CHAPTER 5

SECTION III

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TRAVAILS OF THE SOUL

And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven:

this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied:

by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

CHAPTER 5

THE "I" SYNDROME

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Love is in us all and known by all, but all have not accepted her lest we must give up our self. We all cherish our self and hold ourselves as most important and thereby worship an idol. Our entire perspective is wrapped up in our self and we are the most important one of all. We sympathetically listen to those around us, always feeling that our reality is most relevant and right. Everything is wrapped up in how we feel, how we see things and what we believe. It’s what I like to call the ‘I’ syndrome. That is, what’s important to our self is what’s relevant. It’s our self-centeredness. We believe that we are the center of the universe. Are you selfish? We don’t like to think we are, but we all are. I want this, I want that. I believe this, I believe that. I, I, I; it’s all we care about.

But is the ‘I’ part of you really you? What is it that you identify with as your true self? When you are listening in your mind, who is talking and who is listening? "I don’t care", you say. Who doesn’t care? What part of you is telling you that? Regardless of what it is, all of us most readily identify with the ‘I’ part of us that has been such a close part of our reality since being born here. We’re all oriented to our self. We act out of our selfish desires. But is that selfish nature the real you?

It’s said that we are made of four elements: body, mind, soul and spirit. If the soul is your awareness, the real you, and the body is your temporal vessel for your sojourn on earth, what then are the mind and spirit? Your mind is that which presents things to your awareness. The spirit is that which empowers the mind and gives it life. The spirit is what causes you to have being, to exist, to be, to have life. Philosophers have argued whether the concept of being is one or many. In fact, there are only two beings, the spirit of Christ, and the spirit of man. Indeed, you have the mind and spirit of Christ, and you have the mind and spirit of man. You only get two choices of what to be in. You are caught betwixt the two. Your soul, by its awareness, is continually choosing between what is presented by these two minds. There is another entity within you called your heart. The heart contains the essence of you that controls your awareness, your desires. "Out of the heart proceed the issues of life".

Which mind do you think we most closely associate with our self? Right, the one we’re most closely yoked to, the mind of man. This mind is the one that likes you to think that you are all-important. He lifts you up to high places and exalts you above all that is called God. You become a God unto yourself.

It’s the ‘I’ syndrome in action. ‘I’ likes to be in charge. ‘I’ likes recognition, ‘I’ like to be on top. ‘I’ likes to win and be the best. ‘I’ demands that it get what it wants. ‘I’ is selfishness incarnate. That self whom you identify with is not you. It is the mind and spirit of man deceiving you into acting selfishly for its own motives that are conceived in the mind of man and acted out by your obedience to the flesh. All fleshly desires, all lusts and worldly aspirations, all deceptions and self-fulfilling deeds originate by the mind of man, the ‘carnal mind’ spoken of in the Bible.

When you are busy judging and condemning or otherwise caught up in sin and unrighteousness, where do these thoughts originate? Did you have to conjure up any devils to achieve your goals? It came quite naturally within your mind, didn’t it? When you are offended, and your pride is wounded to the core, whose pride really rises up in anger? Do you really want to identify the eternal being of your soul as one and the same as this vial mind?

You need to see that this ‘I’ part of you, your ego, is not you. You are separate from this evil beast, just as you are separate from the mind and Spirit of God. All you can do, within the awareness of your soul, is choose between what’s offered by each of these minds in any given situation. These are the voices you listen to. One is that still, small quiet voice, beckoning you to the better way; the other is that very loud, obnoxious voice that likes to tell you what’s in your best interests. This latter voice likes to deceive you into thinking that you are doing what’s best for ‘I’, and that he doesn’t exist because you and he are one and the same. He causes you to identify with his nature so that you do his will. It’s the inherent nature of man to obey the spirit of man.

As long as we identify with ‘I’, we’re easily deceived into thinking that his will is our will. It’s what ‘I’ want and what ‘I’ need. After all, I am most important. I must take care of myself, no one else is going to. So all that is presented to us by our dear and close friend is what we identify with and what we heed.

This understanding makes the ‘I’ part of us very nervous. If we can see who he is, we strip him of some of his power over us. We see him for what he is . . . a selfish, vain, purveyor of deception who is lifted up as God. But he is no God, he is a man.

It must be seen that the eternal essence of you, your soul, existed prior to receiving your earthly nature. The "old man" nature which tries to control your life is an entity with its own identity, its own will, and its own evil nature. You are joined to this nature when your soul comes to this earth at birth. This nature was created as an instrument to reveal your iniquity, and as a place to transfer that iniquity where it can die so, that you can be raised in newness of life.

That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

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by Aaron of Crossroads

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Revised: October 16, 2002 .