I woke up wrestling with the energy of the dream. It felt like a disturbing force was running my sleeping mind bent on delivering a strong message. The dream was a fireworks of visuals that said, “Pay attention to me.” I wanted to understand but I wasn’t quite ready.
It took me over a year to sort this nightmare out. When I did, it changed everything I thought I knew.
My understanding of that dream happened recently as I was walking along the beach. A bright light-of-insight clicked on and words from a higher place of knowing came to me. This was immediately followed by a flashback to that dream disrupted morning. I now understood.
The abrupt nightmare had a voice shouting at me saying, “You don’t know what you are talking about and your ego is too big to let higher wisdom in.” It also said this person (a really arrogant religious leader often in the news) had his life more together than me.
I was shocked and bewildered by this message. The third part of the message stung the most.
This outspoken minister seemed to talk nothing but religious and political nonsense. How could “he” have anything more together than me? My ego-mind fumed.
For my own dream to punch me so hard in the gut was very disturbing. The next day I shared the dream with only one person, who knew of the religious leader. She listened, but no insights came and I let it go.
I want to set the record straight here. My ego is not the kind that parades around and acts important. It is a quiet ego that is determined to make things happen. Sometimes too determined and narrow to let a deeper knowing have any voice in guiding me. I sometimes get to the point where I think I have it all figured out and miss out on the wisdom and mystery of the mind of the Universe. I call this way of operating my life as being guided by my “self-will.”
What that walk on the beach revealed to me was now the most initially troubling and ultimately liberating insight - that this attention-getting minister was better at giving his life over to a more powerful force than I was. He has dedicated his life to this force he calls “God”.
The truth is that I have a difficult time giving my life over to a more powerful force because I don’t know what that force is. This minister labeled that force “God” and gave his life to something greater than himself. This giving over to a greater wisdom, even if he tainted this selfless act often with his ego’s needs, is impressive.
How come this giving over interests me and why is doing so an impressive act? Let me set some groundwork here.
You and I have a soul, a higher mind, a part of us in constant communication with whatever force created the Universe. I trust without a doubt there is a greater guiding force than you and I.
This lesson is about letting go and trusting a deeper level of knowing and consciousness. It is about the realization that when I join forces with my soul, give myself over to the great possibilities of its knowing, I am free to soar beyond my rational mind.
My life really can be so much better if I act in alignment with my soul rather than trying to do it all alone. Seeing this so clearly shifted and enriched my perspective a million times over.
In letting go - giving over - I turned my ego’s volume down to almost silent. Now I can be guided by this infinite source towards my highest expression and the moment-to-moment unfolding of what life has to offer.
Many would say that religion is about giving over to a higher power. I would suggest that most religion is about giving over to what they tell you to think and believe, not about finding your own truth or having direct contact with a truly higher source.
The word “God” has been so misused that I find myself totally avoiding it. I have explored the great wisdom traditions and find most words fall short of what I now better understand to be the energy source at the core of all creation.
What I have discovered is that this creative source is available to everyone in the form of our soul’s guidance. Instead of you and I willing our life forward, we can live in the wiser reality of higher mind.
My thoughts may seem still in the forming stages as you read along. Actually, how could my thoughts, in truth, be anything else but an exploration of what can be known only in this moment?
I have come to think that anyone who is absolutely sure they know what the truth is, probably have closed their minds to a greater knowing.
I now understand as I let go and rise about the ego-mind, I touch into a level of consciousness that is very expansive and filled with such great love.
I trust this higher force. I can be or do whatever I choose with this true knowledge showing me the way to all that is greater within.
With relief I now understand that I can use my will as a supportive tool. I don’t have to be run by the driven narrow vision of the ego-mind. That life can be so lonely and exhausting.
Living in the insight of that dream has been very liberating. I see that even my best thoughts in my ordinary state of consciousness can be useful but they don’t have near the potential as the egoless wisdom of my soul.
I let go; open to the higher knowing made available to me in each moment. All I have to do is listen.