The spirit builds its own walls of identity and eventually the walls will contain the spirit. Be careful what walls you build. Remember, a single strand of spider web will almost break in a gentle breeze. However, wrap enough strands of spider web together and they become stronger than steel.
When we are born into this human world of existence, we have no self-identity. You do not have an self-identity such as I am Joe, I am Suzy, I am a boy or I am a girl. The name which becomes the label for their self-identity means nothing to them until more and more of the years of their life start becoming the past. True, different babies are born with different temperaments, with their own little differences , which some will call different personalities. For example, different babies react differently to loud noises. Different babies react differently to cold and hot temperatures. Some cry more than others. Some sleep more at night. Some sleep more during the day. However, this is not to be confused with personality.
The word personality comes from the Latin word Persona. The word Persona originally meant “character in a drama, mask”.
We have been encouraged since even before we came out of our mother's womb to choose an identity for ourselves that the rest of humanity can relate and identify with. The mother and the father are already speaking to the baby in the womb and telling it what they would like it to be after it is born. Telling it how they would like it to act, think, look, desire and live.
From the moment we come into this world in our human body, we have family and well-wishers all around us. The parents, relatives, friends, even strangers, start giving the baby ideas of who it is - who it is according to the one doing the telling. They say, "You are really a pretty girl. You are really a handsome little boy." "You are a Moslem. You are a Christian. You are Jewish. You are white. You are black. You are Indian. You are Chinese. You are this. You are that”. They are essentially planting in our receptive mind the thoughts of whom they think we are, who they want us to think we are. They are saying how much better he or she would look if his or her hair were a different color, straighter, or curlier. They say his or her nose is too big, too small or crooked. They are saying his or her ears are too big, too small. They are saying how much better the child would look if the skin was a little lighter or a little darker. They are saying, “Look, he looks just like his father, mother, sister, brother, Aunt Sara, Uncle Harry”, or any of the other characters or personas of the family and society we are born into.
We, at the moment or in the weeks following our birth, do not understand these comparisons but eventually we understand them more and more. As the child gets older and older, especially when the child starts putting words into sentences, the internal dialogue begins. Internal dialogue such as "I am like this. I am like that. I am not like that. I am pretty. I am cute. I am big. I am small. I am black. I am white. I would look so much better if my skin was a little lighter, let me buy some skin-lightening cream. I would look so much better if my skin was a little darker, let me go to a tanning salon". This is the beginning of the baby creating a self-identity. A "who am I and who I am" process. "Who am I? Who are you? This is what I am. This is what you are."
We see we have five fingers and five toes and our household pets do not. Therefore we think “I must not be a dog, a cat, a snake or a rat”. We look in the mirror and imagine we look like some hero figure we have come across in some book, movie or some story we have heard. We look in the mirror and see a similarity to some other spirit-human we have seen. We start school and have our teachers and other students telling us who and what we are. Some say we are funny looking. Some say we are neat. Some of these descriptions we agree with, some we do not. We start reading books and start to identify with characters in the books, whether fictional, science-fictional, or non-fictional. We start watching commercials on television telling us we need to have this, need to have that, all to bring a better “face” to the world.
As we go through our younger years surrounded by all kinds of people, who for all kinds of reasons, are attempting to tell us who we are, who we are not, what we like, what we do not like and what we should like, or be, as we get older and older. We entertain all these possibilities. Some we accept. Some we do not accept. Some we accept and later decide we are not. Some we do not accept and later decide that we are actually like that after all.
We usually do not remember any of these happenings until we start using language more and more. Before we use language to express ourselves and to think of things, to compartmentalize our different emotion-thoughts, we were aware but did not have the tool of language to file things and experiences away in the filing cabinet of our mind for later retrieval and comparison to other filed thoughts. Once we start using language and the more and more we understand what others are saying to us, we begin to learn that sometimes in life it is best that others do not really see our TRUE face. We are taught to say thank you, even if we do not like the socks we got for a present from Aunt Molly. We are taught to be nice to Cousin Johnny or Cousin Susie when they are visiting us even though we cannot stand them and wish they did not exist. Aunt Sally wants to kiss us but we cannot stand her wet kisses, so we stiffen our backbone and close our eyes until it is over and we can run away from her.
We learn very early to put on a “mask” so the world does not see our true feelings. We are rewarded by the world for showing a false self, a mask, instead of showing our true face. We become more and more a character in a drama and not the spontaneous spirit-human that we truly are. We develop a personality, a persona, a mask suitable for the occasion. We have one persona for the general world, one persona for our teachers, one persona for our boss at work, one persona for the authority of the government, one persona for the other personas in our favorite bar, one persona ofr our mother, one persona for our father, one persona for our brother or sister, one persona or many different persona for the males and females with whom we desire to have intimate relationships. We have a persona of toughness to protect us from harm. We have a persona of softness to get what we want from some other persona if we think this persona of softness will work on them.
This “putting on a mask” is what I mean by the spirit building its own walls of identity. In fact, within not too long of time, we start believing we are the body we see in a mirror and forget that we are in actuality the spirit looking at “our” body. We start identifying with our persona and actually thik we are our persona. “there is a saying in the acting industry. It is, in essence, “Sometimes the actor so identifies with the character acted that the person starts believing he or she is the character acted.” We believe we are Mr. or Ms. Cool, Mister White Cool, Miss. White Cool, Mister Black Cool, Miss Black Cool, the dancer, the candlestick maker, the doctor, the lawyer, the criminal, the cop, the preacher or the freedom fighter, the hero or the martyr, or whatever of the many personas we show to the world just to pay our bills or to relate with others in the game of human-existence.
The longer we are involved in showing a certain “persona”, a certain personality to the world, the more concrete this persona, this personality, this mask becomes. It is like a female getting used to wearing makeup before she goes out of her home to interact with the world. In time she will not feel comfortable going out into the world without putting on her makeup. I remember my mother when she was over 80 telling me before we were to go out anywhere that she needed a few minutes to “put on her face”. I know we all like some of the images offered by painted faces, both male and female, but I always thought it was sad that she had to “put on her face” before she felt comfortable just to go to the grocery store.
We repeat something long enough, it becomes a habit. We keep repeating it and it become a stronger and stronger habit. The bonds of habit become almost unbreakable.
However almost unbreakable the bonds of habit are – they are breakable. They are breakable the same way we built them in the first place. One step at a time. One silken strand at a time. The only way to break the bond, the wall of the persona you have developed over the years is to start immediately building new strands of freedom silk. Go out into the world WITHOUT your favorite lipstick, your favorite fake head of hair and say to the world, “Here I am”. If your head of hair is your pride and joy, shave your head and go to work the next day. Say, “Regardless of the change in my appearance, I am still me. Take me or leave me, but at least I am me and no one else. I am good hearted. I am kind. I am beautiful in my own way and forever will be. I am competent, I can do my job, I can do what you require of me. If I stumble, forgive me and help me to get back up and try again. I mean well, and this is the most important part of my relationship with the world and the other spirit-humans in the world.” How many people never enjoy singing praise to God because they think their voice sounds terrible? It is the joy in the voice that is beautiful. To the ears, the sound is what counts. But to the heart, it is the joyful soulfulness in the song of the child of God that is the MOST beautiful. I look into the eyes of an old spirit-human that has the most creased, unpainted face I have even seen and what do I see? I see the beautiful soulfulness of the eyes looking back at me. The eyes are truly windows to the soul.
Being kind to others does not mean that you have to have a false persona. It just means that you have to carry kindness in your heart. Kindness in your heart will always be felt through whatever persona they see, through whatever mask you have on. Forget your persona and just radiate the kindness in your heat that you are. They cannot destroy what you radiate. What you radiate does not leave room for their judgments – it is what is. It is given. It is not a negotiation or a trade. It is not dependent on them accepting it or not. It is you expressing you as you.
We are all spirits in a material world. However, we get so identified with the world and what we see when we look in the mirror that we begin to say "I HAVE a spirit”, rather than “I AM a spirit” experiencing and expressing through a physical body". We say, "I am man. I am woman. I am human. They say I have a soul." We begin to separate our spiritual awareness away from a shared awareness with the other creatures of this planet that do not look like us.
The spirit we truly are is not what we see in the mirror. However, the self-image we have built over the years with the help from our family, relatives, friends and even enemies is what is looking back at us in the mirror.
Here four little experiments you can do to give your self-identity a little whack on the head.
Go on the Internet and do a search for our name. We will then be introduced to many other spirit-humans with the exact same name as we have. As we read about them and read their words, we will begin to feel a little uncomfortable when we read their name because it is not us being spoken about. It is not the identity we have come to associate with our name that people are thinking about when they read the articles of the other spirit-humans with the same name as us.
Look in the phone book and call someone who has the same name as you. Ask to speak with the person, using the same name as you are known. When they come to the phone, say you have the same name as them and wonder if you are related. Say anything you want to them. Just live for a few moments speaking with someone who has a self-identity with the same name or label as you have. After you hang up the phone, then ask yourself, “who am I”? Who is this person that is called by whatever name you are called?
Once, a long time ago, someone called my office and asked for someone with the same last name as mine. I said I did not know who they were looking for and since I was so-and-so, I should know. They said to me, “You are so and so? I am so and so also. They gave you my name”. I told them, No, They must have given you MY name”. At that moment, my self-identity did get whacked with a ball bat of reality. Here I was speaking with myself, or at least a self somewhere who referred to themselves with the same name I referred to myself. We both were silent for a long moment and then hung up. I do not remember if we ever said goodbye to each other. How do you say goodbye to yourself? I never thought of myself the same way after that experience.
A third way is, if you have a lot of hair, shave your head. It doesn’t matter if you are living this earth-life as a man or as a woman – cut your hair off as close to a bald head as possible. If you are already bald, wear a wig for a couple of months. Go to work like this. If you cannot wear a wig at work because they might fire you, then take the wig off before you go to work and put it on after work and do not take it off until you go to sleep.
A fourth way is to do a little name experiment over the next month. Any stranger you interact with, say the paperstand owner or the coffee shop waitress, who you will probably never see other than in the coffee shop or at the paperstand again, introduce yourself with a different name. If your name is Judy, say you are Sharon. If you are John, introduce yourself as Bob. Introduce yourself using a different name to taxicab drivers or convenience store workers in another part of town you meet over the next few weeks. You will first feel very uncomfortable. Use the same alternative name with each of these people. Use a name you have never used or have never been called by anyone. No nicknames allowed. Persist with it and you will begin to notice a new growth in your understanding of who you truly are. The more you become aware of the real you that is not dependent on being called any particular name for self-identity, the more you will become aware of the eternal spirit that is truly you. You will advance further along the path to what is really meant by "eternal life" and will become more aware of the core of you that is the eternal spirit that continues after the physical body and the matrix of identity dies.
You are not what you see in the mirror. You are not the matrix of identity that you have built since your childhood. You are not anything you can possibly think. You cannot think who you are. You can only live who you are.
The spirit builds its web-wall of identity and the web gets stronger and stronger. This is one of the reasons why death of the human body might be necessary. This is usually the only way a spirit-human can break through the identity trap and fly free as the spirit you really are. Do you want to know who you really are while you are on this planet we call Earth?
Are you willing to consciously break through the web of identity you have built since you were a child? Do you want to know who you really are without having to wait until the death of your body for the knowledge of your eternal life? Want it enough and the universe will lead you through the process of coming to know who you truly are - an eternal point of awareness within the infinite mind of God.
You don't have a soul. You are your soul. You have a body. You are not the body you think you are. Your body dies. You do not. The matrix of identity dies. You do not. John, Bob, Sandy, Judy and George die. You do not. What you see in the mirror does not go with you after your body dies. Who you think you are dies with your body. The spirit that you really are is what lives eternally. Your awareness of being aware of reading these words is the eternal you.
Start right now. Now is the only place you can start. Start living the truest face you can possible show to the world. Let your glorious reality shine through whatever face the world sees in front of them. Don’t worry whether they will accept it or not. It is you. What can you do but be you – a glorious expression of the Omnipresent God. A one of a kind expression of Omnipresent God. You can be no one but who you are. No one can be who you are. - but you. You are special. You are a child of the Omnipresent source of all that is. You are an unique, individual expression of God – nothing shabby about that.
Enjoy the makeup. Enjoy the persona. Enjoy the Frederick's of Hollywood corsets. Enjoy the image of the Macho Male. Play the game. Just don’t get hung up in the persona – it is just a reflection in the mirror. Enjoy the game. Play the game for the glory of God. God likes a good game.
There is nothing wrong with masks. It depends on the reason we are wearing them. Are we doing it to manipulate someone negatively, against their interests? We are either the effect of manipulation or we manipulate others. Therefore, we should manipulate others. Just do it as we would wish it to be done unto us. If we have to manipulate at all, then let us be as sure as we can that it is a "win-win" manipulation. Look out for our interests while looking out for the interest of the "other". It is when we get so wrapped in the mask that it becomes a mental and spiritual straight-jacket that it is detrimental to our spiritual growth.
You, are many people, many personas, yet none of them are "you". You have infinite manifestations of yourself within yourself, which you are and which are you. All are you, but no one of them is "YOU". Each persona expresses an aspect of your self, but no one persona can even remotely express the "whole" you.
Remember the spider web. A single strand of spider silk can be broken by the slightest touch. However, wrap enough strands of spider silk around each other and the resulting product is as strong as the strongest strand of steel rope holding our bridges up over the widest river. It is the same with the silk strands of self-identity. The spirit builds its own walls of identity and eventually the walls will contain the spirit. Be careful what you build.
Keep letting go of who you think you are and you more and more come to know the spirit you really are.
