Imagine wearing red sunglasses. If you wore red sunglasses for a week, what color would the world appear? Red?

What if you wore them for a few years? What color would the world appear?

It would appear normal.

In fact, the world would stop appearing to be red. It would just be the world. That would simply be the way things are. We would no longer be aware of wearing red sunglasses and we would no longer register the world as red.

Consider that each of us is living our lives with a pair of metaphorical sunglasses. That is, we each have a persisting perspective of the world. And perspective is everything. The way we see something or don’t see something determines how we deal with whatever situation comes up in life. Our point of view can even impact what we physically allow ourselves to perceive visually.

For example, if a person with the perspective “I am shy and have no friends” walks into a room he or she will notice a complete different set of things than a person with the perspective “I am a confident and happy person”. They move to different parts of the room, sit in different areas, and notice different things and even assign a different level of importance to whatever they perceive.

Consider that you live your life from a set perspective and that perspective influences every aspect of your life. It directly impacts the results you are getting in your relationships, your career, your health, and in your finances. And most of the time we are not even present to it! We don’t think we have a perspective! We think that the way we see things is the way they are.

You see, we don’t know that we don’t know and we think that we know! That is a dangerous place to be. It allows our life to be run by our perspective and it takes away our power to make any decisions outside of our perspective.

LIFE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE EGO

In the Divine Principle we speak about “The Four Aspects of Fallen Nature”. Now, it is important to remember that all of our fallen nature stems from the first aspect, which is failure to see from God’s view point.

So what is God’s viewpoint on your life? Think about it. From God’s point of view, what can you do about your financial situation? What can you do about your family relationships? What can you do about your educational situation? What about your health?

From God’s point of view, are you helpless? Are you powerless?

Now, why does it sometimes seem like we are helpless?

Consider that we often fail to see ourselves from God’s point of view and instead opt for seeing ourselves or a particular situation in our life in a disempowering way. In other words, we see life in a way that reduces our power, freedom, and authenticity in life.

And on top of that, we aren’t present to it. Meaning, we are unaware of what is going on. It’s like the water we swim in and the air we breathe. And nobody notices the disparity because the vast majority of the planet are afflicted with the same condition so it is accepted as normal. And then we wonder why we don’t have the results that we’re looking for in our lives. We then end up living our lives to merely survive.

So if we’re not seeing ourselves from God’s point of view then whose perspective are we seeing it from?

DISTINGUISHING THE EGO FROM THE TRUE SELF

Now, here is the crime of the century. It is even a little disturbing. As we became conscious of ourselves as individual entities, our minds held an image of us and we became that image in our minds. That image has a voice that speaks to us like a radio. Somewhere along the way, probably in early childhood, we became our radio voice. We thought because it was so much inside our head, that it was actually us. Our mind captured an image of us. A little “you” called a self-image resides in our minds. The problem is that the image calls the shots. It tells us what to do through the radio voice. In other words, our mind image is so much a part of us, we do not distinguish that we are different from it. Not knowing it is just a radio voice, we listen to it because we think it is really us talking.

It isn’t that just fail to see ourselves from God’s perspective. We become that perspective of ourselves. We forget that it is just a perspective, an image of ourselves. We think it is us. Then it dominates our lives. This is the power of the first aspect of fallen nature.

Here are some characteristics of that radio that plays in our heads.

1. It keeps on playing of its own accord.

2. It is so close to you that you don’t know it exists. It is so much a part of you that you do not even recognize it as being separate from you.

3. You listen to its advice which is often false.

4. You believe the radio is actually you, when it is just a radio. It is the underlying cause of fear, poor self-image, and lack of accomplishment, to name a few of the areas that it adversely affects.

Clarity is Power

Living our life beyond the perspective of our ego can simply be a matter of clarity. The more clear and aware you become of your eog’s “radio voice” in your head telling disempowering stories about life,of ourselves and our lives, the more power you have to choose a different perspective.

What I am offering isn’t a “cure-all” from our the ego’s radio voice. Rather, it is simply offering the power to choose. Once we are clear on the existence and nature of our own ego we are no longer an object to it. Once we’re aware of who is in the driver’s seat we can choose to put God in the driver’s seat instead.

Here are a few questions to gain clarity around your filters and give them up:

1. How do you see the most important people in your life?
2. How do you see yourself?
3. What are some of the filters that you have around finances, people, and relationships?
4. Who are you blaming in your life? What would you be responsible for if you stopped blaming him/her?
5. What are you avoiding? What perspective is causing you avoid it?
6. If you set aside all of your circumstances, what do you truly want?
7. From God’s perspective, are you helpless, powerless, or hopeless?
8. Who could you be if you gave up being right?

Sometimes we say that we will not be happy unless “x” happens or changes. However, it is not necessarily a fact that we won’t be happy if they don’t change. However, it is true that you say you won’t be happy. And we become a stand for the idea that we won’t be happy unless they change. We become a slave to the result of our perspective and never have access to shifting the perspective causing the problem in the first place. What would happen if we paused to become aware of what filter we were viewing the situation through? What would happen if we took off our “sunglasses” and took full responsibility to create what we want in our lives?