THE SOUL'S GUIDANCE

Scattered clues wouldn’t be enough to keep a seeker on the path. A path implies a sequence of events. In this case, God-consciousness is an inner state, so are the events along the way. One experiences firsthand that ego and personality don’t have to dominate one’s life. The things they stand for – and tenaciously refuse to let go of – give way to a higher vision.

The ego’s stake in its own interests is so powerful, backed up by years of conditioning and inner propaganda, that we may only hear its voice warning us that trying to become spiritual will be disastrous.

We will become vulnerable on every front, giving a free hand to fear, aggression, outside enemies, and irrationality. In a sense, this warning is correct, but only from the ego’s point of view. Higher consciousness seems to spell the end of lower consciousness; therefore, it’s logical for the status quo to fight hard against its own extinction.

The soul possesses another viewpoint. It knows that it is real, but also that it has no intention of annihilating the ego and the personality. Transformation isn’t a war, and the soul never uses psychological violence. After all, no violence is required for a three-year-old child to grow into a four-year-old, with all the inner changes that implies.

God-consciousness requires more inner change, yet it proceeds as spontaneously as a child learning to read. The chasm between literacy and illiteracy is huge; the two states have nothing in common, so we can’t force one to turn into the other. We trust in the process of development, and the same holds true for spiritual growth. The more spontaneous it is, the more genuine.

Adapted from The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).