REFLECTIONS 1 TIMOTHY

1 TIMOTHY

An often quoted statement by Ram Dass: “From the moment we are born, we go into ‘people-training’ or ‘somebody-training.’ Unfortunately all those people who are telling us who we are don’t know who they are!”

By the time we are adolescents we are like an automobile covered with bumper stickers. We are loaded down with labels telling us and everyone else who it is we think we are.

And then we arrive at the place in time when the old definitions just don’t fit anymore. We know we are “more than…”.

We are faced with the challenge of letting go of everything we thought we were. It is a paradoxical place because the good news is “You are not who you thought you were,” but to begin to get at who you really are you have to make room for Truth. Making room means letting go of all that is not true.

All the bumper stickers, all the labels must go, even the precious ones like, grandfather, musician, minister, husband, etc. 

It is not that we have to give up the DOING of all those things, when we are asked to let go of all those labels, we are reminded that none of them are who we are.

5Individual personhood is based on a belief in separateness. 

8Yet I have been teaching that separateness is false and nothing in the world is as it appears to be. 9Since this is true, the individual person that you think you are must not be your truth. l0And the persons that you think others are must be illusion, just as your seeming separateness is illusion also. P. 373

4But one cannot know Itself as Itself if it persists in knowing Itself as something different. 5Therefore, it is time to lay down who you think you are, that you may pick up, once again, the realization and acceptance of That Which you Are. P. 374

The role of the Observer is emphasized again. Whenever we discover we are wrapped up in a label or limited identity we are encourages to step back, Observe and know the limited self is no who we are.

(v 8 – 10)1If you are the observer, the person in the drama must be an act. 2And if the person is an act, it is not you. 3Test this idea, and watch it. 4You will see it is true. 5You can observe the person in act, because the person in act is not you.   P. 376-7

(v 1, 2)1Teach what you would learn. 2In order to teach yourself that you are not a person, you must teach others that their personhood is also false. 3You do this by not believing their personhood yourself. 4You look beyond their story to the one you know they must be, and that is what you hold in your mind as you listen to them. 5In that way, you teach yourself what you would learn, and you silently teach it to them also. (v 3 – 5)1The Mind with which you Think is that which you are, but this Mind has been covered with the mask of personhood. 2When you think within the belief in the mask, you believe that which isn’t true. 3When your belief is placed with the false, you experience that which is false, and the false continues to be reiterated. 4This is like a level of activity occurring at the level of falsehood. 5It is like a false vibration of somethingness within nothingness. 6It is Existence experiencing Itself as illusion. P. 380