To Know God is not an Easy Matter, Until One Becomes a Knower of One’s Self

by Steve Beckow

Posted on February 13, 2024

Ibn Arabi: “To know God is not an easy matter, until one becomes a knower of one’s self.” (1)

Al-Ghazzali: “He who knows himself knows God.”  (2)

The illusory, apparently-individuated entity known as the “Self” is like a Babushka doll.

Whatever its original form might have been, that’s the largest of the dolls. And we in Fourth Dimensionality are the smallest.

But, I believe, they’re nested inside of each other in a non-physical way which I couldn’t possibly describe or understand.

We’re out here in the cold and rain and the door into the locked warmth of the interior of the Babushka Doll has this sign over it: “The Heart.”

We want back in to the light and warmth. Who’s got the key to this door?

Well, of course, the Divine Mother does. And, along with her, our archangel does, and our Higher Self, all agents of the Mother’s Will. (3)

We look back and we see that we approached the door by Awareness Avenue. Others are beginning to congregate now, also wet and cold, some coming from Service Avenue; others from down Wisdom Street. All wanting in at the door.

***

Let me spin the metaphor a little longer.

I can only talk about Awareness Avenue.

We cannot become a knower of God until we become a knower of the self.  It could not possibly be that God is everything and not us. Since everything is God, if we know ourselves as deeply as is possible, we should eventually know God. God is the residuum, the default, behind all appearances.

Moreover, we now know that things are provided for us along the way, to make things easier or speed our journey. Channeled messages, spiritual experiences, mentors, books falling off shelves, suggestions whispered in our ears. (4)

We’re not being asked to do something exotic – climb a mountain or cross a river. We’re asked to know, most deeply, the very thing we carry around with us night and day and use for everything – our very own self.

Example: Since our feelings don’t last, they cannot be what we’re looking for (God).  But our divine states don’t flee as quickly. They bear looking into as a stairstep to God.

And, yes, at some point we have to stop looking. It’s only brush-clearing. If we keep on past its point of usefulness, we busy the very thing we’re looking for: The “I” that’s looking is the “I” we’re looking for!

Crazy-making!

***

If something is not divine, or God, it will disappear when the truth of it is known. An upset will disappear when the truth of it is known. A headache or other pain may lift when its true message is known. (Maybe not. I’m not a doctor.)

The opposite is also true: I for instance am fond of using the phrase “a pain in the butt.” I now have a slipped lower disc which is causing … you got it … a pain in the butt. No accidents.

Or if you prefer the path of love to address an upset, love it and it will release its grip and gradually pass away: This too shall pass. Resist it and it will hold onto you forever: What we resist persists. (5)

***

Using the truth as our machete, we clear away the brush of our misconceptions, revealing the Truth that is and was already there. Well, that’s my preferred route, as a writer.

At Xenia, gazing upon the Self, I felt my own native purity and innocence (I can feel it now).  We labor under the memory of countless lifetimes of errors and mistakes, which burden us like Morley’s chain. (6)

But free of that burden through, as Kathleen points out, the forgiveness of everything, we are as pure and innocent as her granddaughter Amelia.

Just here. Without a care in the world. Just love and curiosity.

Can you imagine that that’s you? Because, deep down, it is.

Raising the ways of the self to awareness causes them to lift, if they’re held in place by anything other than love – such as jealousy, strategizing, fear, etc. Underneath them, we’re all just like Amelia.

Only love persists eternally. And that same love, in ways that are beyond my understanding, turns out to be the essence of who we are, now liberated from the endless desiring of the ephemeral self.

Footnotes

(1) Muhyideen Ibn Arabi, Kernel of the Kernel. trans. Ismail Hakki Bursevi. Sherborne: Beshara, n.d., 3.

(2) Al-Ghazzali, The Alchemy of Happiness. trans. Claud Field. Lahore: ASHRAF, 1971; c1964, 19.

(3) See Our Enlightenment Partnership at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Our-Enlightenment-Partnership-4.pdf

(4) See Our Enlightenment Partnership at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Our-Enlightenment-Partnership-5.pdf

(5) Werner Erhard.

(6) Morley was Scrooge’s deceased business partner, now dragging around the chain of his misdeeds and heartlessness while on Earth.

Steve Beckow

• goldenageofgaia.com/

 

Other Voices on Where the Self “Lives”

Other Voices on Where the Self “Lives”

By Steve Beckow

Posted on November 9, 2023

The Self lives in the deepest reaches of the heart, the Seat of the Soul. Credit: Ute Possega Rudel

Three days till 11/11.

When, at Xenia Retreat Center in Sept. 2018, I ventured in meditation into the very bottom of my heart, the depths of my heart, called the Seat of the Soul, I there found the Light of the Self.  (1)

But, after the experience, I was filled with doubts. The soul doesn’t “live” in the heart; it fills the whole of creation.  Who else can be found to support that statement? And then I promptly forgot about the matter.

But today I came across a section in From Darkness Unto Light, which features a large group of enlightened masters saying exactly that: That the Self, the soul, the spirit lives in and is to be sought and found in the heart. (2)

I feel buoyed up having found such a range of evidence in support of what sounded to me like a statement in need of corroboration. Here is that evidence:

---

Within the city of Brahman, which is the body, there is the heart, (1) and within the heart there is a little house. This house has the shape of a lotus, and within it dwells that which is to be sought after, inquired about, and realized. (Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c194, 74.) (Hereafter, UPAN.)

(1) Not the Heart Chakra, but the heart behind the hridayam or heart aperture.

The ancient, effulgent being, in-dwelling Spirit, (1) [is] deep-hidden in the lotus of the heart. (UPAN, 17.)

(1) The Self, the soul.

Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest, this Self forever dwells within the hearts of all. (UPAN, 18.)

Both the individual self and the Universal Self have entered the cave of the heart, the abode of the Most High. (UPAN, 19.)

He who … sees [the Atman] inhabiting the lotus of the heart, living among physical elements, sees Brahman indeed. For this First-Born is the immortal Self. (UPAN, 21.)

The Supreme Person, … the Innermost Self, dwells forever in the heart of all beings. (UPAN, 24.)

The Self exists in man, within the lotus of the heart, and is the master of his life and of his body. (UPAN, 46.)

Within the lotus of the heart (1) he dwells, where, like the spokes of a wheel in its hub, the nerves meet. Meditate on him as OM. Easily mayest thou cross the ocean of darkness. (UPAN, 46.)

(1) Not the heart chakra, which is shaped like a lotus, but the Hridayam, or heart aperture, which closes like a closed lotus.

I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. (1) (Exodus 8:22.)

(1) “In the midst of the earth” = I.e., in the center of the body; that is, in the Heart.

The devoted … know Him always There in the heart, Where action is not. (Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 59.) (Hereafter BG.)

There in the ignorant heart … I dwell. (Sri Krishna in BG, 87.)

The fire (1) shall ever be burning upon the altar; (2) it shall never go out. (Leviticus 6:13.)

(1) The Father or Self. (2) The Heart.

The Lord is in his holy temple: (1) let all the earth keep silence before him. (2) (Habakkuk 2:20.)

(1) The body; more specifically, the Heart.

(2) Silently meditate on Him.

Oh, Lord, dweller within; You are the light in the heart’s lotus. (Shankara in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947, i.) (Hereafter CJD.)

Here, within this body, in the pure mind, in the secret chamber of intelligence, in the infinite universe within the heart, the Atman (1) shines in its captivating splendour, like a noonday sun. (Shankara in CJD, 53.)

(1) The Self.

The Atman, which is pure consciousness, is the light that shines in the shrine of the heart, the center of all vital force. (Shankara in CJD, 63.)

The Atman is … the real I, hidden in the shrine of the heart. (Shankara in CJD, 69.)

The first step to self-knowledge is to know that thou art composed of an outward shape, called the body, and an inward entity called the heart, or soul. (1) By “heart” I do not mean the piece of flesh situated in the left of our bodies, but that which uses all the other faculties as its instruments and servants. In truth it does not belong to the visible world, but to the invisible, and has come into this world as a traveller visits a foreign country for the sake of merchandise, and will presently return to its native land. It is the knowledge of this entity and its attributes which is the key to the knowledge of God. (Al-Ghazzali, The Alchemy of Happiness. trans. Claud Field. Lahore: ASHRAF, 1971; c1964, 21.)

(1) Al-Ghazzali here equates the hridayam or heart with the Self.

There is something nearer to us than Scriptures, to wit, the Lord in the heart to which all Scriptures come. (William Penn in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy. New York, etc.: Harper and Row, 1970; c1944, 14.)

God, the true Philosopher’s Stone,

Who answers every prayer,

Lies hidden deep within your heart,

The richest gem of all.

(Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 235.) (Hereafter, GSR.)

The heart of the devotee is the abode of God. He dwells, no doubt, in all beings, but He especially manifests Himself in the heart of the devotee. A landlord may at one time or another visit all parts of his estate, but people say he is generally to be found in a particular drawing-room. The heart of the devotee is the drawing-room of God. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna in GSR, 133.)

Footnotes

(1) See “The Heart is ‘the Seat of the Soul’,” December 17, 2018, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2018/12/17/the-heart-is-the-seat-of-the-soul/

(2) From Darkness Unto Light at https://goldengaiadb.com/index.php?title=From_Darkness_to_Light

Steve Beckow 

• goldenageofgaia.com/

 

The Phase of Purification Called Growth

The Phase of Purification Called Growth

By Steve Beckow

Posted on August 29, 2023

A sharing circle

A newly-awakening person might ask if what we’re promoting here is a new religion.

I don’t think so. What we’re doing, more, is chronicling two aspects of the Purification phase of the Ascension we’re involved in.

It’s true that our Ascension is what the prophets meant when they used words like “Salvation” and “Redemption.” There is religious testimony to the advent of the Aquarian Age and the Ascension that ushers it in. But Ascension itself is not a religion. It’s a tangible, historical process.

We call the phase of Ascension in which the dark Ones are removed from positions of power “Accountability.” I call the part in which the light-filled Ones shed their dense overburden of upsets and issues “Growth.” It’s characterized by a movement I call “emergence.”  (1)

I consider this the time to commit ourselves to our own personal growth, to release that which we won’t be taking with us.

What does “growth” mean? Well, right now, it seems to mean dropping our encrusted patterns, strategies, acts, rackets, and so on.

***

To drop our encrusted patterns, we have to first become aware of them. So growth work first involves raising our awareness of how we “be.”

The more of our constructed self we drop, the more we reveal the natural and native purity and innocence that we are underneath it all. (2)

I experienced my own natural purity and innocence at Xenia Retreat Center on Sept. 18, 2018.  Archangel Michael describes that part of my experience:

Archangel Michael: What you have done is you have journeyed to the depths of your soul, to the depths of your core. …

And you have discovered, not lack, not criticism, not error, but beauty. Underneath the dross is the full beauty, the power, the gentleness, the sweetness of who you are. …

What you have discovered … is the yearning [for] innocence, [for] the sweetness and, yes, the purity that the Mother has filled you with, with her tsunami [of love]. And inside the purity is clarity, is love and so you have reached a deeper level, a higher level, a broader level of understanding.

And it is not merely an intellectual understanding. It is heart wisdom. And, in that, it allows you to proceed in a gentler way, not in a way where you feel you have your finger in the dam or you are pushing the river the other way.

So you are in the early stages of truly, not falling in love, but truly being not only in love but Being Love. (3)

“It allows you to proceed in a gentler way.” I feel that gentleness, which is rather foreign to me I might add, whenever I contemplate our original innocence and purity.

To discover that I was pure and innocent at my core rather than impure and sinful (born in sin) was extremely freeing. I still don’t think I’ve fully realized the full significance of it.

***

We are, I believe, dropping anything that can’t go forward with us. Preparing our bodies, minds, and emotions for the tremendous jump in energies that is out there ahead of us.

Michael shows us here that the Company of Heaven are bringing us along as fast as our bodies and minds can tolerate:

Archangel Michael: What you have seen is that you have been given bite-sized pieces of energy, of energy bumps, of input of what you can digest and handle and truly bring to fruition. If you are in the process of expansion, you don’t go from Grade 3 to a PhD in a week. (4)

AAM:   Every time you especially enter transformative love, that is a snap. It is not the full dramatic snap [Sahaja Samadhi or Ascension] but it is a snap. Each time, you are progressing up what you can think of as a level. (5)

So we’re literally climbing the staircase to heaven, one stair step at a time.

***

Purification means completing our old business of upsets, grievances, resentments – all the things that keep us dense and … well, here.

Gabor Maté is discussing it; (6) Thomas Hübl. (7).  Kathleen has her process for getting to the bottom of upsets and issues. (8) I have mine. (9) Buddha did. His modern-day interpreters do. Not dropping our old baggage is what keeps us unenlightened.

Fundamentally our issues are upsets whose experience is incomplete. We refuse to experience the feelings we felt back then and so are stuck with them: What we resist, persists.

The antidote is: The truth will set us free. We have to discover the origin of the upset and then complete the experience of it. How did Thomas Hübl phrase it? “Unresolved past is destiny; it repeats until we have the courage to work together to face it.” (10)

Discovering its origin, facing into it, experiencing it through to completion releases it and us.

We’re aided by the rising love energies, which make identification and release of an issue easier. And what we don’t clear away will be forgiven us later.

But it’s intended that we do as much work as we can for the educational value of it. And because the debts we incurred are ours alone to discharge. No one can do the releasing for us.

Footnotes

(1) On emergence, see Lightworkers: Creating a World that Works for Everyone. Vol. 3: Emergence and Service at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Lightworkers-3-6.pdf

(2) See On the Constructed Self at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/On-the-Constructed-Self-5.pdf

(3) Archangel Michael in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dilon, Sept. 21, 2018.

(4) AAM on Truncated Experiences,” March 21, 2017, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2017/03/21/aam-on-truncated-experiences/.

(5) “Archangel Michael on Snaps, Expansion, and Ascension,” June 6, 2017, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2017/06/06/archangel-michael-on-snaps-expansion-and-ascension/.

(6) See https://drgabormate.com/.

(7)  Thomas Hübl on https://thomashuebl.com/.

(8) Kathleen took the completion process a mile down the road by adding “Forgiveness, Compassion and Gratitude for the Balance of Peace, Love, Joy” to it (Kathleen Mary Willis, Voice of Freedom, at https://voiceoffreedom.ca/forgiveness-compassion-and-gratitude-for-the-balance-of-peace-love-joy/#more-14299).

(9) “How to Handle Unwanted Feelings: The Upset Clearing Process,” April 25, 2011, in Vasanas: Preparing for Ascension by Clearing Old Issues at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Vasanas-Preparing-for-Ascension-R8.pages.pdf

(10) Thomas Hübl, ibid.

Steve Beckow

• goldenageofgaia.com/