Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 21 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.
Today’s reading says:
Whenever you are tempted to do anything, question whether it is temptation or prompt. Temptation comes from fear, the ego, and the desire for self-will. A prompt is given by the Holy Spirit through your willingness to listen to Him.
As mentioned yesterday, you are already following spiritual intuition when you use inquiry to discover the author of your thoughts. That is discernment.
On Day 127, I told a story about an experience I had with a specific spiritual teacher. In that experience, I made the decision to leave that teacher, because he wanted me to follow him instead of following my own intuition.
Let’s look at two possible scenarios regarding that story in order to see how root cause inquiry can help us determine the authority of an idea.
Possibility #1:
Let’s imagine I am in relationship with a teacher. He has told me that what I think is my intuition is actually ego, and he wants me to disregard my intuition and follow him without questioning him. When I hear that, I think, “I need to leave.”
I take that thought into root cause inquiry to discover the motivation. I ask:
Why do I want to leave this teacher?
Am I afraid of what will happen if I stay? – Yes.
What am I afraid of? – I am afraid of having to give up everything that is important to me.
Does that mean I am trying to protect myself? – Yes, I feel I have to protect myself. I feel at risk.
Is the desire to protect myself ego or Spirit? – It is ego.
So, who is the author of this idea? – Ego.
So, what am I going to do? – For now, I will stay. I will stay and continue to inquire into my thoughts and motivations so I can get clarity on my authority from moment-to-moment.
Possibility #2:
Again, let’s imagine I am in relationship with a teacher. He has told me that what I think is my intuition is actually ego, and he wants me to disregard my intuition and follow him without questioning him. When I hear that, I think, “I need to leave.”
I take that thought into root cause inquiry to discover the motivation. I ask:
Why do I want to leave this teacher?
Am I afraid of what will happen if I stay? – No.
Do I feel I need to leave to protect myself from something? – No.
Do I feel that I need to trust this feeling to leave? – Yes.
Do I know what will happen if I leave? – No, it is totally unknown.
Am I trying to avoid or escape anything? – No, I don’t feel like that is the case. It just doesn’t feel right for me to stay anymore. It is time to go.
Do I feel that I need to take this step and trust the unknown. – Yes, I need to take this step and trust the unknown.
Does this willingness to trust come from ego or spiritual intuition? – The ego is fear, guilt and defense. This willingness to trust the unknown feels like spiritual intuition.
So, what am I going to do? – I will take this step, leave this teacher, and stay carefully tuned in to guidance.
In phase two, it isn’t the action that’s important. It is the motivation. In Possibility #1, the motivation to leave was ego. In Possibility #2, leaving was the guidance that came from spiritual intuition.
We can’t look at the action and determine if it’s ego or intuition. We have to look deeper and discover the motivation.
Important note: This form of root cause inquiry is always about my motivation. It is never about the storyline in the world. For example, in the possibilities above, there aren’t any questions about whether the teacher is genuine or not. To try and determine that as the basis of my decision would be looking out instead of in. If I look out instead of in, ego (judgment and thinking) will be the authority that guides me.
If you’d like to review the reasoning of ego and the right-reason of Holy Spirit, read NTI Acts 19 from (v23-41) through the end.
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.
