Spiritual Guidance – Birthing Our Higher Self within Our Lower Mind

The idea of spiritual guidance is a little bit different for everybody because it’s based on what we’ve been taught and accepted as true, what we’ve come to believe about ourselves and the nature of reality, and our own personal style which simply emerges naturally through practice. When we bring an idea into practice, we not only develop our own personal technique for doing things, but we engage in the principles governing it, and naturally move through steps or stages of development that naturally ensue as a form of growth process. These stages of development come as an active and progressive process where we tune into the invisible realm of consciousness that underlies and operates through the physical realm, that develops an intuitive awareness around things that are normally hidden or not recognized, that tend to come more as signs, symbols, messages, coincidences, and synchronicities as a chain-of-association where we begin seeing the interconnectedness that underlies surface appearances.

 
This stage, usually brought on by tuning into a higher form such as God, our Higher-Self, Angels, Spirit guides, Masters, and so on, operates out of a basis of perceived separation (us and them), and usually involves “asking†of some form. This starts the ball rolling, and begins developing our intuition by recognizing and sensing invisible forces of consciousness, that bleed through surface appearances and comes as a “feeling†about things that connects it to other ideas through the “nature†of the feeling, or reveals to us hidden aspects being disguised in material objects, and more significantly, in people. This stage is very inspiring and motivates us through the sense of magic that it contains. It engages us in a mystery with a sense of curiosity that brings new realizations that forms a fascination around things. This is the stage where we begin connecting to the inner nature of things as a form of soul-to-soul communication that comes as direct experience that brings a realization as recognizing and perceiving its spiritual nature.

Through this initial stage of praying and asking that brings answers through realizations that begin exercising and developing our ability to perceive things intuitively, introduces us to a whole new realm of reality. It also begins introducing us experimentally to the idea of interlaced parallel dimensions and a hierarchy as kingdoms, which define “whole†realities that are inherent within even greater realities. It initiates the realization that at a higher level of consciousness that sees the reality that we’re within as a “whole†rather than a segmented part, can also “orchestrate†the events of our life based on the principle of choice and will, which is really a form of vibration and resonance. We begin realizing that while we may view praying as an intentional act that we take a moment, stop what we’re doing, and concentrate on an idea that we’re dealing with or want, and consciously ask for it, in reality, we’re in a constant form of prayer through our very thinking, what we talk about and tell others, and most importantly through our emotional states and the behaviors they produce that not only form our interactive quality, but are also a form of cause and effect that draw to us direct, and often immediate consequences. The Higher Powers cannot act on our life by bringing us what is not equivalent to our quality and level of consciousness, but rather acts through us, as us. This usually comes as a notion about something, an idea that pops into our head that we start thinking about, a mental impression that starts coming to us on a regular basis, or we simply start getting a feeling about something, but either way, it’s up to us to allow it to come through us, and to act on it, rather than dismissing it or blowing it off, ignoring it, or changing it by adapting it to our story about things, or we doubt it as being a fantasy or “self-generated†thought born out of wishful thinking.

This stage, like all stages of growth, plateau’s, and seems to loose its punch. This usually comes as a feeling like we go through “dry spells†where we’re no longer receiving guidance, are no longer experiencing intuitive awareness, and life seems to return to it’s mundane and ordinary status as unremarkable. Sometimes people become dependent on what they experience as “spirit guides†of some sort that are separate from them and tell them what to do, or give them guidance as a communication of some sort. When this happens, and we become fully invested in a reality of “separatenessâ€, where we continue to perceive ourselves and “anotherâ€, we either stay in this experience and become a form of surrogate or channel for another spirit to use in order to act and create in the physical realm, or we move into a stage where though the intuitive awareness remains and has become apart of our normal experience, we feel as if we’re no longer being “guidedâ€. This is because we’ve developed our inner abilities as our higher capacities to realize what we need to guide ourselves through more of a willingness to act on our intuition with complete faith even though we often don’t know why or what it will result in, or where it will act to ultimately lead us.

We are given the challenge of fully accepting the spiritual realm as the true reality that’s always transparent and never lies. It can also come as a void because what it shows us requires us to move beyond our comfort zone, act in contradiction to a belief we hold, or the fact that it only comes through being present and never shows us the outcome or holds the promise of a wish fulfilled, but comes as more of a momentary realization that requires us to act on it in the moment that it comes as an automatic response, by becoming one with it in motive and action, and in doing so, the next prompt or impression comes out of the experience of moving into ideas as the systematic unfolding of a larger idea given to us one step at a time. If we realize intuitive impressions but don’t act on them or willingly penetrate them by stepping into them, they don’t continue to unfold, because of course they can’t. We don’t use them as the guidance they’re intended for, because we’re not sure of where they’re leading us or why. Sometimes we can’t tell the difference between an actual “sign†and something that we’re simply making up in our mind as a form of fantasy because we don’t know how to discern the difference. Other times we don’t like where they seem to be leading us, and so we don’t go, and then continue to ask for more guidance.

 
At other times the reason guidance appears to stop is because it’s evolved beyond the idea of separation from ourselves, and into the idea of birthing our Higher-Self by becoming one with it in body and mind. Just as the subconscious mind emerges out of the higher conscious, and the self-conscious mind emerges out of the subconscious mind through a birth and growth process, our higher mind (re)emerges out of our individual mind as our “selfâ€. It emerges as an aspect of ourselves that we allow to rise in us (by inviting it in), as us, and become us in consciousness and through an altered perspective. We fully allow our spirit to be “in usâ€, and acting as one with us. We create our “sense of self†as our Higher Self. In order to do this we have to become aware of the different aspects of our mind and how they feel as a mode of functioning.

 
The experience of our Higher Self has a very mature quality to it, that’s strangely non-personal, and has a distinctly objective holistic awareness that sees us as playing a part in a larger dynamic, and directs our awareness and behavior to serve the greater good of everyone involved, rather than our own personal needs. It takes on more of a parental perspective where we see our life as a movie or story being played out where we’re NOT the main character, but simply one of the characters playing a role in a greater idea. Because of this non-personal quality that’s not working out of a personal belief-system or agenda, it moves us into a role that we don’t normally know how to play. It has a feeling of absolute knowing as intuitive awareness of whole patterns where our actions are geared towards becoming a neutral and universal force that influences the greater drama being played out by how we interact with it and the quality of consciousness as a state of mind that we employ while doing so. It has a benevolent quality, not as emotional sentiment or piety, but in terms of recognizing the karma being played out and honoring people as they are within our own life, without imposing our will on them, but rather by acting on them in a way that encourages insight as self-awareness of the consciousness they’re living out as patterns. It’s suggestive and demonstrative rather than opposing or challenging. It works through a masterful knowledge of the subconscious mind and how to introduce ideas like seeds that are willingly taken in, allowed to take hold, spawning whole thought processes as the formation of inner realities that shift their awareness, allowing them to see new things that alter and expand the patterns they’re currently acting out at the subconscious level.

We are brought to a point in our own development where we’re shown that the next step is to actively merge into and become with our Higher-Self, which is the source of our true spiritual guidance. This unity that no longer perceives it as “out thereâ€, and therefore requiring communication as prayer and asking as a means of receiving, becomes instead about self-awareness, employing this higher level of consciousness, and experiencing it through a direct, heightened awareness of things that’s emerged in the present and never distracted or preoccupied with time as a constant engagement in imagined realities as thoughts of the past or future. In the spiritual realm time doesn’t exist as a property and our only awareness is in the present moment as a form of singularity that’s intimately connected to everything else. It doesn’t act by re-imagining the past over and over, detached from the present like our lower self which resides “in time†and lost in illusions of its own making. Our Higher Self doesn’t even necessarily “think†in terms of internal dialogue, but rather is involved in the experience of the present and our immediate environment. Its language is feeling oriented and emotional, rather than words and redundant dialoguing that consumes the imagination with fantasies rather than intuitive perceptions of the present.

 
Once we make this transition, and begin actively birthing and giving precedence to our Higher-Self, we no longer ask for guidance, but simply tune into it through our inner feelings about things, and we no longer allow other people’s emotions to enter into us and control us by altering our state to match them, but instead sense their emotions objectively as a form of realizing their quality of consciousness as their mental paradigm, where we can see them as they actually are, instead of blending with them by taking on their emotional charges and cooperating in acting out the drams that ensue from them. When we become immune to other people’s emotions, opinions, and projections, a whole new awareness and reality begins forming that creates a quickening as a transformation that changes forever how we perceive life and how we sense our self by way of our perceptions. We begin creating ourselves out of this higher, mature awareness, and as we identify with our own experiences, it transforms us from the inside out. Our identity is transformed through our experience of the outer world which gives us a new sense about things and our role in playing out a larger idea from a detached perspective, and we become a different person as a result. We become one with God, and become god-like. We lose our personal sense of the world and our endless struggle to find our place in things, and take on more of a non-personal, universal, and neutral position where we no longer identify with our body or personality, but form our identity as our Higher Self which resides predominately in the higher, spiritual realm. Through this process, we spiritualize our lower nature transforming it to a higher level of consciousness.

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Integrative Mind-Body Medicine Consultant, and Spiritual Mentor