The story of Doctor Frankenstein was inspired by the ascended masters in order to illustrate one of the fundamental properties of the selves. The plot is simple, namely that a doctor – with seemingly benign motives – stitches together dead body parts and infuses them with life. Once the creature has received a form of life, it displays a survival instinct that makes it willing to kill anyone standing in its way, even its own creator. Because the doctor is unwilling to deal with his creation, he eventually perishes—as does the creature.

This is the basic characteristic of your selves. You took “dead” ideas, meaning ideas and beliefs that sprang from the consciousness of duality, and put them together into a whole. You then used your creative abilities to infuse them with a form of life so that your “creature” could fulfill the role of making most decisions for you, seemingly setting the conscious self free from the responsibility of making decisions.

What you thought was created to serve you, took on a life of its own, and now it wants to control every aspect of your life. Furthermore, it has a ferocious survival instinct and will do anything to stay alive—even if you decide that you no longer want it. The most primitive selves are willing to do anything to stay alive, even to the point of killing people that oppose them. Some selves are even willing to kill you, and they are unable to see that this will lead to their own destruction. To the selves, the ultimate cause is their own survival, and no price is too high to pay in order to ensure their survival. 

The selves will literally do anything that they believe is necessary in order to ensure their own survival. When you compare this to the previous teaching that the selves are born out or your separation from higher awareness, you can see the dangerous cocktail. Everything is created from higher awareness—without him was not anything made that was made. The connecting link between all self-aware beings is higher awareness. When you know that you are part of higher awareness, you also know that other people are part of higher awareness, and you know, in a very fundamental way, that if you hurt others, you also hurt yourself.

It is truly only when you acknowledge that you have some connection to higher awareness that you can follow the commandment to do unto others what you want them to do to you. That is why people who identify with their selves are unwilling to follow this command and even look at is as a primitive or weak statement.

Because the selves are born from your separation from higher awareness, they inevitably see themselves as completely separate from other people. The selves believe they can hurt others without harming themselves, and this is what gives rise to the most primitive of all games, namely that of ultimate physical survival.

Physical survival leading to spiritual death

The conscious self is able to identify itself as anything it chooses. The same is true for the selves. When a person sinks to the lowest level of human awareness, the selves of that person identifies themselves with and as the physical body. The survival and preservation of the physical body becomes the most important goal for the selves. The person will do anything to attain that goal, including killing anyone who is perceived as a threat to the survival of the body.

In previous discourses, we compared the selves to the operating system of a computer. What actually happens when people come to identify with their physical bodies is that the computer program of the selves merges with the computer program that is built into the physical body. The human body/brain is – as most modern people realize – a very complex mechanism. 

Many scientists believe all aspects of human consciousness is the result of the physical processes in the brain and nervous system. While this is incorrect, it is to some degree understandable that scientists can reach this conclusion. The brain and nervous system are truly so complex that they give rise to many thoughts and feelings. 

For people who have forgotten their spiritual identity and have come to identify themselves with and as a physical body, virtually all of their thoughts and feelings are produced by the brain and nervous system receiving and to some degree modifying impulses from the mass consciousness. 

When the selves merge with the “body computer,” the computer programs built into the physical body come to dominate the computer of the selves. The programs of the physical body are entirely centered around the survival of the body. This is not to say that this is necessarily wrong or evil. 

HAP is not based on the traditional view of many religious people that the body is evil. A lion is not evil, it simply does what it needs to do in order to survive. Likewise, the body will do what it needs to do in order to survive. The problem is, of course, that the body computer is not actually able to think.

It has only physical life, but no spiritual life. It has no self-awareness and consequently no way to distinguish between what brings it closer to oneness or further into separation. It has no ethical or moral concerns, and it is incapable of reasoning that what it thinks is necessary for its survival might be “wrong” or have long-term consequences for the entity that inhabits the body, namely you. The result is the creation of a game that is programmed to do anything to ensure the short-term and long-term survival of the physical body.

Throughout history, this game has taken on many different forms. As an example, consider that during medieval times, most men traveled with a sword. The slightest provocation would be seen as a threat to the person’s honor, and the result would be a duel to the death. Numerous people were killed over something that was not an actual physical threat but only a perceived threat. It became a physical threat because of the tradition of settling disputes with a duel. 

Other obvious examples are how people will kill others in order to steal food or other property. This often leads those who have something worth stealing to build a pattern of automatically killing those who are seen as real or potential threats to their property.

Taking this to a greater scale, we see war as an example of how some soldiers will become perfect killing machines. They automatically kill any enemy solider without even considering any moral or ethical implications. We see a similar tendency in organized crime, even the popular movie image of the crime boss who will kill anyone who threatens the survival of his empire—which he identifies as an extension of his body.

On an even greater scale, entire nations or civilizations can create their version of the survival game. They build the image that other nations are a threat, and they are willing to use whatever weapons or methods are available in order to secure victory. 

This can be extended to building the image that a particular race or ethnic group is a threat to the survival of another group or nation. Hitler’s genocide against the Jews is an obvious example of the ultimate survival game taken to the extreme. The Allied bombing campaign against civilian targets in German cities shows that no nation is immune to this game, as do the atomic bombs dropped over civilian populations in Japan.

Another aspect of this game is that the long-term survival of the physical body requires propagation, and when the selves takes this to the extreme, you get rape. On an even larger scale, you get the many forms of suppression of women, fueled by the male selves’ perceived need for the long-term survival of the physical body. This makes it necessary that women are available to fill what the male selves perceives as their main role, namely to be available for propagation.

Rising above physical survival

Obviously, one could continue indefinitely to give examples of how this particular game of the selves has led to incredible atrocities. This game is behind many of the atrocities seen in history, with the perpetrators often feeling that they had to destroy the “enemy” in order to ensure their own survival. It is the old adage: “It was him or me!”

Most spiritual seekers clearly see the primitive nature of this game. The reason why you can see this is that most spiritual seekers have risen above the most primitive game of the selves. We start out describing the more primitive games specifically to help you see that you have already risen above some of the games. 

Surely, you would not indiscriminately kill anyone you perceived as a threat, and hopefully you would not kill anyone no matter what the situation. This is a clear sign that you have already started separating the conscious self from complete identification with the selves. It is by continuing this process that you will eventually win the victory of attaining higher awareness.

In order to complete the process, you need to consciously understand how you can separate yourself from the selves. Doing this unconsciously is a good first step, but becoming a mature spiritual student requires that you come to a conscious awareness and understanding of the spiritual path and what it entails. You can only climb so high on the path without conscious awareness. To reach the higher levels, you must begin to see exactly how the selves seek to hide behind the trees in the forest.

How can a person begin the process of overcoming the most primitive game of the selves and rise from functioning as a mere animal to becoming a spiritual being in a physical body? The core of the process is that the conscious self of the person must begin to realize that it is more than the body and then more than the selves. 

However, when a person is fully identified with the selves and when that person’s selves are fully identified with the physical body, there is little possibility of reaching that person with a spiritual message of any kind. Many people literally will be awakened only by having their physical bodies killed over and over again, until it begins to dawn on the conscious self that it is not the body. This happens because a violent death will burn a scar in the person’s soul that will carry over as (often partially subconscious) memories in succeeding lives, giving the person a memory that it can survive the death of the body.

As explained, the material universe acts as a kind of mirror that reflects back physical circumstances that correspond to your state of consciousness. When you identify yourself with and as the body – and become trapped in the game of ensuring the survival of the body – you will enter a state of consciousness where you are constantly looking for threats to the body. The subconscious message you are sending out is that you live in a world where everything is a potential threat, and the universe obediently reflects back to you physical circumstances in which you encounter such threats. 

For example, many people involved with gangs or organized crime have precipitated a situation where they are under constant threat—and all of the people involved are simply playing their roles in the collective drama they have created through their individual minds. They have gravitated together because of their similar states of mind, and now they are threatening each other in order to outplay their internal conflicts.

The ultimate survival game will cause people to precipitate physical circumstances in which they are likely to have their bodies killed. When you seek to save your life, you will lose it, as Jesus said 2,000 years ago. This is actually a safety mechanism whereby the universe outplays people’s states of mind so they can receive opportunities for overcoming them. When a person has been killed enough times, the conscious self of that person will – in between embodiments – begin to realize one of two things:

• It is more than the body.
• It has had enough of the ultimate survival game of always fighting other people.

The person comes into its next embodiment with a sense that it is more than the body or that it no longer wants to fight other people. This is the beginning of an upward spiral. As the conscious self of the person – often over many embodiments – disassociates itself more and more from the body and the material world, the person will come into embodiment with a conscious awareness that it has a longing for something beyond this world. This can then cause the person to find a spiritual teaching and begin a conscious path toward greater understanding. 

Obviously, the teachers of higher awareness would love to see people awaken from the ultimate survival game without having to be killed numerous times, but unfortunately that is not a likely scenario. Most people who get trapped in this game can only grow out of it when the School of Hard Knocks has given them so many knocks that they begin to think there must be a better way. 

Some people literally have to be hit on one cheek many times before they begin to realize that until you start turning the other cheek, the blows will keep coming. The reason being that the universe is simply mirroring back what you are sending out so you are creating the blows—even though other people execute them.

Breaking the survival game

A self is simply a computer, and it will mindlessly continue to fight the external enemy, never realizing that it is the consciousness of thinking there is an enemy that creates or precipitates the enemy. It is only the conscious self who has the awareness to be able to think and reason that if it starts turning the other cheek, then the universe will eventually stop sending the enemy. 

For this to happen, the conscious self must awaken and decide to take back its responsibility for making decisions. Of course, it was the conscious self’s denial of this responsibility that created the selves and then created the slide toward the survival game. 

Before a person can fully leave the survival game behind, the person’s conscious self must be willing to acknowledge that it creates its own reality. It must come to understand that the universe truly is a mirror, and the physical conditions it faces will never change until it changes its consciousness. In order to begin this process, the conscious self must – consciously – override the programming of the selves. 

The selves will blindly fight the external enemy, and in a sense having such an enemy can become the ultimate excuse for not taking responsibility for your life. When the conscious self identifies itself with the selves, it will reason that as long as there is an external enemy, it has to focus all of its awareness on fighting the enemy so there is no time or attention for taking responsibility for changing your consciousness. A soldier who is in the midst of a battle is not very open to working on his psychological issues. Surviving by destroying the enemy takes precedence over anything else.

Spiritual people can see how this becomes a catch-22. You create the outer enemy through your state of consciousness. Once the outer enemy is there, the existence of the enemy becomes an excuse for not taking a look at your state of consciousness. It is the perfect excuse for focusing on the splinter in the eye of another and refusing to look at the beam in your own eye. Obviously, the outer enemy will not go away until you change your state of consciousness so that you can turn the other cheek to the blows coming from the enemy.

This is the deeper understanding behind my command to turn the other cheek. Most people could not understand that command 2,000 years ago and most still do not understand it. But many are ready to understand that because they have – for many lifetimes – been in a state of consciousness of fighting outer enemies – there is only one way to break that pattern. They must stop fighting the outer enemies and allow themselves to be hit on one cheek—and then deliberately turn the other cheek without striking back.

Only by doing this can they send a new message into the cosmic mirror, the message that they no longer want to fight an external enemy. When this has been done enough times – and Jesus told my disciples to forgive seventy times seven – the old pattern – created over many lifetimes – will be broken and the universe will now reflect back physical circumstances that correspond to your new state of consciousness. Even though many people are still trapped in the survival game, you will no longer encounter them and will be able to live at a higher level even though you are still on this planet.

More subtle versions of the survival game

As explained, there are four levels of this world, corresponding to four levels of your mind. The lowest level is the physical level, corresponding to part of your subconscious and conscious minds. The next level up is the emotional, which obviously corresponds to your feelings. After that comes the mental level, which corresponds to your thoughts, but specifically higher thoughts of reason and logic. Finally, we have the identity level, which corresponds to your sense of identity, meaning how you see yourself, God and the world.

So far, we have talked about the survival game as a purely physical phenomenon, relating to the survival of the body and causing people to be willing to physically kill others in order to ensure their own survival. The survival game also has a version on each of the higher levels, and we will look at each version. 

As we go up from the physical level, we go toward deeper layers, toward the underlying causes of the survival game. We can then begin to see that even the physical game is not entirely physical. In many cases, people will kill only when they are influenced by very strong emotions, such as fear or anger. Such emotions spring from certain beliefs that again come from the person’s sense of identity. 

The next step up from the physical level is the emotional, and there is a blurred line between people who are caught in the physical survival game and those who are in the emotional survival game. Obviously, if you are at war and an enemy solider comes at you with a gun, your life is physically threatened. Many of the people who are trapped in the survival game will kill others when they are not actually threatened but feel that they are threatened. Some will indiscriminately kill those who make them angry or trigger their fear of death. 

Most of the civilized world has risen to a level of consciousness where physically killing someone is seen as unacceptable behavior. There are many people who have risen above the physical survival game in the sense that they will not automatically kill those who seem to threaten them. Many of these people have simply put a restriction on their physical behavior without actually resolving the psychological issues that drive that behavior. 

They are still driven by violent and unresolved emotions. If they become really afraid or really angry, they can no longer restrain their physical behavior and they will kill someone in a fit of passion. There are also many people who have come to the point where even intense rage or fear will not trigger the response of physically killing someone. Nevertheless, these people are still willing to kill someone emotionally.

Killing with psychic energy

Modern civilization knows the scientific fact that everything is energy, yet people have not been willing to acknowledge the philosophical consequences of this. If your emotional and mental state can have – as has been proven over an over again – an effect on your physical health – either making you sick or preventing you from recovering – then it follows that other people’s thoughts and feelings can have an effect on you—and vice versa. 

Your body is surrounded by an energy field that is connected to your mind. This energy field can potentially be invaded by the energy impulses produced by other people’s thoughts and feelings. It is possible to commit psychic murder by producing such intense waves of psychic energy that it can cause another person to become ill or experience an accident. There are people who are so trapped in the emotional version of the survival game that they will – usually without being consciously aware of it – actually seek to kill someone emotionally by sending intense anger at them.

There are also those who seek to control others through their emotions, and this game is an extension of the survival game. You seek to control others in order to prevent them from becoming a threat. 

For example, many people seek to control those closest to them through guilt by making others feel obligated to take care of their needs. Some have managed to permanently manipulate their supposed “loved ones” into never going beyond certain boundaries—because if they did, the person in control would feel threatened. There are innumerable specific versions of such control games, and we will take a closer look later.

There is also a version of the emotional survival game that has the aim of stirring up other people’s emotions so that the manipulator can steal their spiritual energy. When a person sinks into the deeper layers of the duality consciousness, that person can no longer receive spiritual light directly from his or her higher self. This light is necessary for a person’s survival so now the person has to steal energy, or light, from a person who is still receiving it from above. This can be done by manipulating other people’s emotions, for example by making them angry. 

When you misqualify energy in anger, other people can literally steal your light and use it to survive at their – lower – level of consciousness. There are people who are so adept at this emotional survival game that they are literally energy vampires who routinely milk certain people by stirring up their emotions. 

As an example, consider how someone will seek to draw you into an argument that continues until the person suddenly seems to have had enough, and the argument is over. The reason being that the person has had his or her fill of energy and will now leave you alone until the next “feeding time.”

In short, if you recognize that you are regularly taken over by very strong emotions – especially anger and fear that stem from feeling threatened by others – you should recognize that you have not yet risen above the emotional version of the survival game. Another thing to watch out for is that you find it difficult to deal with a situation where other people display strong emotions. 

There are people who think they have their emotions under control, but they have simply learned to suppress them. In certain situations, their emotions will be stirred, and this is a sign that you are not at peace. You then need to use tools to get greater clarity, including the many forms of therapy available today, and use decrees and invocations to resolve the energies and beliefs that cause you to be trapped in the game of emotional survival.

The mental survival game

At the mental level, we are dealing with ideas and beliefs, for example your religious beliefs. History is filled with examples of how people can be willing to physically kill others because of an idea. If you think that your religion is the only true one and that the devil is opposing it through other people, you might be willing to kill those people, even though they obviously do not threaten you physically. The same, of course, can be the case for people with strong political beliefs, such as the leaders of certain communist and fascist countries. 

Behind the willingness to kill over an idea is the belief that the end can justify the means. This belief has been used to justify any number of atrocities, including many subtle versions where people have felt they were fighting for a just cause and that this justified killing others. You can find any number of examples where people have justified the killing of others by thinking that the survival of their idea was more important than the lives of other people. Even democracy was born in bloodshed. 

Behind this is the illusion that killing others was the only way to make their idea survive. Look at the example Jesus attempted to set with his mission. He told people to not resist evil and to turn the other cheek. He demonstrated that he was not willing to kill others but he was willing to let them kill him—which actually ensured the survival of the idea he came to promote. 

Many Christians have felt that ensuring the survival of their version of Christianity justified the killing of others. But can Jesus be in approval of such behavior? The simple fact is that the idea that the end can justify the means springs from the consciousness of anti-christ or duality. 

This state of mind is based on separation, which makes it possible to separate the end and the means, saying that in order to accomplish a greater good it is justified to use means that would otherwise be seen as wrong. In higher awareness no such separation is possible, and it is never acceptable to use means that are in violation of God’s law, such as the command that thou shalt not kill. In higher awareness you can see peaceful ways to promote your idea, ways that are simply obscured for people trapped in the duality of anti-christ. Such people think the only way to ensure the survival of their idea is to use violence.

Again, modern civilization makes it unacceptable for many people to physically kill those who oppose your beliefs. Many people have restrained the actual physical attempts to kill others over ideas. 

As is the case with emotions, your thoughts are also energy impulses that can be sent like arrows into the minds – energy fields – of other people. There are many people who are engaged in a mental survival game that makes them feel threatened by anyone who opposes or ignores the beliefs that they consider the absolute and infallible truth. 

There are many people who see themselves as being good, loving and peaceful people because they think they would never physically kill someone else. This might actually be true, but many of these people are simply unwilling to admit that they are engaged in a battle to kill the beliefs of others. Some aggressively seek to convince others that their beliefs are wrong, and some are even willing to destroy another person’s belief in order to defend their own beliefs. 

For example, you see many scientifically minded people who are deliberately and aggressively trying to destroy other people’s belief in religion—any religion. You also see religious people who are trying to destroy the beliefs of people from other religions.

Such “mental warfare” may take the form of verbal arguments, yet for people trapped in the survival game, there is often an underlying aggressive intent. These people are – sometimes knowingly and sometimes without being aware of it – sending certain thoughts into the subconscious minds of others for the purpose of weakening their minds. 

This form of aggressive mental suggestion can often confuse people so they cannot concentrate or clarify their thoughts and are not effective in a debate (many politicians and media people are very adept at this form of psychic manipulation). There is also a mental version of the attempt to steal energy from other people. This is done by forcing them to doubt their beliefs, which then makes them engage in feelings such as fear or anger, causing them to misqualify energy that other people can steal.

There is not anything wrong with taking a stand for what you believe in, yet there is a very subtle distinction that must be made. God has given all people free will so another person has a right to believe whatever he or she wants. You have a right to believe what you want, and you have a right to seek to convince another person of your beliefs. 

If you do this from the underlying sense of either being threatened or feeling superior, it is inevitable that you will engage in a subtle or overt attempt to force the other person into accepting your beliefs. This aggressive mental suggestion is a clear violation of the Law of Free Will—meaning that you will make karma for doing so, no matter how benign you think your intentions are.

The real distinction here is whether you are seeking to convince others out of a personal need to protect your own – fragile – beliefs that you feel are threatened (only beliefs that are fragile can be threatened), or whether you are coming from a genuine desire to help other people make the best possible choices? 

Are you seeking to enlighten others so they can make better choices – setting them free to make whatever choices they want – or are you seeking to force them into agreeing with you because this fills your need for security, meaning survival? How do you know whether you are trapped in the mental survival game? Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you feel threatened when other people question or disagree with your beliefs or your belief system? Upward of 90 percent of the spiritual and religious people on this planet feel this way about their spiritual/religious belief system.
• Do you constantly find yourself in situations where you have to defend your beliefs or where you are attacking the beliefs of others? Are you engaged in – perhaps consumed by – a dualistic struggle against other people’s beliefs?
• Do you feel you are on a mission to convert others and that your efforts have epic importance in the cosmic battle between good and evil?
• Do you feel that your belief system is the only true one or the superior one and that other people will not be saved unless they accept your belief system?
• Do you become very insistent, perhaps even aggressive, in defending your belief system?
• Do you lapse into strong negative emotions when you feel your belief system is threatened? All negative emotions spring from fear. Anger is simply a disguised attempt to destroy the threat that causes the fear.
• How far are you willing to go in order to refute the arguments of other people? Are you willing to destroy their beliefs in the process?
• Do you feel other people would be better off if they let you tell them what to believe?
• Do you fear that some revelation could undermine or threaten your beliefs?
• Can you identify a tendency to push aside or explain away any questions or doubts concerning your belief system? Do you perhaps react with indifference, meaning that you have numbed yourself as a non-aggressive way to ensure the survival of your beliefs—if you don’t feel anything, you can’t feel threatened.
• Is your spiritual and religious world view based on something outer, something in this world, such as a specific religion, doctrine or a guru? Do you fear that if serious doubt was raised about your religion, scripture or guru, your spiritual world view could collapse?
• Does your belief system give you a sense of security—a feeling that you are saved by belonging to this belief system? Can you begin to see that as long as your sense of security is based on a belief system in this world, it can – and will – be threatened? The reason being that it is a house built on sand.

The only way to rise above the sense that your beliefs are threatened is to go within and establish a direct connection to your higher self. You can be truly at peace only when you have replaced outer beliefs with inner knowing of who you really are—for your thoughts are only the products of your sense of identity. 

The factor that determines whether you are on the strait and narrow path that leads to eternal life or whether you are on the broad way that leads to destruction is how you identify yourself. In a sense, the physical, emotional and mental survival games are simply attempts to defend your ego-based sense of identity. Do you accept the sense of identity that the selves have built for you or do you accept the identity with which you were created? Is your identity based on the things of this world or is it beyond this world?

The identity survival game

As revealed to Moses, the name of God is “I AM.” The ultimate way to take the Lord’s name in vain is to attach a concept to the word “I AM” that limits your identity to anything in this world. 

Consider how people use the words “I am.” I am a man, I am a woman, I am a Jew, I am a Black person, I am a Christian, I am a Buddhist, I am an American, I am a Frenchman, I am a doctor, I am a farmer, I am this, I am that. All of these “I am” statements reveal that the vast majority of the people on this planet have built a sense of identity that is defined by the outer divisions and characteristics of this world. All of these worldly identities are mortal, and they must die before you can enter the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus expressed in this statement:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. (Matthew 16:25)

The life that you shall lose is the sense of identity that is based on this world. Only by losing this sense of life, only by letting your worldly sense of identity die, will you find the eternal life of the Christ consciousness—where you identify yourself as a spiritual being, as a son or daughter of God. 

Because Christianity became a sectarian religion – rather than the universal spiritual movement Jesus intended – the word “Christ” has a sectarian ring. It was originally a universal term, intended to indicate something that is entirely beyond this world. 

Many people call themselves Christians, and they think they are the only ones who will be allowed to enter heaven. The stark reality is that there are no Christians in heaven—at least not according to the definition of “Christian” used on earth. In heaven there are only beings who have permanently risen above the consciousness of duality, the consciousness of anti-christ. 

How can you do this? You can do so only by leaving all earthly, dualistic identities behind—by letting them die. If you identify yourself as a Christian – defined in opposition to non-Christians – that dualistic identity will prevent you from entering heaven.

Who are you then? You are a co-creator with your God, and you are here to have dominion over the earth—rather than allowing the earth to have dominion over you by causing you to define your identity based on worldly divisions. There are no Christians in Heaven, for in heaven you find only Christed beings. There are no Christians in heaven—only Christs.

A Christed being has risen above all worldly sense of identity, for any worldly sense of identity will create a chasm between your conscious self and your higher self. This chasm will prevent you from developing the correct, Christ-like identity that Jesus described when he exclaimed: “I and my father are one” (John 10:30). 

As a Christed being, you no longer identify yourself based on any characteristics on earth. You identify yourself as an individualization of, as an extension of, your Creator and you know you are here to bring the life and the truth of God into this world—you are here to be the light of the world.

Take note of the subtle distinction here—a distinction that cannot be grasped by the selves. The selves seek to maintain a separate sense of identity according to which you are an independent being that is separated from God and can do whatever you want. You are a law unto yourself instead of being an expression of God’s law. It is this separate, dualistic identity that needs to die before you can reclaim your true identity as a co-creator with God. 

The selves will never be able to let this identity die, and they will forever seek to come up with ultimate and infallible arguments for why you should not let that identity die. They will seek to make you believe that if your worldly identity dies, you will die. 

As long as you believe in these arguments, you are trapped in the ultimate survival game—the survival of the separate, dualistic sense of identity that is based on the illusions and the lies of anti-christ. You are – literally – one of the living dead, those who are dead in a spiritual sense because they do not have the true, spiritual life of Christ in them. You are seeking to ensure the survival of an identity that is entirely based on an illusion and can never survive in the long run. 

You are engaged in the impossible quest of seeking to make the mortal identity immortal and you believe the selves—who see the Living Christ as the enemy who has come to destroy it. Truly, the Living Christ has come to destroy the selves so that you can become free from the illusion that you are a mortal identity defined by this world. 

The Christ is come to help you reclaim your true identity as an immortal spiritual being. That is why those who seek to save their – mortal – lives will lose those lives whereas those who are willing to let their mortal selves die in order to be reborn into a new spiritual identity will find eternal life in their new Christlike identity. 

We can also say that seeking to defend your mortal identity is an all-consuming task that literally eats up your life and prevents you from having the abundant life on earth. By defending the selves’ sense of life, you lose both the abundant life on earth and the eternal life beyond earth. 

Can you see the irony that the harder you hold on to life, the more sure you are of losing it? The only way to truly hold on to life is to let go of everything in this world. Jesus told people this 2,000 years ago, but very few have understood his message:

 59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.
61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.
62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke, Chapter 9)

Will you be one of those who are willing to give up the mortal life in order to follow Christ into the abundant life?