Living The Way of Mastery with Jason Amoroso
Each day I will read a passage from The Way of Mastery and share my commentary on it. The intention is to provide an opportunity to develop a consistent, simple spiritual study practice and grow together.
Living The Way of Mastery with Jason Amoroso
Lesson 15: Have you suffered enough?
Lesson 15: Love or Fear - The Choice Is Yours
Section 3: The Only Energy That Can Separate You From The Kingdom
Paragraphs: 6-9
What if you could conquer fear and transform your life by simply choosing love? Join us as we explore this profound idea, diving into the intricate dance between our choices and the experiences we manifest. By examining our beliefs and understanding the role of the ego, or "little mind," we reveal how embracing new perspectives can lead to a life filled with peace and empowerment. Unlock the secrets to making conscious choices that align with your true values and discover the power within to transcend fear.
Feeling stuck in your comfort zone? Imagine a hermit crab courageously shedding its old shell to embrace the unknown – a perfect metaphor for personal growth. Drawing from my own journey as a life transition coach, we reveal why change often feels daunting and how discomfort can become a catalyst for transformation. Through compelling stories and insights, we uncover the magic that occurs when you face fears, heal old wounds, and boldly step into new possibilities. Discover how vulnerability is not a weakness but a pathway to profound personal growth.
Ever wondered if a simple smile could add years to your life? We delve into the science behind positivity, sharing a fascinating study on the correlation between smiles and longevity. By recognizing when fear drives our actions, learn to wield your inner magic wand and cultivate a life filled with joy and freedom. As we wrap up, we express our deepest gratitude for your support and encourage you to help us spread this message of love and transformation. Remember, true change begins from within, and each of us holds the power to make a difference in the world.
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Hello and welcome back to Living the Way of Mastery. I'm Jason Amoroso, your guide and friend and fellow student, and today we continue with Lesson 15, love or Fear. The choice is yours and it is always a choice. So let's dive back into Section 3, the only energy that can separate you from the kingdom, and we're going to look at paragraph six, where Jeshua continues what would you teach yourself? And therefore make true for you? The message of this lesson is being given slowly, deliberately and carefully, for we want you to make no mistake in what is being shared, both in terms of practice and in theory. Theory is important in your world, for it is only through theory that the mind, the little part of you that is arrogant, will decide whether to value what the theory offers. And when you have placed value upon what the theory offers to you, you are then willing to embark on the practices it requires. I hope this makes sense to you. So let's just break down this first line. What would you teach yourself? What would you teach yourself? Love or fear? Let's just really keep it that simple. What would you teach yourself? And he says therefore, make true for you. So what you desire to teach yourself becomes true for you and how can you uncover what you're teaching yourself? Reverse engineer it. Just look at your experience, what you're teaching yourself? Reverse engineer it. Just look at your experience. If your experience of life, your life, the world, is fearful, if you're afraid a lot, anxious, worried, any of the forms of fear feeling guilty, feeling shameful, feeling not worthy, feeling like you don't deserve, feeling that you're less than feeling like you can't speak your truth. What's true for you, any form of fear If that's your experience, then on some level not consciously for most people you're choosing to teach yourself fear. That's what you're valuing in this moment is fear, and the first step to healing and awakening is acknowledging that, is, admitting that and saying to a part of yourself I don't really know why I'm choosing this, but a part of me must be choosing it, a part of me must want it, and so I'm going to look with innocence, not with self-judgment, not with self-flagellation, but just with innocence. What part of me wants fear? What do I think it's going to give me? Oh, maybe I think it keeps me safe. Maybe I think living in lack keeps me small. Or I was told that poor is pure and wealthy people are evil and money is the root of all evil. So if I don't have money, if I find ways, again subconsciously, to stay in poverty or lack or not have enough money, then I'm pure, then I'm good, because that's what I was told Poor is pure and money is the root of all evil.
Speaker 1:Huh, but what if that whole belief system is false? What if it's not true? All you have to do is start questioning your own beliefs, and it doesn't even mean you need to come to a conclusion that, well, the opposite must be true. The wealthy are the worthy right? There's a lot of messaging around that too. If you're poor, you're unworthy. If you're rich, you're worthy. So I got to be rich, I don't want to be poor, right there. That's what if that's not true either? And you start to look at all these beliefs that they're just beliefs, they're just thoughts, and I get to value or invest in, or, yeah, value and invest in, and choose which beliefs I want to experience.
Speaker 1:Again, most of this is happening unconscious. That's why this work is becoming more conscious, more aware of what we're choosing. But it's us choosing it. No one's choosing it for us, even if our parents and society and the culture that we were incarnated into believes one thing doesn't mean we need to also believe it. We have our own free, sovereign mind. How amazing is that, hallelujah.
Speaker 1:So what would you teach yourself? Just look at your experience and you'll see what you value and what you're teaching yourself and thereby making true for you. If you would teach yourself peace, then peace would be true for you and you would seek out peace in every situation. You would be the presence of peace as much as you could in every situation. Doesn't mean this is not like oh, I got to be perfect now and I can't get angry or triggered. No, not at all. When you get angry and triggered, that's actually an indication that some unhealed, unresolved issue is coming up to be looked at. Oh, my trigger is an indication of some misunderstanding inside of me. Let me root it out, let me see it so I can make a different choice. So our triggers are our pathway home, if we see it as such, or they're evidence that we're a victim, that we're at the mercy of somebody else. We're just reacting to their wrongness. So it's all an inside game, which is so beautiful because you're not at the mercy of the world, you see, or anything or anyone else. This is empowering. All right, so this next paragraph, it's a lot. Alright, so this next paragraph, it's a lot.
Speaker 1:But basically Jeshua is saying, or the lineage is saying we want to make no mistake in what we're sharing about this theory. That theory is important to your little mind, your brain mind, your personal ego mind. It needs theory because it says the little mind is a part of you that's arrogant. And what does that mean? It just means the part of you that thinks you know, the part of you that thinks you're separate from God, that thinks you have all the answers, that doesn't need any help. So that's what it's talking about. The little mind, that part of you, is arrogant and thinks it knows everything, and it will decide whether to value what the theory offers. So Jeshua is saying we're giving you some rational, good theory here so that your mind can say all right, I can buy into that, I can value that. Because when you've placed value upon what the theory offers you, you're then willing to embark on the practices it requires. So when you understand the theory, when you agree with the theory, you buy in more. When you are bought into the theory, you'll be willing to do the things, do the practices that will lead you home, that will lead you to what you're looking for. So he continues.
Speaker 1:Therefore, in this lesson, we're choosing to speak with you more rationally than emotionally. We would ask you to consider this have you suffered enough? Have you kept yourself small long enough? Have you tasted limitation deeply enough to know that you want these things no longer? Would you be willing to patiently choose the dissolving of your illusions? For on just the other side of each illusion is the freedom and peace that you seek. I love that.
Speaker 1:It's like we are infinite spirit, we are expansive consciousness and we are having this human experience which seems anything but the human experience is filled with lack, limitation, obstacles quote unquote bad or wrong things. It's filled with all these limitations quote bad or wrong things. It's filled with all these limitations, separation, fear. But what we're learning is that every single one of these so-called limitations, fear, separation, lack and all the other things I mentioned, they're illusions, they're not real, they are false evidence appearing real, and then we're reacting and operating within a false illusory construct. And Jeshua was like. You can do that as long as you want and if you're wanting a different experience, I'm helping you wake up and seeing through the illusions to truth, and what a joy that might be If you're an infinite spirit, you're like, hey, let me create some seeming limitations, to kind of have the experience of breaking through them and waking up. That would be like a fun game, I think. So let's answer these questions, journal them down, write them down, take down. Take a moment, don't just read through it. We would ask you to consider have you suffered enough?
Speaker 1:People don't change until they're, until they say inside enough is enough on some level, enough is enough. I'm ready for change, I want change. People will not change until they get to that point. I know this because I work. I coach people through life transition and change, and I'll have a lot of people come to me saying they want change, but they're. They want change, but they're not ready to do the thing, to make the changes, to see things differently that will actually bring about change. They're not ready to see themselves differently. They're not ready to ask deeper questions. They're not ready to ask deeper questions. They're not ready to take the actions that they're afraid of. So they say they want it on one level, but they're not ready on a deeper level, and that's fine.
Speaker 1:At some point, though, that urge or that pain point of staying in the same place gets too painful and you say enough is enough, I'm ready for change, whatever it's going to take, whatever is asked of me I'll do, because it's so uncomfortable, it's so painful. I work with a lot of men and I find that, on average, men resist change until it gets so uncomfortable until they hit quote unquote rock bottom, whether that's through an addiction, whether that's through oh my God, my wife is threatening to leave me. Now I need to make a change. Oh my God. I'm on the verge of bankruptcy. Now I need to make a change. Oh my God. I just had a heart attack because I'm so stressed and I hate my job and I know I want to do something else, but I'm so afraid to give up that security. But I have this heart attack and I've got kids and I don't want to die yet. Now I'm willing to make a change.
Speaker 1:So many men and people wait until life gets really loud for them to finally say I surrender and I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Then magic happens, because in that humility you're kind of stripped away of all your coping mechanisms. You're stripped away of all your false beliefs that you can do it on your own, not that you need me as a coach, but that you can do it on your own life, that you don't need God or you don't need something bigger than yourself, your soul, to really support you and guide you and lead you. So have you suffered enough? And some people are like I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I need to suffer more. And at some point, once I suffer enough, or once I punish myself enough, then I'll feel worthy, then God will grace me. And they're just beating, they're doing it to themselves and they don't see it. Have you suffered enough? Have you kept yourself small long enough? Keeping ourselves small is so painful. It's like, uh, it's like I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna say a hermit crab. A hermit crab starts to grow and then it starts to outgrow its shell and it leaves its shell, which is very risky. The shell is protection, the shell is safety, but the hermit crab is starting to outgrow and it's like this is too uncomfortable, I gotta find a bigger shell. And so it takes the risk to leave its shell. And it's this very vulnerable state where it's finding a new shell and it's at risk of being killed or eaten or whatever. Are you willing to risk. As we grow, we think, oh, as I grow, it's going to be more graceful, it's going to be. I'm going to be more enlightened, I'm going to be more at peace. In some ways, yes, but in other ways, at some point you're going to reach the edges of your comfort zone. That's your shell and it's going to seem really scary and really risky to leave that, because you've built it up. You've created this shell of coping mechanisms and beliefs and success.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the shell for some people is success. I've made a ton of money. I have a great reputation. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose my reputation. I want to risk everything that I've built up. I've spent my whole life and so much time and energy and effort building up. I don't want to risk that, but that's what life is asking of you.
Speaker 1:Everyone has this version. Maybe it's a relationship where it's like man. This relationship was so comfortable and now I feel like I've outgrown it. But I don't want to leave the relationship because I don't know what's going to happen. I'm going to go into the unknown, where I'm vulnerable. Maybe I'll never find another partner, maybe this will happen, Maybe this won't happen and we get in our head about all the what ifs. Meanwhile, our heart is like, hey, this shell is too confining, it's too constricted. We don't. This safety is not safe anymore. We're dying inside here. We need something more expansive.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself, where in your life are you knocking at the door, meaning you're feeling too confined that you're ready to break out, but you're afraid afraid to be vulnerable, afraid to go out into the unknown, to risk it, afraid to give up what you've built up or what you think keeps you safe. That, by the way, is my magic, that's my bread and butter. Ushering, guiding people through that phase is, to me, the best, because it's where all the fear, all the resistance, all the old stories and limiting beliefs and patterns come up and we get to look at them, we get to see them, we get to heal any old wounds and misunderstandings. We have to create new beliefs, new ideas, step into new possibilities, take courageous, fearless action. Even if you're afraid, you take fearless action and you do it anyway. And that's when the magic happens. And the magic is not creating the new thing, getting in the next relationship, or transitioning into a new career, a new work or whatever the thing that your vision is. It's really about who you become in saying yes to that vision and moving through the fear and the resistance and taking the action even when you're afraid to. That's the magic. That's my coaching, that's what I help people through. It's the best. So, hey, small, psa, small, what is it promotion for myself and my services? If you're at that place and a part of you is ready, but you're also scared, perfect, reach out to me. Let's make magic together. It's awesome and it's a big commitment on your part to show up and make this change. It's scary as heck, but it's also exactly what your soul is ready for.
Speaker 1:Anyways, back to this. Have you kept yourself small long enough? It's painful to stay small. Have you tasted limitation deeply enough to know that you want these things no longer? I don't want to feel limited anymore. I don't want to feel afraid anymore. I don't want to feel like I'm comparing myself and I'm less than or losing in life anymore. I don't want to upset the app. I don't want to not speak my truth anymore. I just need to be fully expressed. I'm not saying I'm right all the time, but I don't want to withhold my truth for fear of judgment or getting canceled or whatever. Have you tasted limitation deeply enough to know that you don't want it anymore. I don't want to. I'm tired of living in lack all the time.
Speaker 1:Would you be willing to patiently choose the dissolving of your illusions? And it's okay if the answer is no right now. It's okay if the answer is no to these things. You're just not ready yet. But you're reading this. So a part of you is like okay, we're moving closer and closer.
Speaker 1:Everyone has their own kind of fear, tolerance. So if a part of you is really afraid of big change, that's okay. At some point it'll get louder. At some point, you'll see, you'll start to watch movies or see stories of other people who are moving through their fear and it'll start to build the courage within you. You'll start to get signs from books or conversations or things you see on social media or things you see in nature. You'll start to see more signs. Okay, I can do this, I'm ready. It's getting too painful, I got this, I can do this. You'll start it. So it's okay if the answer is no to these, because your answer in your heart is yes for sure. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading the way of mastery.
Speaker 1:And are you willing to patiently choose the dissolving of your illusions and all things in time are temporary. You are an eternal being. Don't judge yourself so much. Even if it's been 10 years that you've been afraid to do the thing, or three months you've been afraid to say the thing. Are you willing to patiently dissolve, choose to dissolve your illusions? If the answer is yes, then game over, you've won. Just be patient and it will happen when it needs to happen, according to divine timing, not your personal expectations and timing. Hey God, I need it now. Hey God, why hasn't this happened yet? That's not patience, that's demanding. And Jesher says fear and resistance. We don't think on some subconscious level we believe that fear and resistance keeps us safe.
Speaker 1:If I procrastinate long enough, then I I say I want to write the book, but I'm just gonna keep procrastinating and finding other things to distract me or things that are other priorities. I want to write this book, but I keep not writing it, because a part of us is afraid that if I write the book, maybe I'll be be seen, maybe I'll be rejected, maybe it'll be evidence. If no one likes the book, it'll be evidence I'm not good enough. And if I write the book and no one likes it, maybe it's evidence that I can't trust myself. My soul is saying write the book, but then no one cares about it, no one even likes it, or no one wants to publish it. So what the heck is my heart's desires for anyway? I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid of feeling that right, that's not a conscious thought, but I know for me that stuff's been in there for sure, and a lot of people I have worked with it's been in there for sure. So you start to look at it and you start to bring love and healing to it, you start to question those misunderstandings and then everything shifts. Let's continue, jesher says.
Speaker 1:In any moment you can tell quite clearly what you are most committed to. If the body is tight and uncomfortable, if you must speak with a louder voice, if you must raise your voice, if you're not really breathing, if you notice that your solar plexus, your diaphragm is always tight, you're not breathing. If your words come more I'm adding all those things, by the way, I'm doing my commentary before as I'm reading the paragraph If your words come more quickly, if the brow is furrowed and the jaw tense, rest assured, you have chosen to be devoted to fear. Chosen to be devoted to fear Again. If you're anxious, stressed, worried, angry, resentful feeling, shameful, feeling, guilty, feeling, blaming, you've been devoted to fear. Don't judge yourself for that. Just see it. Be like oh yeah, this is what I'm choosing.
Speaker 1:I'm afraid, I don't feel safe, I don't feel heard, I don't feel seen, I don't feel valued, I don't feel loved, I don't feel enough. Just acknowledge that and be like oh okay, it's not personal, it's just the part of me, the ego, the tiny mad idea that's feeling not enough. It's not even about me. It's not personal to me. My own thinking is not personal to me. It's the greatest hits of the ego. It's going to do the same thing over and over again and find a million different vehicles and forms to bring up the feeling of not enough, of separate from God, of unworthy of love. It can find it in the bank account and it could find it in the car you drive, comparing yourself to other people's cars. It can find you. It can.
Speaker 1:That feeling can come up in an infinite number of ways. Just see it. Oh, the greatest hits of the ego. It's not personal to me, that's just what the ego, the tiny mad idea, the fearful thought it. That's just what it does.
Speaker 1:And then, once you see the impersonal nature. You don't take it personally. Oh, I can still be a human being and have these feelings and these thoughts, but they're not who I am. They're just like a record playing in the background. That's really old school. It's an audio track on loop, that's all it is, and I don't have to pay attention to it anymore. I can see that it's there and it might pop up and it might be a little louder at certain points, but I don't have to let it define me, I don't have to let it dominate my mind. There's such freedom in that.
Speaker 1:So just and you know he's talking about things happening in the body. Listen to your body, like, pay attention to your body. Oh, I didn't realize how tight my jaw was. I didn't realize my posture. I didn't realize that I'm not breathing. I didn't realize that. You know, sometimes I notice, when I'm like I don't know if it's thinking too hard, but it's like worrying that my, my brow gets furrowed and sometimes I have to raise my eyebrows and all of a sudden my whole mood shifts. Oh my gosh, I'm taking things way too seriously. That's why my eyebrows are all scrunched up. Let me lift my eyebrows a little bit and just the physical change can sometimes have an energetic and emotional change.
Speaker 1:It's like the studies that show that if you smile, even if you're not happy, you actually get happier just by the act of smiling, even if you're forcing it. You know, there's that thing where you put a pencil between your teeth, it forces you to smile, makes you a little happier. There's this great study that they did um that I want to share with you. I don't know why it's popped in, I guess, of the smiling. When I used to work in professional baseball, I'd sit with the athletes and they're young kids and I would show them this study about. They looked at all these baseball players and their baseball cards, I think in the 60s, and they looked at players who were smiling in their photo and players who were not smiling and serious in their photo, and then they tracked it over like 30 years and the players who smiled in their photo and on their baseball card lived like 15 percent longer than the players who didn't smile in their picture. So, come on, if that is an evidence that we all need to be smiling more, let's go.
Speaker 1:All right, we're gonna finish up with this last paragraph. My wife just got home and she's in the, in the kitchen, uh, making her morning coffee, and so hopefully the background noise isn't too loud. But normally this is where I'd stop, but I'm going to keep going. So one more paragraph. So Jeshua says you are like one who carries a magic wand filled with such power that you could merely wave it upon the face of this earth and extend the kingdom of heaven to every heart and every mind. What, then, can prevent the expression of such power? The fear you have made to replace the reality of love. How beautiful is that. You are the wand.
Speaker 1:Imagine not that you carry a wand, a magic wand which filled with such power that you could just wave it upon the face of the earth and extend the kingdom of heaven to every heart and every mind. If we had that, you would do it in a second. You just wave your wand. Peace on earth, happiness, joy, fulfillment. Everyone is doing their thing and it works out harmoniously. Somehow you would wave your wand and in an an instant, everything would be different, except the magic is you. You are the wand and you're not here to change the world. You're here to express the magic within you, express the love within you, express the light within you fearlessly, ceaselessly, over and over, wherever you find yourself to be. Because here's the fun thing we're all the magic wand, especially and even all of us.
Speaker 1:So especially, and even the ones who aren't aware that they're the magic wand. How cool is that? You're a magic wand and you know that everyone else is a magic wand too. They're just kind of asleep or ignorant to the fact that they're a magic wand. They think they're not a magic wand. They, they're just kind of asleep or ignorant to the fact that they're a magic wand. They think they're not a magic wand, they think they're just a stick. But they have all the magic and power in them. Isn't that the human experience? Isn't that every movie that we love? The hero's journey when Neo and the Matrix wakes up to the power that he is, or Luke Skywalker wakes up to the power that he is, or Harry Potter wakes up to the power that he is, or Harry Potter wakes up to the power that he is, the power of love and life within each person.
Speaker 1:As Marianne Williamson says in her famous quote it's not our darkness that we're most afraid of, it's our light. It's that. We are all children of God. We are all the magic wand and by telling someone their magic wand, they might hear it or they might not, they might not believe you at all, but what is undeniable is you being your own magic wand. You be the magic wand in the world. You grace and bless the world with your presence, with your consciousness.
Speaker 1:Wherever you find yourself at the grocery store, getting gas at the gas station, doing your laundry, being in church, getting gas at the gas station, doing your laundry, being in church, wherever you find yourself, to be, online in a group, on social media, commenting on someone's post it's where your consciousness is. Be that light, spread the joy that you are, be the magic wand in the world, and the kingdom of heaven is yours. It's not waiting for the outside world to change. So then, oh, there it is. There's heaven Now there's heaven on earth. No, you be heaven in you and then, wherever you are, there's heaven on earth because it's happening inside of you. How amazing is that? It's all happening inside of you. It doesn't matter what anyone else's reaction is. It doesn't matter if the world's burning, in war, in conflict. If you are the presence of heaven on earth, then your experience of life is heaven on earth. You get to be this presence, no matter what anyone else or anything else is doing.
Speaker 1:This is the message of the Christ. That's it and that's so threatening to the quote unquote powers that be to the ruling class. They don't want free beings in their light and in their love. You can't control that. It's uncontrollable. That's why it's revolutionary.
Speaker 1:You are the magic wand filled with such power that just being and extending your light brings the kingdom of heaven to every heart and every mind. Whether they can receive it is not your business. They might call you weird, they might call you the devil, they might call you whatever they're going to call you out of their own ignorance or fear. But all you can do is be the presence of love and light and joy and compassion and kindness and generosity and all the things we, and peace, and all the things we want to be anyway. So what can then? What can prevent the expression of such power? Nothing. Nothing can prevent it, except Jeshua's saying, the fear that you've made to replace the reality of love. Fear. If you're in fear, you can't.
Speaker 1:It's like the hose is open and flowing water, the water of life, and fear just cuts the cuts the hose off. It's like when you, when you were a little kid or an adult, and you kind of twist the hose and now no more water comes out. The water is still flowing from the, from the spout, from the, from the wall into the hose, but you cinch to the hose. You've twisted the hose so no water gets stuck there. The second you untwist the hose, water starts flowing again. That's you Same thing, maybe. That's yeah, so it's simple. It's simple. Let's all practice that today.
Speaker 1:Love you guys, hope you have an amazing day. If you get value from the podcast, please share it either on social media or send. Send it in a personal text to somebody that you care about, like subscribe, give us a good review on apple podcast, even if you're not listening on apple podcast. And if you give us a good review and just write something really short, just take a minute to be write something, because written reviews always better than just stars. Um, that would be so appreciated. Thank you so much, love you guys, and we'll see you next time.