Spiritual Weakness
Question: Why in the world am I so weak that I can't remember my good intentions? How will I ever succeed spiritually when this weakness keeps getting in the way of my making any real progress?
Answer: Part of the answer to this endless enigma requires an understanding of its own hidden dynamic -- knowledge hard come upon because the self that continually runs into its own weakness is itself a part of the problem that it faces. With this idea in mind, see if the following insight doesn't shed much-needed light into this darkness of our spiritual inability: No intention can be any stronger than our ability to remember it in the moment that it is needed. Considering this fact brings us to a vital discovery about our present nature.
The reason we can't remember our intention is because we are not one self. We are a being fragmented into many parts, all of which have separate agendas and therefore individual intentions.
As you have no doubt witnessed, these various aspects of self "argue" with one another -- one tugging this way, the other that way -- and all are unconscious of the fact that their conflict consumes our life's energy. In effect, our time is spent trying to be accountable by pleasing one master after another within ourselves -- only there is no pleasing this "self" (or any other, as they pop up in this psychological chain of false command).
However, when you can see how one part of yourself manages to take control of the rest of you, it is the beginning of the end of its authority over you. To state this same idea in other words, this new and higher form of self-discernment begins with realizing that you are in wrong relationship with these false parts of yourself -- that you are not intended to be their servant, but the other way around! Within this discovery begins the process of letting go of the anxiety and worry that must attend being unconsciously identified with these temporary characters within yourself.
As you realize that your greater intentions are rendered powerless in the hands of these vagrant parts of yourself, it also becomes evident that you are not going to be able to fulfill these higher aims until you begin to become a whole human being. But how can self-unification take place when this aim itself is thwarted at every turn by the very nature it seeks to replace? This question brings us to the solution of a great spiritual mystery.
The more we awaken to how inwardly divided we actually are -- and start to see all of the forces randomly operating within us, with no guidance apart from the "good" each separate self desires at the moment -- the more we realize the need for a new kind of unity, a wholeness we are unable to create by ourselves, within ourselves.
With this new understanding comes the dawning that the only way to accomplish our higher intentions in life is to start embracing God's intention for us to be whole and conscious creatures. Our will must be redirected, married to a Greater One.
In this gradual redirection of our "willingness," a new sense of self begins to surface in us; no longer do we struggle to will ourselves into being strong or righteous; no more do we turn on ourselves for our "weakness." These former choices, once thought of as being part of what we needed to succeed with our intention, are now recognized as being part of the problem and not the solution. Our new intention is simply to remember God in our life, and this will becomes the one part of ourselves with which we meet everything that life brings to us.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom, Pages 17-19.
Question: When I manage to remember my higher aim in life, I seem to lose control of my life, and other people are quick to take advantage of what they evidently see as my weakness. Should this be happening or am I going about something all wrong?
Answer: This may sound strange at first, but let anyone who wants to take advantage of your wish to awaken take whatever they will. This doesn't mean to turn your money or property, etc. over to sharks. But it does mean not to be afraid of letting everyone in the world see what you think they think is your weakness. The issue has nothing to do with others, but with our perception of ourselves. Dare to be no one. Only when you realize that you already are no one (and yet more than you know) will the fear of others taking advantage of you disappear. After all, what can anyone else take from you? God has seen to it that everyone everywhere receives the reward of his own nature moment to moment to moment. What this means is that anyone who wishes to harm you has first harmed himself. And believe me, you can't make it any tougher on this person than he has already made it on himself.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom, Pages 152-153.
