Facing the Structures Left Behind

           A client who has read many awakening stories reminds me that after the shift in consciousness from ego to Spirit, one embarks on a ten-year process. Well, this month is five years, so I’m halfway there!

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years. Oh, sure, if I look at all that’s unfolded in this mind since then, I can see where it took that much time to do so. But in the normal course of things, many different things happen in five years, and for me, only one thing has been occurring for five years, this process. It’s like I’ve been standing still while all this has gone on around me.

After some things I’ve seen this week, I understand this process better.

When I was confused about ego’s persistence after it seemed to fall away, a couple of people told me of others who described it as the ego “winding down”, like when you stop peddling a bicycle but continue to roll forward until the momentum is used up. I felt it like the “echo” of ego was still here or its habits of thinking and responding remained.

What I saw this week is that yes, ego is gone, but its structures remain. My first thought on seeing this was of when an army of occupation leaves a city and leaves behind its debris, obstacles, booby-traps, mines, etc. To reclaim their city, the people must clear all this out.

Spirit has clearly come, in fact consciousness now belongs to It. Spirit has been the ongoing Context for me since The Shift, and it was this awareness that got me through some very rough, dark times in this mind. But just as clearly, Spirit still runs into ego. The vacillating between thought systems I knew in ego-consciousness has seemed to continue. However, it is different in Spirit-consciousness. Before the shift, I would experience an ego backlash after a Spiritual experience or insight and that would be the end of it until the next round of experience/backlash. But now when ego arises, either in a backlash or when Spirit bumps into ego as It tries to extend, Spirit gently undoes ego in some way, usually within hours.

So, what are ego’s structures? Ego is the idea that consciousness is reality, and its structures are ideas and beliefs that uphold this idea. Its structures are made of fear. And fear is not just a lack of God (Love, Wholeness). Fear is opposed to God. So, ego’s structures are defenses against God; against Reality. They are specifically ranged around the structures that symbolize ego, the personal identity and its story, and the material universe in which it seems to be.

As The Shift approached, I found I was sorting out ego from consciousness. This was essential because ego had seemed to be all that consciousness was. This was so even when I came to be aware of Spirit in ego-consciousness. An example of sorting out ego from consciousness was seeing that the person is not ego but is a neutral expression of consciousness. By “person” I mean not just the body but the personality as well. So, for example, your person’s traits, preferences, and interests are not ego, but are expressions of consciousness. Ego is when you feel the person is you and you cling to the person’s traits, interests, and preferences, and define yourself by them, and defend them as you. So, ego’s structures are not to do with the person but with how you define and defend it and its world as reality.

This sorting out has continued because now Spirit is not just an awareness, Spirit occupies consciousness, and ego’s structures block Spirit’s full extension. They cannot both occupy consciousness as the structures of ego deny the Reality of Spirit.

Time is certainly a structure of ego, especially the past. It is the story of a deep past that seems to grant reality to consciousness. But as I shared last week, time continues to collapse for me as I see the past is only an idea in my mind now.

It’s like a battle of realities when ego’s structures are faced with dismantling. They are illusions, and it is delusional to believe that they are real. And it sure feels that way! Ego’s defenses can be disorienting, but only from ego’s point of view. Spirit sees through them. Where ego sees reality, Spirit sees appearances.

Sometimes I have an almost physical sensation of a world coming apart. And I have glimpsed that as these structures come down, this mind will be very different, not just from what it was, but from what I expected or could ever imagine.

In any case, I may still be facing fear, but at least I see now what is going on, and gentle undoing is always close at hand. As well as entering territory in this mind that I never expected to with regard to ego, I also have new, lovely experiences of Spirit I did not know were possible.

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