Using Awareness to Experience Self-Worth
By Steve Beckow
Posted on November 11, 2023
Part 1
Divine Mother, may we find blessed relief this 11/11 from the oppressive conditions that beset our world.
I think courting a breakthrough in self-worth is a fitting subject for 11/11. I hope you agree.
I’m not a spiritual teacher nor do I have ambitions to be anything but a writer. But I also would like to see a re-awakening of the growth movement. And I’m tired of waiting for someone else to do it. If not me, who?
Cast the Question
I think spiritual and growth commentators might agree with me that our primary affliction as a world is a lack of self-worth.
In my opinion, it isn’t a lack of strength, imagination, resources, or any of the skills and faculties that can be “cultivated.” It’s a failure to appreciate ourselves, who we are, and what we might be capable of if we recognized and empowered our self.
Without that, our sense of self-worth lies neglected and hidden. Behind a locked door, so to speak. I’d like to talk about how to use our self-awareness to unlock that door.
A lot of the growth movement has to do with increasing and using our self-awareness. How many sages say we can’t know the Self until we know the self? My own me is God and I recognize no other God than me. (A conundrum.) Seek the Self inwards. Etc. (1)
Why are we seeking Self-Realization if not through self-awareness? What other awareness would lead to realization of the Self?
Being aware of others is not what it’s about, although that may happen incidentally.
If you want to take a step on the path of awareness towards a fuller appreciation of self -worth with me, then I recommend a simple but powerful exercise adapted from Enlightenment Intensives and widely used in workshops.
I believe they in turn adapted it from Ramana Maharshi, whose original question was “Who am I?” (2)
I’d like to adapt that and make the question: “What is my self-worth?” The exercise is to ask the question repeatedly and take the first answer you get.
Just “cast” the question as you would a fishing line and await an answer. And cast it again, and again, with intervals, intending that you as your Higher Self, or your archangel, or the Mother answer.
You may want to invoke the Mother and the universal laws of as above so below, change, and sacred purpose to give you an experience of your self-worth.
We are God. This is strictly a family matter
We’re freeing up our sense of self-worth from the hammerlock that all our core issues and upsets, resentments and rules have on it. And from our ignorance that all of us are God.
I, the Self, have been underneath all the overburden. My experience of the purity and innocence of the Self at Xenia Retreat Center let yet another cat out of the bag. (3)
It happened on Sept. 18, 2018. I saw the Self and felt my own native, natural purity and innocence, an experience that I’ll never forget and that no one can take from me.
What I saw and felt was deeply personal. Let’s put that deeply-personal affirmation of self-worth at one end of the spectrum. At the extreme other end is the fact that each of us is God.
How can that be, you ask? How can it not be?
Could there be God, who is everything, and Steve Beckow, who is… uhhh…. No, God is everything including you and me. (4)
Therefore, ultimately, our self-worth is beyond estimation. On one level, the questioning very quickly reaches a point of ridiculousness. How do we measure God’s worth? In dollars? You see what I mean?
So we’re now both clearing away the obstructions to an experience of self worth by casting the question but we’re also clearing up our misunderstanding. We are God. This is strictly a family matter.
But notice that in getting there, we had fun casting the question and seeing what the response was. And we cleared away numerous obstacles to feeling our self-worth. We’ve sharpened our awareness, probably gotten rid of a lot of lethargy. (5) This is better than push-ups.
Burrow down through the barriers
So we’re casting the question and we got a barrier? We burst into tears.
Great. Observe it, get its message – really get it – and bless it. Then let it depart on its own time and at its own speed.
Ask the question again. Another barrier? Great. And on we go.
The awareness path is portable. You can do it while cooking, on the bus, at the supermarket. And doing it sharpens your awareness rather than dulling it with outside attractions.
Burrow down through the barriers. What is my self-worth? Take the first answer you get.
Observing, understanding, blessing, and letting go of any barrier that arises. Not this, not this, not this. (6)
You got an experience? Great. Be with it. Allow it to expand.
And keep going regardless. You’ll know when to stop. I guarantee: You won’t have to ask anybody.
A voyage of self-discovery
When I discovered that I was, underneath all my issues and upsets, pure and innocent. I was so relieved!!! I was not born in sin. I was born in innocence. That issue was now decided.
A restoration of that purity and innocence is where we’re headed.
In part 2, I’d like to quote Plotinus’ description of an alternate awareness process to the same destination, which will demonstrate, I hope, that we terrestrials have been walking the awareness path to Self-Realization for millennia.
Thank you for coming along with me on a voyage of self-discovery.
(Concluded in Part 2, below.)
Footnotes
(1) Our job in all our lives is one of discrimination: We are discriminating out from all that is unreal the one thing that is real – God. Physical life is where we develop our discrimination to the level where we can do that.
(2) See Anon., Who Am I? The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Sarasota, FL: Ramana Publications, 1990 and Arthur Osborne, ed., The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi. http://www.ramana-maharshi.org. Downloaded 10 Sept. 2005.
(3) The original cast out of the bag was discovering I was not my body in the 1977 OOBE. Another cat out of the bag was learning the nature of transformative love in the 2015 heart opening. We also call these realizations.
(4) Let’s leave aside the matter that, if I am God as you are, then by extension I must be everyone else. Archangel Michael Me, Mother Me, I like St. Germaine Me.
Feet on the ground, Steve. No senior enlightenment experiences until the guests have been served. Just saying….
(5) (What Hindus know as the guna of thamas.
(6) Neti, net, neti (not this, not this, not this) – the practice of non-dualism.
“As long as one has not realized God, one should renounce the world, following the process of ‘Neti, neti.'” (Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 328.)
Brahmajnana, Jnana = Seventh-chakra enlightenment; still in Third Dimension
Ascension, Vijnana = Beyond the 3D chakra system. Full and permanent heart opening, portal to higher dimensions
