The Architecture of the Self, Three

The Architecture of the Self, Three

Shamanic teacher John Worthington, quoting brain researcher John C. Lilly, points out that, just like the programs in a computer, the programs that get loaded into us, along with the ones we write for ourselves based on our beliefs, emotions, and feelings, are the rules of our life until they are recognized and changed. After twenty-one years of loading in beliefs and programs into our thinking machinery, we get caught thinking that the programs are who we are. But who we are is really a soul having an organic human experience. Many people think we have or possess our souls, just as we might possess an SUV, a diamond ring, or the change in our pockets. They think they own it, not that they are it. This viewpoint is a typical product of operating from the programs rather than directly expressing the soul. The programs need not run our lives.

The key to uncovering the soul’s agenda, its purpose in this life, and expressing that agenda in the world is to get underneath the programming and indoctrination heaped on us from birth and get back in touch with that pure soul. Once beneath this mask we’ve built, we need to clear a path from the soul, tunnelling out into consciousness from delta to beta, so that the soul, not the mask, is the primary interface with the world. Don’t think the ego or the mask was wasted time or energy, though. It serves a purpose. The mask gathers what we see and can translate into common parlance what emanates from the soul as it communicates with the world. The key is to allow the soul to use the ego/programs as tools, not to allow our entire being to be used as a tool of the ego/programs.

One way to begin this process is to unplug from the machine and get out into nature. Being in and contemplating nature provides a much needed shift in perspective. Nature wears no mask. It is primal and direct. There are no dichotomies in nature – no good/bad, right/wrong, happy/sad, foolish/wise. There is only the soul of nature, shining pure and clear. By placing ourselves in that environment, we can step aside from our programming and simply be. Faced with the masklessness of nature, our own mask falls away.

Seeing in then Dark,

Colleen Deatsman and Paul Bowersox