The mind can compartmentalize itself into numberless aspects, points of view, perspectives – voices, really.

One aspect of myself that I find increasingly annoying is the denying self.

Looking at the clouds go by from Paradise Garden here, I was inspired by them to think of determination. I was looking at a solid, massive cloud – as massive as clouds get in Vancouver.

And I said to myself: I have determination. And right away, the denying self came up and said, “No, you don’t.”

I could have lived into, breathed into determination, found it in myself, and expanded. But out of fear of blame and shame, ridicule and trivialization, I stopped short.

I was referring to this aspect the other day when I said that an important obstacle to expansion is the ego state that disempowers us. This is that ego state, that voice in our heads that says, “No, you can’t. No, you won’t. No, you don’t.”

It’s afraid of being hurt again. I do get it.

Lovingly I have to soothe that voice back to normalcy. It doesn’t do to fight with it. It’s conditioned to make life miserable for those who don’t sit up and take notice of it.

Wait a minute. I recognize this voice. This is the bratty boy I was when I was very young. I’d put a stick in the spokes of the bicycle if someone didn’t pay attention to me.

This is me.

Of course. What did I expect? It’s an aspect of me. But I’m still taken aback.

Well, we never blame ourselves, right? The self-serving bias? So now that I recognize it as me, I don’t feel as inclined to be annoyed with it.

This is the little boy who wanted to be heard and would stop the summer vacation dead in its tracks unless and until he was listened to. Ha ha ha ha.

Welcome home, slugger. You finally did it. You went from stopping the show to stopping your own mind.  Congratulations. Good choice.

Jump into the lake, run into the lake, fall into the lake. Just get into the lake.

***

Why should we not laugh at ourselves?  Why must we take ourselves seriously? We need to laugh more at ourselves if we’re to make this long journey in peace and harmony.

We’re now up to cleansing our aspects, rather than simply a single vasana or “unresolved issue.”  As long as we were just clearing issues, the road was clear, the work comparatively easy.

But now we’re being challenged to clear whole aspects of ourselves, the voices in our head, the chief personalities we assume as we switch from voice to voice in our listening.

This is our conditioning. We need to recognize it when it plays. The voices in our head, our aspects are all features of our conditioning.

The earliest-learned patterns in our conditioning are the most persistent and most influential in determining our behavior when we’re conditioned.   The earliest-learned patterns are the backbone from which everything else hangs, the ways the twig was bent and the tree inclined. If we can drop them, the process of responding to our conditioning will probably lose steam.

Our conditioning, surfacing as our aspects, is what we need to let go of now – if we want to unveil the Natural Self.  You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t.

***

When we’re clearing an aspect of ourselves, our efforts will be more successful, to my way of thinking, if we come from a quiet mind.

Becoming able to enter into stillness comes with practice. It must be much quicker now than it was decades ago, when I learned the awareness path.

In a quiet mind, action can be conscious and progress can be made. In an unquiet mind, all is restlessness and survival.  Action is haphazard and not experienced anyways. Little progress is made.

The energy showers we’re getting will cleanse us in the long run in any case. It isn’t as if we have to worry about what we’re discussing here.

This is a conversation for wayshowers. You and I are finding various pathways through the challenges and effects of our gradual Ascension for those who come to us later and ask what’s happening and what to do about it.

We’re gradually ascending in vibration. Things are opening up, like billowing clouds. That’s what’s happening.