Gods Will and the Authentic Self

The speaker discusses the concept of God's will in Christianity and compares it to the idea of the authentic self in spirituality. They explain that living under God's will can be challenging for those who value their independence and free will. The speaker also talks about the science of the brain and how the ego can influence our decisions. They argue that God's ultimate will is for us to be our authentic selves and that moments of insight and inspiration are our authentic selves emerging. They conclude that God's will is for us to be our authentic selves, which allows us to give and receive love. I wanted to talk about the Christian concept of God's will and also compare that to the non-Christian or the sort of spiritual concept of the authentic self. One of the most important concepts in Christianity is the idea that what we're striving to do is to live under God's will. That is a very profound and challenging concept for people that are coming to Christianity because I think one thing we value as people is our independence and to have our free will. The idea of giving that as a gift up to God is quite complex and challenging. The absolute classic example of this, and anybody who's ever been to some of the newer church institutions, somebody will get up and they'll say, look I was working as an accountant or a teacher and then one day I got this call from God and I went to Africa and worked with children and I didn't want to do it, I was fearful, but I just followed God's will. Invariably they're inspiring stories, but a very difficult concept for people in that grey area of faith where they want to give themselves to Christianity, but the concept of giving up their own independence and free will is an extraordinarily challenging one. Now that we know more about the science of the brain and the concept of ego and how that is often the voice telling us not to do things, not to take risks, you're not worthy, you're not good enough, those sorts of things, we know physiologically that it sits in the left side of the brain that is the ordered and structured and negative, in a simple sense, side of the brain. And then as we discussed previously there's the authentic self which is who we truly are, the creative, the beautiful, the loving side of who we are. The way I sort of understand God's will now is that his ultimate will is for us to be our authentic self. If we are a duality, and we can either be two things in our life, or in any day, or in any decision or in any moment, we can be our authentic self or we can let the ego consciously or consciously make our decisions and live our lives for us. If that's the case, and that's the duality thing, God's will is for us just to be ourselves, our authentic selves. So if we get back to that example of the story about Africa, let's look at it another way. I think that person who was the teacher of the canon and went off to Africa, I think what's actually happened is their egos kept them trapped in a life without risks. It's not necessarily that there's moments of love and authenticity and there's moments of ego, like most people's lives. But in a career sense, in terms of what they do on a day-to-day basis, their egos kept them trapped and said, you can't take any risks, you've got to run out of money, all these negative thoughts, and the person in that sense has been trapped inside their ego. But what's actually happened is, there's just been little insights in their lives. They read an article on Africa five years ago. They had a friend who did something risky and it kind of worked out, and that kind of sunk in, and their authentic self had been building and building and building. Getting these ideas and knowing in its true self that this person probably wanted to do that, and then this moment, this insight, this message from God, is really their authentic self actually emerging. There's no way it could have battled through the ego, it slowly beats it down. The ego is too strong, it knew it had to do it in one leap. So the authentic self of this insight, gathered over years, has leapt up and been strong enough in that moment for that person to act and choose a different way. When you look at it like that, when you look at it as God's will, it's ultimately for us to be our authentic selves. I don't think the concepts are scary. God's will is for us to be our authentic self, and when we are our authentic self, that's when we can give and receive the most love.