Inner Work

For the week of July 28, 2008

Inner Unity: I

(Part 6 of 9 in the Inner Work Series: Stages of Inner Unity: I )

What can the unified person say?

Now, and in the future, I am. At this stage, with wholeness and the sense of agency, we are here and responsible for our life. Not that I cause every event that happens to and around me, but that I alone am responsible for what I do. I no longer abdicate the authorship, credit, or blame for my actions to passing but insistent impulses which I later disavow or ascribe to my brilliance, nor to any external influences.

Such a person can say more: I trust myself. When necessary, I can marshal all my inner resources to meet any situation, to do what’s called for, to respond to opportunity, to create new possibilities. This rightly-based self-confidence does not mean assurance of success, nor guarantee the lack of mistakes. But though I fail or err, I am the one who chose whatever course of action I took.

Furthermore, in presence, I am the one who is present, the one whose will it is to be. This reality offers us a relatively straightforward way to understand and experience I. Though the notion of I, of inner unity manifested as one will that is I, may seem vague or difficult to grasp, in presence we experience I directly. The more will-to-be we can muster, the more I and the more presence we have in that moment.

Though the arrogantly forceful person may appear to have inner unity acting from their I, it is illusory. The ersatz unity of the arrogant is built around self, ego, not around the true I that descends from deep within. The enabling factor for that descent is humility. This is not to say that I is weak and cannot act decisively and strongly. Rather the inner condition of openness to I inevitably includes humility, even in strength and outward success.

The most obvious external manifestation of I is each person’s uniqueness. One of God’s names is the Unique. And as the whole of God manifests in each human being, we each are unique. And that uniqueness of will forms the core of our soul. Even through the disjointed layers that obscure our unique I, it permeates all our actions and ways of being. Further, as I is the spark of freedom we receive from God, it is not manufactured by us nor by our inner work. It is not merely a matter of unifying our disparate parts. That unification process through our inner work serves to clear the way for our I to emerge, to act without opposition.

In deep prayer, when every fiber of our being aligns in devotion to the Sacred, we become the work of our unified self, our I. In that state, I pray and I serve.

For this week, notice when your own I manifests in you. Welcome it. Become yourself.

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