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The Fourth Sign of Soul Formation - the 'submission of Ego'

The fourth sign that one is progressing to support harmonized Soul creation is when one has consciously developed the ability to intentionally 'submit' to a higher intelligence when needed. This is difficult as, in the modern world, the 'Ego' (as an identity survival mechanism in the absence of a true 'I') is only concerned with self-preservation and never wants to submit to anything except the affirmation of itself.

 

The Ego cannot be 'seen' as it uses all the instruments of functions (thoughts, feelings, sensations) for itself and can only be differentiated by a different 'taste' of Being. Until this taste is clear, one must assume that the source of all desires - even spiritual ones - comes from the Ego.

 

For most seekers, true submission can only occur gradually through verified progression that:

  1. I am nothing but an unconscious array of psychosomatic habits; and yet

  2. Something imbued with an intelligence far greater than anything that I can create emerges as a result of a different way of living beyond (1) above.

Only sustained discipline can support the incremental realization of both of these mutually alien progressions simultaneously - until such time as a full transition has been made. When it does, the Ego can find its rightful place as a servant to that 'something' and become an instrument of creative action.

 

Sometimes the 'taste' of an Ego-less state of Being can be experienced when one is 'shocked' out of the Ego. For example, through momentary trauma or deep foreign circumstance when the Ego has no adequate response to the situation, it can withdraw and hide away. This can leave one feeling 'naked' but this nakedness is simply the experience of a pure intelligence that seldom reaches the surface of personality. As the functional instruments (thoughts, feelings, sensations) are immature to this intelligence, awkwardness must abound until a sustained integration occurs.

 
In the Lord's prayer, the Greek version says "deliver us from the evil one" and not deliver us "from evil". The "evil one" is our own egoism. J.G.Bennett, The Way to Be Free, Bennett Books, page 103.
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