87. The three selves

The audio recording is available at https://youtu.be/rwLMTHwI0sY

Before the beginning of time, or outside of history, there was and continues to be the immaterial and formless universal form, existence, the invisible and indefinable force and space, energy, oscillation, emptiness, logos, which we call the One. When the form, the One, manifested itself, took shape, and became visible, material nature was born, and within it, humankind as the earthly representative of the One. This is the moment when the invisible space and force became visible, time, and light. Since the first material was light, the photon, humanity too had to take on a light form, a spiritual form. This light form is our universal self, which has represented transcendence since its creation—embodying the above and below, the outside and the inside, the white and the black simultaneously. 

The fact that we also possess an individual self, which is the subject and problem of psychology, can be attributed to the fact that some people—who are in the majority—lose their universal, meaningful self-given at birth, their transcendence, and instead choose matter, linearity, and a meaningless, rational self. Matter, the taking of form, is therefore secondary; the primary is the manifestation of the form. However, the appearance of properties presupposes the simultaneous existence of other materials or properties, because matter can only manifest in the presence of another material, property, or form. This process is called differentiation. 

The process by which matter loses its properties and returns to formlessness, or dissolves back into universality, is called integration. Differentiation and integration, like centrifugal and centripetal forces, always appear in pairs and "work" in continuous circular motion. In the 600-700s before our Initiation Master, the difference between the universal self and the individual self was already known. The former, which returns to the One, was referred to as the world-soul, free spirit, or cosmic self, while the latter, which "dies," was referred to as the personal or breathing self. 

The dissolution of matter, the loss of properties, shape, and relational connections, is experienced as the death of our body. With death, the connections of matter's manifestation, such as gravity, air pressure, and the breakdown of the elements of the body, cease. Our physical birth was decided by our parents, but our physical death, just like the "death" or continuation of our soul, our return to the One, participation in the cycle of love, and creation, is decided by us. So, when can we say "I"? Only in relation to our universal self, because this self remains, while the individual self-perishes, if its "lender" makes a bad choice, in biblical language, if it does not "convert." 

The physical (animal) man and the person, who prioritizes matter, may not know that after the decomposition of their body, nothing remains. For example, in the case of a 70 kg person, about 45 kg of oxygen, 12 kg of carbon, 7 kg of hydrogen, 1.8 kg of nitrogen, 1.7 kg of calcium, and other elements remain. We should realize that neither our body nor our soul is truly "ours." So why do we cling so tightly to them? It would be better to give them back to the One, as everything is borrowed, or one could say, it is a gift. Our body exists to have an experience on the state when we do not have body; our soul (individual self) exists to have an experience about our spirit (universal self). Our senses serve no other purpose than the experience of our universality, the necessary fulfilment. Why are we surprised when the loan must be given back? The loan is about the opportunity we have received for knowledge, experience, consciousness and the grace that we call life.

Thus, minimally, we possess three selves: one is our physical, body, inherited from our parents and grandparents; the second is our universal spiritual self, given by the One; and the third is our individual self, formed by external factors. Note: epigenetics shows that external factors have an impact on our genetic expression. We decide how these three selves will manifest—only in the body, only in the soul, or only in the spirit, or in combinations of these. Which will we manifest mostly: the bodily (material) self, the degraded, dormant, selfish self, or the universal self that was available to us at birth, at the first hart beat, which originates from the One? 

Young parents raising their children should know that at the moment of their child's birth, the universal self takes the body form as a gift from the One, so they may see the "little god" in the child. They should strive to preserve this spiritual state in their child throughout their life. If possible, they should avoid allowing their child's universal self to degrade into an individual self. Protect the child from imperfect education, worldviews, materialism, success-driven goals, or, for example, marriages based on material interests. They should think of the One as being as sweet, as their child. It is necessary to note that the manifestation forms of the self-change throughout our lives. 

In childhood, up until the age of seven- eight, we possess our universal self. This is followed by puberty or adolescence, which is nothing more than our gradual detachment from our universal self, which can also be called the loss of our childlike purity, and the gradual adoption of the adult world. This is when we go to school, become religious, learn about material things that can be bought with money, and perhaps acquire worldviews. This is the age of smaller temptations that we must experience. The next phase is the era of greater temptations and trials, when we have the opportunity to live more and more as mature adults, searching for our universality, or, losing this, we sink deeper into matter and live for the today. The ignorant, rational majority tends to choose the latter. Just a few manage to preserve their universal self throughout their lives, and about their sixties, they are able to strengthen more and more.