99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #28

The principle behind the one in many:

Every-time the subject of surrender is approached, there is an immediate hesitance on our part to accept it. We have been indoctrinated by our exposure to external societal influences that dictates that, surrender is a signal of defeat. Tangibly, sometimes, but not always is this  the case. But when dealing with the self the paradigm changes. Surrender to the properly ordered self is an essential hierarchical positioning, that assures authorship is not only followed, but it is respected. When we began this journey, we were asked to be open and receptive to new ideas, this will by far be the most difficult to approach, intangible assertions always are. But if you agree to be opened minded, and undertake to frame this in a way that you can comprehend,  it will assuredly return positive change.

Again as in previous steps, willingness is the crucial key. After affirming this we will approach the method by which we are going to author the self. With this you will be met with much internal resistance. Over your lifetime you have set up in your self a marauder, so deceptive and  yet so supportive, yet again destructive, yet again defenseless. The inherent illusion you have constructed claiming to be the self, is nothing more than a clearing house of the erratic ebb and flow of emotion. We should first give an explanation, as to how, what some refer to as the self or ego was formed, and keeping in mind we are trying to be as brief and concise as possible, so one should not expect a complex in-depth explanation, but one you can expand on in your own reflections, which is also a crucial key step in the evolution of the self.

We have with unintended brevity, (unintended in that we have no intention to deceive or force you into a radical shift of thinking), touched on the topic of self and its creation. In previous steps we gave examples of the methods by which we (the imagined self) integrated these experiences into habits, traits, and emotional responses. We showed how these were carried through into our Societally integrated behaviors. Now we would like to continue the process of unpacking the self a little further.

The bastion of the perceived self resides in the realm of what we refer to as the "Hesitant states" It is there we are often prompted to return to when our pursuits in life become to intrinsically technical, or our analytic capacities absorb an excessive amount of our time. We are reminded to: " take time to smell the roses" , "enjoy life's simple pleasures", "Be thankful for what we have, based on what others have not". All noble sentiments right? Absolutely! But have you ever questioned their authorship? Now if you respond with a statement like "I have always been taught to be thankful for what I have" or " I take time every day to reflect on my actions" or "Charity for me, always grounds me to the reality of how fortunate I am" Then the author is the proper self. But if you have to be forced through guilt, fear or response to willful neglect on your part, then these are not the actions of the self, but the un-authored actions of the emotions. And how prolific is the latter in today's society? Could you begin to see now, why a society ruled by greed would "not" be critical of such a shift in mass dissolution of moral fabric. Why a society that can be so easily manipulated would approve of the abuses of the principles of home, family and charity! They would for one reason and one reason alone, to surrender you to the volatile sea of emotion, while they author your life!

Why the shift of focus, in the latter part of the last paragraph? To demonstrate how easily we can surrender. Why? We lack the objective authorship that steers us away from making decisions based on emotion. How do we condition ourselves to respond to situations differently? When we surrender those decisions to an authored self, not to an emotional self. We have just demonstrated that surrender is not the issue, we do that easily. It is what we surrender to, that causes the conflict. The "One" that we would choose to replace the transient authorship of emotions, poses no threat, asks nothing more than that you agree to surrender the immediacy of the moment, to return to a neutral state from which you can evaluate the situation. And as previously mentioned when we do this often, even when we are carried away by emotion, and later agree to return to a neutral state, we will over time find, the draw of emotional extremism will weaken the more we exercise these principles.