The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
The unintended by-product of the scientific revolution is most of us rarely if ever engage in the scientific method. We are merely consumers of the results of their investigation.
We no longer know how to search. We only know how to google.
This long-term consumerism produces atrophy in our ability and even desire to search for truth. We simply assume we can summon it on demand with keystrokes, as if consuming mere morsels of truth will produce transformation.
The end result is a two-sided fallacy, especially as it pertains to the development of our true selves: we believe that consuming truth is all we need, which means we also believe that the search for truth is no longer necessary when we can google it.
But is is the search for truth that transforms the soul. The consumption of truth offers only a two-dimensional glimpse of that three-dimensional transformation. The search is like a lengthy vacation in a foreign land. Mere consumption is like reading the brochure for a trip never taken.
Just as muscles will not develop by reading exercise plans, spiritual transformation will never take place by consuming doctrine, especially that which is delivered in the inevitable banal language suited to consumerism.
Today, we are going to take a 3-day journey in search of truth through the art of questioning. And our guide is a twelve-year old boy.
Source Scripture
The Search is On: Luke 2:41-52
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Carl Jung
There are moments in our lives when something strikes us with such resonance that it transforms us.
When Albert Einstein was five years old, sick, and lying in bed, his father handed him a compass. He became fascinated by the needle’s ability to always point north, no matter how he rotated it. He called it a “wonder” and later in life said this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.
And what do we see Einstein growing up to do? Searching for the hidden forces at work in our universe.
As above, so below.
There are hidden forces at work in you, too. Deep down in your soul. And Awestruck‘s aim is to lead you on a journey to the center of you to discover those forces.
In this episode, we will review the hidden forces explored in episodes 8-13 and get a sneak preview of what’s ahead. And, you’ll also get the answer to these questions from listeners…
- Why do you use Scripture as your source?
- Why is this podcast called Awestruck again?
- What is all this soul-centering talk?
Looks like we’ve got a lot to cover, so grab your compass and let’s get started.
Source Scripture
The Birth of Grace: Luke 2:1-7
Treasuring: Luke 2:8-20
Expose’: Luke 2:21-40
When You See It: Matthew 2:1-12
How Far Will You Go?: Matthew 2:13-18
Nothing is Everything: Matthew 2:19-23
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Self-worth is a core value that none of us question. We all want value, purpose, and love.
The reason we struggle with securing self-worth is two-fold: 1) We equate self-worth with feelings and emotions, which are the deepest part of the ego but only the shallows of the soul. And 2) We spend our lives devising schemes that will attend to our ego’s perceived needs, which do little or nothing for the soul, leaving us exhausted and discontent.
Today we’ll take an honest look at the goals we set in pursuit of self-worth to see how and why they may be missing the mark. We’ll also go deeper in order to realign our very definition of self-worth, which will inherently alter our way of life. Our quality of life.
Source Scripture
Nothing is Everything: Matthew 2:19-23
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go. – Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
We too often mistake the sum total of who we are for what we feel, think, and do. This dooms us to believe that the deepest fulfillment available to us is experiencing positive feelings. And this assumption leads us to one primary paradigm of living – we must survey the environment of people and things available to us and master the art of manipulation as it pertains to all of them so that we can achieve and maintain those desired feelings.
But wait. If our feelings are desired, then there must be more to us. Where do our desires originate?
We went down this rabbit hole in Episode 10, Shadow Work, but we need a refresher for today’s focus. Here is a Dr. Seussian summary of Shadow Work…
The choices you choose
Birth beliefs that you use
To nourish desires
That fuel all the fires
Of emotions you chase
Which form thoughts you embrace
To condone what you do
That reveal the real you
Our makeup goes much deeper than our feelings and emotions. And the core choices we make reveal who we are and prompt us to do what we do.
When we get stuck, as many of us do, in the shallows of believing our depths are limited to just thoughts and emotions, we become desperate to maintain our emotions in their desired states. So desperate, in fact, that we don’t yet realize how far we will go.
This is by definition the ego, and the logical conclusion of its pursuit is that we become prodigals, far from our true home, depleted, starved, and wondering if we can ever go back.
Today’s episode offers you a divine pathway that will light the way back home no matter how far you’ve wandered, and keep you close to home once you get there.
It’s called meekness. And it’s one of those core choices you make way down deep in your soul. Here is a proper definition of meekness.
Meekness is trusting in divine providence over external circumstances so much so that you resist every temptation to exert egoistic forces (such as manipulation and violence) and instead live centered in the soul.
Meekness may rhyme with weakness, but the similarities stop there. Meekness draws on great strength to resist the forces of evil that will inevitably descend. It has at its heart this mantra from Romans 12:21: Do not overcome evil with evil, but evil with good.
Today we will see just how far two people will go in regards to meekness. One will escape in darkness to another continent with his family to embrace it, and the other will embrace the darkness and destroy many families just to escape it.
Source Scripture
How Far Will You Go?: Matthew 2:13-18
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Our nature consists in motion. Complete rest is death – Blaise Pascal.
When Galileo asserted that the earth was not the center of the universe but in fact moved around the sun, he was convicted of heresy by the church, forced to recant, and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.
“And yet, it moves,” Galileo would whisper about the earth, despite the threat of even harsher punishment. It took years for all of humanity to awaken to the truth.
The Universe was formerly seen as man saw himself – as within, so without. I am the center. All must revolved around me. But the truth became plain through Galileo’s telescope – as above, so below. I am not the center. I am in motion, along with others, around something much bigger than myself. Something full of radiance. Warmth. Light. Life.
Though the outward struggle to believe Galileo’s truth no longer exists, the inward struggle to relinquish the ego as the center endures.
How we see ourselves determines how we see the world. As within, so without. And how we see and accept the truth determines whether we know ourselves. As above, so below.
If we allow the truth to penetrate us, we will live freely and animated, centered in the soul. But if we refuse, we will stagnate and wither.
Source Scripture
When You See It: Matthew 2:1-12
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Carl Jung
The shadow is the darkest part of you that works against soul-centered living. Sometimes you are completely blind to it, and sometimes you turn a blind eye to it intentionally because to confront it – to confront yourself – creates too much unrest. Too much cognitive dissonance. And so you suppress, deny, rationalize, diminish, blame shift, judge – anything but confront yourself.
And so you live in the shadow, which inherently produces a state of being that the Hopi Indians sum up in a single word: Koyaanisqatsi. Life out of balance. Off center. The Scriptures also have a similar, single word to describe not only the life out of balance, but also the shadow that produces it: amartia – or missing the bull’s eye. This single, amazing word conjures the full scene of an archer selecting an arrow, drawing the bow, taking aim at a target, releasing the tension, and watching in dismay as the arrow fails to hit the center of its intended target. The result is that the arrow now rests off center.
The only solution is re-centering.. Not trying again. There is no try. You must re-center your life from the soul. There you will find light again, exposing the shadow and placing you perfectly in the bull’s eye.
This is called shadow work. And it’s not easy. But remember, we are on a hero’s journey to the center of the soul. And every hero in the making must face his biggest fear to continue.
The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Joseph Campbell
Let’s begin the descent and see what we find.
Source Scripture
Expose’: Luke 2:21-40
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras