The common language of the world, writes Mike George, is the LANGUAGE OF LABELS. (I am a Teacher; I am an Immigrant; I am Female; I am Homeless; I am Retired; I am Brown; I am Atheist; I am Divorced; I am …. )
Are you what you do? Are you defined by your name? Are you defined by what you may call your faith?
We are not our nationality, our gender, our race, or our religion. But we are taught to think we are…Some of us will die for their label, and some will even kill for their label. When you drop all these false identities you will begin to regain an awareness of your true self.
So who are you? Awareness? Consciousness? Soul? Spirit? Or are these just more labels?
Can you go beyond all the labels and just be your self? Self. Individual. Aware. Conscious. Free. Self-aware self. No one teaches us the value of getting to know the self.
To know oneself is to be aware of one’s true identity (spirit) true nature (peace), and true purpose (creating, giving, and receiving).
Ask the question who and what am I, and why am I here? Then give yourself the gift of patience, listen to our intuition again, and all will become clear.
Remember, how you see yourself completely influences how you see the world, what you think about the world, and therefore what you give to the world.
Excerpts from pg 97-99: THE 7 AHA!s of Highly Enlightened Souls by Mike George Author of Learn to Relax
Email blwoodard@shaw.ca
10 comments:
From Carol Ann's e-mail: Interesting your thoughts for this week - when I had class instruction in Christian Science, our teacher said, "Labels are for products, not people". I catch myself to make sure I don't fall into the trap of seeing people with labels instead of their true spiritual identity. There is only one Mind in operation, reflected by all of us.
From MC's e-mail: I know for most of my life I lived by the label “adopted”. And unfortunately I didn’t think of it as positive. This is a very simple and tidy explanation as to why my self esteem was so low from a very young age.
From Kathy's e-mail: This is so true Bonnie and it's so difficult to not label. You try so hard not to label - especially when teaching - but our system seems to be set up for it. Your reflection is a good reminder to look beyond and not be defined by the sum of our labels because we are so much more.
From YW's e-mail: How true what is said about Labels. We are all guilty of putting ourselves into labels or labelling others. It's such a negative or false way to see ourselves. It's a good thing we all experience acceptance early on with the good people we meet. Children don't tend to label themselves until adult hood.
From Deanna's e-mail: Thank you……a great reminder! We get so caught up in these things that we forget who we really are.
From Leslie's e-mail: This a wonderful and very pertinent reflection. Definitely words to meditate on.
From Shirley's e-mail: Your blogs are very thought-provoking. We are defined by the way people perceive us - secretary, friend (if one likes you) or enemy (if one doesn't like what one says or believes), etc., but the only meaningful way is how you perceive yourself, or how you believe God would perceive what you are doing. My thought is that if you are okay with God, then you are okay with yourself, and you needn't be too concerned with what others are thinking of you. I go by the thought that I would like to be the "best person" I can be before God, and I suppose that is trying to follow Jesus' teachings - a good start is "treat others as you would like to be treated".
From LW's e-mail: You asked me my thoughts on your labels post - which I thought was fantastic. It really got me to thinking...we really do define ourselves with all these kinds of labels. Daughter. IT Manager. Girlfriend. etc etc. But as Eckhart Tolle tells us, these labels are all about the ego. We are just satisfying our ego by giving ourselves to these labels. It's until we shed all these labels that we find out who we truly are. Our "self" like you say. I feel like sometimes it's so hard to shed these labels because our whole life, we spend trying to figure out who/what we are and how to define ourselves. We feel lost if we let these labels go. Perhaps something magical happens when we can though...maybe enlightenment? I read a quote on the NYC subway and thought you would enjoy it too!
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” -- Carl Jung
From Masaki's e-mail: Thank you for the wonderful foods for thoughts. I agree that we should think more about what we do and how we treat other people, than how we label ourselves.
From Mary's e-mail: I too, like George, respond to the question likewise, I am me. am happy and so grateful for my endless blessings which God has so generously bestowed on me. My role in life, or why I am here, is to spread sunshine wherever I go and in order to do this I must have sunshine within my soul with the full realization that we are all children of God, made in His image and likeness and given dominion over everything. Jesus said our job on earth consisted of two things: firstly, love God; and secondly, love your fellowman--if we truly did this, wars would cease and love would prevail in all our lives. This is our daily prayer for love to enter into the hearts of those in power in the world so that peace can reign. We all need peace in our lives. There is a saying that goes something like this, Let there be peace in the world, and let it begin with me.
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