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 16: The need for special relationships
The chase for “special” looks glamorous on the surface—status at work, the perfect partner, the right body, the image of being spiritual—but underneath it all sits a restless belief that we’re separate and not enough. We took that tiny idea seriously, and it has shaped our habits, our feeds, and our nights. So we dug deep into how ego engineers special relationships, how comparison steals our peace, and why even spiritual superiority is just another costume for the same fear.
From there, we pivoted to something practical and close-at-hand: a simple thought at bedtime that reopens awareness to a living stream of communication running through everything. Think of it like tuning a receiver to a signal that’s already present. The words are straightforward—I am not just this body-mind. I am that One, pure, unbounded, and undefiled—and they begin to soften the body’s tight grip on separation. At first it can feel ridiculous because the world’s insanity is dressed as normalcy. Keep repeating it. Momentum shifts, and the mind learns a quieter rhythm.
We also talk about being in the world but not of it—paying bills, raising kids, showing up at work—without letting outcomes define worth. Triggers stop being proof of failure and start becoming your curriculum. Ask cleaner questions: If this is a special relationship, how might it be? What am I trying to get here that I think I lack? Over time, action gets lighter, generosity gets cleaner, and you remember that nothing real can be threatened. We close with a preview of a 2026 self-study path for Way of Mastery, with guides, exercises, and meditations to help you apply these teachings daily.
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Hello and welcome back to Living the Way of Mastery. I'm Jason Amaroso, your guide and friend and fellow student. And today we continue lesson 16: the birth of egoic consciousness, section six, fear has taken its final form. And this is the completion of this section we pick up in paragraph 26 where Jeshua says, egoic consciousness plays itself out through the forms of special in italics, special relationships. You have a special relationship with your employer. You have a special relationship with your spouse, your lovers, your car, your boats, and your automobiles. And the world plays off of your need for specialness, such as, quote, look at this automobile. Isn't this one sexy? Oh, you're gonna feel so good, end quote. So you seek to create the means to possess that certain automobile. Or you think, quote, if only I had that person as my spouse, oh, let me seek that one by seducing that one. I'll act as though I'm other than my poor, paltry, lonely self, so that they think I'm grand. I will ruffle up my peacock feathers, end quote. So Jeshua's using this phrase, which is a big part of a course in miracles, this idea of the egoic consciousness really playing itself out through special relationships. Special. And it has two sides of the same coin. So one side is specialness, and the other side is not specialness. And we, it's so easy to live our life constantly evaluating ourselves and comparing ourselves to other people. It is the foundation of celebrity worship. Oh, look at them. Look how special they are. I want to be like them. I want to be worshipped. I want to be famous. I want to be wealthy. I want to have all the attention because then I'll feel good enough. Then I'll feel worthy. Then I'll feel lovable. On some level, it is really that simple. And the special relationship. This is one of, I'll be honest, like I don't celebrity worship, but this is one of my core lessons in this human experience of specialness, of wanting to feel good enough. Like, oh, I'm worthy of God's love and support in this world. And if I can get to this certain place, and this isn't conscious, by the way, this is subconscious, and I'm aware of it now. So it's like becoming aware of when it starts to show up in my life. And it mostly for me, the vehicle is mostly around work and identity. And where for other people, it's relationship, it's their body, it's again like their fame. Like I have no desire to be famous at all. So like that that vehicle of specialness is not mine. Um, but being recognized for the work I do, I absolutely, there's a part of me that wants to be recognized, that wants to be seen as quote, spiritual. Again, like I know that doesn't really mean anything. What does it even mean? But a part of me wants to be seen that way because then I'm good. Uh and so it's seeking that specialness. Some people seek for it in material things. Again, the house, the car, the status, the bank account, whatever it is, the spouse, the body. Oh, look, I've got six-pack abs. Uh there's a form of a special relationship in some way. And this is how egoic ego, edging God out this tiny mad idea of separation uh plays itself out. And so he says, you have a special relationship with your employer. You have a special relationship with your spouse, with your lovers, your car, your boats, your automobiles. Oh, look at this one. This is gonna make me feel great, especially compared to all those poor, paltry, lonely losers out there, that I'm not one of them. But secretly inside, the ego knows that in a way it is. Look, I'm separate. I'm out there, I'm less than. If I was part of the club, I wouldn't feel this way. And I don't want to feel like all those other losers that that are, you know, the lonely, paltry self self. I don't want to be like them. Even this is the shadow, even though it is honestly, secretly, the ego believes itself to be the loser, the not good enough, but it doesn't want to feel that. So it puffs up the peacock feathers and says, Oh, look at me. And what's a what's a wonderful vehicle in our modern age for this? Social media, curated, fake uh showing of life. And it's just fake. People curate. They you you post on social media what you want others to see. Even one where like people are crying on social media, like, oh, look, I'm crying. Like that, even that, it's a public display. You're doing it for some purpose. Maybe it is to serve people, but a lot of times it's just, oh, look at me, I'm being vulnerable and and sobbing on social media so everybody can see something. Again, the special relationship, the better than, less than. It's the same kind of dynamic as the oppressed and the oppressor. To feel oppressed and have that be your identity, you need an oppressor, right? And get the juice from feeling like the victim. To feel special, you need something that's not special. You need a whole bunch of people that are less than or unenlightened. That's another one. Like spirituality is no different than any other part of the human experience. The ego can use spirituality, and even in a lot of ways, it's it's juicier for the ego because it seems so great that look at me, I'm spiritual, I'm better than, I meditate every day, I'm I don't get phased by anything. I know that the world is an illusion, but secretly it's like those other people aren't. Like the word sheeple. If you hear people use the word sheeple, oh, look at all those sheeple, those unenlightened folk, they're those, they're they're not awake, they don't know what's going on. But it's said with judgment. It's said because the person saying it wants to feel better than, wants to feel special. And sometimes we create a relationship where we um want to feel special, but we don't. We want to be the less than special. Again, like the celebrity worship. Oh, look at them. Look at how amazing they are, and I'm not that. So this is what Jeshua, this is the ego at play. And he says, and on it goes. The world is the reflection of the belief in the need in italics, need for special relationship. The world is a reflection of a belief. It's just mirroring back a belief that special relationships are needed. The search for that is the restlessness that you feel. That restlessness that you feel in the mind that creates the waves of restlessness and the fluids and subtle energies which are contained within and make up the illusion of the body. The restlessness of the breath, the tightness of the muscles, the loneliness as you rest your head upon the pillow at night. For you believe that you are that body-mind, separate and alone, apart from all others. This is really the source of all of our suffering. This belief, again, in the tiny mad idea that we took seriously, that we forgot to laugh at and be like, oh my gosh, how could I ever be apart from the all that is? And so this is the source of everything, of all of the human suffering, let's put it that way, that you are a body-mind, that you're separate and alone and apart from all others. And so the world is a reflection of the need for special relationship, to feel like you're not, you know, to kind of combat this idea that you're alone, paltry, lonely, sad self apart, outside of the goodness. So we need to create the special relationship to feel better. It's just another way of saying it is like the void. So many of us feel like, well, something's missing in life. So I'm gonna go get it in looking great, in success. I mean, people have achieved crazy success that's really driven from a deep sense of not enough. And some people are like, well, why does that matter? They're achieving great things. At the end of the day, all things in time are temporary. At the end of the day, honestly, none of this shit matters. What we do in the world does not matter. It's not lasting, it's not real in a way, because nothing real can be threatened. So if anything in the world can be threatened, anything in time that is temporary that doesn't last, it's not real. So, yes, can you do amazing things driven from fear, driven from a sense of lack, driven from a deep-seated belief of I'm not worthy, that something inside of me is missing, so I'm going to achieve greatness. Yeah, and it's just all castles built on sand. But the world, the world out there worships that. You should be like that. And so it's just Jeshua is explaining this dynamic, the restlessness you feel at night when you put your head on the pillow that can't be filled by anything of specialness that we try so hard to. It's like when things start to slow down and we don't have the phone and we don't have the TV on and we're not listening to anything, and it's just us at night on our head, maybe feeling or hearing your own heart beating. That's when shit gets real. That's when you're like, oh my God, I can't hide from myself. Oh my God, there's I'm I'm I'm lacking so much. Oh my God, I'm afraid of so much. Nope, don't want to feel that. Let me pop on a show. Let me put on a podcast, let me have something to keep my mind busy. Let me take a pill. I mean, I I I'm not one for pills, but I know a lot of people take pills. Let me smoke weed, let me do whatever I need to do to get to sleep so I don't feel this way. Jeshua continues. The infinite eternal stream of communication that occurs throughout creation, unobstructed, is lost to your awareness. Yet so close are you, it requires only a thought to shift the momentum in a new direction. Only a thought to shift the momentum in a new direction. To rest your head upon the pillow and say, I'm not just this body-mind. I am that one, and that and one are capitalized, capital T, capital O. I am that one, pure, unbounded, and undefiled. I am in communication with every rock and every tree and every time frame that has ever been. Yeah, this is the good shit. This is what Jeshua's inviting us: that there is this infinite, everlasting, never-ending, eternal stream of intelligence, of communication that is always happening, that occurs throughout creation. All of it. Anything that exists is of God. Anything that doesn't exist by definition doesn't exist. So everything that exists is of this energy, this intelligence, this beyond intellectual comprehension, this life force that we call God, universe, source, whatever, whatever word you want to work. I love God. I love the word God and I love God, right? It occurs throughout, it's unobstructed, it never stops. It can't be blocked, it can't be limited. Now, just like there's radio, this is gonna date me, but let's use a more modern, just like this Wi-Fi signal floating all around, unless you have something to receive it, I was gonna say radio waves, unless you have a receiver of radio waves, you're not experiencing the radio waves. It's like the the God waves, the God intelligence is always everywhere within you, all over. It's it is everything. But if you're not open to it, if your receptor isn't open, you're not experiencing it. And even in that experience, uh, you couldn't exist outside of God. So it's lost to your awareness. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just you're not aware of it. You're not experiencing it. And Jesser says, yet so close you are. It makes me think of that. Again, I'm not a Bible scholar by any means. There's only certain phrases. And this was one that Reverend Michael Beckwith at Agape International Center in LA when we used to live there and go there, would say all the time closer than your breathing, nearer than your hands and feet. So close are you. It's right here. It's a thought away. It requires only a thought to shift the momentum in a new direction. And if you're like, well, what thought is that? Jeshua gives it to you right here. And if you want to practice, again, if we're living the way of mastery and you're on lesson 16, add this in before you go to bed. Maybe you're doing the forgiveness at the end of every day, you're forgiving the day. Maybe that's part of your practice, of your daily practice, but add this in too. Write out the words, keep them on a little notepad by your bed, and say this before you go to bed. I am not just this body-mind. I am that one, pure, unbounded, and undefiled. I am in communication with every rock and every tree and every time frame that has ever been. Now, a part of us is like, okay, that's great. That sounds great. I want that, but that is not my experience. And so in our last paragraph of today, Jeshua addresses this. He says, and yes, when you begin that thought, it will seem wholly insane because you have been on the other side of the fence, looking at reality from a certain perspective. It fits like a glove upon the hand, but that does not make it right or true. So your insanity of believing in the tiny mad idea of separation, just because you, just because the the the major vast majority of the world believes a certain thing, doesn't make it true. That's what he's saying. It fits like a glove, but that doesn't make it right or true. Insanity seems sane to those who are insane. So that is just the way it is. So keep on, so this is me now, keep on saying this every night. Remind yourself, say it in the day. It doesn't matter. Like remind yourself of these things, especially as you start to slow down. Your brain starts to go crazy thinking of all the things, or not wanting, your body doesn't want to feel the loneliness or feel the fear or feel the insecurity, it doesn't want to feel that, so it keeps the mind busy. And then we distract ourselves again with phones or whatever it is, TV, sometimes even white noise. I'm not saying that's bad. None of this is bad. It's just explaining the dynamic. And Jeshua's saying, hey, to the insane, the sane thing seems insane, it seem seems insane. Look at the world. This is the world we live in. The wor if it's not more obvious now, it seems like everything is sped up since COVID, at least for me. Like from a like, I think a lot I was aware of a lot of these things before COVID, and many people were, but since COVID, like it's becoming more and more blatant, more and more obvious of the insanity of the world, of the of like the what's the word? It's not disconnect, um, the dissonance, cognitive dissonance of like what seems so obvious, and yet there's so the world is not that, like the way the world operates. I mean, look at the news and the media and you know, all of the content. It's insane. And it's all just reinforcing. And but at a higher level of consciousness, this is just the ego playing itself out, whether it's happening in 1880 or the 1200s or 20 and you know, 25. It doesn't really matter. Just the technology is just different, but it's the same uh insanity playing itself out, just having a new frame, so to speak. That's kind of a reference from A Course in Miracles. The world is insane. And here's the thing: we so many people see that the world is insane and they try and fix it. They're trying to save the world. But the world is just a projection of the ego consciousness. The world doesn't need saving, it just is what it is. And so that's why, as one wakes up to reality with a capital R, what Jeshua has been teaching us, and many other uh traditions and masters and teachers who are awake and see and think and clearly expanded awareness, consciousness, they teach. So you can be in the world, like, hey, you're having a human experience and you need to eat food, and for right now, you need to make money to pay bills, and like you go about your business and you drive your car and you take your kids to school, or you don't, you can live however you want to live. Like, but you're having a human experience, you're in the world, but yet you're not of it. You you see the dynamic unfolding and you're not threatened by it. That's a big one. You're not threatened by the world, because you know nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. So you're like, okay, I'm playing the game of having this body, and a part of me believes on the body, a part of me believes that I, you know, I have to do all these things of the world, I gotta pay my taxes, I gotta send my kids to school, I gotta have a job or whatever, I gotta make money somehow. Like a part of me believes that, but another part of me is anchored in the truth. So I'm in the world, but not of the world. When I relate to people, I relate to them not as this other person. I can, yes, I'll play along with their personality, I'll play along with what they need and what they're doing, but it but inside I also know it's both. I also know that they are a divine being. They are the same as me. We are one energy expressing itself. It's it's uh non-dualism, it's unity awareness that I'm in communication with everyone, everything. It's all one consciousness expressing itself. And we forget sometimes. I know I do. There's times where I'm like totally unconscious and seeing another person as an other, and I'm trying to get something that I feel like I lack, or I'm, you know, driven unsubconsciously by fear or, you know, specialness or whatever. And then because I have a daily practice of either reading a Course in Miracles, reading the Way of Mastery, doing the podcast, meditation, reading other, you know, this is the work that I live in, so I have a lot more reminders than many other people. So that's why I'm big on visual reminders. I got pictures of Jesus all in my office. I see it every day as a reminder. I've got, you know, text, reading, pod, you know, you can create a lot of touch points so that you remember and stay connected. And even then, you're going to have a human experience that is your curriculum. You're gonna get triggered by your boss, or you're gonna, you know, money's gonna get stolen from you, and you're gonna be able to practice detachment and letting go and realizing that your source is the universe, not you know, a digit in a bank account. Like you're gonna have the human experience because that's what you came here for, you incarnated for that. So when we see our life from that perspective, it's a lot, it's it's a lot less like serious from that regard. It's not life or death, because there's only life, and we're coming from that perspective. Um, and that's the invitation. Just being aware of all the different threads of specialness that you have lined up. Look at your life and be honest with yourself. Sometimes we're not aware of it until you're like, huh, is that relationship with my with this ex that I can't get rid of? Like, because I'm attached to them, I'm pining for them, or or like is that a special relationship? It is. And maybe the question you could ask is if this is a special relationship, because that frees up our mind to ask, like, if this might be, instead of this is what's the lesson? Now all of a sudden our brain's like, okay, this is it. I got to get the right answer. And then we get all tight and we limit ourselves. But if you if you kind of keep it open, you're like, if this might be a special relationship, how might it be? How might this be the ego playing itself out? How might this be reinforcing a sense of specialness, or I'm trying to get something out of someone so that I feel better? Or I'm trying to get something from a job, this next promotion, do I really want it? Like it might change my whole life. I might have to work twice as much hours, and I don't really want that. I actually love being around for my kids. But the status of it and the money of it, ooh, that's gonna make me feel and look great. We can buy that house and impress my parents who were never satisfied with anything that I did, right? That's not conscious, but it's like if I start to get curious, those themes can emerge. And we all have our own version. I just give examples, just be like, oh, I get that, or oh no, that's not me. This one's me. It just kind of seeds things, like planting seeds for you to um to have something to kind of bounce, bounce ideas off of or see how you fit into these examples. So it's great to be back. It's been a while. I've not been really consistent on the podcast in 2025, I have to say that. But uh I'm here today, and every streak starts with today and day one. So it is December 1st, uh, day one. Let's go. Thanks for being a part of this journey with me. We're coming down the home stretch of uh lesson 16. I think we're on our last section. Lesson 17 is one of my absolute favorites in the whole text. And I'm planting a seed here with you. Um, that in 2026, one of my big goals is going to be to create an entire self-study program around the way of mastery. Meaning, you'll have the podcast. And then for each lesson, there will be a self-paced study guide to apply the principles of that lesson. There'll be exercises, there'll be some uh you know, exercises things to apply the teachings. There'll be other things too. And uh I also have this idea of creating a guide, a short guide of meditation for each lesson, and then having, you know, a nice little program that you can have uh and deepen in this work even more. Maybe there'll be a QA somewhere. I don't know. Um, but, anyways, 2026 is gonna be an amazing year. It's gonna be a year of beginnings, and it's gonna be a year where we're really stepping into a new identity. And uh it's gonna come with challenges like every year does. Every growth comes with challenges because those reveal the challenges for us, and everyone has their own challenge. So, like whatever challenges you, whatever triggers you, uh upsets you, uh, angers you, saddens you, whatever upsets your piece is an invitation. It is your subconscious revealing to you the misunderstandings that you're holding about yourself, about God, about life, about others, the misunderstandings. And they all root at the same tiny mad idea of separation. But they show up in different ways and and and in different vehicles, relationship, money, health, whatever, the you know, all the parts of our life. So sending you lots of love right where you are, and uh, we'll see you next time. If you get value, oh, if you get value from the podcast, send me an email, hello at revelationbreathwork.com and say hi. Uh, give us a good review and share with somebody that you love. All right, now we'll see you next time. Peace out.