Lesson 1: the only pre-requisite: humility

Once your desire has led you to a pursuit of god, the only thing that can stand in your way is your pride

Pride is an over-identification with how we want to be seen, both by ourselves and others. It is a resistance we feel to hear anything that contradicts those views. For example, if we desire to be ourselves as strong, intelligent, pure, righteous, or holy, then admitting anything that may show that we are less than those things will be difficult.

However, once a student is ready to empty his cup, everything that he thinks he is and knows, he is able to be led.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

The teacher is Jesus. You will need humility to do the thing that will hurt your pride, your ego. The ego is not a bad thing. We need it to distinguish ourselves from our fellow man so that we may take responsibility for our lives. However, the path to God loosens our ego’s grip on our minds and hearts so that our so that we may become one with the I Am, the Source of All. And so that we may finally see we are not separate from those around us.

Anything you do unto one of these little ones, you do unto me.

As you get to know Jesus’s teachings, you will find it often painful to agree with God’s will, but when you put the teachings into practice, you will find freedom.

Freedom and joy come WITH humility.

The good news is you don’t have to be perfect in your humility. No one is. It is a journey of perfecting until the day you die or reach “enlightenment”. This is notoriously hard, lol.

This is another area where you will trust God, and not let your spiritual ego get in the way. The spiritual ego tries to get you to compare your humility against others, believe that there is some sort of goal to attain, etc.

That is a dead end.

The beauty about humility, is you can humbly come to God with the expectation that God will make you more humble. This is a precious feedback loop you can count on.

Imagine being able to laugh at yourself and take life less seriously. Where you can enjoy your journey with God instead of reaching for perfection. Where there is no competition.

In the next chapter we discuss Trust, otherwise known as Faith and knowing. This goes hand in hand with Humility. With faith and humility you find your identity in God.