SELFHOOD
DD
As present-day personalities
we may come into conflict with one another and the gulf between us may seem to
be great, but in our common logoic consciousness we are unified and
indivisible. This is what Joshua Emmanuel the Christ taught when He said,
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto me" (Matt.25:40). This is the Common Selfhood. In other
places Joshua speaks of this: "Ye shall know that I am in my Father, and
ye in me, and I in you" (John 14:20) and "I am the vine, ye are the
branches" (John 15:5). That we all share an equal place in Christ is one
of the most profound and greatest truths.
INDIVIDUATED SELFHOOD (EP 156)
The Personality as a unified
Divine Being. Selfhood encompasses all the expressions of the Self from its
apex as the Holy Monadic Spirit-Ego-Being filtered down to the petty
present-day personality. Within the Selfhood not a single expression is
devalued; each is cherished in its own right. Our Spirit-Ego-Being partakes in
the Will-pleasure of Absolute Beingness (to express Itself in Itself) by
expressing Itself within Its own Selfhood.
DD 0l SELFHOOD AS
A GENERAL CONCEPT (ET 56)
The Selfhood of each of us
extends from ourselves as a Spirit-Ego-Being --our unexpressed Holy Monadic
Self-- as it remains in at-one-ment with Absolute Beingness, and reaches down
to the often struggling present day personality. The central task of each Soul
is to reunify the self - after its enrichment through the cycles of
incarnations - into the unified Self in Theosis.
The Selfhood, accounting for
the various expressions, is in the image and likeness of Absolute Beingness. In
what way are we Its image and likeness?
Firstly, we have
Self-sufficiency. As Absolute Beingness is without any needs, we,
macrocosmically, contain within us everything. "The Kingdom of Heavens is
within you."
ET 56 Secondly, we can, as a Logoic expression of
Absolute
Beingness, express ourselves
within our own universe, which
is a microcosm, just as It expresses Its
Logoic Self within
the universes, the macrocosm.
Thirdly, we have the power
of thought, of emotion and of love. We can, indeed, express our Self as will,
independently of an environment.
Fourthly, We have been
blessed with the gift and responsibility of procreation. In this way we are
co-creators within the Divine Plan, with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Logos.
The Selfhood is a single
umbrella, encompassing four discernable expressions:
Spirit-Ego-Being, Self-aware
Soul, Permanent Personality, Temporary Personality
DD 0l Spirit-Ego-Being (ET
56)
Our Real Self, in at-one-ment with the
Multiplicity and
the Self-Sufficiency of Absolute Beingness.
The Spirit-Ego-
Being projects a ray of Itself into
Creation. The Will-
pleasure of Absolute Beingness to express
Itself in Itself,
is identical to the Will-pleasure of the
Spirit-Ego-Being to
express Itself. The Spirit-Ego-Being is not
properly
considered an expression of Selfhood,
rather it is a creator
of the Selfhood.
DD 0l SELFHOOD (ET 195)
The Personality as a unified, Divine,
Being.
Selfhood encompasses all the expressions of
the Self from
Its apex as a Holy Monadic Spirit-Ego-Being
filtered down to
the petty present day personality. Within
the Selfhood not a
single expression is devalued; each is
cherished in its own
right. Our Spirit-Ego-Being partakes in the
Will-pleasure of
Absolute Beingness --to express Itself in
Itself-- by
expressing Itself within its own Selfhood.
We mirror God's
Good Creation within our own good creation,
within our
Selfhood.
EP 11 We see the Soul latent in the present-day
self. We work
towards raising up the lower expressions of
the self into a
unified Individuated Selfhood.
EP 16 Question: Macrocosmic meditation, as
it were, seems less a
pursuit or practice, and more a state of
Beingness. I do not
think we are talking any longer about
periods and states of
meditation but a complete transformation of
the self?
Answer: St. Paul asks us to,
"pray without ceasing"
(1 Ths.5:17). We should always be in a
state of reverence
for life, aware of our place in the Divine
Plan, living in
God, which means, as Yohannan says,
"in love" (1 John 4:16).
Love isn't something you do or feel only on
Sunday mornings.
It is continuous and eternal Truth. Love is
each of us in
the Common Selfhood.
EP 17
Each of us is a logos and
together we are unified in the
Christ Logos. This means that each of us is
actually part
of a single body. This union is at all
levels - noetical,
psychical, and even physical - as molecular
biology now
understands that we are constantly
exchanging matter with
one another. Even with the denseness of
gross matter we are
in constant exchange. Can you imagine the
interchange with
the less tangible forms of Mind, emotions
and thoughts? So
we see that it is not only in the higher
levels that we are
unified, but also in the worlds of
separation.
When we harm another we only
harm ourselves. When a child starves in Africa, part of us starves. When a
child is born into a healthy caring family in any part of the world, part of us
is born. When a soldier dies in Bosnia, part of us is slain. We are both the
assailant and the assailed. This is what Christ taught. Christ spoke of a King
who said, " I was naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me:
I was in prison, and ye came unto me." Bemused, the praised could not
recall the acts of compassion. And Joshua the Christ, the King of the Heavens
explained, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matt.25:35-40).
This is the Common Selfhood.
In another place Joshua speaks of this: "I am the vine, ye are the
branches" (John 15:5). That we all share an equal place in the body of
Christ is one of the most profound and greatest truths.
Joshua continues "...
for without me ye can do nothing" (John 1~:5). ... For Christ also says,
" no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).
What did Joshua mean when he
said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). What is
Christ? What is the Logos? Is it not Love, Wisdom and Power? This is a sacred
triangle:
the universal, unconditional
Love from above; the Wisdom of a unified heart and mind; and the Power of
Goodness to overcome weakness. What Christ was saying for those "with
ears to hear" (Mark 4:23) was that any man or woman who uses reason, love
and power in the proper and Divine way is a Christian, be he called a Buddhist,
a Muslim or any other brother or sister from the many faiths. The Church has so
misunderstood this point. Joshua comes to us to free us from illusions, not to
oppress us. Why did he come? He said it:
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
EP 36
The Spirit-Ego-Being is not
properly considered an expression
of the Selfhood, rather it is a creator of Selfhood.
EP 68 The heart is the house of the Common Selfhood.
EP 34 Individuated Selfhood
Our gross material body, such a small
portion of the
Selfhood, and yet often mistaken for the
self, belongs to
the material plane.
EP 35
The Selfhood of each of us extends
from our Self as a Spirit-
Ego-Being (our unexpressed Holy Monad Self)
as it remains in
at-one-ment with Absolute Beingness, and
reaches down to the
often struggling present-day personality.
For those who
wonder whether it was our
choice to leave home we suggest a
reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son
(Luke 15:11-32)
which details the decision on the part of
the Son to leave
his Father's home. This is where free will
is established.
The central task of each
Soul is to reunify the self - after its enrichment through the cycles of
reincarnations - into
the unified Self in Theosis. The
Individuated Selfhood,
accounting for the various
expressions is in the "image" and "likeness" (Gen.l:26) of
Absolute Beingness.
Firstly, we have Self-sufficiency.
As Absolute Beingness is without any needs, we contain within us everything:
"The Kingdom of Heavens is within you." We lack nothing and need
nothing that we do not already possess.
Secondly, as Holy Monads, we can
express ourselves self-conconsciously within our own universe and within our
own selfhood. In a similar way, macrocosmically, the Logos expresses Its Self
within Its universes as the Common Selfhood.
Thirdly, we have the power of
shaping the Mind substance into thought and emotion, and of expressing
ourselves as love. And when deemed worthy we are awarded the gift of emanating
- not merely shaping - the Mind super-substance, the bearer of life.
Fourthly, we have been blessed with
the gift and responsibility of procreation and for caring for other incarnated
Souls. In this way we are co-creators within the Divine Plan, with the Holy
Spirit, the Holy Archangels, and the Christ Logos.
EP 36
The Individuated
Selfhood, as a single umbrella, encompasses four discernible expressions:
Spirit-Ego Being
This is our Real Self, in
at-one-ment with the Multiplicity and the Self-sufficiency of Absolute
Beingness. The Spirit-Ego-Being projects a ray of Itself into Creation. The
Will-pleasure of Absolute Beingness to express Itself in Itself, is identical
to the will-pleasure of the Spirit-Ego-Being to express Itself in Itself. The
Spirit-Ego-Being is not properly considered an expression of the Selfhood,
rather it is a creator of the Selfhood.
Self-aware Soul
We become a Self-aware Soul the moment a ray of the Spirit-Ego-Being passes through the Human Idea, at which point we understand our Self as something complete, yet seemingly separated from the Whole. The Self-aware Soul with its projections is both Beingness and existence. Beingness, as our real nature, is the Divine Permanent Point. That of existence is the other end of the continuum, where it plunges into the worlds of experience and development.
EP 37 Permanent
Personality
Described by some as
"the feet of the soul", this self is an expression of, and in union
with, the Self-aware Soul in the worlds of time and place. The Permanent
Personality contains the Divine Laws, Total Wisdom, Total Power and Total Love.
It is the task of the Permanent Personality to select and supervise the lives
and experiences of the present-day personalities. Through this process the
Permanent Personality becomes fuller.
Present-day Personality
This is the personality we
express in each individual incarnation. It is the projection of the Permanent
Personality into the worlds of separation and their sub-planes. It is that
aspect of the Self which experiences emotions, desires and thoughts, of which a
character is formed. With time, this personality learns to interpret the
impressions and correct its reactions, so that a refined personality develops.
It is the expression of the Selfhood that Joshua asks us to "deny"
(Matt.16:24) so that we may better understand our Real Self.
Let us sum up, so as to
better understand the concept of Individuated Selfhood in its different
expressions. our Self-hood is one, even though we meet in four stages:
Spirit-Ego-Being, Self-aware Soul, Permanent Personality and present-day
personality. Our Individuated Selfhood in its higher expressions, takes part in
the Common logoic Selfhood.