In my early life, I did not question who I was. My parents, family, and circle of friends validated me as a human in a world among other humans. It was obvious because there was no conflict in my local reality as to who else I could be.
In my early years, this was not questioned or even thought much about—I was who I was. As I grew older, more sensory input entered my awareness. Ideas, seeing others, feelings, and experiences in my life contributed to my questioning who I was and why I was here.
It was difficult to understand the suffering in the world, my own emotional pain, and why there was so much pain. My father did not believe in God; he couldn’t accept that a God could allow so much suffering, so he abandoned any belief in a God. Yet, he was a good, kind, caring man who lived a moral life because he had an innately good heart.
I, on the other hand, began to wonder if I was more than just a human body/mind/ego and if there was a God or some higher intelligence behind this reality we were in.
If so, what was it and why did it allow suffering? In my heart, I thought there must be more to understand. There had to be another way of viewing life and creating a better life.
I read books on religion, spirituality, self-help, science, philosophy, the occult, and mysticism, looking for answers. They all offered a variety of perspectives. Some were wise and offered clarity and good tools to live a better life, yet I was left wanting more and still generally confused.
In retrospect, my search was in support of trying to satisfy my ego-self, which was impossible to satisfy. Eventually, I came to accept the idea that I was not only my ego/body/mind, but something much larger—something spiritual, unseen, and difficult to understand. Finding peace was elusive. I was still searching or looking for validation that I could trust there was a larger self.
There was one constant in my life, the part of me called the witness or observer of all activities that I experienced, no matter what they were. The observer is consciousness, the individuated consciousness of me, living inside a vehicle (body/mind/ego) in a dualistic virtual world we call Earth in space and time.
If I am consciousness, why don’t I recognize myself as such?
The whole point of being in this world of separation and experiencing it fully requires that we forget who we are. We must be totally immersed in this world and given free will to fully explore it as creator beings. In a real sense, we are a fractal representation of our higher self in this world. We are here to create, experience, expand, and discover our interconnectedness, ultimately living this life with love as our foundational purpose.
To use a movie as a metaphor: As young children, we entered the movie and we viewed everything from a position of observation without identification with an ego construct. We were watching the movie with presence and fascination. As we grew older, we listened, watched, and experienced others in our local reality, and we began to adopt their views and beliefs, particularly our parents. This happens generation after generation. We began to forget that we were watching a movie and started to identify ourselves as the main characters.
All humans are in this collective movie that overlaps with all other local realities. We all share in the larger movie being played out, governed, or created by our collective beliefs, making us feel like we have no control over our reality. The movie is happening, and I am just a character in it, is the prevailing belief.
Yet, as the main character in my local reality (subplot of the movie), I do have control. I can change the movie and my character in it.
The larger movie being played out by the collective (everyone everywhere) seems to be an unpredictable storyline that can be very frightening and threatening to us (the main character).
But the character that I am, has free will. I can make decisions at any moment to change my character, respond, act, or behave differently, and change my beliefs about what is possible and what I want to do in this movie.
In this movie (The Universe), there is one truth: reality follows beliefs, on the collective and individual levels.
I cannot change or rewrite the larger movie with all its overlapping characters who follow certain limited beliefs that, in turn, create the collective reality (movie on the screen) we share.
I have a part to play in the movie, and I can participate unconsciously, believing I am a victim, fearful, judgmental, angry, resentful, and generally feeling powerless, or I can start making conscious decisions about how I want to act and what I choose to believe.
It is hard to change a belief, but we must, to change the movie we are in. The first belief I need to adopt is that I can change my reality (my part). I know I can’t change the larger movie, but I can make decisions that will impact my reality.
I do not want to leave the movie. I am in it, but I want to have more control and become a creative force within it. I want to play a part in making the movie better for all. I also need to adopt the belief that I know I am the observer (Sovereign or Soul) and it is possible to allow that larger part of me into the character and let it guide me.
With these beliefs, I am starting to know who I am and why I am here. This understanding results from seeing the larger picture and my place in it. I see that I have power and free will to make decisions that will be reflected in the movie I am participating in.
The movie is playing out on a screen called The Universe. The Universe will faithfully mirror our beliefs in the form of characters, situations, and life experiences. This is the beauty of the Universe: it shows us how we are showing up in the movie from moment to moment, as a collective and as individuals.
The observer (Sovereign or Soul) is our true self that can divest its consciousness to have infinite experiences (characters) in spacetime duality (movies). One of these is me, a male character called Don in a movie in the early twenty-first century.
I wanted this, and my Soul wanted this. I am here by choice to discover separation and who I am within separation, but also as a larger being, and to bring that larger being’s essence to my character in this movie. My purpose is to become the embodiment of my larger self here as this character in this movie.
I am that larger self/observer, and I am the character, and I know what I am doing here. We will always get distracted by the larger movie being played out, telling us that we need to be fearful, judgmental, alone, unworthy, and powerless.
The larger movie is not bad; it reflects the collective mind/belief system. We are all part of the same organism, interconnected in this reality. We try to understand it the best we can. We make choices in how we view the world and how we act, think, and behave.
When my character starts to question the prevailing patterns of the social landscape that we all inhabit, new beliefs are born, and a shift begins to happen. I apply the six heart virtues to all the activities in my local reality, counter to the social norms of separation and fear-based thinking.
The six heart virtues are a means to change my role in the movie called Life to something more aligned with my higher self. Being aligned with my higher self is to adopt the behaviors of love, kindness, and understanding that we are all interconnected.
I practice being in appreciation for the movie I am in, express compassion for the other actors trying their best to live their lives, I forgive myself for the judgments I placed on others, I feel the humility of being a human in this world, and seek understanding, which requires courage to stand up to the magnetic social order.
My character will eventually die, and I will play another role in a time-shifted but same movie, all working together to find meaningful alignment and expansion in the ongoing story of life.