The Inner Journey
Getting Off the Roller Coaster

EGO IS ONE OF MANY PARTS:

Along with the Ego, there are many other aspects or natures that make up the complete individual. There is a part of you which has humour. There is a part of you which is creative. There is a part of you which is sexual. There is a part of you which gets angry. There is a part of you which is Spiritual, and there is a part of you which hurts. You have your logical thinking parts and your caring parts and they all piece together to form the person that you are. These many parts that belong to all people are all good parts, but sometimes during the course of a lifetime, knowledge and learning can have an association with bad choices or negative situations. It is here that our development as an individual can become misguided as our life unfolds.

OUR NATURAL NEED FOR ECSTASY:

If we have traveled down a road that has made us feel like our life lacks direction or purpose, that it is a struggle or that it feels like it is without control, then some aspect of our nature has become dominant and brought about disharmony. Many times, ignorance alone, of Life and how to live life, will keep us bound in situations that rob us of the growth and joy in life that we all seek. Through such a lack of harmony and balance, a person can feel like they are fragmented or have lost the essence of peaceful unity that is found within all of us when we are whole. A person will constantly search for ways to ease the burden caused from continued unsuccessful quests for happiness. Carl Jung, forerunner of modern Psychology has these thoughts:

"The human Spirit will naturally seek its ecstasy, and if it cannot find it legitimately, it will find it illegitimately."

When I first came across this thinking, I thought "Wow!", Here was an explosion of information delivered to me in only a handful of words. We all seek happiness, but sometimes the quest for happiness can be misguided or misdirected from the lack of a genuine experience of Love, or that a chosen path has failed to unfold its imagined promises. In the most extreme cases, negative cycles maintained by desires that can only become fulfilled by external means, can, in time, bring a person to a state of deep emptiness.

EGO HAS A DUTY:

Your True Self is gentle and loving, always content with the simple aspects of life, but the actions of the Ego are essentially one of survival. For all the wrong paths the Ego has led you down, it was only trying to do what it thought was right. It has only ever known the things that it has encountered during its lifetime and the things that you have given it. All these experiences are summed together and become the subconscious role-model for behavior. Our Egos gather information from the world around us and in doing so have a very hard time when trying to deal with the abstracts or unknowns of life. These abstracts and paradoxes in life are contained in the Spiritual connection we have with the Universe.

Very often, after using or hearing the word Universe, I am tempted to think of vast amounts of Space and brilliant free-floating Spiral Galaxies, but in a Spiritual context, Universe is used to define All things in creation, and All means All; including those magnificent galaxies, and of course, yourself. Yes! You are equal to all things in creation. You have worth, you have value, you have a purpose. You were formed in Love, to grow in Love.

YOU ARE THE MEANING OF LIFE:

From what has been discussed so far, we can begin to see a potential for inner conflict as Ego interacts with Spirit thus bringing about confusion or uncertainty. The person living the Spiritual life style has learned that one's True Self is revealed in Spirit, and that a life lived harmoniously is a recognition of the physical world being just one part of one's overall personal evolution. Being Spiritual does not automatically imply an association with religion; the essence of being Spiritual is to be able to identify with Life and Love and the power of Life and Love. It enables a unique bond with the world where suddenly the aloneness of individuality is transformed into a freedom for self-expression that enables a oneness with all people from a motive of Truth and Love.

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