An Excerpt from The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse
GIVING UP THE SELF YOU KNOW
Charles Dubois, the Belgian naturalist, said, "The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." So what does it take to let go of the self that you know? It takes tuning in to the calling of your deeper heart, the calling of your soul, and turning your life and will over to the care of the divine power within. It takes not knowing how and not being in control. The magic is found in understanding that coming to know God does not take place in your mind but rather in your heart. No matter what you may understand intellectually about God-consciousness, your mind can't take you there.
Your intellectual knowledge of God often prevents you from having the very real experience of God, because intellectual knowledge alone limits the possibility of something greater. When you allow your intellect to direct you rather than simply inform you, it limits what you can see, what you can do, what you can feel, and what you will experience. This is why contemplative practices are so important: they lift you out of your mind (funny—"out of your mind"). When you're out of your mind, you're free, you're peaceful, and you can see beyond your current reality. This is the life-changing shift: the ability to let go and open up to new realties over and over and over again and to break out of the illusion that what you see and what you know are right or real. To have this, you must be willing to be surprised.
Many of your long-held beliefs and much of your learned knowledge, while perhaps justified and reasonable, are limited. They may be perfectly correct in the confines of your emotional world or your intellectual understanding, but this is not what we are talking about here. In the realm of divine consciousness, most of what you consider to be facts about yourself are probably incorrect assumptions. What you know, and what you are certain about, are most likely the limiting beliefs that you adopted long ago, and they are what keep the door closed to your soul's highest wisdom. Each moment, you get to choose to look through the small, limited eyes of your human self or to be humble enough to take the quantum leap outside of what you may believe or know to be true. You must learn to trust that there is a future waiting that is beyond what you might be able to grasp at this moment.
Charles Dubois, the Belgian naturalist, said, "The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." So what does it take to let go of the self that you know? It takes tuning in to the calling of your deeper heart, the calling of your soul, and turning your life and will over to the care of the divine power within. It takes not knowing how and not being in control. The magic is found in understanding that coming to know God does not take place in your mind but rather in your heart. No matter what you may understand intellectually about God-consciousness, your mind can't take you there.
Your intellectual knowledge of God often prevents you from having the very real experience of God, because intellectual knowledge alone limits the possibility of something greater. When you allow your intellect to direct you rather than simply inform you, it limits what you can see, what you can do, what you can feel, and what you will experience. This is why contemplative practices are so important: they lift you out of your mind (funny—"out of your mind"). When you're out of your mind, you're free, you're peaceful, and you can see beyond your current reality. This is the life-changing shift: the ability to let go and open up to new realties over and over and over again and to break out of the illusion that what you see and what you know are right or real. To have this, you must be willing to be surprised.
Many of your long-held beliefs and much of your learned knowledge, while perhaps justified and reasonable, are limited. They may be perfectly correct in the confines of your emotional world or your intellectual understanding, but this is not what we are talking about here. In the realm of divine consciousness, most of what you consider to be facts about yourself are probably incorrect assumptions. What you know, and what you are certain about, are most likely the limiting beliefs that you adopted long ago, and they are what keep the door closed to your soul's highest wisdom. Each moment, you get to choose to look through the small, limited eyes of your human self or to be humble enough to take the quantum leap outside of what you may believe or know to be true. You must learn to trust that there is a future waiting that is beyond what you might be able to grasp at this moment.
Excerpted from The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse by Debbie Ford. © 2009 by Debbie Ford. Excerpted by permission HarperCollins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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