Welcome to the Esoteric Charles Goodwin
Dear Charles,
I have read your blog entries with great interest. Over the past few years I
have read various books on spirituality and have noticed just recently my
appetite for reading and re-reading has increased somewhat dramatically which is
what I think has led me to your site.
I truly feel that I am more open now to the truth than I would've been a few
years ago, I really want to surrender but the problem is I don't know if this
is mind ego led, if this is just the mind manipulating me into thinking I will
be better and life will be better through surrendering.
I have always thought it was good to be strong minded but now I see that it
can limit the very things that are a strong mind may strive to be.
Your words inspire and resonate with me, and I find it incredibly easy to
accept what you say. I suppose what I'm asking is how do I know I'm really
surrendering and not just following an ego based instruction? And also once you
feel you are developing spiritually do you naturally meet other souls on their
way to self realization? Like members of an unspoken club...Are there signs and
incidences and could you tell me about any you may have experienced. I feel
that being led to your site is one!
Warmest Regards
Ku
Greetings Ku
RE: I truly feel that I am more open now to the truth than I would've been a few
years ago, I really want to surrender but the problem is I don't know if this
is mind ego led, if this is just the mind manipulating me into thinking I will
be better and life will be better through surrendering.
You say you are now "more" open and are obviously beginning to reap the spiritual rewards of openness. It is good to be open. Yet you are admitting that "more" open is still partially closed, are you not? Open or closed to what? Your true self is like an immeasurable multi faceted diamond which brilliance can be likened to the brilliance of a million suns - yet obscured by conditioning, belief systems, culture, traditions and all the other thoughts and memories of the ego mind.
Openness - which is surrender - is merely the process of letting go of all this mental garbage. The realisation that you are not your name, your mind your traditions and culture - you are not your body - you are not your brain, your sex etc dissolves the dross on the diamond. Surrender thus happens. It is automatic. For example, when driving and you see a mirage on the road ahead - the mirage dissolves as your attention is fixed upon it. The mirage or illusion that you are the mind also dissolves once pure attention is focussed upon such illusion. The light is switched on and instantly the darkness is gone.
RE: "I have always thought it was good to be strong minded but now I see that it
can limit the very things that are a strong mind may strive to be."
Mmmm. Perhaps you are not strong minded but in reality strong willed. Strong minded by definition, is of the mind and stubbornness to ones existing belief systems and concepts. It is a sign of insecurity based upon fear. Fear is based upon ignorance. In a stubborn ego the new can never take root without cataclysmic changes . Know that to have strong resolve or to be strong willed is not of the ego. Christ and Buddha had (has) strong resolve yet are beyond the ego mind, are they not? The real you is consciousness - your will creates your reality each micro second. You are the image of God. You are total and permanent resolve! So do not allow the ego-mind to chastise yourself for the very gift of life/creation you are.
RE: Your words inspire and resonate with me, and I find it incredibly easy to
*accept* what you say. I suppose what I'm asking is how do I know I'm really
surrendering and not just following an ego based instruction?
*Accept* - perhaps, but do not believe! And the wise know the difference. Their is a beautiful Zen picture of a monk eating from an empty bowl. (???)
It is good to ask those who answer only from personal knowing rather than mere theories or book learning, however only allow such answers to become your knowing once you know! When such answers, as you say "resonate' deep within you - you know - and you know that you know. It is then that the ego-mind will either begin to sow the seeds of doubt or conversely attempt to "own" such knowingness and begin to create a further belief system out of it. - Keep the food bowl ever empty.
RE: And also once you feel you are developing spiritually do you naturally meet other souls on their
way to self realization? Like members of an unspoken club...Are there signs and
incidences and could you tell me about any you may have experienced. I feel
that being led to your site is one!
It is now a cliché, but when the student is ready the Guru appears - but read what I have already written about the guru. The whole of the physical universe is in reality only the reflection of the inner sad-guru. The guru is only ever the bridge - never get hung up on the bridge.
Love always
Charles Goodwin
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