Discovering who you really are, from the inside out

Evolution is perhaps the greatest teacher of the material world. For to evolve, you must come to learn, discover, and treasure your very essence, the part of you that exists and thrives beyond your ego's need for material gain.

To evolve, you must look around and place a value, a significance, a price on that which exists outside of yourself, compared to that which exists solely within.

How does an incarnate being, who is surrounded by every material thing conceived of by the human imagination, who needs materials for survival - how does that being break away from a material world?
What does "breaking away from the material world" really mean, beyond an esoteric, vague statement, such as "being spiritual"? For one can be poor, live a desolate life in the woods, and yet be a very unspiritual person. One can have everything money can buy and be a very spiritual person.

· Do you judge yourself the way society judges you?

To judge another based on material wealth, or its lack, is to judge falsely. To break away from the material world simply means to:
Disassociate your value judgment about your own self or others from anything outside of yourself, your innermost being or the innermost being of another.

In today's society, greed, violence, poverty, wealth, freedom, imprisonment, glory, fame, notoriety, stature, and sometimes even life and death are too often determined by the magnitude of a person's material accumulation. Why should a materially wealthy person who commits murder roam free while another who has no material wealth is wrongfully placed on death row?

Why should the kidnapping of a child from a wealthy family be publicized and not that of a poor child? Why should the child of homeless parents be forced to live in the streets?

You see, this society does not value human beings just because they breathe with life or just because they have a heart, feelings, a purpose, lessons to learn, and gifts to share.

This society determines the value of human beings mainly by their material stature. Instead of integrating all people into one family of humanity, we pit one group against another: the haves against the have-nots.

People spend their lives working to buy the American dream: that big home, all the furnishings, the fancy car. They work, go into debt, and worry until they are so absorbed in trying to keep up or preventing losses and so exhausted by their unending efforts that they fight with their loved ones. Eventually, because of this stress, they destroy what they truly did cherish most: their family. The house, the media center, the car, all those things can be replaced, but a loved one cannot. I would ask you what price you would put on a loved one, but I am afraid some of you would actually have an answer. So I will refrain from asking the question, but I tell you that no price in this universe can be placed on a single life. Every life is priceless and irreplaceable. Once you "get there," to the other side of your material goals, you will discover that the grass is certainly not greener on the other side, as it appeared to be.

The weeds of stress take over. The threat of drowning in debt becomes a reality. You may feel the cost of getting there via failing health, a frail nervous system, or a home life spiraling into the pits of negativity. Many a millionaire has committed suicide. And many a poor person has helped to uplift humanity.

To break free from the material world, you have to honestly assess your relation it and discover where you place your value as a human being.

Ask yourself: What circumstances, what conditions, what things make me feel truly worthy?

Then, imagine stripping away everything you named until you are left with nothing but your birthday suit. Do you still believe you are worthy?

The answer, I hope, is a hearty yes. Unfortunately, for the majority of the human population, the answer would be a screaming no.
Now, I am not saying you have to be naked to feel you are of value. You are entitled to have a home, conveniences, boats, planes, cars, anything and everything that brings joy or pleasure to your life. It is wonderful to have these things.

Yet having or not having these things must not be the basis of how you judge the worth of yourself or another. If it is, or ever has been, you have judged incorrectly. For all human beings can acquire or lose any thing that exists outside of their essence.

Self-worth or self-esteem
Cannot come from the outside in.
It can only come from the inside out.

Many have spoken of or written about the material world as an illusion. Material things are not an illusion. They are in front of your eyes; they do exist. The illusion is that any one thing outside of yourself determines your value or worth.

People may say, "Oh, he is very rich, he lives in a mansion, he is a very important person." Yet, this "very important person" may beat his wife and children every week. How important does that make him? How much better is he than the kind, loving farmer who plows his fields each day at sunrise?

So, the illusion is that your life, worth, esteem, importance, or contribution to humanity is based on material things.
This is the illusion.

Most people placed a very high value on Mother Teresa. They accurately assessed a very special human life. Yet how many material things did she own? She had very little, yet she helped to truly uplift humanity. She was a very special soul, doing much needed work. In fact, she was the epitome of an important person.

We all value virtue when we see it. Yet we lose sight of virtue in the face of a daily barrage of ads for material things that we are falsely led to believe will make us better people, more worthy, more highly respected - as if our intrinsic value were not enough to make us worthy and deserving of respect.

· Your soul's perspective, also known as The Big Picture

Removed yet divinely connected to our lives in this material world are our soul, our consciousness, and those aspects of our spiritual nature that exist simultaneously in this physical life and in the nonphysical realm - a parallel universe or other dimensions of this universe that would be called the fourth and fifth dimensions, where there are parallel realities and where there exists a "future self."

Now for many of you, this may seem like hogwash. And that's fine. Your perceptions can indeed remain solely in the third dimension of earth, and you do not need to consider any reality other than the one you physically live in. This is genuinely fine.

For those of you who wish to expand on your current concept of self, however, this information may benefit your awareness of self and may help you to know how the other aspects of your soul relate to you, with your experiences being most valuable.

Your soul, that part of your being which knows no time or space, sees the higher perspective of the events that transpire in your everyday life.

This information is communicated to you while you sleep, and in many cases you receive communications in your dreams that seem to renew your perceptions upon waking in the morning and give you some sense of peace amid the pain and turmoil you face in your everyday life.

Those communications help you realize that your experiences are woven into the fabric and purpose of your entire life. The colors of some of those experiences may seem black and gloomy, yet when you look at the overall tapestry, you can see that the black is quite necessary: it provides contrast and brings more dimension, perspective, and even beauty to the other colors in your life.

This overall picture is what your soul sees. Your higher self, your soul, sees the black or bleak days you encounter simply as one part of your experience and not the beginning, middle, or end of your life. That is why the saying "This too shall pass" carries so much hope when we are faced with events that challenge our very spirit to persevere, even if only one moment at a time.

Now, as the fabric of your life is woven, at each step you face a choice. If you were to weave a pattern in a large tapestry, you would get a general idea of how the whole would turn out.

So when you seek an answer regarding the future, you receive an answer based on the energy vibrations you emit, along with a higher perspective of the energy from those connecting to your life who may be related to your question.

Now, at any point, you may choose a new path, a new pattern for your tapestry; this may or may not change the outcome.

The most important thing you must know is that you hold the individual power to choose how you respond to the events in your life; it is solely your choice to move in one direction or another. With your choices, you create your own reality.

Now, there are agreements between souls who enter your life for certain growth lessons or experiences in which you agreed to participate; those meetings are predestined, but their outcomes are not. The outcomes depend on the choices you make.

So, if you find you are being disempowered due to meeting a certain person, then consider that the reason this person entered your life was so you could grow to honor your own self and push away from one who undermines your growth, if you choose to do this. Should you choose to remain with one who undermines your growth and causes you to feel less than the incredible being you are, you will find that your choice results in misery. You will end up sacrificing your life, playing victim to a chance meeting, a meeting that was predestined to help you come to terms with your highest growth issue.

So for the millions of people who are sacrificing their very lives by choosing to remain in abusive relationships, all in the name of love, I ask you, who are you loving? Where are you keeping yourself, and what justifications are you using to avoid your own personal growth? Do not use love as an excuse here. To be a victim, to falsely empower an abuser, is anything but love. To break away from this material world, to see your way beyond the challenges, you must set your sights above them and find the inner resources, by connecting to your higher self, to guide you in the direction of your choosing, for your highest good.

You see, God, your higher self, or whatever you believe in as a higher source of wisdom or consciousness in your life will never make your choices for you. This would take away your ability to choose your own direction, your own tapestry, and would empower another rather than strengthen you to determine your future based solely on your intentions.