THE BOOK
The design of this work of words is not to turn someone into angels over night or create a sense that enlightenment is possible for all those who work through these steps and who read these words, but what it will make a promise to do is deliver someone into upward stages of consciousness where the personal ego no longer holds total sway on what it is you think you are, or what it is you believe yourself to be.
…What is this book all about?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
This book is a byproduct of the altered states experienced, witnessed and observed today by the author, as well as what was experienced by the first individuals who went through this material and have used the 12 steps to transcend their attachment to a personal ego while letting go of fears past and present. This book is partly a description of life currently from a mile-high viewpoint and partly an exploration of escalating levels of truth unfolding from page to page. This book was designed to deliver anyone who works through it from hell or mundanity experientially, to knowing more firsthand about the realities of heaven, as well as to aid a fellow traveler from traversing current parts of having heard about heaven to a more densely heavened life subjectively and experientially. This book was not created to be declarative in any way or made to force anyone to believe what’s written within it. This book is a gift from the Holy Spirit to the world, and in the form of a guide for helping a spiritual traveler reach higher truths about God and the world they find themselves a part of.
This book is a jump-start of sorts for living spiritually and for the person seeking to have a relationship with divinity and the world around them in a more meaningful and personal way. This book was designed to deliver you a workable pathway for finding God in your own life and amongst your own community. This book was not created to replace the religion in your life or to convert you into the religion of another’s choosing. This book is not religion nor does it claim to be, although there are scripture verses from four of the world’s most enlightened religious figures: Christianity (Jesus), Hinduism (Krishna), Buddhism (The Buddha), Taoism (Lao Tzu). This book will not force you to believe anything, nor will it ask you to take any oaths or make any statements or pledges.
The design of this work of words is not to turn someone into angels over night or create a sense that enlightenment is possible for all those who work through these steps and who read these words, but what it will make a promise to do is deliver someone into upward stages of consciousness where the personal ego no longer holds total sway on what it is you think you are, or what it is you believe yourself to be.
The 12 steps, in and of themselves, have the power to deliver you to a handshake with divinity and to create a life where spirituality is lived and not just pretended to be practiced through whatever means seem popular at the time. This book has added commentary and context on the 12 steps for the purpose of expanding the steps into a ministry the whole world can take part in and find usefulness through. This book uses the steps in a recontextualized manner for the benefit of anyone who finds this work with the knowingness that you too will find immense value in working them, regardless of not being fortunate enough to have an active addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The way this book was put together is through the inspiration of a few who planted the idea for presenting the 12 steps as a collective good, not to be held only for the lucky few who find themselves addicts of one nature or another. This book is for everyone, regardless of you thinking you have a problem with your ego or not, for I have yet to meet a person who can control their thoughts and stop fears from arising, not to mention stop worry or shame, guilt, desire, cravingness, wantingness, attention, appreciation, or any other way the ego chooses to deliver awareness to you currently throughout your daily waking hours.
The personal ego is not something to be feared, nor is it something to be celebrated, at least not for the spiritual seeker. The ego for all people is what we think we are for the most part, until we’re not anymore, and it’s what’s happening internally “for us” as opposed to “to us.” The personal ego and the mind are the same thing, and both run wild with the imprinting of not only your youth, life, time on this earth, your parents, friends, schoolteachers, romantic partners, etc. etc., but also a means by which lifetimes of this imprinting has had a way to take place to produce what you currently believe to be a brain that allows stimulus to arise which you define as you. You are much more than what arises as thoughts, feelings or emotions. You are what witnesses such things, observes such things, allows for such things to be present by taking on human form. You are a degree of God manifested, not your thoughts, feelings, emotions, body, brain, wants and desires. If you don’t know you’re actually a locality of the omniscience of God, manifested into physicality for karmic reasons, then you have a problem with your ego and this book aims to help you with that as well as help alleviate all forms of fear in the process.
This book borrows truth from several places for the purpose of relaying their shared message together for the first time, without any personal agenda from the author, and all inspired by the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the reader and their community. This book presents you with truth on truth on truth on truth and weaved throughout is the story of the author as well as insights from the author on the truths found throughout history in varying religions and within the 12 steps themselves. This book is all truth, in varying degrees of intensity, compiled together to be the backstop for a truly transcendent spiritual life.
This book is the 12 steps, it is the shared truth of Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha and Lao Tzu. This book is a combination of so much truth that the reader’s life will never be the same for just finding it, let alone finishing and doing the actual steps found within.
Lastly, this book is about you, about me, about our life together on this earth for millennia past and for the time present. This book holds no position politically or religiously, and it definitely doesn’t intend on making the reader choose religion if they have none, or change someone’s religious preference as a result of working through what’s to come in the following pages.
…How did this book come to be?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
As I was working through the 12 steps some years ago, I noticed life was changing rapidly. I found life was taking on a whole new definition of reality, and the life that was present each day was changing in a positive way with each new sunrise. As I continued to work through the steps in a formal fashion, I prayed and asked God to help me understand what was taking place from a spiritual and/or scientific standpoint.
Not long after that prayer, an author came into my awareness by the name of David R. Hawkins, in the form of his first book “Power vs. Force.” As I made my way through its dialogue, I found that he also had lectures available online. In one lecture, he made reference to Byron Katie, or Byron Katie was made reference to by someone else within his lecture. I’m a little fuzzy on that part. But nevertheless, through a search for truth from David R. Hawkins, I found Byron Katie.
Hawkins’s first book was a lot to take on at the time, but I knew the merit of it as soon as I started working through it. Once Byron Katie was brought up, something internally spoke to me to put Hawkins aside for a bit and find out what she was all about. I was on a golf course in Indiana when this moment arose and I immediately used audible.com to find her first book, “Loving What Is,” downloaded it and hit play.
Katie’s story is her own and I encourage anyone reading this to check out what she has to share with the world. What differentiates Katie’s work from others is she created a model for running thoughts through almost an algorithm of sorts to ascertain their validity. As I put “the work” into practice, to my amazement, immediately what was realized is that my thoughts were mostly not true, and not only were they not true, but they weren’t even asked to be thoughts in the first place. Meaning, I wasn’t inviting them to arise or be present, but yet they still persisted as present and full of falsehood continually and without end.
As I continued doing what she calls “the work,” I noticed that the thoughts were losing their strength and severity within my awareness, and that my attachment to them was letting go. Very quickly after realizing the truth that most of my thoughts were untrue representations of reality, the realization arose that I have thoughts but I’m not those thoughts. In quite a cascading fashion what came next was, I have a body but I’m not the body, followed by, I have a mind but I’m not the mind, and so on and so on until I was left without a direct attachment to everything I thought I was up until that point.
As I sat in silence with these new revelations, as well as within the confines of using AA as a model for moving past alcoholism, I was left with a question creating a new intent for life: If I’m not thoughts, not mind, and not the body… who and what am I?
As soon as this question crystalized, a stimulus arose within me to go back to Hawkins. Instead of finishing his first book as I spoke of before, I downloaded another of his offerings entitled “Letting Go.”
As soon as I started listening to this book, I noticed that I was starting to have a contextual understanding of the changes taking place within my own life, which in turn was the completion of an answer to a prayer I had asked God about earlier. And so, I finished “Letting Go’ and went back to ‘Power vs. Force” and finished that up as well.
At the same time, once finishing “Letting Go,” I shared the book with a dear friend, and to my amazement and delight, it was something he was searching for as well. We began a journey of self-discovery together and shared often our experiences of what was taking place in both of our lives as objective credence to the validity of the truth found within the book. Once I saw that it was just not anecdotal evidence of a change and miraculous things taking place just for me, I dove headfirst into the world and teachings of Dr. David R. Hawkins.
As my friendship grew with my fellow traveler discussing “Letting Go,” and the effects it was having positively for both of us, I had an initial and faint urging from within to work on a book about the 12 steps for people who aren’t suffering addictions to substances. As part of the continued discussions with my friend about “Letting Go,” again finding myself on a golf course, he verbalized aloud what was already in my mind: “You should write a book about all of this happening to you and about the 12 steps in a format for everyone.” And from that point forward I knew this book had to be written. I just didn’t know the scope and angle of the actual work until recently.
This book was written because it arose out of a need to be written. This book was written because of the life changes taking place from working the 12 steps, realizations through the work of Byron Katie and Dr. Hawkins, and because someone else spoke out loud the need to have it completed which solidified an internal knowingness that a book of this kind would be beneficial.
I’ll be eternally grateful for all the players in the play that led to the creation of this book, both the teachers I never met and the friend who inspired the final decision to put pen to paper and produce this final product.
…What is the personal ego?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
From a spiritual sense and not from the Freudian world of therapy, a personal ego is what we all think we are … until we’re not. It’s something we’re born with, most die with, most are reborn with, and it’s also the main way the individual believes they are separated from God while in the human form. It’s a program that gets uploaded to the hardware of taking on the human body. The human brain acts as the processor of stimuli arising in and around the body, as well as the supercomputer which holds the body together and produces the experience of being in human form. The personal ego is the program for the brain like that of a computer operating system designed to allow for what comes next to work and have use.
The ego and the mind are the same thing. The brain doesn’t have consciousness as a part of it, it only processes data, but consciousness is what gives the brain the ability to function as the computer and for the personal ego to be loaded onto it. Consciousness is the context out of which the mind has the ability to process content (think of it like the power source and source code). The personal ego is loaded as the primary awareness program for experiencing life somewhere during the lifecycle of being a baby within the womb. The personal ego is how people see the world around them. It is also what gets imprinted by everything seen and heard once arriving into the body. The mind in and of itself cannot tell truth from falsehood, as Hawkins so aptly puts it, and this is because the mind and the ego being the same thing only allow what’s seen and heard to be downloaded into its programming, never rejecting what it sees as false or true, but instead downloading the stimuli as content without the experiencer ever being aware of such things taking place. The brain is run by electric impulses configured through neurotransmitters, with them mind’s favorite fuel source being dopamine. Dopamine is the molecule of more, not the molecule of peace.
Most people believe they know if they’re being lied to, but at the same time lie to themselves regularly. So how can we be sure what we’re taking in via the world and media is true when we ourselves cannot stop lying even about the smallest things? How can we know truth from falsehood when the very brain we have to decipher stimuli (and its program, the mind) which allows anything in, don’t work actively to limit falsehood from being uploaded? Meaning, we have a mind which is the experiential awareness program for the brain. But if we all remain in the belief that we are the brain or the mind, how can we know the truth through the brain when we’re already programmed to be imprinted with everything that enters it without question? How can the mind innately know truth from falsehood when it believes itself to be God? If the mind innately knew truth from falsehood in a way that was useful, how is it that we still have war, famine, strife and conflict at every level of society? The mind is useful up to a point, and then woefully insufficient after that point.
The same logic goes for state-sponsored killing of people by a civilization claiming to be against murder. How can we stop murder if we kill legally? How can a society be against something while still being for it? Innately, the brain processes and stores what’s imprinted on the mind, nothing more and nothing less. We can train the mind to operate within more of a logical or intellectual framework, but it’s still just the mind allowing for different downloaded stimuli to be a result of imprinting and programming. Education sharpens the intellect and one’s ability to logically deduce stimuli arising around them into quantifiable paradigms, but it only catalogues and regurgitates data presented overtime for one end or another.
We now have this thing called social media. If an observer of social media takes any time to look at how the mind and brain actually work, they’ll see the exact thing they call being social, is the exact thing that causes anti-social behavior. As well as emotions and feelings to be present regardless if they believe their newsfeed is true or not. Our entire world of social media is nothing but false evidence appearing real, someone’s opinion appearing valid, someone’s voice being heard above another. Meaning, when someone uses social media, what they’re really doing is constantly being imprinted with images and information that continue to keep them constantly being imprinted with more images and information. Regardless of the validity. Without social media, the January 6 insurrection in the United States would not have been possible.
What this does on a macro scale is not make the world a better place but puts the authority of a madman on the same page as the love of Mother Teresa. Equal weight between truth and falsehood creates a false equivalency, which in turn creates a world where the mind uploads falsity as much as truth. What the mind does with all of the falsehoods is not discard them from future use, it uses them as the basis for biases, feelings, emotions and stimuli for thoughts arising out of our control. You can’t control the mind and one’s thoughts, feelings and emotions by using the mind to do so. You have to surrender over the attachment to the ego and your beliefs that you are the mind in order to see it for what it is. The pathway to enlightenment is not found in controlling the mind, but instead found in surrendering over one’s control of and attachment to it. Enlightenment and the mind are altogether different paradigms. For this same reason, science and religion can never prove or disprove the existence of God. The best they can do is point towards likelihoods and make statements about such possibilities.
Advertising works the same way as social media. If it didn’t, why would companies use it as the primary way to have you buy things? You may be looking at a commercial for soap, which seems innocuous enough, but then the half-naked person starts lathering up with the soap as certain music and dialogue plays over top the ad, all designed to bypass reasoning and imprint a feeling when you see this particular soap again. Once you purchase the soap at the grocery store, now you’re hooked for years to come. Not because you like the soap, but because the soap and sex are now imprinted as similar entities.
You think you know truth from falsehood. You truly want to believe that. But then you vote based on how you feel as opposed to who would protect America the best, or who would bring the most prosperity to your country of origin. Time and time again countries elect madmen to run their society, only to find out too late the lies were actually lies. The goal of the world is to create content for the individual, which is how the ego works. The ego doesn’t care about you or how your life goes. It only does its job of producing attachments and aversions while continually moving forward for more of an opportunity to do so. It’s a non-stop facilitator of positionality. God is this and that. But the mind is dead set on convincing you God is this or that. Causality is a byproduct of the mind, not present within the awareness of God.
The personal ego is not the bad guy. It is not to be feared, but instead should be approached with gratitude and hospitality. The personal ego, albeit the thing that seemingly separates the individual from God and the realizations of higher truths, is also the very same thing that shows the experiencer what should be surrendered over to find God again and again. The personal ego is both the thing that keeps mankind from knowing God experientially, and the same thing that shows mankind the way back to God through what needs to be surrendered.
The personal ego is not God. It’s not even a god. But it’s part of the spiritual traveler’s experience while in human form, and because of this we needed to spend a little time going over the role and capacity of the ego/mind. Without looking at the mind first, there is no way to see it for what it is.
In this personal experience of life this time around, were it not for the personal ego, I would have been born knowing God without the choice to choose knowing God. If this place, this world and this realm were designed to know God without interruption, there would not be an ego nor be a human body to go along with it. But this world is not designed to be an unabated reality of the truth of God. It is designed to be a place where we get to choose God and work off the karma of lives lived before and now.
The reason we have this book is so we can transcend our attachment to the mind and finally experience God as if it was for the first time while still carrying these bones around. We breakdown the hold the ego has on us by practicing surrender, and it’s only through surrender, forgiveness and gratitude do we win the prize of freedom. The funny thing is, once someone is free from the ego altogether at the highest levels of consciousness, which is a rare reality on this planet, the vision from that viewpoint shows that neither the ego nor the person is ever apart or outside of God to begin with. The illusion and belief of separateness vanishes altogether the moment enlightenment sets in. The experiencer turns from being what we think we are to being more and more of the witnesser at the level of unconditional love. But it’s not until Satcitananda (the beginning of enlightenment unfolding) sets in that one has transcended all attachment to the personal ego in rapid succession. And it’s not until a high level of enlightenment does the personal ego cease to exist in all totality.
The personal ego is part and parcel of the human experience until it isn’t any longer. Within the ego we have not just what the world would characterize as bad things or negative things, in all actuality, the ego can be quite beneficial to mankind. The intellect is an active component of the ego’s build and make-up, which has been a significant source and positive aspect of growth for the human species. Within the workings of the ego there is the ability to take credit for inspiration and motivation, but when taken as a whole, the ego is not to be feared, fought against, beaten down, or looked poorly upon, but instead understood first and surrendered over eventually. The only way to God is going through the mind, but one won’t find God without surrendering over attachment to the belief they are the mind.
The fastest way to see the glory and splendor of God shine brilliantly upon your face is to let go of the beliefs that your mind is important or that your thoughts mean anything. It is possible to be in the world but not of it, but only once surrender becomes part of what you are. As long as you believe you’re your thoughts, feelings and emotions, you’re attached to this world and have to be in it and of it.
The ego is cunning and adventurous, not to mention smart and capable of pretending to be god. Humility/surrender is the key to aid in the disillusion of the personal ego, followed by forgiveness and gratitude. The quickest way to find relief from aspects of the painful moments with ego is to serve God by serving someone else. If you want to get away from the chaos of your mind the fastest, go help someone by loving them in whatever means presents itself.
…What is fear?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
There are all kinds of valuable acronyms for fear, with possibly the most apt being “False Evidence Appearing Real.”
Fear has many forms, but the best way to recognize fear is as anything which isn’t the direct experience, witness or observation of love. Or as anything which brings about confusion in any form.
I’m not speaking of confusion related to learning a new language or in the aspect of education. I’m referring to confusion within the aspect of life where decision making becomes paramount, but one is unable to see a clear direction. As an example: You are a salesman and you have been asked to compromise integrity by not telling the whole truth to a group of perspective clients about the actual completion date for the product you’re selling. Because of this moment, it causes you pain around having an upcoming meeting and causes anxiety about what you should do. On one hand, you have a good paying job that is often better than worse, and if you didn’t have this job, you’d have to find another one to replace it, but maybe in this atmosphere of job searching, that feels like a struggle. Without this job you may get behind on bills and because of this you believe your significant other could leave you. What is a person supposed to see in this example? False evidence appearing real.
The falsity arises within the confusion about what to do in the upcoming meeting. Fear is littered throughout this example as a means of showing how fear is not being scared for your life, although that could be a byproduct of fear, but more of the insidious nature of life with regards to shame, guilt, resentments, anger, depression, wantingness, cravingness, remorse, desiring something, and so on and so on. Without a central pillar of integrity and the practiced gift of surrender, it would be easy to see that a little lie would serve all parties equally. That’s just how business is done you tell yourself, because the product will eventually be ready. Right?
Fear of the past is called worry or regret or guilt, while fear of the future is generally called anxiety. Byron Katie’s work on this subject is a quality way to work through fears as well, but for the sake of this writing, what needs to be seen is that fear is an aspect of the ego. And it’s a lower aspect of the ego that keeps people separated from love most often, but at the end of the day does very little to create balance or harmony in anyone’s life. Fear, like thoughts, is not what you are but more like what you have to walk through. Fear is fake, not real, physically not a thing, an illusion. However, it may feel real, but only as real as you believe feelings to be.
What if the person in our example decides to tell their boss they won’t lie for the company as asked to? What happens if that person gets fired over not lying? And what happens if the partner leaves this person over losing their job? Does any of that matter in the long run? Is that job worth having if you’re paid to lie? Is that person worth having in your life if they leave you over having morals and principles? And is the fear of not getting another job justified based on just the anxiety over what the job market might look like for you?
I have been poor and dead broke, two similar but altogether different things. Depending on when you’ve known me, being poor or being broke was either a curse or one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have had the great opportunity of having not a single dollar to my name many times and still all my needs were provided by God, from random people offering me dinner, to finding money needed for gas, to having a roof over my head provided. I can attest to the fact that despite the amount of money in my bank account, I have neither starved nor not been able to get another job, have a place to stay or clothes to wear.
Fear is always based on shaky ground, for it’s in our head that fear has the opportunity to take hold, within the same mind that doesn’t know truth from falsehood, but rarely in life does fear have any merit about the situation at hand. Unless it arises as a foreboding measure for what another is experiencing or what might be on the horizon. But even then, it’s not worth holding onto as absolute truth. What happens if we fear for our life because of a situation we find ourselves a part of, let’s say a robbery or a standoff with police we’re in the middle of? Is fear worth holding onto as a reality in these situations as well? And will it help you think better or be more ready for decisions to be made? What if you get shot or die? Is dying worth fearing if everyone has to do it at some point? Is the possible pain in the future of being shot worth agonizing about in the present before it happens? Or better yet, worth agonizing about it being a possibility in the future?
I have yet to find a time when fear of anything saved me from a situation I needed saving from. Trust in God in times of distress and surrender over all fears to the creator when they arise, and if you do this you’ll be amazed at how puny and insignificant fear really is.
The fastest way to dismantle fear is by looking at it head on and walking through the hail of bullets it presents, while continually surrendering over your attachment to the experience of it. What you’ll find when you do this as opposed to when you cower and hide from it, is that you’ll either die physically and open your eyes still in existence but separate from the body and surrounded by love. Or, you move through a difficult situation unscathed and better for the experience next time.
Fear is an innately cowardly feeling, and not something that surrender and prayer can’t remedy. Why spend your life in fear another day when love stands waiting just on the other side of walking through it? Your true Self is a characteristic and aspect of the Alpha and the Omega, and because of this, in all actuality, fear is like a pebble in front of you. With the pebble, one can either kick it around and play with it for a while, eventually even picking it up and putting it in your pocket and calling it mine, or you can politely step over it and continue on your way. A pebble is just a pebble, and a fear is just fear – both are small and part of life, but once you call it mine, they take on new significance and meaning.
At the root of all fear, you’ll find the fear of death waiting to be surrendered. What happens when you surrender over your attachment to life and your unwillingness to expire? What happens is you find peace and love waiting for you at the end of the equation. Again, fear doesn’t lead to death. It’s only a pebble. For our time is appointed to be born and to die but fear most assuredly leads to the blocking off of love in your life in the meantime. And it becomes part of the decision-making process when one is separated from a willingness to trust that God sees you and what you’re going through.
Fear produces confusion, whereas love produces clarity.
Fear produces war, love produces peace.
Fear produces “us against them” and love produces “us and them.”
The mind fears what it believes is different from its host, whereas love transcends the mind and makes apparent that the host body is nothing more than a temporary way to choose love over fear.
…How are fear and ego related?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
When looking at the ego/mind, we can use an image to describe the relationship between fear in all its forms and the ego/mind, with that imagery being a coin. The coin is the mind, with one side interaction with the content of the world and the other side thoughts, feelings and emotions. As one flips the coin up from their fingertips it spins effortlessly in the air, blending both the interaction with the world and thoughts, feelings and emotions seemingly together and without end, until the coin comes back down to lie still on the hand waiting for another flick in the air.
Every moment of choice allows the person flipping the coin to either look at it for what it is while lying still in the hand, or to watch the coin spin effortlessly up in the air once more after choosing to flick it. The coin neither cares what direction you flip it, nor does it care how many rotations it makes. The coin is just being a coin, regardless of how you spin it. The more you see yourself as the coin in the air the more hypnotized you become by it.
Fear and the ego are also like a TV, where the viewer can turn it on and start flipping through channels without having a desired television station or program to land on. As one flips through the channels the TV remains the TV, but the channels either get stopped and watched or passed by for something else. Either way, the channel is still just a channel and the TV is still just a TV. What station the viewer decides to land on and continue watching is not the fault of the TV or the channel broadcasting. Fear arises within the ego, but the ego and fear are not precisely the same thing. Fear is a program which is viewable through the mind, but the mind is not the creator of the program, it just allows it to play as long as the viewer chooses to watch it.
Fears, however, are some of the most potent weapons the ego has at its disposal for survival. Fears allow the experiencer the false belief that they are the ego, because when fear is present it feels real and confronting. Fear is what keeps people trapped in lifetimes of oppression, because fear is false evidence appearing real. What’s real is not the fear, what’s real is the consciousness allowing fear to be present in the first place. Not unlike the viewer from above, you’re not the TV nor the coin flipping in the air, you’re what is watching both be part of existence. Fear seems powerful because it bypasses thoughts almost immediately and presents itself as a feeling or an emotion, which in reality are just conglomerates of un-surrendered thoughts imprinted over eons of time.
Thoughts build into feelings. Many uninvestigated feelings cement into emotions, and once an emotional set is complete, the severity of the fear feels more real because it has been flipped up in the air so many times, the person flipping the coin forgets that the person flipping, and the coin, are not the same thing, and that watching TV, when all is said and done, is just a waste of time.
…How does my level of consciousness affect my surroundings?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
One’s level of consciousness informs the entire way they view themselves, God, the world around them, and their beliefs about life. We are all born with a calibrated level of consciousness, and we all have an opportunity to evolve or devolve on that same scale throughout our time with a body. The higher one’s level of consciousness the more love one feels, and the lower the level of consciousness the less.
At a certain point in this journey, I asked God for a definition I could understand as to what we all are and what this entire life was around me. What I got as an answer was: I, in greater or lesser degrees of intensity.
Then I asked what the intensity was referring to and the answer was Love. And Truth.
From the moment in time when I was twenty years old and God showed up in a way I never experienced before, what showed up all around me was not religion, or religious figures, or fear in any form. What showed up was Love, with the energy of Love bringing and being the knowingness in that moment that God is Love, not in totality, but in how we experience the reality of God. What was made clear moving forward from that day was not that God is found in a religion, but that God is found in love. So, the way we experience God is through love, varying degrees of it. Love is another way of saying the energy of God, or the awareness of God present. The way we know God is because of love, and the way we’re saved from ourselves is because of Love.
The way this world works is through vibrations of energy manifested as content and awareness of content. Out of the awareness of content and because of Love, we have what’s called context, which all content arises out of. Content is not apart from context, but because of context and because all context is God, content has the opportunity to arise into physicality as an aspect of that from which it arose. Hence, “I, in greater or lesser degrees of intensity.”
What you are draws to you what you need in order to be that or to move past that. Righteous actions fueled by righteous intent create an upward momentum towards experiencing and eventually being more and more love, until one arrives at being love, or unconditional love, or something far greater than even those two wonderful gifts. Someone who is perfected love, meaning having no barriers to the knowingness that what they are is Love and Love is all they are, can best be seen in the western world as Jesus the Christ. Someone we can look to as being all lower mind, or slave to ego, would be someone in history who took it upon themselves to try and get rid of an entire species of a race known as Jews. From someone who was all Love, the world found hope and peace subjectively for many, but from someone who was all fear and far from knowing Love, the world found devastation and torment.
Most people fall somewhere in between not knowing Love and thinking they’re their mind. The intensity from which you experience the reality and truth of “I” is what dictates your entire life and what you’ll experience to be true and real. One’s perception is entirely contingent upon their level of “I-ness.” When you have time, feel free to look at Dr. David R. Hawkins’s map of the scale of consciousness, and you’ll see how it works in this world at this time. For a quick reference, a couple sections down, I have included aspects of his scale of consciousness designed to be separate from his work but show in a small way how Love manifests in an upward trajectory.
Consciousness is another word for Omniscience, which is one of the three descriptors’ religions use to define God. Omniscience is an aspect of God as knowing everything. Our calibrated level of consciousness is how we know something as opposed to just understanding it. Have you ever had an “ah-ha” moment? Everyone has, but few know what’s happening when these take place.
Whenever someone has an “ah-ha” moment, what’s happening is they are experiencing higher degrees of truth, which recontextualize the entirety of what was known before the moment. What that moment is in reality is their consciousness flipping and evolving towards more knowingness, an evolution and upwards progression towards being more Love than they were prior. “Ah-ha” moments are glimpses into the field of consciousness from a higher level of knowingness than just previously held. As one moves into the world of being love or above in Hawkins’ scale of consciousness, the “ah-ha” moment becomes more and more regular as the state of one’s current level of existence increases towards being a constant awareness of “ah-ha” moments. Meaning, the more truth we become, the more intense our “I-ness” becomes, which in turn creates more love present for your experience in this body as well as for the world’s experience of you in that body.
What we all are is nothing more than that which witnesses the nature and reality of that which created the ability to witness. We’re all localities of consciousness, expressed as what we know to be love, but in all reality, love is just how we experience God, until at a certain point one moves away from momentary experiences of God and realizes they are God, which creates a subjective experience of life where one becomes the “ah-ha” moment full time.
As one moves upward in their level of consciousness, they allow for more love to be present, and when more love is present, life changes dramatically every time. Likewise, as one’s level of consciousness moves downward, less love is felt as present, which makes the experiencer feel less connected to divinity, and more a part of the world. When one is fully a part of the world and cut off from the sunlight of the Spirit, they serve the world and look to the world for happiness and hope. When one becomes a slave to the ego, under a certain level of consciousness, which many on this planet find themselves, they have no idea what they are in reality, and believe their only hope for survival is taking and not giving. Hope outside of Love is like works without action, futile. Love equals abundance, whereas the lack of love equals the belief that abundance is a myth.
This book is not designed to be a full explanation into the world of consciousness. This book was created to move someone through the 12-steps so they can have their own experience with Truth. If you have a desire to go deeper into the levels of consciousness, which is recommended for anyone desiring to do so, it’s best to start being exposed to Dr. David R. Hawkins’s work, and I would recommend starting with what he wrote and spoke when alive and not what has been published posthumously, starting with his first book Power vs. Force. This work will lay a solid foundation as to what his discoveries are and what they mean for humanity and for your life specifically. This book does not depend on Dr. Hawkins and his Map of Consciousness. We simply use it as a short hand to demonstrate the levels of humanity that a spiritual traveler will traverse on their journey.
With regards to the mention of consciousness here, we do it for a reference to language and as a building block of truth used to see the ego for what it truly is – not as a complete summation of consciousness research.
…How does my ego/fear stop me from getting what I desire most?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
This is an interesting question because the word “desire” is what needs to be elaborated on in more detail. “What we desire” is a phrase many people use, but what they mean by desire is “want.” I used to believe that proper language was important for bringing about in my life what was most wanted, and I thought that if I used the word “desire,” somehow that word had more power and less negativity than “want.” So, I would let the universe know my desires repeatedly, thinking that if I desired something enough it would magically manifest as in the book The Secret. That’s not how God works and that’s not how life works. The ego desires and wants and puts expectations on things, whereas love lets go of desires and wants and attachments and expectations. We all desire something for a certain time, and then some of us realize that the act of wanting is the only payoff to having desires. The attachments to our desires and wants bring suffering, the letting go of our attachments and wants brings about joy.
We don’t magically will something into existence through wanting or desiring it. Desire works best if one surrenders it over for a preference about life, and then, in turn, surrenders over that preference becoming an outcome as well. You draw to you what you need, not what you want. When we desire something, we’re saying that we need something to be something we’re not, whether that is to be happy or feel complete, but in all reality what we are is already complete regardless of desires. We just don’t see that yet because of our current level of consciousness.
What you are and what you have is all you need and all you can handle at the current moment, for if it wasn’t, more would be present. If you look around and find yourself wanting something, this is a good place to start asking God why it is you want that thing. And why getting it would fix something that isn’t broken to start with. We always have everything we need to be something in the future we’re currently not, that’s how Life works. Whatever we need to evolve consciously is already in our possession, and as one moves upwards through the scale of consciousness, more abundance becomes pronounced in physicality, because what you are has evolved into more abundance and what you needed to reach that point has presented itself to you as always with you. We don’t manifest wealth by desiring wealth and wanting wealth. For spiritual travelers, wealth either comes as a result of what you need to be more of you than what’s present, or it doesn’t come to you because wealth is not something needed.
The reason it appears that wealth arrives to those who are bad people more than to those who are good people, is because we’re all here for different reasons, and karmically, maybe wealth isn’t in your card this time around and it is for another, regardless of their level of consciousness. However, wealth isn’t a sign of God’s feelings towards you one way or another – you’re not favored by God because you have money, no matter what prosperity gospel preachers tell you. You can’t serve two masters equally, so if you desire to be rich above all else, this book is not for you, but I wish you the best of luck in your pursuits. In my experience, however, I have never had more wealth than when I surrendered over all attachment to money, and because of not desiring wealth, when it arises, I act as just a pass-through of it for the world around me. If you desire wealth in this lifetime, surrender over that desire completely. Once all attachment to attaining wealth is let go, watch how fast you become someone who the world sees as wealthy.
If you desire to serve the world by being a part of the world this time around, by all means do so, and you will even find it easier to acquire more gold and jewels than most, but what you will never find is satiation, lasting happiness, joy and internal peace. However, if your intent is to know God, let go of your desires and wants and allow God to bring more truth into your life. And if the byproduct of more truth is more wealth, or a partner in life, then give thanks to God for it. And if those things never arise as a result of growing closer to God, give thanks for that as well. We always have exactly what’s needed to grow closer to God or move further away from truth, the only difference between the two is perspective.
If we go back strictly to the question at hand, “How does ego/fear stop me from getting what I desire most?” and approach this question from another angle, we first have to define what’s desired most. For the vast majority of my early life, I desired to know the truth about Life above all things. Along the way, fear stopped me from seeing Love time and time again, because I believed I was what I felt or my emotions and thoughts arising from moment to moment. If your desire is to know God and to find happiness, it all boils down to how willing you are to let go of your attachments to fears and worries, because if you’re not willing to have faith in what’s found at the end of a surrender process, then fear is definitely a block to your pursuits. If what you want most is to transcend the ego and let go of all attachments to fear in all its forms, but you’re not willing to have faith that surrendering over your attachment to the juice your ego gets by holding onto the residue of being wronged and/or feeling superior to others, then what you desire most is blocked once again. According to the Buddha, attachments and aversions are the root of all pain and suffering, meaning, the longer you stay attached to how you’re feeling as being what you are, or the longer you have an aversion to surrendering your attachment to experiencing an aspect of life we call fear, suffering will continue to exist as your reality. Desires and cravings left to their own devices will lead the person down a road of more desires and cravings, never to a road that ends with satisfaction.
In order to grow closer to truth, and in turn closer to God, serving two masters is something you have to understand and then know innately the truth of. Desiring wealth or a significant other, or for a particular miracle to arise in your life is not a bad thing, it’s simply a block in a wall you’re building in front of ever attaining that thing. The truth is, when you need something to evolve or to better prove the example of what you are to the world, you’ll have it. And if you don’t need something to be more of that which you already are through worldly displays of what you are, you won’t have it. Either way, desiring something doesn’t help it manifest into physicality. Actually, it is quite the opposite.
…What are the levels of consciousness and how do they correspond with my happiness?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
Higher Levels of Enlightenment
Enlightenment through Victorious Peace
Joy
Love
Reason
Acceptance
Willingness
Neutrality
Courage
Pride
Anger
Desire
Fear
Grief
Apathy
Guilt
Shame
The levels of consciousness above are a representation of the non-linear world manifesting as comprehensible content. The levels of consciousness comprised above were established by Dr. David R. Hawkins and are not of my own making. I only lovingly use aspects of his chart and the levels above as a means of consciousness shorthand within this book for the purpose of having something easy to reference back to, for both the reader and the author. More information on the map of consciousness and all of the priceless consciousness research done by Dr. Hawkins over the long and extraordinary life that he lived, can be found by doing any Google search or by picking up one of his many books, all of which go into consciousness in more detail than this particular book will.
The levels of consciousness are direct indicators of one’s current perception and interaction with the world, derived through an understanding that the non-linear (spirit) is as much of the linear (physicality) as Love is a characteristic of God. And as far as happiness goes, in relation to the levels of consciousness, one can see from the map that those calibrated levels of courage and above are marked in bold, showing that more and more happiness presents itself as a byproduct only when someone inhabits a consciousness level of courage or higher. Happiness can be experienced in starts and fits within the lower consciousness levels, but most commonly does not last in any meaningful way until someone reaches a level of courage or above.
Statistical certitude shows me that some of you reading this book will not be operating from a level of courage or above. But quite possibly many of you reading this book were brought to the work precisely because you have a need that brought this text to you for the expressed purpose of helping you reach the level necessary to transform your life for the better. Another possibility for this work being brought to your attention is that you have enough positive karma to draw it into your life for the purpose of helping you move from a positive state to a loving state. Or even beyond. Or a third explanation for finding this material is that you have reached your end and find yourself not wanting to wake up tomorrow, like where I found myself, but aren’t yet willing to pull the final trigger.
Regardless, this book has arrived in your hour of need, as the levels of consciousness arrived at mine. At the consciousness level of courage, the experiencer first begins to realize there is something greater from which it was hatched. The etheric brain begins to take shape allowing for group karma to dissipate as a means of existing and individual karma to come forth. Did you ever see a flock of birds, maybe hundreds of them, flying in the same direction at the same time and all of a sudden, they all turn, and turn again, and land in the same place and take off at the same time in the same direction? Well, when you are operating below a level of courage, unknowingly, you are doing the exact same thing as the birds. When you move from a group karma to an individual karma, you have been given the gift to evolve personally. When you cross over into courage it is like there is an internal compass that’s now present that wasn’t before. With this compass pointing you in the direction of more and more truth instead of less and less of it. Courage is the demarcation line of an entirely different life from what lies below it.
There are several different methods for calibrating one’s level of consciousness, and I will leave that research up to you to do on your own if curiosity so informs your intent. For the purpose of this book, however, it is not necessary to know where you fall along the levels of consciousness. What is necessary is making your way through the rest of our dialogue and applying the spiritual principles when and where applicable. By doing this, I assure you that happiness will be an allowable way of life for you.
The most basic aspect of life is beingness. And wherever your journey has taken you so far it managed to deliver you to this work in order to help you learn again what you already know and have only forgotten. This book delivers you to you, but without illusion attached. This work is designed to aid a person in their journey towards freedom from the ego. But another beautiful byproduct of what you’re currently reading today is that it will help you feel better just because of the field it creates for the reader while reading it. If you have found this book and you’re still reading at this point, understand that you can choose from here on to either pursue enlightenment in this lifetime, or not, with the aid of this text, but what will happen without you even realizing it, is that your life will start changing the moment you decide to work this program for yourself.
One piece of advice I will give at this point is that if you start this work and your life becomes suddenly more chaotic, don’t stop doing the work, because that means it’s working fast. Don’t forget, all fear is an illusion – it’s safe to continue straight ahead no matter what. The moment you start this work, the ego will know its days as master are numbered, and because of that fact, there’s no telling what illusory dramas await your experience in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. As you’re faced with another challenge, hardship, hurdle, or stressor which tells you to put the work down and give up on knowing God, in that moment you’ll have the choice to walk straight ahead through fear or succumb to it and remain stagnant.
The very act of life changing all around you is the proof that what you’re doing is having an effect. Surrender is the ultimate tool that underlies this entire book. And I would be misleading you if I didn’t warn you that once you make advancements towards love through surrender, fear is closely behind working to stop you from experiencing what’s just beyond your line of sight. If you have this book in your hands, you’ve already made the decision not to kill yourself, or give up on happiness, and as you cross over into the land of courage if you’re not already there, or as you elevate consciously upward from the level you currently reside in, be ready for one “ah-ha” moment after another. What is written here is already known by you and has already been stated throughout the halls of time, but to be sure it’s beyond clear where the credit for this work comes from, I point lovingly back to how it will become nothing more than a tool you use to remember what you already know.
The heavens are not above you, they are within you. Because of that you’re already everything you’ll ever need in order to realize and then embrace your life with an attitude of, “Okay God, where shall we go from here?”
“Ah ha” moments are tidbits of seeing through the illusion of life and simultaneously remembering you already knew what just a moment ago was perceived as unknown. Truth is not for sale. It is not hidden for later purchase. It does not have dues or fees. You can’t pay for a weekend conference full of it and expect it to stick. It’s that truth only appears when we’re karmically ready for it to, and never before. And never because we expected it, manipulated someone for it, or think we’ve found it through anything other than being exactly who we are as we experience it. There is a time to reap and a time to sow, and this book is an aid in that truth. For maybe holding this book in your hands now is because your life is about to sprout. Or maybe it’s because the truth found within these pages are only meant at this time to plant seeds of understanding. Either way, you’re on the right path by even reading these words and knowing this book exists.
The levels of consciousness from one aspect are nothing more than an illustration of the omniscience of God and how divinity manifests consciously in each and every one of us. From another aspect, the levels of consciousness are how happiness is guaranteed, and how transcending the ego and fear in all its forms is plausible. The scale of consciousness is not something I created. Again, it must be stated, if you desire to know more, do your own research. Their representation here is nothing more than a way to create a backdrop for what will take place as you work through this book and carry your message of love out into the world.
By working the 12 steps found within this book, you’ll not only witness a change happen in your life for the positive, but you will grow closer to God and be filled with more love than you have ever felt to date. As was stated previously in the answer to this question, if you continue into the work of this book and start the steps, not only is freedom guaranteed through your authenticity and intent to know God, but chaos will become present as well. For when you decide that happiness is your path and knowing God is your choice, the ego as part of how it works, goes into overdrive to bring forth everything you’ve ever been stuck to or attached to or believed throughout millennia. Choosing God, means that which you’re not will present itself for the purpose of giving you what’s needed to grow closer to God. Again, whatever is needed is provided, because you can’t just desire your way to God. You have to choose to walk toward God deliberately.
…Why should I care about raising my level of consciousness and transcending the ego and fear?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
The answer to the question is simple: raising one’s level of consciousness is directly correlated to the amount of love and happiness present in your life. Period.
There are no secrets under heaven about the way of God and the way of the world. All one has to do to know about either is open their eyes in an honest fashion and take in the sights and sounds of both. There are no secrets you’ll find from mystics beyond the grave who claim to have wisdom worth channeling that will deliver the spiritual aspirant into an actual experience of regular, subjective joy and happiness other than the truth found within the answer to the question of this section. The only way to God is up, and the only way to misery and pain is down. There are no mysteries to experiencing God that are left undiscovered, and all of the enlightened sages of old will agree with the logic in this next statement: God is not somewhere else waiting in judgment of what’s here and now; God is right here now, waiting on your interaction with consciousness to recognize such.
It matters little if you agree with what’s been stated here. The only thing that matters is having your own subjective experience with God. That experience is within you and always possible. It is never dependent upon someone else telling you what to do, or claiming to be the bridge you need. False prophets and false teachers equating your journey to God with the amount of money you are willing to part with are not the answer and never were. You cannot buy your way to God.
This book is simple, straightforward, holds no punches, delivers only truth, and was written so that you as the spiritual seeker and world traveler have the same opportunity I did: to see God for yourself, to choose God for yourself, and to know firsthand the reality that shines bright for the author of these words today.
Hell is not a place to find oneself in, with this body or without this body. Likewise, heaven is but a choice away for this life and for the next lifetime to follow. The quickest way to preserving a spot in heaven once out of this body is by accepting Jesus as your savior, but the quickest way to experiencing heaven while in this body is by being a living example of Jesus through surrender, forgiveness, and gratitude.
The gifts of surrender, forgiveness and gratitude practiced regularly for yourself and the world around you is the only recipe needed to raise your level of consciousness and transcend fear in all its forms. To live like Jesus is as simple as practicing these three gifts from God, all the time, everywhere. No matter what.
…How can this book help me live the life I have always dreamed of?
AUDIO VERSION: SPOTIFY / APPLE PODCASTS
I can’t put words in your mouth. So, today I’ll describe the life I always dreamed of and do my best to describe how it came to be experientially. With all of this information, you can decide for yourself if this book will help create the same opportunity to have a life of dreams fulfilled for you as well.
I wanted happiness as a child and adolescent, young adult, and early adult. I wanted to know God was real, and I wanted to be sure that this life had more merit to it than just existing to acquire goods and possessions. I wanted truth at all costs and was willing to go to the ends of the earth to find it. I desired hope and joy as real experiences of lasting significance as opposed to momentary spots of enjoyment. I prayed for a way to God that made sense and was born out of experience rather than taking someone else’s word for it. I wanted love and to be loved and to give love without selfishness. I wanted a firsthand experience of the creator that I was able to witness and able to hold as truth. I wanted a connection with God more than anything on this earth, a connection which allowed me to know what the highest will of God was for my life as opposed to just going through the motions of working a job for the sake of working a job. I wanted the truth of God above all else, and nothing but the direct experience of such provided validity for living.
On July 4th, 2017, as well as twelve years prior at twenty years of age, a series of events were set in motion where I knew God existed but didn’t know what to do with that information and experiential knowledge. At twenty, I came face to face with divinity through the gift of an overwhelming experience, and at thirty-two I came face to face with divinity again through the gift of regained sanity. And both times I had my answer about God being real. For twelve years, following the experience at twenty, I went out into the world and tried to live two lives simultaneously, one of the world and one of knowing the truth about the reality of God. The world chewed me up and spit me out and delivered me straight to hell. At twenty, I knew the truth but didn’t act on the truth, and I had truth but didn’t know what to do with truth. At thirty-two, when presented with another moment of the reality of God being present beyond words and description other than to say that sanity was a by-product, I chose another way to live from twelve years prior – I chose to move away from the world and towards truth found within and not found out in the world of the ego. This book is an account of the years since choosing another way to live and another way to embrace the reality of God. This book is the source of information about my particular journey this time around which led to the realization of God as Self, and as all that is, all that was, and all that ever will be. All experienceable while with this body because of the gift of grace, as well as out of this body through the never-ending gift of grace.
Today, life has never been sweeter. Today, life has never had more meaning and significance. Today, my life is not my own nor will it ever be again. Today, heaven is a reality while on earth as much as it is a reality when these mortal coils are shed for good. Today, who I am is a person free of attachments. Attachments to wanting, attachments to cravings, attachments to desiring, attachments to aversions, attachments to opinions, attachments to resentments, attachments to suffering. Today, I know what I didn’t know before, that I am not the mind, not the body, and not the ego. And neither are you.
The veil has been pulled back and the Glory of God regularly shines through in ways unbelievable to most, and experienceable by few. The belief by many is this subjective experience is only for the few or doesn’t actually have the ability to exist at all. Today, I am the example of doing what Christ did in order to have a connection with God as Christ did. Today, I don’t choose to be separated from the spirit of God through choosing the world. Today, the world is but a television set where the dramas of the ego play out as something aside from the ultimate reality of truth. Today, there is no causality or duality, there is only I. Along this journey there have been no “others,” telling me what to do next or instructing me on the reality of God. There has just been an internal knowingness always elevating in its ability to grow louder and louder through consciousness as to what choice can be made next. In your journey to God, you will not rely on someone else as the means to coming face-to-face with Truth. You will only have aids, like this book, which are used to point you in the direction you must walk for yourself. If you find someone on your pathway to God who says you need them to find God, politely walk past their offer of help and keep straight and narrow on the path of righteousness.
I am on this earth this time around to be a witness to the teachings of many but the life of one: Jesus. I am not here to be Jesus or to claim the authority of Jesus, but I am here nonetheless to tell the world through actions that if you desire a life worth living, a life worth experiencing, and a life worth sharing effortlessly with the world, do as I did, chase after God as I did, but let go of your attachment to the world sooner than I did and heed these words: Jesus was Love personified in the human form; Love lived out as an example for everyone to follow; Love given as grace to those too weary to travel the spiritual path towards higher truths; and Love which can be emulated and lead to the final doorway of enlightenment. The only way to find true happiness is to surrender over all that you are attached to about how one defines themselves as separate from the rest, apart from God, without the need for an example and savior like Jesus, and who have too little humility to admit that they are not God, but only ego gods until they aren’t any longer.
If you are not willing to humble yourself before the creator and ask for help with finding truth and working through this book, this work is not for you, and a truly spiritual life may not be for you. But also, lasting happiness may not be for you. However, just because chasing after God with a reckless abandon may not be for you this time around, that doesn’t mean it won’t be next time or at another point in the future.
I am sharing this entire message with you so that what becomes abundantly clear by the end of it – if a sinner like what the world knows as Mason can have the life that’s present today, so can you. Don’t follow me as someone who asks for your devotion, don’t follow me at all, just follow my lead toward God and know that because I did it so can you. And because I did it and lived to tell the tale, it’s a safe pathway to travel toward finding God in your life as something real and not made up.
If you want a life like what was described above, this book is for you. A surrendered life is for you. A lasting and known connection with God is for you. Humility to accept the example of Jesus is for you. The wisdom to see truth in the Masters of old is for you. And the journey you can take to get there can start for you right now, here, if you choose to read.
Again, it must be stated: you will never find God because another person allows you to do so, because another person shares certain secrets with you, or because you reach a higher level within a program which costs money or requires oaths. God is right here, right now, free of cost, always present, always loving, always God. All you have to do to realize God as imminent is to choose faith in the moments when fear is present, and choose faith by walking straight ahead through the hail of bullets no matter what, choosing to find God no matter what, no matter the time it takes, and no matter the obstacles in your way.