Dynamics of the Lower Self

THE DYNAMICS OF THE LOWER SELF
John-Roger, D.S.S.

© Copyright 1972, 1976, 2010 Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy
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Published by Mandeville Press
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I.S.B.N. 978-1-935492-82-5

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Three Selves Page 1
Chapter Two: The Consciousness of the Lower Self Page 9
Chapter Three: The Job of the Basic Self Page 17
Chapter Four: The Expression of the Lower Consciousness Page 27
Chapter Five: Directing and Monitoring the Basic Self Page 43
Chapter Six: Loving and Cooperating with Your Self Page 55


Chapter One
The Three Selves

When you came into the physical embodiment, you picked up what has been termed a basic self. This basic self came from a repository of basic selves, and its very nature is that of negativity, not meaning bad, but meaning that it is of the negative realms of existence. Its job is to hold the physical consciousness intact on this plane. It resists the spiritual thrust, and it can be very mighty in its resistance. Whenever you start elevating your consciousness, you will find yourself moving up through the levels of consciousness, releasing karma on the astral, causal, mental and etheric planes. When you get into the etheric plane, you're dealing with the subconscious; and it is at this point that many people have fallen back down into the lower levels of consciousness, because the patterns of the subconscious and the basic self are directed towards maintaining the negative consciousness, and those patterns are very powerful. The physical body is a fantastic mechanism to work from as you transcend the lower levels of Light. It's the only one in which you can move directly from the physical into Soul. If you are in the astral consciousness, you have to work up through the causal and mental and etheric. And if you are in the mental consciousness, then you have to work up through the etheric. If you reach to the etheric sometimes you have to go back down through the astral. And it can be an age-long process. While you are in the physical body, you have a greater amount of selectivity that you can express. The patterns, the variables, are almost in-finite. When you exercise your free will before physical embodiment, you may set up many patterns of experience that you would like to work with on the physical. You use your free will before embodiment. After embodiment, you have choices. You use your free will by setting up all the patterns, all the directions, all the possibilities. You blueprint your life plan. Some people blueprint a straight and narrow path. Others have a path with many avenues of expression and even some areas they have left open for experimentation. So when you attempt to make your will the Will of God, you're up against the impossible because God's Will resides in all things, while the body, being rather finite, cannot reside in all things. What you're really attempting is to make your will work for you in the best way possible. You're moving yourself into your own will, into those things that you have put into motion from higher consciousness, those things that you have said you would do. And when you have moved into that, then you have moved into the inner self and you are. Following your blueprint and your life will flow so beautifully that you will feel that your will and the Father's Will are one. But it is really that you are following the direction of your High Self and are fulfilling your destiny here on the planet.

The level we're communicating on now is called the conscious self because we're conscious of this. But we find out that we're much more than just this conscious self, that there are other levels within our make-up. Sometimes you put your foot in your mouth, so to speak, or you find yourself picking up something that you don't want and don't need and putting it in your pocket--why did you take it? You know that there is another level in there that you may have difficulty explaining in words, but you can really get involved with it at times. You may lose your temper and "explode,” and then wonder, 'Why on earth did I do that?” So many of these things come from a level below the conscious level that you're probably pretty aware, if only by empirical evidence, that there is something else that exists within you. And, this level that we're talking about here, we call the basic self or the lower self. You might want to relate it to an animal instinct, or to the areas of memory or habits or emotions. It is all of these things and more. The High Self expresses the feelings of great inspiration and great lofty ideals; it creates the desire to lift mankind in your arms and save everyone. Those moments when you see everything in the world in love and in beauty and in harmony, those moments when everything is right and perfect come out of the High Self. You might call it a God-Consciousness, a universal consciousness, or a Christ Consciousness; but rather than get hung up on a conflict of terms, we just call it a High Self, a higher consciousness. So each one of you have within yourself a Higher Self, a conscious self and a basic self--the three selves. We all might like to express that Higher Self more often because it can do the magic; you all know it exists because sometimes you do the magic--the way you can love your spouse, the way you can sacrifice for your children, the way you can work for hours to help a friend; there are a lot of ways that you express the High Self. And then on the conscious level, it seems like a lot of the time you're in a quandary of indecision. The conscious self is responsible for making the choices and determining the direction you will take. These two levels can be directed rather easily because the High Self is spiritual and will choose that direction, and the conscious self is purifying itself to become spiritual and will choose that direction. When we speak of Soul Transcendence, we speak of moving the consciousness into the Soul, activating the Soul so that it can move into pure Spirit. When you direct towards Soul Transcendence, you find out that the conscious self often says, "Yes, I want to do that,” but then something adds, "however, I'm not.” And those "howevers” are what I'd like to relate to here. These are the blocks that the basic self places in the path of Soul Transcendence.

Fear is probably the primary block to Soul Transcendence. Fear is a process that seems very difficult to define because so much fear is based upon the unknown. People tend to fear what they do not know or do not understand. Whether that fear is justified or not is rarely considered, and cannot be considered until the person involved moves into the area of his fear and makes that decision for himself. A lot of fear is based upon a form of conceit. An example of this is the statement, "I'm afraid to die. I'm just really scared to die.” And we ask, "Why?” And the person may answer, "It's going to be so terrible.” If you want to pursue this, you might say, "How do you know?” And the answer will probably be, "Well, I don't know.” Then, of course, the question is, "Then why are you being conceited?” If he says, "I'm not being conceited,” you might answer, "Yes, you are; you tried to make me believe that you knew what was there and that there is reason to fear. If you don't know, that's a conceit that you're placing towards me.” Do you see the point of view here? Most people really do want to think they know and yet, there are very few who do know. So why move into that particular form of conceit? That fear comes out of the lower self. Let's discuss the lower self in quite some detail, because it is often the block to the religious experience and to the spiritual experience; it's the block to good personal relationships, and it's a .block to functioning well in many areas.

Chapter Two
The Consciousness of the Lower Self

When you came into existence physically, at the time of conception, when the sperm and egg united and flamed forth an energy pattern, the lower self came into this creation as a frequency. It is not a soul; it's just a level of consciousness. Its job, at that time, was to formulate out of whatever was present, a body within the woman's body. In the early stages, it's much like a cancer; just thrives and grows. We're just looking at it for what it is without putting any romanticism on it because, if you do, you'll block what the basic self is. Before birth, the basic self continues to build the body and then, when the body is brought forth into the world, the Soul enters into the expression. The basic self's job is to maintain that physical body and it will do it at almost any cost. It will kill in order to preserve itself. It will lie; it will cheat; in order to maintain the physical level, it will do all of these things that society says are immoral, bad or evil. It will go about this any way that it can. In that respect, it really is almost like an animal. And the job of the conscious self is to train it. At first, it is the parents who train this creature that we might call an animal, but that we lovingly call a baby. That is their job. The baby does have divinity within it because (in most cases) the Soul has entered into the consciousness; but the conscious self isn't developed enough to relate to another conscious self, so the child relates through its basic self to other basic selves. The basic selves can communicate just as well as the conscious selves communicate. Our high selves can communicate with one another in a similar way. We are on a great many levels of communication continually.

The basic self is the consciousness that releases karma to be worked out. Karma means action. But most people look upon this as negative because karma is of the negative realms, and it's going to force you into negative areas to accomplish, to become aware, and to gain knowledge of certain patterns. And it does its job very well. If you don't have knowledge of the basic self and how to work with it, walking around on this physical plane, attempting to keep yourself in balance, can become a very frightening experience. So the more knowledge you can have of the basic self and its job, the more carefully you can function with it and work with it.

Let's look at the basic self as being about a four or five-year-old you, inside of you that seems to have its own free will which it apparently uses a great deal. Little four and five-year-old children get their feelings hurt very easily. Part of their expression is, "You don't love me; I hate you.” And part of their expression is, "Sticks and stones will break your bones….” They are the ones that go into temper tantrums and rages--"Who do you think you are? You're upsetting me! How dare you interfere with me?” Part of their job is revenge. And a great part of their job is desire. These aren't bad things, in their proper place. But if that were the total force we were working with here, it would have been given complete reign, and we'd all just be a bunch of animals running around doing anything we could to anyone and trying to get away free. The conscious self is brought in to balance and to direct the lower self and to work as a mediator between the lower self and the Higher Self.

There are a lot of things that come with the physical body that are part of living on this plane; eating, sleeping, clipping fingernails, taking a shower periodically, cleaning up your room, doing the dishes, preparing food. Some people would rather starve than prepare food and others would rather prepare food than do anything else. Some people are pestered because they have to stop to eat, and others are pestered because they have to stop eating. There is certainly great individual expression coming out of the basic self. But all of that is part of this flow here on the physical. If you can understand that, you find that you don't have to let it hang you up. You won't let those things bother you; they're just part of this level.

The basic self isn't in the mind; it's in the emotions. It functions out of the stomach chakra a lot of the time. Youngsters function through the basic self level a great deal. If a child is playing with a toy and another child reaches out to take that toy, the first child will very likely hit the other child over the head with it and then go right on playing. And you think, "Why, you little animal!” That's pretty accurate. You might say, "Come on, let him play with the toy.” And he says, "No, it's mine and he can't play with it.” If you're smart, you'll say, "All right, keep your toy and don't let him play with it.” He says, "That's what I'm going to do.” If you take it away from him and give it to the other child, his basic self will start holding hate towards you; and years from now you're going to have trouble with that person because the basic self will still say, "You took things away from me. You rejected me. You betrayed me. And I'll get even some day.” And it will remember this and hold this pattern. If the conscious self does not want to hold that memory, the basic self may drop it into the unconscious, and every time somebody says a certain thing, it will key an irritation, and that person will react in negative patterns. The psychologists have been rather successful in working with these levels. And much of psychiatry relates with the basic level. (Psychiatrists rarely reach into the level of the High Self unless they are spiritually oriented.) Most of the time psychiatrists will work through the conscious self into the areas that they call the unconscious or the subconscious. Those levels are there, but the basic self is below that. And if you want to get to the source of the problems, you go to the basic self and get it to change its pattern and to "flow” so that it will tick the energy up and knock all the blocks out of the way. It can do this, and when it does, you'll say, "I feel so good. "

The way to make the basic self feel good is to love it --not to show affection--to love it. Affection is something you do with your wife or husband or those people who are close to you. We're talking about love, which says, "No matter what you do, I love you.” It's like when the baby dirties its diaper--you don't like the dirty diaper, but you love that baby. That type of love gets closer to spiritual love, the love that maintains and protects, the love of the mother who would give up her life before she'd let anyone hurt her child, the love of the husband who, at the threat of danger, puts his wife behind him and says, "You'll have to go through me first.” This love becomes the great love. Love says, "I won't interfere with what you're doing. If you want to do that, go right ahead. It's not going to hurt anybody. You can use that experience.” Affection gets in and says, "Don't do that if you love me.” It's the lower self that wants to get affectionate and close and procreate. That desire which is so strong in everyone comes from the basic self level.

Chapter Three
The Job of the Basic Self

The job of the basic self is to make sure the physical body maintains itself on the physical level. If you lose track of that, you lose track of the basic self and you'll fall on your face. If the Sugmad, the Supreme God, said to you as an individual, "Make sure that you keep $10.00 every week, no matter what happens, regardless of whatever anybody else says or thinks or does, because that is your job from now on” and you said, "I'll do it" and then if somebody came along and tried to get your $10.00, what would you do? You wouldn't let them have it if there was any way at all that you could prevent it. If it were your job, and you had been ordered by Supreme Being to do this, then you would do it; you would fight till your last breath in order to follow the wishes of the Creator. And, you see, that is what the basic self is doing. Its job is to maintain the physical body, to maintain physical functions and all those things that go with it. It keeps the body breathing, the circulation going, and all the bodily systems functioning, until it can establish these areas into habit patterns. It likes habits. So it starts setting up methodical procedures for you to go through. It will establish these according to the plan that you instituted for yourself before you came in. The basic self controls and implements the life plan until you're old enough to become responsible consciously. The basic self is usually the dominant consciousness up to about seven or eight years of age when the memory veil drops on the basic self. By that time the conscious self is coming across pretty strong; it's relating to a lot of people on a lot of levels. It's being educated and now it will begin to come forward and decide the direction it is going to go. As you get older, the lower self goes into patterns such as envy, greed, jealousy, avarice, lust, hatred--the negative expressions. It does not look at these negative patterns as being bad--that is a judgment of the conscious self and of the society. As an example, let's just look at lust in relation to sexual desires. The basic self says, "We must create,” and, for the most part, left unbridled, it would go ahead and express that pattern as often as it could. The basic self would not see this as being good or bad, and there would probably be little process of selection in who to go to bed with--it would be like, "Next”. This is its response level. There are a lot of people on this planet who are functioning out of their basic self level a tremendous amount of the time. It may be karmic that they do this. The sidewalk princesses, more popularly known as prostitutes, are often functioning out of this level. A lot of the aborigines are functioning out of the basic self level. That's the level they need; they're in the level of survival and they're going to survive. The basic self is tremendously wise. It knows your birth path and what to bring forward at certain times. But, remember that it wants to keep you here in the physical; that's its job. It is really not an enemy even though it may seem to come across like that some of the time.

Many basic selves will attempt to usurp the power of consciousness through bragging, conceit, ego, lust, desires, speaking authoritatively about things it really doesn't know anything about (which is a form of a lie), which causes deceit, which causes guilt, which causes reincarnation. And the basic self says, "Good, I get to come back and experience more.” If you can understand that the basic self attempts to maintain the physical body here on this realm for as long as possible, it can become a positive action because the greater the longevity on this plane, the greater is the opportunity to accomplish the tasks you have come in to accomplish for this lifetime. And then you can reach into the repository of karma, through Grace, and pull to you karma that you hadn't really contracted to finish this life-time and work through that ahead of schedule. You can elevate and move into the living free state rather rapidly.

To hold you here, the basic self plays its games of repetition. It plays its games of guilt and anxiety. It's important to remember that when you start on the spiritual path, the negative power will move in toward you to test you. And this is its job- -to make sure that you really do master those things that you say you have mastered. The tests rarely come to you consciously because you're too sharp. You'd say, "I'm not going to do that.” So they move in on the level of the basic self, into your desire pattern or your ego pattern or your pattern of authority or whatever happens to be the chink in your armor. It does its action there, which manifests as a "woe is me” type of week. Sometimes you'll feel a great love inside of you that you want to express and the basic self says, "Not on your life. “Consciously you want to express this and the basic self says, "If you do, they're going to misrepresent and misinterpret that love. They'll think you're after somebody's spouse.” Most people in MSIA have realized that people can hug and love and not mean anything beyond just that. And if you don't see that person again, it's okay. In that realization you transcend the basic self and move into the High Self. All of your negative picking at other people's characters has come out of your basic self. It lets you know where you are on the spiritual path. It lets you know that you cannot sit in judgment of anyone because you're still down on that basic self level, on the physical level, and that's about as low and as negative as you can get on this plane.

I often look at the Peanuts cartoon and see Lucy setting up the ball for Charlie Brown, and just about the time Charlie Brown goes to kick, Lucy's basic self moves the ball. She doesn't really want to move it. That's the basic self that yanks the ball away. It's a pretty good example of a basic self doing its number: cajoling, pampering, persuading, getting the conscious self to move in its direction, and then betraying it. You have to watch it carefully because it will make you think you're really something special and then set you up for the big come-down. It can be so subtle that you won't even be aware that it is the basic self creating these patterns.

A great deal of the time the conscious self works as a mediator between the lower self and the High Self. If the feeling comes up, "I'd like to hit you right in the nose"--that's the basic self. The conscious self says, "No, I won't do that.” And the High Self says, "Love them. That will clear things faster.” The High Self's approach is more in the area of the lofty ideals. When you consciously start to lift yourself spiritually and you start to think of God, you don't think of your basic self because you've been told that all those things that the basic self wants to express are evil and terrible and rotten and filthy. And so you feel that God cannot be found within because all those negative desires are within. So you place this type of judgment against your basic self, and it is a spiritual crime to do so because the job of the basic self is to maintain those negative levels. From that point of view, it is all right and proper. But the conscious self can educate the basic self. You don't often let a little four-year-old run your life. How often have you taken counsel of what a four-year-old tells you to do? The four-year-old comes up and says, "I love you, Daddy.” And you say, "I love you, too.” He says, "Give me a cookie.” You say, "No.” He says, "I hate you, Daddy.” You say, "That's okay; I love you anyway” and you go on with the things you know are best for the child: Or the four-year-old comes up and asks, "Do you love me?” You say, "Yes.” He says, "I don't love you." If you say, "I don't love you either,” he might say, "I tricked you. I really do love you.” And you think, "What am I supposed to say to this child--'go away, you bother me'?” If it's your own child you can't very well say that. And yet, this is so close to what the basic self within you is doing, and it is "your child” too.

Chapter Four
The Expression of the Lower Consciousness

The lower self wants to have expression on this level so it can evolve upward through this experience. It wants as much expression as it can have and as much experience. However, we know that it will inflict itself on others; so we have to monitor the lower self responses. In other words, you can't go out and walk down the street naked to show you have a beautiful body because that's not accepted in our society. (In some societies it might be all right.) But we've pretty much been trained by our parents which areas of expression are all right and which are not. Parents have done a fine job, for the most part. There are a lot of areas that we don't go into because we know they would be an affront or an infliction on other people. And society has termed it "morality,” which is fine if you can hold to that and if it works for you. But if it starts becoming a block against you, you might want to look at it a little more carefully. There are great discrepancies in what different churches say is right and wrong--and the whole area of morality can become confusing and make it difficult to decide what way to go and what expression to manifest. You know, you can explain to people and teach them that fire will burn, and they will stay away from it. You can teach them that holding their head under water for a long time will cause them to drown, and they will not do that. But you try to explain to them about sex and they'll ignore you. They have to find out for themselves. Everyone's going to get involved with this level because this is the biggest area through which the basic self functions. And this is the one that religion has said is evil and terrible. It's not so. Sex is an expression of procreation, even though procreation may not be the result. And the more the basic self can get the consciousness to focus back in towards the body and place its concern with the body, the greater its control is over you. The basic self's concern is the physical body and the negative patterns (not bad) that relate to it. If it can get the conscious self to enter into these same areas of concern, it will be able to more easily direct the conscious self into the fulfillment of those patterns.

Those involved with meditation say "focus within.” And many of you, as you start focusing within in an attempt to meditate, drop back and then you think, "Gee, I'd like to have a beer.” So out you go to the refrigerator to get a beer for the basic self. You feel pretty good about that and you sit down to go back into meditation, and as you start back in, the basic self says, "Now, we have to go to the bathroom. So you think, "Well, that goes with the drinking” so you're out of meditation again and you think, "I'll meditate later.” And the basic self says, "Right, let's go eat. “ So after you eat, you feel pretty good and think you'll try to meditate again, but this time you think, "I'll lie on the bed to do this.” So you lie down to meditate, and the next morning you wake up thinking, "I don't know what's going on here. My meditation's terrible. I'm not getting anywhere.” You're having a lot of "fun” with your basic self. You're probably pretty well aware that it is your lower self that causes this type of pattern. It plays sharp games and numbers. It's watched us make mistakes time and time again, and it says, "I know I can get you to do what I want if I can get you to do this one thing because then I can get you over here where I can do this.” And sometimes you feel like, "How on earth did I get here? What am I doing over here? I didn't even want to come here.” Your basic self says, "Yeah, but like it here. And I'll keep creating frustrations and anxieties and apprehensions until you do what I want.” Some basic selves want you to lift into Spirit so you'll leave them alone. They'll say, “Come on, look to God. That's where it all is. And then leave me alone.” And this type of basic self is lazy; it won't even digest your food well. You'll start putting on weight and you might think, "Gee, I should go down and get my driver's license renewed,” and the basic self says, "Later.” So you say, "Ah, I'll do it later. I'm tired now. I think I'll watch television. "It says, "You're too tired even to turn it on.” So you ask someone else to turn it on for you, and he does it to please you. In this type of pattern the High Self and its direction is almost forgotten, and you are allowing your basic self to run your life, which it will do if you give it the opportunity.

It is important to have knowledge of the actions of the basic self so if you sit down to meditate and it says, "I'm hungry. I need a glass of water. I need to find out who is down at the pool hall. I wonder what shows are downtown. I wonder if that dress is still in the window at the store,” you will know what to do. These patterns are the basic self doing its number. It wants to keep you going into the physical world because then it can have more experiences. But a lot of times experiences bring karma to you. So if you don't do, you might be further ahead. If you really don't know which way you're going, don't move. A key here is--if in doubt, don't do. Some people say, "But what if I miss m y opportunity?” Don't be afoot Opportunities come around every day, every second when you open your consciousness. They'll come so fast that you'll have to be careful not to feel guilty that you're missing them. They're here all the time. If the opportunity comes in when someone tells you, "I know where you can get a good job, but you're going to have to apply for it right now. The job's open; it's what you want,” and you think, "Ah, I can't leave my present job to go down there," that's basic self saying, "I have security here. I'm comfortable here: I can't chance it.” Your friend says, "Look, it's what you've been asking for. They're hiring right now. They pay $12,000 a month. You have all the qualifications. The job's practically yours--go apply.” If you say, "No, I can't risk my $98.90 a week. What if you're lying to me? What if they've already hired someone else?” This is the basic self saying, "I doubt you. I'm skeptical about you. I think you're wrong. You must be the evil one.” The conscious self may want to move into the new direction but the basic self drags back and won't flow into the new area. When you feel this sort of separation, your consciousness drags and you feel the earth pulling heavy on you, and you say, "I'm weary, I'm just tired. I'm fed up.” Stop letting your basic self run your life. Have you ever had fears that something terrible was going to happen; you just knew it, and then nothing happened? You don't have to take counsel of your basic self and all its emotional fears. How often have you been betrayed by your emotions? Often. Then why take counsel of its fear and trepidation? When something comes up--look at it coming towards you and say, "Let's see if I'm to get involved here or if I'm just to pass by it. “You don't have to jump into anything right away. You can help the basic self to work and to relate to you by asking the Light for assistance and clarification. If you place a decision, for example, in- the Light and nothing happens, it might just be that there is no clarification at that point. So you don't move either way. You might say, "That has to be put aside for now. I can't decide yes or no. The timing doesn't appear to be right. It's not going to work right now so I'll keep right on making my bed and hanging up my clothes and doing my laundry and just maintaining the physical level, breathing, eating and sleeping. I'll continue on with that.” Then every so often you might reach into that direction again and ask, "Father, is it time now?” And one day you may find yourself walking down the street and meeting someone and everything falls in place and you say, "This was what I was after two weeks ago. And it appeared so perfectly right now.” It's there for you when you're working in the Light Consciousness.

One night I turned on the television and caught the last part of a movie about a lady who turned into a wasp. I saw about the last seven minutes of the show and thought, "That would have been an interesting movie to have seen from the beginning. How could she have gotten to that state?” I could have gone back and pulled the record and reviewed it for myself but it was only the basic self that was curious so I went on about other things. Then, not too much later, I was again watching television and tuned into the movie at the beginning; and all the way through it, I kept thinking that I'd seen it before. But it wasn't until it got to the last few minutes that I realized what was going on and then I just flipped the channel and went on to something else. But the desires that we place outdo come back to us. We do get a chance to be involved. But we have to place ourselves in a position where we can become involved. We have to be open.

Often the basic self does not want to be open because it gets hurt--"You hurt me. You don't love me. I don't love you.” And yet, if you say, "I don't love you either,” it says, "Don't say that. I want to hurt you, but don't you hurt me. I was playing m y game to make you jealous, but don't you do that; I can't take it.” It is the basic self that does this pattern. It's the one that says, "1 want this and I want this and I want this.” It will steal and do all sorts of other things because it figures that the more you have to handle down here on the physical, the more likely you are to stay here, the more involved you'll be in this plane. And that's its job. If you try to prevent it from fulfilling its job, it will try to extinguish your life force. It will attempt to make you commit suicide. It will make you give up. It will say, "Give up. It isn't worth living. Who cares? There's nothing to live for. Go kill yourself.” Thank God for fear because you say, "I would, but I'm afraid. What if I go to hell? What if .....?” So you don't commit suicide and the next day you feel better, and you think, "I'm sure glad I didn't kill myself last night. Today everything seems okay.” So you learn that when you get these feelings of "I wish I were dead,” you have your fingers crossed; you don't really mean it. You find out that these feelings come and go and so you don't activate them or give them a lot of energy. I'd venture to say that most people who read this have, at some time, thought about committing suicide. But you didn't because you really didn't mean it. The basic self was just doing its number with you. If you're not going to take counsel of that, why take counsel of these other blocks that it throws towards you when you want Soul Transcendence?

Generally the basic self feels that if you go into spiritual things you're going into positive consciousness, and it cannot go into positive consciousness because it's tied to the physical body and to the negative realms. So you are threatening it with extinction. And with that threat of extinction, it does all sorts of things to try to protect itself. It brings up--"I hate you, I doubt you, you're not divine, you can't reach Soul Consciousness, you're a liar, a fraud, a quack, you're dishonest, you're a thief, you’re a prostitute, “etc. It uses all sorts of names. If it can get you to believe the label and accept it, it can hold you here. But it can only label on the physical realm. If you say, "I'm an alcoholic,” you’re locked in to that. It's got you anchored here. If you say, "I'm expressing alcoholism,” you’re not locking yourself in to it. If somebody says you're an alcoholic, you can accept that and pass it right on by. Sometimes, however, people accept but they forget to let go. Acceptance means no holding. Acceptance is a flow of consciousness which continually moves on to the next thing.

The conscious self can have great wisdom if it will. And the basic self can have tremendous wisdom if it will. And each one wants to assert its own will over the other one. When the conscious self asserts its will it is really quite powerful. But in a show-down of willpower with the basic self, nine times out of ten, the basic will win. But when it comes to using the imagination, nine times out often, the conscious self will win, because the basic can only accept what consciousness places in it. So if you maintain a positive image of completion, the basic self will accept it and work with it. If you place an image forward, the basic sees it and goes to work to make it come about; it asserts energy into those levels to bring it about. If you don't move on it consciously, if you abandon that direction, your basic self will move toward completion anyway. And then you feel split; you might feel "all spaced out,” lice you're not getting anything accomplished. Those feelings come out of the basic level when you've been an irresponsible creator, when you've started projects that you won't complete. You forgot to tell the basic self that you weren't going to finish that and it feels betrayal. If you're going to put something into motion, let the basic self know that you're going to do that; and if you do not intend to complete that which you start, it might be best to tell the basic self that, also, so that it will not continue channeling energy into that area. Or you might be able to program the basic to consider each project finished as soon as the conscious self stops working in that direction. Otherwise those things that you have left unfinished will frustrate you and pull on you. Probably the best way to handle this area is simply to finish what you start so the basic self will have the satisfaction of completion.

We told you what the basic self will do when you try to meditate. Now we'll tell you what it can do when you move towards Soul Transcendence. You sit back and start to do your spiritual exercises, and you're relatively sure that the Mystical Traveler will be there if you get out of the body. At least you hope he will be because you "don't want to fall.” That's the basic self. What do you mean, "fall"? You don't fall; you float. It's your body that's heavy, not the Spirit. Soul is Light; it rises. It lifts into higher and higher frequencies. It's the basic self that is afraid the body will fall. If that's what you're afraid of, tie yourself to the chair or lie down on the floor. Someone once asked me, "What happens if I fall over while I'm doing my spiritual exercises?” I said, "You'll wake up.” And he looked at me like--"That's a dumb answer.” But it was a dumb question. If you fall over doing your spiritual exercises, you'll wake up. You've all fallen before; you've tripped and fallen or slipped and fallen. It didn't kill you. You're still here. Why take counsel of those fears? Why let that bother you? Lie flat on the floor and do the exercises if you're afraid of falling. But you say, "If I lie down I fall asleep.” Then stand up. Sit in a chair. Get a recliner. If you fall asleep, that may be the basic self wanting you to work it through, or it may be that you cannot take the expanded consciousness of Soul Transcendence and so you blank yourself out so you can do it in an unconscious type of state. But you will do it. That's the nice thing about it. You will begin to have small successes and you will be encouraged. You'll learn to go a little further each time. But first of all you have to put yourself in a position to do it. Remember that the block is the lower self which says, "I don't want the spiritual. I don't want you to leave the body. I want you to stay here because I don't want to die. I want to live. What if something happens to the body while you're out? What if you don't get back? What if I die?” And here you're not even into Soul Transcendence because you're doing a "What if I ....?” approach and those things that you fear won't take place. You've been in and out of the body many times, but often you're just not aware of what it is. It's a detached state, but it's a beautiful feeling. It's the highest high you can have while you're in the physical body and not spaced out on some sort of chemical drug. In fact, if you take chemicals while you're in Soul Transcendence, it will slap you back in your body and hold you there. So on that level, you won't go too far, but on the spiritual level, you'll start lifting. Often you'll either hear other people talk about their transcendental experiences or you'll read about them in discourses, and you'll think, "Maybe it's okay. I feel pretty good about it. I think I could do it.” Then the next day or so you sit down to practice the spiritual exercises and you think, "I'm scared to death. I'll wait till next week. "Sometimes the Light will touch to you very powerfully and you'll feel as One with everything and think, "I'm ready, John-Roger. Let's go anytime. Right now.” And you start to feel something moving inside of you and you say, "Wait a minute. What's that? I wasn't ready for that.” So your consciousness may be placed in a capsule of Light and the Mystical Traveler reaches in and reinforces the Soul Energy until you start feeling it bursting within you, and then you say, "I know what Soul is. I have it. I feel it. Why didn't I feel this before?” You cannot feel the movement of the Soul while you are still expressing greed and anger and lust and avarice and the other basic self responses that are inherent within the human body. We don't attempt to get rid of those responses, but we do attempt to understand them and place them where they belong.

Chapter Five
Directing and Monitoring the Basic Self

When you have experienced the higher realms of Light and the Sound, you may feel so very miserable when you come back into the physical body because this world isn't all it's cracked up to be. One lady who had consciously experienced the higher realms of Light and Sound was feeling so miserable until it was explained to her that you must keep balanced spiritually by doing physical things to keep the basic self happy. So she went out and had what she called an "earthy night” dancing and having dinner with friends, laughing and telling jokes. She said, "It wasn't spiritual” but I have news for her--it was spiritual. It was just in another form for the basic self. She said, "Now that I'm balanced I feel so much better.” And now she is able to move into a more conscious way of Soul Transcendence. She doesn't have to go to sleep to reach into it. She can just lean back and recall the technique of how to exteriorize; and then she can open her eyes and be here and be there in consciousness simultaneously. And this is the idea of multi-dimensional awareness. Everyone has it. It's just that your awareness has been locked in to the lower responses for so long. Maybe you have really identified with the physical body for hundreds of incarnations. If you were your physical body you would really be in trouble. But if you say, "I'm using this body to go through this physical level and I'm using the basic self to maintain physical balance,” then you have identified accurately what these levels are, and you will find that you will be able to work with them more freely.

You take care of the physical body and learn what its patterns are so you can function with it more easily. Then when you want to transcend the consciousness into Soul, you can sit down and make sure the room is not too hot or too cold, that you don't have uncomfortable clothing on, that you're not hungry or too full, that there is no bladder or bowel pressure. In other words, you do all these things for the basic self; you work to see that these levels are taken care of so the basic self will work with you in your direction. When it is cooperating, it will shoot energy up to you and you'll feel so lifted. You do feel lifted when you are taking care of yourself. You feel lifted because the basic self isn't placing any demands toward you or toward the environment. You have to handle that level. If you don't, it will place demands on you in the form of disease, which really says that you're not letting that level flow. When you experience disease, anger, pain, or emotional hurt, your basic self is going through it, too. And sometimes when the conscious self says, "I'll learn from this,” the basic self says, "You nut! What kind of a nut have I got for consciousness? Couldn't you just have a little compassion?” So you say, "Okay, I'll go home where they can't pick on me.” And the basic self says, "Thank God,” as you move the body out of the situation. If you don't want to move, you can sit and just hold still. But you can walk all day with a rock in your shoe, too. We'll do this. We'll know there's a rock in our shoe and we'll move it around so it's not too uncomfortable, but wouldn't it be easier to just take it out?

The basic self wants survival. It wants comfort. But it doesn't have the wisdom to select accurately. So you monitor it consciously. And sometimes you don't have the wisdom to monitor it so you ask the sigh Self, but you may not know if the High Self is watching so you might ask for the Light for the highest good; you might ask the Father which direction to take. And the answers can come forward rapidly. As soon as you say, "I don't know,” you’re in good territory because you've left yourself open to receive. But when you say, "I know. I know, "that's the basic self, and it doesn't know. If it did it would just blab it right out. This is why you'll sometimes say, "I just can't keep my mouth shut. I'm an impulsive talker.” Unless you can monitor your mouth, you can't monitor too much of anything else. If you can't monitor the food you're taking in and words you're putting out, you're going to have a difficult time monitoring any level. You may find yourself having difficulty on the job, in your marriage, in many areas. How do you monitor your mouth? Put your hand over it. If you start talking, you'll know it right away. You know that you are held responsible for what you say. It pays to be careful about what you put into motion because it will come back to you. Many times in counseling, I tell people, "Keep your mouth shut. "I don't counsel, "When in doubt, blab all you know.” When in doubt, keep quiet and just observe. As you begin to direct and monitor your basic self, as you become the "boss” of the household, you will find yourself lifting tremendously and the things that used to disturb you and throw you may still shake you up a little bit--but they won't throw you. And later on you might say, "When I heard that, it shook, but not me.” And you may say, "when people say, guess what I heard about you?' I still get that cold feeling, but I say, 'Okay, tell me. I'm not afraid. "Or you could answer, "I'll tell you what you heard about me. If you've heard anything different, you'd better go back and check your information level, but I'll tell you all about me if you'd like to .chow.” And you can just tell them every cuss word you know and every time you looked in a window you weren't supposed to and every little box of beebees you picked up and put in your pocket when you weren't supposed to, or about the hubcaps or mirrors or lipstick or mascara that you took when you shouldn't have. Tell them those things and other people will start laughing and say, "I did that, too." It's your attitude that you have to watch when you're relating with the basic self. You watch it with love. You watch it with boundary lines. You consciously direct the basic self, "No, we won't go into this, but we will do that. “If the basic self drinks too heavily, don't go into a bar; that's a good way to stop it. If you have the alcohol at home, move. I knew a man who was expressing as an alcoholic who moved up the mountains in the Montana-Wyoming area so that when he got thirsty for a drink, he had to go ten miles to town either by horseback or by buck-board. And by the time he'd gone most of the ten miles, he would lose his desire for the alcohol and he'd turn around and go home. He stopped drinking. He no longer expresses as an alcoholic. If you can't overcome that thing that tempts you, get out of the situation. A friend of mine told me he was having a hard time not smoking marijuana because "all my friends smoke. "I said, "Do they shove the marijuana cigarette in your mouth and light it for you?” He said, "No, I do that." I said, "Then what's this trouble with your friends? The trouble's with you, not your friends.” He said, "If I don't smoke with them they won't think I'm their friend.” I said, "You mean your friendship is based on whether you smoke a marijuana cigarette or not?” He looked at me and said, "Yes, I guess that's about it." I said, "What happens when you're not smoking?” He said, "I'm not around them." I said, "Are you getting loaded all the time?” He said, "No." I said, "Who are you around when you're not smoking marijuana?” He said, "I've got some pretty neat friends who don't smoke." I asked him what they thought of smoking marijuana. He said, "They tell me if I want to smoke, to go ahead, but they don't want to smoke.” And he looked at me and said, "I guess I've been pretty thick-headed, haven't I? I thought those people who are smoking were my friends, but if they'd throw me out because I don't smoke, they're not really my friends, are they?” I said, "You decide all that.” He said, "I don't think I have to go into those things anymore.” But his basic self had identified that certain way and needed to hold on to that identification. Now, his basic self is getting a new identification, one with which his conscious self feels more comfortable.

You have to determine if your basic self is passive or active so that you can work with it in the most effective way. If it's passive, you can tell it what to do-- "We will lose weight. We will change this. We will not do that. We will do this.” And it will go right along with your direction. But if your basic self is active and you say, "We won't do this,” it says, "Get lost. We're going to do it anyway.” It really will. And if its will is powerful enough, it can assert its will and win. One thing to keep in mind though, is that basic self cannot endure as long as the conscious mind can. It will let up sooner. So all you have to do is endure. That pain that you feel is being created by the basic self, but it feels it even more than you do consciously because it's closer to the "fire." It's right there and you're only reflecting it. By doing spiritual exercises you can pull your consciousness away and focus into God, and the basic self will then stop its action because it can't take the hurt. It's a coward in many senses of the word. It will use everything it can to get its way. It will feign illness or histrionics; it will over-dramatize, lie, bluster, bully--anything--to get its way. Once you realize this, you can sort of hold back and let the basic self do its number. It will run its course. It will throw depressions and irritation your way. It will try to block you from High Self because the High Self usually functions through the basic to reach the consciousness; but when consciousness goes directly to High Self, the basic self says, "I'm being left out.” So it will try to block by pulling you down through doubt, skepticism, fear, worries, anxieties, fear of poverty, etc. You'll go out and work madly to get money to make the basic self feel secure, and there's a good chance that while you're doing that, you are creating a lot of karma, especially if you go after money in a deceitful way. And the karma will bring you back to the earth plane and the basic self can come along, which is what it wants. It has its greatest existence here on the physical realm. The job of the conscious self is to educate the basic self, to maintain control and direction of the life plan.

Chapter Six
Loving and Cooperating with Your Self

The Mystical Traveler Consciousness is valuable in the inner realms because It can reach into the levels of the basic self and, without interfering, It can stabilize the action so that you have a reference point to turn to if you want to; if you don't, it's okay. If you are having difficulty in these levels, the Mystical Traveler Consciousness is therefore your assistance. Once we have said we'll work together, I do my work 100%. I never stop working with you for one second. I'm not about to because that would completely defeat what's going on, and the God-Essence cannot be defeated. That's an impossibility, so rather than attempting to live in the basic level, which is living in impossibility, you might as well live in the higher consciousness because that is your ultimate destiny. The basic self will rarely go against the spiritual thrust when you are working directly with the Mystical Traveler Consciousness because it sees the action very clearly during those times. But it is when you turn from the Consciousness of Light and the Mystical Traveler that the basic self becomes confused and fearful and starts playing its games in an effort to find security and comfort. Keeping the Mystical Traveler Consciousness in the forefront of your consciousness will quiet the basic self and help to direct it.

You must work with your basic self in cooperation and love if you want its support. If you start berating your basic self, you can produce arthritis, rheumatism, cancer, tuberculosis, or a lot of other diseases. It is so much nicer to say to your basic self, "You did a pretty good job today, and tomorrow we'll do even better.” And if it has said some unwise things, tell it, "Our impetuosity got us in trouble again; I should have monitored you more closely.” And then next time, assert your conscious control and keep your mouth shut. You have to let the basic know that what you are doing is going to make things lighter and easier and more full and more complete--"This is good for us. We're doing this to be together.” When people talk to themselves, they are, for the most part, talking to their basic self--"I'll tell them this. I should have said this. Next time, I'll say that.” But do be careful what you program in because the basic has a great memory and will hold to those patterns that have been programmed in.

When the basic self is disturbed and can't handle a situation, it wants to have something to do to release its feelings of discomfort. So a lot of times, it will want you to eat a great deal. While you have food in your stomach, the basic self is working so it feels better because it is fulfilling its job. Or it likes you to drink a great deal or smoke a great deal because that gives it something to do and quiets it down. Or sometimes it will just tap the hands or jiggle the foot or bite the fingernails--it wants to be doing something. But for the most part, it wants to complete all the things you've left uncompleted. This is a big part of its action. So your job is cut out for you. You complete those physical areas that are the basic self's area of concern. Make the bed, clean the house, write those letters, do the dishes, etc. When you have accomplished what you have to do, it stops pushing you so that you can be quiet and know God. Until the physical areas are handled adequately, it is very difficult to move into the higher levels. When you take care of things on the physical level and then when you are beginning to move into the higher levels, the basic self will be functioning well, too, and it says, "I like you.” And for the first time, you may be saying, "I really love myself. I'm pretty contented. I'm enjoying things. This is a beautiful place.” This can be a big break-through. When you can recognize that this is a beautiful place and that you don't mind living here, you're really getting ready to handle the inner realms of Light. But as long as you say, "The maggots and worms can have this place--I hate it,” you will be coming back again and again and again. That which you fear most will come upon you. That which is your weakness will be thrust upon you so that you can learn to handle it. If you're afraid the internal revenue service is going to audit you, they're going to audit you. Let them do it. The second time it won't be as bad. The third time you'll know what to do, and the fourth time you'll be an old hand at it, and they'll never come back the fifth. You'll be free because by that time, it won't make any difference one way or the other. Tests are not tribulations. They are areas of revealment. You reveal unto yourself where you have to work and what you have to do. Just say, "This is neat,” and go toward each test. You can't get away from it; so you might just as well go toward it and clear it. Or maybe you're to learn patience or experience a certain level to learn compassion. There are so many possibilities. And all you have to do in any situation is control and direct yourself in a positive consciousness.

The basic self will be so much easier to work with if you understand that its job is body maintenance, memory, emotions, habits, and releasing karma. There can be more love and friendliness between consciousness and basic self when you know what its levels of expression are because then you can perceive an end to it and you can perceive what will be beyond it. Those people who continually harass the basic self have to be responsible for everything that they sow. The laws of responsibility function here also. So while you're being free consciously, also be responsible to the lower self. When you look in the mirror in the morning or in the evening and look in your eyes, just say to the basic self, "I love you very much. We're going to work together. It's going to be okay. You keep the energy moving up and I'll give you good positive direction that will lift us both and help us all.” Until you work these techniques you'll never know if they're true or not. But if you do them, you'll find out that they do work.

You can't go into situations in a slipshod manner. Put the Light ahead of you. Put the Light around the situation. Ask for the highest good, and then be willing to move on that ray of the highest good. It may mean that you turn around and walk away from someone and say, "I'm just not part of that.” He may say, "But you said you were with me.” And you might answer, "I honestly thought I was, but the Light is just not in this action. And I can't go against that guidance.” To find your destiny you have to walk, many paths and, while you're waking the path of the physical, if you keep contact with the spiritual Light, then it matters very little where you put your feet or your head or what you do. It really matters very little because you'll be living in the consciousness of Light, which will be wherever you find yourself--in Los Angeles or Bermuda, in your own home or at a friend's home or in a hotel, at a seminar, at work, wherever. You consciously direct yourself all the time. None of us live in the power of the high spiritual Light all the time. You can't hold that Light physically. The power would burn you up. I don't hold that power on the body all the time. We move out of the body into Soul Transcendence. That's the difference. And we reside there, and then we come back into the body and carry on our affairs here. We learn to shift levels rapidly until it might look like we're constantly there. But if you attempt to bring the power in and hold it physically, you'll never reach Soul Transcendence because there would be no need to go anywhere. That Light has to be lifted up from you so you will reach and thrust into it; that's the only way you can live--not exist, live. The body, the emotions, the mind, the unconscious, and the basic self, move through this world, but you can live in the Soul and walk through the Soul World. You can do that while you are still here. It's not a promise. It's a reality. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to. But it can be done. It's being done by so many people in MSIA who used to wonder what Soul Transcendence was, and now they are getting that conscious awareness of it. But the basic self gets impatient, and if it can, it will make you feel that the "urging of Spirit” is upon you--"I have to do this because the Spirit urges me.” That's an illusion; the Spirit doesn't urge anyone. It's always been here. It's always going to be here. What difference does one more day make? Man urges, that's all. Spirit doesn't. Spirit is. And when you move into the state of just being, where things are, everything is there; everything is complete and perfect. It always has been and it always will be. We are merely awakening ourselves into the awareness of this perfect plan and of its manifestations on many levels; and so, as part of this awakening, we extend our love to the basic selves.

My love to you.
John-Roger