve committed. On and on goes this ego-dominated list of judgments that we’ve had imposed on us and have imposed on ourselves.
At this stage, we need to view our past from the perspective of everything that we’ve ever done or not done being over. We can’t undo or redo it—we have the choice to look back at the past either through eyes clouded by ego judgments or through an inspired point of view. We can forgive ourselves or we can shame ourselves. Since our goal is to be more like our Creative Source, which is loving and giving, we should adopt forgiveness—but this isn’t in ego’s script.
We’ve all reacted to situations in the past in ways that we wouldn’t want to today. I personally have done many things that I wouldn’t choose to repeat—yet every recovering or recovered addict looks back with gratitude for the experience that brought him or her to a higher, more loving, sober place. As I’ve said in other places, true nobility is not about being better than someone else, it’s about being better than we used to be. Every single experience in my life, right up to this day, was something I needed to go through in order to get to be here now, writing these words. What proof can I offer for this assertion? It happened—that’s all the proof I need.
As we look back on our life, we’ve failed at nothing . . . all we’ve done is produce some results. It’s imperative that we send love to those who were hurt by us and forgiveness to ourselves to heal our inner agony. We can then view it all as what we needed to experience in order to get to a higher place. One thing I’ve learned in my 65 years is that virtually every spiritual advance I’ve made toward a closer alignment with God energy has been preceded by some kind of fall from grace. Such “mistakes” allow me to write and speak from a more compassionate stance—that is, they always seem to provide me with the energy to propel myself to a higher place. Truly, I bless all of these “failures” because I know I needed to go there in order to get here.
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