Expressing our true, divine nature

You should understand that you are divinities. Yes, divinities, and you live on a higher plane free of limitations, shadows and darkness, sorrow and suffering, in the midst of abundance and joy. Do you know what prevents you from manifesting the splendour of those higher regions here below? Your personality- in other words, your lower nature. Your personality is too unadaptable, too self-centred to capture the subtle messages from those regions… like a radio that cannot pick up all the stations. The waves and vibrations released by Cosmic Intelligence in the higher spheres are swift as lightning, and the matter of the personality is too dense, too hard of hearing to vibrate in tune with them, and so it cannot seize divine messages. They flash by without making an impression and we continue to live in ignorance, far from knowing or experiencing the wonderful joy of our higher Being.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov   Jnani Yoga 

There are ways of changing this situation. If you choose to lead a pure life and become once again a child of God, then your heart will open and become generous, your mind will clear and your will become indomitable. The personality will become the willing instrument with which to express the divine life of the individuality more and more fully and correctly… until the day comes when both the personality and the individuality become fused with each other, the personality ceases to exist and becomes one with the individuality.’

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov     Jnani Yoga

I hope you love these pictures of Hindu deities (Krishna and Radha) as much as I do. For me they are a beautiful representation of how life will be in the ‘golden age’ of God’s kingdom, once we have all rediscovered our innocence as children of God and are able to take part in the great cosmic dance of life. The figures of Krishna and Radha also symbolize for me the harmonious balance between masculine and feminine – both within society and even more importantly, within ourselves as individuals.

It’s also appropriate to borrow images from the Hindu culture for this post as the master used Hindu terminology to describe the psychic and spiritual structure of the human being. He used the words ‘individuality’ and ‘personality’ to refer to our higher, divine nature and our lower, instinctive nature respectively. What Hindus refer to as the etheric, astral and lower mental body make up, along with the physical body, the personality. The divine nature is comprised of the casual (higher mental), buddhic (higher emotional) and atmic (the higher will).

The aim of a spiritual aspirant is to allow the divine nature to direct and take over (consume, if you like) the lower nature. Just as human beings have been able to domesticate animals, in the same way, we can learn to domesticate the wild, instinctive side of our nature so that these tendencies are at the service of our divine Self and this Self knows how to use everything- even anger, vanity, sensuality- constructively. Interestingly, the master explained this is why images of the Christ child in the stable usually show him surrounded by animals and I was thrilled to find the same symbolism in this picture of Krishna and Radha.

The master recommends meditating regularly on this identification with our higher nature and, or course, praying that our lower nature is eventually consumed by its sacred fire:

Now when you pray, ‘Almighty God, I beg you with all my heart to take over the direction of my life in place of my personality’, you act not only on the material particles of your physical body, but on the memory of the cells, their ingrained habits… which are then replaced with new and better ones.

What I am telling you is very important. Even if you manage to control your personality, even if you force it to carry out your idealistic plans and projects and make it do as it is told, it will not be the same as if you had removed the old clichés and put new clichés into its head. It may bow to your will, but that doesn’t mean it has adopted your imprints, on the contrary, it still has its own, and is waiting for the moment to do what it wants. In beseeching God to take possession of you, you are robbing the personality of its old memory and habits and from then on it will no longer be the personality that guides your life but the individuality! The form is still the physical body, with a stomach, lungs, brain, etc… but with new contents.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov   Jnani Yoga

Thanks for reading.