To Thine Own Self Be True

To Thine Own Self Be True
By Andreas Mamet
©2006

This morning on my walk with Raylene the subject of To Thine Own Self Be True came up again. In the world that we live in, every day we are asked to not be true to our own self. However, I am marveling also at how many so-called spiritual contexts there are that equally invite us to forsake our own truth in favor of the bigger truth of a religion or a spiritual avenue.

Every day our soul whispers to us truth. Not absolute truth, but the truth about something in front of us, whether it feels right or not. These whispers are delivered softly, sometimes just feelings and it takes cultivating attention to bring those soul whispers to the forefront of our consciousness and then often it requires courage to act in accordance with our soul’s truth.

When we identify ourselves with being a Hindu, Buddhist, Christian or a disciple of a guru, we actually indicate that we have not substantially entered the core of our being. It declares that there has not been the awakening to the oceanic presence that exists beyond the fluctuation of the mind and its ceaseless drive to identify with something or other. Or even if the core experience has happened, we may not have cultivated the discernment that would intercept the mind from identifying with inner or outer positions.

When the experience of this oceanic silence takes place, this experience beyond all mind activity, then we experience a tremendous freedom and power.

But even in our daily lives we will begin to experience freedom and power by training ourselves to listen to what our soul is trying to convey to us. The soul is attempting to navigate our life into the direction of a greater fulfillment.

When something feels wrong, she is saying, don’t go there. Don’t support this. Don’t allow yourself to be entangled with this person or situation. At that point she suggest that we say NO, so that we can say YES to the Soul’s needs. Ignoring this will ultimately create situations that will cause us suffering. Therefore, in my opinion, it is part and parcel of becoming a whole human being to cultivate listening to the soul’s daily attempt at directing and protecting us. I am saying this as someone quite capable of not listening and suffering those consequences….

It is important to cultivate listening to our own truth and acting in accordance with it. We live in a world that contains its fair share of soul shrinkers, people that need us to be less so they can be more. Listening to and acting on our own truth will protect us from the soul shrinkers of this world and many other situations that we should stay away from.

Therefore, this is the message for the day: To Thine Own Self Be True.