Being Yourself
Being Yourself
How frequently maybe you have felt anxious if you was required to face a stressful situation, like interviewing for any job, presenting and public speaking, or a weight date which has a prospective new love interest? And exactly how more often than not, once you asked your closest friends or mentors for advice, did they try to allay your fears by suggesting, "Don't worry - you should be yourself."
Probably, your mates meant:
- You're good candidate for this position and they are fully qualified for the position;
- You've a great deal of valuable information to share with you that your audience will appreciate; or
- You're a fun-loving one who your date will love. And your friends might be completely correct.
But even deeper, the simple advice, "Just be genuine," includes a nugget of profound wisdom which goes beyond attracting money, fame or love. "Being yourself" is your single mission on earth.
As we discussed inside a recent newsletter, Get back Your Power, you were created in the image of God. And that means you were born to produce. Your life's mission is to make use of your inner self and express the wisdom that lies within - that is, Be Yourself.
It's not easy. Nowadays, you are continually trained to define yourself by a few external, superficial characteristics, as if your: name, age, gender, race, nationality, occupation, religious affiliation, marital status, familial relationship, political party, economic status, educational degree, and other such label.
Of course, if is just not already limiting enough, you will find there's whole report on acronyms to help define you: SWF - Single, White, Female or DINKS - Dual Income, No Kids.
These names or acronyms are inherently limiting. You're majestic spiritual being experiencing life on this planet with a body, heart and mind.
Exactly how do you "Be yourself"?
One self-realized sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj, taught how the best way to learn how to be yourself would be to first recognize what you really are not. His teachings are pretty straight forward, free of religious jargon or dogma. He considered that as a way to help anyone, so that you can alter the world, you must first know what you are. Many of his discussions would start with "Do you understand whom you are?"
People would fumble around looking to answer the issue, not quite knowing how to respond to.
What he taught is you are beyond your body, outside your heart, away from mind, beyond even consciousness; you are witness that sees yourself seeing, that perceives yourself perceiving.
You are apex from the "I"... while in to which team you really are - the Oneness that mystics seek.
Clearly, you aren't one of the superficial things we mentioned earlier. You aren't the body. All things considered, that is directing your system? You're not your emotions. For that is feeling these emotions? You are not your brain. For that is thinking these thoughts? Nisargadatta taught that attempts to limit or define yourself lead to conflict. Definitions based on your own memories are needlessly repetitive and limiting. When you know your identiity, it is possible to transcend your limitations, together with your past, and be a true Creator. Self-realization is primarily the ability of this conditioning, i.e., the mystic's goal "to know thyself."
Inside the mystic world, all is One. There's nothing outside of the One. There is certainly merely the A very important factor.
Now, you know you exist. And you cannot ever not exist.
So, if you know there's only the Something and that you are available, there exists just one logical conclusion:
The One thing is us, what exists as us... the knower, the thinker, the perceiver... could be the divine aspect in we all.
Once we keep contemplating, "Who shall we be held?" we go all the way up back to the beginning, on the essence, on the innermost self. You have to understand that many of us are normally the one.
Once you tap into that innermost self, there isn't any stress. There's little that is necessary. Once you act, directed by your inner voice, you are aligned together with your highest purpose and you will probably automatically do what is finest in any circumstance.
This will likely involve "chopping wood and carrying water," because Zen proverb advises. Or eliminating extraneous activities that do not provide spiritual nourishment. The seemingly tumultuous times that we're entering will encourage the best way to to travel within and search for their true purpose in life.
So, as the flawed institutions crumble who are around you, as increasing numbers of write-ups on serious problems appear daily around the "news," remember, things are unfolding in accordance with a divine plan. It is all totally exactly as it ought to be. You're magnificent spiritual being. Tune in to your inner voice and "be yourself."
