Author’s bio: For sixteen years Lesley Edwards pursued inner
spiritual development with the Brahma Kumaris. Her career took her
into teaching and she gave herself wholeheartedly to her work with
children at various schools in London. She was equally committed to
her spiritual quest. As a student and teacher with the Brahma Kumaris,
she was a much loved and respected member of the BK family. For almost
four years she conducted a largely private battle with MS and
eventually cancer. She passed away in June of 1999, but the legacy she
left in the hearts and minds of all who knew her was a vision of
tremendous courage, selfless service and a serene acceptance of her
role amongst us in this lifetime.
During her last five years,
one of her main areas of focus was the development of self esteem. She
designed and ran courses throughout the UK sharing all that she had
learned on her own journey. This is the second of two articles which
she wrote before her death. As you will see from the profound and
articulate way she talks about this most important topic, she has done
her inner work, and speaks to us directly from her own experience.
THE HOLY GRAIL OF HIGH SELF ESTEEM
Lesley
Edwards goes straight to the core of the challenge that faces us all,
every day—the rebuilding and the maintenance of high self esteem.
In
the first article on building self esteem (see The Beauty and the
Beast) I described the first two steps as Knowing Yourself, and
Accepting Yourself: to know and accept yourself as you are, good and
bad; and to know and accept yourself as you could be, making the choice
to realize your full potential for positive transformation, and
appreciating the spiritual process that makes this possible. Having
understood and accepted where you are coming from and where you are
going to, the next step is to commit yourself to the journey. The
challenge of building true self esteem is a pilgrimage in search of the
Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is our worthiness, our purpose in life, our
dignity, our beauty, true love, and a satisfying, peace of mind.
Journeys can be dangerous things. Sometimes it’s safer to stay at home
with the comfort of denials and attachments and support systems that
tell us how wonderful we are—blissfully ignorant of all the work that
needs to be done. It is when we venture outside our comfort zones that
we get tested and challenged.
PROTECT YOUR SELF
The
third step to building self esteem is to protect yourself. This means
be careful. You have enemies. There will be forces at work that will
try to stop you getting to your ‘Soul Room’, that inner space where you
can sustain your soul consciousness and cultivate your conversation
with God. Voices will call out to you from the other rooms. “Where are
you?” “We need you here!” They will prevent you from knowing and
learning from God, the master architect of your new self.
On a
pilgrimage it is often best to travel alone, at least for the
substantial part of the journey, while you are regaining your self
esteem. The purpose of your life at the moment is to find the Holy
Grail. But that is not an end in itself. What is most important is
what you do with it when you have found it. Then the purpose of your
life is to give, to express, to share what you have found. It is true
that in a sense you cannot separate the two, for in giving, expressing
and sharing you also discover yourself. But it is a fine balance and
one that is easily lost. So make sure, if you are traveling closely
with others, to give yourself plenty of space.
While Noah built
his ark, people came and laughed at him, and teased him. “What on
earth are you doing Noah?” They thought he was mad. It may be that
others won’t understand why you want to go to your Soul Room to be
quiet and to know God. The cocoon is not the most attractive phase in
the life of the butterfly, but it is an essential step. No cocoon, no
butterfly, simple as that. God has a preservation order on you at this
time. Trust, and have faith that if you keep going inside to find
power, that the power will do its work.
Protecting yourself is a
lot to do with the relationships in your life, your relationship with
yourself, with God and with other people. Put your relationship with
yourself and God first. Your lessons will come through other people,
but don’t lose sight of who is learning and who is teaching.
Relationships
with others are a way of knowing ourselves on a deeper level. They are
intense and interesting and real. We need someone to bounce off, to
mirror back to us our reality. But we need to be wary about what they
are mirroring back, which reality, which identity. If you are on a
pilgrimage to find your true identity then be careful what other people
see in you, because you will see yourself with those eyes too and this
could give you a false sense of security; you think you are fine, when
really there’s a lot you could be working on. When you are close to
someone, your perception gets mixed up with their perception; sometimes
you can’t even tell whether your feelings are your own or theirs. If
they are not seeing themselves clearly, they will project what they
don’t like in themselves onto you, and if you are not doing your work
properly you will project what you don’t like in yourself onto them!
All relationships are an exchange of power, people competing for
energy: A and B taking support from each other until A no longer has
the energy or the interest and withdraws affection. And B, having
become dependent, is then unable to find that energy either from within
or from anywhere else.
In an ideal relationship there will be an
exchange of high quality love. Some recent scientific research from
New York, which has been attracting media attention, has identified
three types of love: lust, attraction and attachment. Lust and
attraction speak for themselves. They can be lots of fun, but there
may be a hefty price to pay in terms of your self esteem, and they will
ultimately be distracting for anyone on a true pilgrimage. Attachment
perhaps promises a deeper love, but how many people do you know who
can’t live without each other, but they can’t really live with each
other either? They love to hate each other! So be careful of the
quality of your relationships. Are you really ready to love another
human being properly? Or do you need to learn to love yourself first?
The
things that attract us to other people are often qualities we would
like to have ourselves. If we are quiet and gentle, we may find
extrovert and confident people attractive. If we are strong and
dynamic, we may find gentle and calm people attractive. In either
case, the only and real lasting solution is to find whatever quality we
are looking for in someone else—inside ourselves. For the power that
can be found by returning to the natural state of the soul has all the
ingredients needed for the making of any quality.
Within the
cocoon of spiritual transformation there is a perfect balancing out of
qualities; a balancing of the male and female within us all. For all
of us can be strong as well as gentle, responsible as well as free,
adventurous as well as cautious. When we see the alchemy of what was
once weak becoming strong, what was once idealistic becoming visionary,
what was once worry becoming freedom—then relationships change from
being dependent to interdependent, from being unhealthy to healthy.
God
teaches us to love ourselves. Because He has no hidden agenda He will
mirror back to us only our highest qualities. We will not be able to
project onto Him our own weaknesses; we will simply have to accept them
and own them. He will not project onto us, because He has no
weaknesses. He will not take our power away, nor will He withdraw His
power, because it is unlimited. Having a relationship with God is
necessary when our batteries have run down. And for anyone looking for
self esteem that is likely to have happened.
EMPOWERMENT
The
final step to building self esteem is to empower yourself. Power comes
from all sorts of places. Some energy will be temporary, like the buzz
of caffeine or cocaine that ends up leaving you feeling low. The
energy spurt of a temporary attraction can also leave you feeling
deflated when it fades, or damaged when it is not reciprocated. Even
riding high on success and achievement carries within it the
inevitability of coming down to earth with a bump when there is
criticism and misunderstanding.
True energy will leave you
feeling quietly confident, contented, satisfied, accepting, loving and
at peace. You will feel connected to your own inner goodness, to the
source of goodness in the universe and the goodness in other people.
You will be stable and calm when things are going well and when things
go badly. You will not need to blame or criticize anyone or anything.
You
will love yourself—which means looking after your physical needs,
eating the right food, taking exercise. You will spend time alone,
being creative, meditating or enjoying silence, happy with your own
company, and happy in the company of others. You will know your
limitations and draw clear boundaries with confidence and calmness when
it comes to work and commitments.
To maintain this state of self
esteem you will need to be very cautious about what causes leakages to
your inner strength. Power will seep away if you are not true to
yourself. We all have an internal barometer which will indicate to us
when we are off track. Deep within the soul, in the silent Soul Room
of our being, is our conscience. It is our inner wisdom, the part of
us that knows really that love is a more natural state of being than
hate, that peace is more natural than stress. And it knows when we
violate our own truth through our weaknesses, compulsions and being
influenced by others. Our conscience ‘bites’, we become prisoners of
our own conscience. I said earlier that God does not withdraw His
power, but we can prevent ourselves from taking the power of goodness
from God, and finding strength in our own goodness if we are not true
to ourselves. If we deceive ourselves, if we forget who we really are,
if we take quick fixes of energy by criticising others, by giving in to
greediness or easy options, our energy will leak away. If we abuse
ourselves or anyone else in any way we will not have a clear
conscience. It will play on our minds. And when we go to our Soul Room
there will not be peace, but punishment. Self inflicted punishment,
the punishment of a troubled mind.
It is a paradox of
spirituality, that real self esteem comes when we in fact go beyond our
‘self’. If we transcend ourselves, if we no longer have any selfish or
willful desires, we can become an instrument of God’s will. Then our
purpose in life becomes very clear. And it is only when we have a
clear purpose that we can have true self esteem. When we go beyond our
‘selves’ then we find the soul. Then our life’s purpose is quite simply
to learn to love and to bring peace on earth, in whatever way we can.
This may be through composing a symphony or baking cakes. It does not
really matter.