The
15 major tests of the Spiritual Path.
The lesson here is either not owning enough or when you get it, letting it go to your head. Personal power is the fundamental first key to health and spiritual growth. The ideal is to own it all the time in a considerate manner, never wavering.
How attached are you to money? Is it your god? God wants all of us to have an abundant amount of money so we can give our money and lives to those in need. What does having money do to your personality? How does this dovetail with the issue of power? You will pass or fail on the spiritual path with such issues.
What happens to your personality when fame and worldly recognition is achieved? Do you use fame as an opportunity to be of greater service or for self-glory?
Whether you have power, money or fame, your personality should remain the same as if you didn’t have these things.
All attachments and addictions must go. Buddha said, “All suffering comes form attachment”. All failed relationships can be traced to attachment. One must learn to have preferences but not attachments. The nature of preference is that you go after something you want with all your heart and soul and mind and might but if you don’t get it, you are still happy.
Are you the master of your sexuality or is it the master of you? Does you sexuality serve a selfish purpose or a selfless purpose? Life is nothing more than making continual adjustments and attitudinal and physical corrections to bring oneself constantly back to inner peace and the appropriate Tao.
Transcending desire. One must transcend lower self-desire, for it is the mother of negative self-ego. It is good to have a desire to ascend in consciousness, or a desire to achieve self-liberation, or to be of service. Transform lower self desire to desire for God realization. This is the ticket to Paradise!
Anger is a lack of control and attempt to regain it. The misuse of anger deals with the misuse of power. Anger creates separation. People who are angry all the time are demonstrating lack of true personal power and self-mastery. The purpose of life is to retain oneness at all times, not separation. Anger stems from attachment and not looking at things as lessons in living.
There are only two emotions in life: love and fear. Fear is negative ego manifesting. Love is Christ consciousness manifesting. We must release all fear and replace it with all Love. When you have released all fear you have released and transcended negative ego consciousness. The releasing of fear is also tied to having faith in God and Higher Self.
When you allow yourself to be run by the inner child, you are going to be very selfish as all children are. Selfishness also comes from not being trained in the difference between negative ego thinking and Christ Consciousness thinking. We must see the higher picture and wear the moccasins of our brothers and sisters. The true Spiritual Master’s consciousness sees everything out of the group body and not out of the lens of just the inner child, negative ego and physical body.
One of the greatest tests after power, fame and money, will the ego become inflated? Will the personality fill itself with self-aggrandizement and self-glorification? Both superiority and Inferiority must be transcended to release oneself from the negative ego’s grasp.
Instead of being satisfied with our puzzle piece that God has for us, the negative ego quality of greed would have us try to acquire other people’s pieces in God’s Plan. It can be greed for power, fame, and spiritual things, even greed for spiritual growth. IN truth, that which we greedily hang on to, we will ultimately lose. In truth we only retain what we give away. This is the law of life!
Transcending Duality
Negative ego always has two sides to it. The eastern teachings state that when you have profit or loss, pleasure or pain, sickness or health, victory or defeat, success or failure, it remains the same. We don’t always have to be tossed around on a continual roller coaster of emotional highs and lows. There is a was of thinking called the Christ Consciousness that allows one to be unceasingly the same, always in your power, always loving, always happy, always even minded, always equaniminous, always in joy, in inner peace, forgiving, and unchanging regardless of the fluctuation of the dualities of life. This is the consciousness of the God self. This state of Christ Consciousness is possible for each of us because the negative ego does not become engaged. The storm sand fluctuations of outer life do not affect the stability and even mindedness of your thinking process. Everything I life is perception, interpretation and your belief system. The whole purpose of this article is nothing more than a way to shift from fear based thought and emotions to love based thoughts and emotions. Your salvation is up to you, not up to God. God has given you everything from the beginning. The question is will you give yourself salvation by releasing your negative ego completely and fully 100% embracing the Christ Consciousness.
Jealousy stems from insecurity and attachment and hence the need to compete with others instead of to cooperate. Jealousy is totally of the negative ego and should be released at all cost for it is not of God. The point here is to remain connected to group consciousness and one’s identity with all creation. One true identity is the Eternal Self, not the physical body and personality. This connects one with all creation, and all creation with oneself. The spiritual path is really quite easy to understand. If you want to be with God in heaven then act like Him. Be happy for another person’s joy! The key to life is to recognize your puzzle piece, for God created each person differently and for a different function.
Is your desire to present an attractive appearance governed by the soul or the negative ego? Truly examine your deepest motivations and intent in this regard. Are you presenting Godliness in your appearance or slovenliness or glamour in the extreme? Be clear on what you are trying to present.
Egotism goes beyond pride to really encompass all negative ego qualities and emotions. There is really only one problem in life for all incarnated and non-incarnated souls and that is egotism. There is only one answer to all the problems of humanity and that is Christ Consciousness. The definition of God is “God equals man minus ego.”
Your ego is the source of all the spiritual tests mentioned here. And the source of all lower self-desire. It is the source of all separation, fear and selfishness. It is the source of all disease. It is the premiere lesson everyone should, must learn. The key to inner peace is to deny every thought that is not of God or is of the negative ego to enter your mind. Affirm and place your attention on every thought and emotion that IS of God and IS of the Christ or Buddha Consciousness. It is through this practice of attitudinal healing that your subconscious thinking will be reprogrammed and form a new habit. Your subconscious mind is as happy to be programmed with the Christ/Buddha Consciousness as it is the negative ego consciousness. It doesn’t care because it has no reasoning. It is your job as the conscious mind to reprogram your subconscious mind in this manner.
It is your job to clear your mind of the negative ego. No one else can do it. It is done by very simply not giving your attention to it. You don’t need to get at it for in truth it doesn’t really exist. It is not really there. You just think it is. It is nothing more than a bad dream. It manifests on the mental place as illusion. It manifests on the astral plane as glamour and on the etheric plane as maya. If there is just one quality that describes the negative ego it is “separation consciousness”. A Course in Miracles states that there is only one problem in life and that is separation from God. In truth we have never been or will ever be separate. This is illusion. The law of the mind mass negative hypnosis of separation that does not exist in reality. As A Course In Miracles says, “The fall never happened, we just think it did.” This is the great law of life. In this moment wakeup from the bad dream and nightmare you have lived for many lifetimes and realize the truth that passeth all understanding.
“Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God”
(Introduction to A Course in Miracles)
And then what?
The first step is to have this awakening and demonstrate our Christ Consciousness on Earth.
The second step is to see the Christ Consciousness in others. If you don’t see it in others, you lose it in yourself.
The third step is to practice demonstrating this state of consciousness 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. By doing this we will come to realize God.
