Ego as Administrative Assistant, Jesus Christ, Etc.
In meditation this morning, the upcoming Pathwork series that Patty and I are offering came up. Then a voice from within seemed to announce, “Gary, get out of the way, God wants to manifest from within you! This is not your show. Allow the unfoldment.” I could feel the cracking away, as of an egg shell making way for the chick inside.
Other arisings. Jesus Christ, the Grand Mystery of Jesus Christ. Yesterday during a check-in of a Pathwork committee, a senior helper announced how she was affected by the symbolism of the crucifixion in the Good Friday-Easter rituals in the Greek Orthodox church she attended over Easter. I was delighted at her sharing and jumped into my experience of Jesus Christ as mystery and how I was still wrestling with what a personal relationship with Jesus Christ really meant in any felt sense.
Then the inspiring dialog I had with my friend Jeff as we, too, at my initiative as I recall, dove into the subject of Jesus Christ over supper at Panera Bread yesterday. Intense. And he was sharing authors that he was reading on the subject of Jesus. He mentioned Phil Gulley, a Quaker, who wrote, to the concern of some of the more conservatives, If the Church Were Christian. Jeff said I could skip that one, because what I was sharing said to him that I had crossed that bridge. But Jeff encouraged me to embrace the works of Cynthia Bourgeault, a Christian contemplative who is of the same mind as Thomas Keating, author of the popular Centering Prayer material. Jeff is reading Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Jesus.
Jeff is one intense thinker, and our discussion, as always, was lively. I felt so encouraged to learn of authors pursuing and experiencing the same Jesus Christ with whom I am wrestling. Yes to the Mystery of Jesus. Yes to the Jesus within. Yes to the second coming of Christ in us now. Can hardly wait to get my hands on Bourgeault’s material.
With all this energy spinning about, I could see that the central relevant message here is tapping into Christ within, God within, my Essence, my Divine Self, my Higher Self. Allow whatever happens at Patty’s and my series to come from there! Allow teaching and answers to come from there. These are not “my” teachings and answers. And at the same time they are not not my teachings and answers.
Then the message arose, “Remember that God within each participant of this series wants to burst out into Life! In this sense, Patty and you are participants too. Let God come forth from all sources.” I could see again that this was a great allowing, allowing of God’s show, not mine or Patty’s.
Then I recalled my usual role in such programs. When teachers would come to town to teach Pathwork, I would be the administrative assistant that kind of organized things for the teacher. I played this same role at church and in other groups, always assisting and helping, never the prime speaker or teacher. In a way my recording of the Pathwork Lectures is in that same vein. And I realize that my ego would have liked to have been more: the teacher, the leader, the source of wisdom, NOT the administrative assistant behind the scenes helping to make things run smoothly for the person in the spotlight.
Then it hit me still again: For this series where Patty and I are “leading,” again I (that is, my conscious ego) am the administrative assistant — this time to God within, to my inner Essence! And again I am both the administrative assistant and the Source — my God-self expressing itself. It is just that my ego, who would love to be recognized as special and unique, doesn’t like to surrender to the God within all of us. The God within all of us, however, cares nothing for recognition. Rather God within cares only about Love, Truth, Beauty, and the like. A problem for the ego.
So perhaps with this awareness my ego, my administrative assistant, can sit back and enjoy the show that God from within all of us puts on. I can be curious. What will happen?
And finally I realized that when I have been thinking of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I was thinking of the Jesus Christ “out there,” separate from me. This is the Jesus Christ image that had to, has to, drop away. Jesus Christ is not “out there,” but “in here.” Jesus Christ is not separate from my Essence. Jesus Christ is one with me, one with God. In my ego, my administrative assistant role, I can treasure, enjoy, and safeguard that within me, that within each of us. Quite a meditation.