From the External Self to the Inner Spiritual Self
In this post, I am writing about letting go of the external self to embrace the inner spiritual self, as the last initiation, at the 7th Ray. You can read more about the qualities of the rays in my previous posts.
The Self that Doesn’t Want to Die
In the self-mastery path, from the 48th to the 96th level, we are using our will and determination to resist the gravitational force of the collective consciousness. For that, as the Masters have been telling us, we develop an individual self.
This self helps us to go until de 96th level, by giving us a sense of being separated from the collective and, for a time, this is how it must be, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to resist the «mass consciousness» on Earth, or the mob consciousness, acting as a constraining force.
But, as we come closer to the 96th level, we must begin to question the «self» that we built to get to this point on the path. And that’s where this “identity” developed over a long time, over many lives, can become a trap.
On the one hand, it allows us to reach just the level of consciousness in which we free ourselves from the weight of collective consciousness.
Oon the other, this self must die if we are going to keep growing.
However, this self, which has strengthened itself along the way, does not want to die and resists and resists with all strength and all tricks to be left behind.
And this is where many spiritual students let themselves get caught in “I” trick
the “I”, this self that sees itself as the center of our world and does not want to lose its kingdom.
It sees itself as the self that has been devoted to perfecting itself to give us the sense of a personal identity and believes that it has reached a high degree of “enlightenment” and wisdom and fights for the reward of being recognized as such.
It is a self, proud of its abilities and power, it may even have developed high skills in different areas and is prideful of everything it can do. It compares itself with others, feeling happy about its superiority and does not even want to think that its destiny is simply to let itself die,
And, as long as the pure consciousness of the I am Presence – the “conscious you” -identifies with it, it is free from all concern, and, it thinks, guaranteed for eternity.
Many spiritual seekers become lost in this vanity of the external self, thinking that they have, in fact, reached the highest point of spiritual development and that there is nothing more to change or achieve. And at that precise moment, they stop growing and, after a while, they begin o downward spiral, instead of keep growing.
When the Disciple is Ready, the Master Appear
It is a very ancient maxim that, whenever the disciple is ready to learn, the Master appears. The problem is that, when a student of the spiritual path gets stuck in the outer self, confusing it with the spiritual self, it rejects the help of the Masters of Humankind.
And when there is this rejection, the Masters can’t help, because they can’t go against the Freedom of anyone.
It is only the person himself, that can jump out of this outer self, opening to the experience of the Christ mind, see the illusions of that self and let it die. We must come to the conclusion that the outer self does not matter: «You cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You cannot go from the 48th to the 96th level without receiving something from the Christ».
But it is necessary to be close to the 96th level of consciousness to realize that this «Christ mind is not something external to us, it is an internal reality:«(…) accepting that the Christ is not an external force that comes to you from without: It becomes an internal force that comes to you from within.»[1]
The problem here is that, when the external self is very strong and the connection to the internal spiritual identity- the conscious you- is weak, it is not possible to accept the Christ mind as an internal experience. It will be seen as something external, a concept that can’t be experienced.
The way to change this is to strive to the goal of connecting to something higher in us than the outer self with its vanity, comparison mentality and sense of separation.
The path to the unity of the Christ mind is individual and there is no recipe that can be used by everyone. But I dare say that staying humble, and keeping a true desire to go beyond the outer self, will do the trick.
Purity of intention and disconnecting from attachments to the material world, adopting the mindset of preferring the spiritual identity’s «desires» to the desires of the external self, will certainly help.
But every self-aware being has its own unique individuality, and that’s why the Masters help us the most until we reach the 96th level, and it’s up to the I am Presence , that has the unique individuality given to us bey our Creator, that guides us from that point until the 144th level and beyond.
The Outer Self is the Anti-Christ
I already wrote about the milestone of the initiation of the 2nd Challenge of Christ, where we literally choose if we are going to surrender the outer self, the self that sees itself as the center of our identity and whose power over us we accepted long ago; or if we are going to surrender this self in the name of the Christ in us.
Like Master St Germain puts it: «My concern here is that you pass the initiation at the 96th level, which is that you begin to embody Christ instead of seeing it as an external force. You need to recognize here that the self that you have built to take you to the 96th level cannot do this. »[2]
When the outer self is too strong, it resists forcefully to be replaced and uses all kinds of tricks to stay in the throne of our consciousness. And many accept this anti-christ, as if it were the real Christ in us. What happens is that they don’t want to lose the sense of power or some other «ability» they conquered through the outer self.
And they become indefinitely lost in the illusions of the mortal self but let’s be honest, keeping the external self in its position of power is a choice and a free decision, from which no one can free us except ourselves.
The psychology about this decision can vary from case to case but there are some similarities around it: in some cases, people want some reward from the world, or have some ambition related to the matter world, there are strong motivations coming from the outer- human- self- that resist to let go of this mortal identity.
I other cases, the outer self, proud of its accomplishments, give the person a desire to be rewarded or recognized by the Masters, it wants to receive some «honors» or recognition, while he is still on Earth , wants to be «important», to be seen as someone that made a difference or is special in some way.
When this happens, the person still has a strong outer self, that is reclaiming its price, for its accomplishments. Some want to have followers and establish themselves as gurus, wanting to be treated as the special beings they see themselves being.
And all this is illusion and vanity, having nothing of real substance behind it. Like Master Jesus said so many times, we don’t look for rewards on Earth because the only reward can only be found in Heaven.
The outer self is committed to the external world: «(…)The self, the outer self, that you used from the 48th to the 96th level functions the same way as the primal self.» [3]Therefore, this self is not able to turn within, it can only look outside, keeping us away from what is real in us. And that’s why it will never take us to Heaven but will drag us to the illusions of life on Earth.
[1] Id, ibid.
[2] Ibid. Ibid.
[3] Ibid, Ibid
