Let me begin by introducing myself with some one word descriptors. My name is Ian. I’m a white Australian. I’m 40 years old. I’m heterosexual. I’m a husband, a father, a son and a brother. I’m a minister, a pastor, a preacher and a colleague. I’m politically liberal and more spiritual than religious. By nature, I like my own company and can be shy. They are all important markers of identity and I honor every one of them. But at the same time, I wear them just as loose garments. None of them can fully define me. All of them are changing shape constantly, and they are full of ideas and assumptions.

I look out and see a person who is 70 years old. As we connect, spirit to spirit, from a place of deep humanity, the ideas we associate with age melt away and a space opens up between us. I look out and see a woman. As we connect, spirit to spirit, from a place of deep humanity, the ideas we associate with gender melt away and a space opens up between us. I look out and see an American (or two!). As we connect, spirit to spirit, from a place of deep humanity, the ideas we associate with nationality melt away and a space opens up between us. I look out and see an African American. As we connect, spirit to spirit, from a place of deep humanity, the ideas we associate with ethnicity melt away and a space opens up between us. I look out and see a political conservative. As we connect, spirit to spirit, from a place of deep humanity, the ideas we associate with political persuasion melt away and a space opens up between us. I look out and see a gay person. As we connect, spirit to spirit, the ideas we associate with sexuality melt away and a space opens up between us.

When we look at each other with eyes that carry no prejudgment, when our fixed ideas about identity melt away, there is only one of us.

Do you feel the dividing walls fall away? Do you sense the unity? These outer markers are important, but the deeper you go within, the less significant they are. They merge into universal consciousness. How awesome!

Of course, it’s not always as easy as that is it? Often, you get locked into an idea of who you are, and so much of it is based on ideas from the past. This is a trick of the ego.

Getting Stuck in Personas

I had a profound encounter with my ego recently. It was scary, but ultimately served to remind me not to hold my roles or identity too tightly.

I started using an IPOD. Yes, I know. I was several years after the rest of the population. I even had it sitting in my office for the past 2 years, but eventually overcame my fear and set it up. Let me just say, I very quickly fell in love with my IPOD. It’s a pocket sized miracle. I discovered that I can put anything on there, and then organize it into play lists. So I created a workout play list; Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Sick Puppies and Bush. It’s all there. The first time I worked out with my IPOD, I was lifting heavier weights, doing more reps and feeling stronger after the workout. The difference was amazing. I call this play list “Testosterian.”

Then I created a meditation play list. It has Sheila Chandra, Gregorian Chants, and various other sounds on it. I began reveling in my meditation time, enjoying a deeper peace. I call this play list “Euphorian.”

I created a compassion play list. It has James Blunt and other tear jerking music on it. I listen to it when I feel weary. I call this play list “Melancholian.”

I’m in love with my new best friend, my IPOD. I even wonder if the “I” in IPOD stands for Ian. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I discovered the shuffle command. Merging all these different play lists in a smorgasbord of musical surprises.

So get this. A few months back, I was on an airplane and hit the shuffle command. First, one of my testosterian songs played. I didn’t know what to do with the energy. I started edging my arm across the armrest, and creating a story in my head. If this person didn’t move their arm, I would take them on right here and now. I didn’t care if it was a single mother nursing an infant or not. She didn’t want to mess with testosterian. Then just as suddenly, that song ended and James Blunt began. My arms melted to my sides and I began quietly weeping in my seat. “Goodbye my lover!” Melancholian took over. Before I could wipe the tears from my face, Sheila Chandra started crooning in my ear and I could have sworn I had died and gone to blissful heaven. Euphorian took over. This musical shuffle went on for some time before I even realized how insane I had become.

I had so identified with each persona that I had forgotten how fickle and changing they are.

Luckily no one was hurt on my little flight with Air Ian. Maybe next time I should fly United.

But the truth is that people do get hurt when we lock into personas and identities. The need to defend a false sense of separate self is behind relationship conflict, world wars and religious rivalry. Now is the time to say “Enough!” Its time to shine a light on the dark tricks of the ego, and wake up, before it’s too late. It’s time to realize a new consciousness and a new earth.

Jesus and Denying Self

Jesus described it as denying the self in order to gain life. The passage from Matthew 16 (see below) is slightly convoluted, so let me unpack it a little. Jesus has been emphasizing that the road of the disciple, the way to realize Christ consciousness is to suffer and rise. Chisel away at the fixed notions of self and religion that lead to so much drama and pain in your life, and rise above an over identification with your ideas about self. His disciples were struggling with this teaching. Peter in particular, had an idea that Christ consciousness was about material victory. Maybe for Peter the ultimate glory was to gather in public in Jerusalem and consecrate a new institution. Maybe it would be called St Peters, or as named in the Blues Brothers “Triple Rock Church” where the disciples would turn cartwheels over their new found legitimacy.

Jesus said he had it bass ackwards. Jesus said that Peter was “gripped” by human things rather than divine things. Could he have meant that Peter was gripped by unconsciousness? He was fixated on his ideas about success and ego and failed to see the inner journey that Jesus was pointing to.

The Greek verb used that translates as “gripped” was a word that indicated an impulse that was visceral, rather than mindful. Peter was moved by primal desires and ambitions. Ego is so often like that. Primal and mindless. Think of ego as the Incredible Hulk. The Cartoon character, Dr David Banner was exposed to radiation and every time he got angry he turned green and flew into a primal rage. I suspect that even the most mild mannered person has some inner incredible hulk, that turns green when angered. Primal and mindless.

You could paraphrase the teaching of Jesus like this- deny your mindless self, the self that is stuck in its fixed ideas and personas in order that you might gain the wonders of a large Self. Deny your small self for the sake of Christ consciousness, and you will lack nothing, and fear nothing and want for nothing, because you will be one with all things.

Make no mistake. This is hard. It is like a death. It hurts like crazy to give up your precious personas that you have taken a life time to fortify and protect. But persist, because with this expanding consciousness you will tap into a peace that passes all understanding. You will be part of a new earth with less rivalry and more love.

The more severe the crisis, the more awesome the resurrection. The world is in a bad state right now. I don’t need to list the problems we face. The wonderful point that both the teaching of Jesus and Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth make is that it is during the darkest hour that the stars shine brightest, and you rise above ego to your life’s purpose.

I have begun A New Earth several times, and read it right through once. What I find so powerful about the book is that every time I open it, it has something new for me. It’s like a mirror, reflecting my current level of awareness. I couldn’t be happier that so many people are reading it. It says much about a burgeoning consciousness that we are part of at C3/CCC.

A New Earth is Just a Book

Of course, it’s just a book. I had a funny experience while visiting with C3 North this week. I was carrying my copy of A New Earth with some notes for a talk I was giving. I placed the book down while I loaded my plate with goodies. When I came back someone had spilt a can of coke all over it. I had to laugh. I realized that I was a little attached to my copy of the book that was meaning so much to me. I was attached to a book that was all about not being attached to words and ideas. So I gathered my composure and as I stood up I said to the woman walking by (whom I had not met), “Oh well, it’s only a book!” She said with a rye smile, “You said that to the wrong person. I’m a librarian.”

You do need to be careful who you say this to, but A New Earth is just a book. If the book moves you to wake up to the games of the ego, then that’s wonderful. Just don’t make the same mistake with the book that so many people have made with religion. Don’t confuse the words with the experience. The words are not as important as the experience and realization of inner oneness with universal consciousness.

Take what you can, from wherever you can find it, and keep moving towards the light.

Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight

Have you heard about the neuroscientist, Jill Bolte Taylor? 12 years ago, she suffered a stroke. She survived and was able to tell her amazing story of a brain scientist’s experience of her own stroke. The stroke affected her left hemisphere, and she couldn’t recall much of her past. The curious thing for Taylor was that she retained the right hemisphere ability to think in pictures. She lost her language and linear memories. She described the morning of her stroke as a mystical experience, and one that changed her life. She became the witness of her body and the whole experience. She couldn’t draw any distinction between herself and the world around her. Each moment was isolated and lacked the left brain’s ability to draw connections between moments. She was immersed in the present moment.

Jill Bolte Taylor tells the amazing story about losing her left brain function. She woke up from the stroke, and there was no language substance to her identity; no name, no personas, no roles. She just had formless pictures of her self that now included the euphoric experience of the stroke itself. She speaks about the freedom of not being attached to the emotional baggage of relationships, not being attached to previous ideas about her intelligence or function as a scientist. She had no pressure to become anything in particular. All was new. All was fresh and free of fixed notions of self.

The wonderful truth is that you don’t have to have a stroke to experience euphoria. Meditation will enhance your right brain experience. Witnessing your reactions and thoughts as they come and go will enhances your right brain experience. Breaking the pattern of identifying with roles and personas as if they fully embody who you are will enhance your right brain experience.

Disidentifying with Roles in Order to Awaken Your Life Purpose

Let me draw this to a very practical close. Consider the various roles you play in life. They are important, even necessary to your daily life. Be aware of them. Practice your daily roles and personas mindfully with a present awareness. With this mindfulness, occasionally practice transcending the roles, and see the profound healing affect it will have.

Some of you have had your roles change very suddenly, and learnt this lesson very rapidly. Your relationship broke up, and you went from being a married person to a single person. Maybe it felt like a death, like something was lost. Maybe it still does. Aren’t there also moments where, like Jill Bolte Taylor, you enjoy the freshness of changing roles? You can recreate your new identity, and this time you won’t be so gripped by the need to have a fixed identity.

Maybe you have lost a job, or retired. You went from being employed to being unemployed. Maybe it feels like a death, and yet there are also moments of a new aliveness. You can recreate your identity and this time you won’t be gripped by the need to find your identity so fully in what you do.

Consider some of the important roles you still play. Play with the boundaries of these roles.

You are a parent, and much of the time your kids need you to be a parent. They need you to set boundaries, and be more responsible than they are. Some time, and with mindfulness, step outside of the parent role and interact with your child as an equal. Watch your ideas and judgments melt away and enjoy the space that opens up between you. Or maybe consider a relationship with a parent. Try shifting your persona from inferior to a fellow human being on a journey and watch the space open up between you.

Consider someone with whom you have conflict. Maybe you take on a persona that protects yourself by being very aloof or overly confident. Try, even once, to drop the persona and enjoy the new space that opens up. Try the same thing with a colleague.

Stop identifying with your roles and personas, and you will gain the world. You will be able to manifest more mindfully your outer purpose, and you will awaken to the euphoria of inner purpose. You will win, you will live more peacefully and the world will become a more humane place.

Then finally, stop and say to yourself- “I am.” Just I am, and don’t add anything to it. Nothing lacking, nothing to prove and nothing to fear. I am. Without all the shifting and changing roles, revel in universal consciousness. I am. How awesome!

Matthew 16; 21-26
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ 23But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are gripped by human things, and not divine things.’
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?