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Spiritual work is not about blocking negative thoughts or not having them but is instead about observing them. For when we can observe them and see firsthand for ourselves that what the Word teaches about the nature of the hellish self is true, then this allows the Text to confirm Itself to us.  It confirms that it is actually what it claims it is – Divine Truth given to save us from hell.

But we need to practice in order for this to happen; we need to take what the Text says and apply it by using what it teaches to observe and examine the sense of self. And one of the most immediate places we can begin to do this, is in our Logopraxis Life Group.  On the surface it appears as an opportunity to share our work with others, to reflect back what we hear and to collectively explore spiritual processes. But on another less overt layer, it’s an opportunity to practice observing the self from the light of what truth teaches.

A core characteristic of developing this type of spiritual literacy is the ability to split or divide our attention. The practice of this skill is based on the fundamental teaching from the Word that all life flows in and consequently that what we experience is an appearance of life – and this includes the sense of self.  When we divide our attention, we move into a living practice of this truth because it moves us away from the idea of ‘I am a self’ and towards an ‘as of self’.

So, in the former, we are in the experience, there is no separation between our experience of what we are seeing, touching and interacting with, and our self.  All that we take in from our senses confirms the belief that ‘I am a self’. We unquestioningly accept that what we receive in this experience of being a self is real. It defines what we call reality.

But in the latter, our attention is now divided between being in and focused on the event or phenomena that is occurring and then also observing the self that is in and focused on the event occurring.  In this second situation, an extra layer or level of self-awareness is added where we can now also view the experience of ‘I am a self’ from the perspective of an ‘as of self’.  And it is this extra layer that we seek to become conscious of in our Life Groups.

Why? Why do we attempt to practice in this way?

For a number of reasons.

Firstly, as has already being stated, seeking to practice in this way is one way in which we might each apply the Word in our life so that it might confirm Itself to us.

Secondly, and this is a flow on effect from the first, it increases the Lord’s capacity to flow into us as good and truth and to therefore be a more effective vessel of use for His purposes.  When we start to observe the self in this way, we are working from the principle that everything before us can be seen as a representative image of a spiritual reality that is unfolding as a process in our awareness.  The self then becomes part of that representative image that we are now observing. Learning to look on at the self in this way offers us psychological space and distance to observe the emotions, thoughts and reactions that pass through our mind in the light of what the Word teaches, so that we can gain more clarity of them.  If we can be present with others in a clearer state of mind, we can be more conscious of what the Word is asking us to shun in that moment and in doing so, this then opens us up to connecting with what is of the Lord in the exchange.

And so thirdly, working to be in a new relationship with the sense of self and seeing it as something that can be observed independently, frees us from identifying with it as “my-self’. In doing so, we can be set free from the prison that the hellish proprium is- the proprium which says, “I am”. For this proprium’s core love is built upon the life of the senses and hence the belief that is a self – that it has life in itself and agency.  So, rather than trying to stop negative and selfish thoughts occurring, or falling into self-condemnation that they even exist in our mental landscape, we can instead look to see how what the sense of self experiences in these negative states affirms what the Word teaches about the nature of the hellish proprium.  The seeing of this confirms the Word as Divine Truth, as the Lord and of Its power to draw us out of hell and into the heavenly peace that It is.

And lastly, but not least, our Life Groups offer us a rare opportunity to practice in a space in which all who are present are working to attend to their inner states in the same way; and to observe these as images which communicate spiritual principles and processes. As these spiritual literacy skills develop for us, there will be an inevitable flow on effect into the rest of our lives outside of the Life Group. We will find that we start to remember to divide our attention and observe the self in other events and interactions with others too, if not in the moment, then in hindsight. So, the more we can practise thinking above the life of the senses which lead to ‘I am a self’, the more we will come into a deeper acknowledgment of the fact that we are an ‘as of self’ and that the Lord is the only self.  And so, the more we will come into the heavenly delight of a life of use, which He offers to us all.

… they who are able to think above the things of sense, provided the things in the memory have been set in order, possess a greater capacity than others to understand and perceive, and this according to the degree in which they view things from what is interior. (6598 Arcana Coelestia)