Path to Illumination

Path to Illumination

While it is true that perception of the indwelling Secret Self ordinarily comes to harassed mortals only after much suffering and disillusionment, nevertheless there is a path by which such suffering may be avoided in the main, provided that first the soul is dedicated and sincere in its desire to make the discovery. The Secret Self is never discovered alone within, but at the same time is discovered in all places, in all beings, and is found to be the same in all. Different forms of life are merely disguises donned for the moment by the single self that underlies all, that truly is all, a play in which for the moment the Divine is hidden, in which for that moment it actually has become in entirety each of the things it has become. All the power and effectiveness of the Supreme is within you, is yours to use, and is also in everyone and everything else, existing there behind the curtain of ego-consciousness, waiting to be discovered. Therefore there is a tremendous underlying equality to all things under the sun. Each is sprung from the same substance and has inherent within it the same omnipotent being, and we are not each of us different and individual and separate except insofar as we are incomplete. To be complete is to be the Secret Self, whole and entire, without reservation or error.

The most painless path to illumination, to perception of the Secret Self, is thus to arrive at a desire to know the truth that lies behind the surface facade of the senses and to seek this truth not only within but without, in every person you meet as well as in yourself. Once this sense of absolute equality of things and people begins to make itself known to you, then you will detect a presence in each stone and clod, in each tree and plant, in each animal and person you meet, locked in a prison dictated by its form to be sure, but a presence pure and simple of the Secret Self, which has chosen the masquerade for its own purposes and is not truly locked away from consciousness of its real self but even now is developing it as we brush at the veil that separates us from our heritage.

Once a man senses the presence of the Divine in all things he is able to arrive at a sense of equality that makes him in some secret and inviolable corner of his being untouched by victory or defeat, pleasure or pain, position or prestige. He becomes so intent on doing the work of the Secret Self that he abandons almost altogether the uses of the ego and so achieves a kind of selflessness in his appearance to the world. Equality is a perfect psychic position, but is impossible to the ego which seeks forever to be better than all the egos around it, and if it is not better it is convinced it is worse and so either becomes blown-up and blind or wounded and fearful and thus provides the worst of all psychic bases for dealing with life, love, and accomplishment. To be equal is to be unafraid. To know that there inhabits in all others the same being that inhabits you is to achieve a psychic confidence that enables you to place your life and hopes and energies in the hands of this being without a qualm, with absolute certainty that you will be guided to perform that work that you must do, in the best of all possible ways, at the best of all possible times. 

The Magic in Your Mind
U.S. Andersen