Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: Self-Effacement part 2, Aug 20, 2023, live on Baba Zoom

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered!

Topic: Effort and Grace, Self-Effacement, Part 2

Dear folks of Baba,

This Sunday we will again explore Darwin Shaw’s book, Effort and Grace, which is an in-depth inquiry into the inner life with Baba. It describes one of the major approaches to Baba by one who was devoted to Him for over 70 years, which culminated in a glorious intimacy with Him. Darwin was always so encouraging and optimistic in what we can do to open up to Baba’s immediate loving presence. He asserts that many of the blocks to this intimacy can be removed by our efforts and by inviting Baba’s ongoing intervention and grace.

One of you wrote this to me in an email after last Sunday’s Effort and Grace session: "Darwin also talks about self esteem of the spirit. What came up this morning was that as we grow in self esteem of the spirit, it is easier to allow for self effacement of the personality self. We can shift our identities to spirit-connection to Baba—and away from personality self.” This clarifies so succinctly the dynamic of moving from identifying with our personality self (ego) toward experiencing the state of self-effacement in drawing closer to Baba.

Baba’s definition of self-effacement is not easy to understand. In most people’s minds, effacing oneself is equated with modesty, shyness, not putting ourself forward. Baba gives an entirely different meaning to the word effacement. It is effacing the totality of the personality self, not just withholding parts of our behavior in some way. In fact, it is possible to be very assertive in some circumstances and still be self-effacing according to Baba’s definition, if we are taking our stand on the Truth.

One way of thinking about effacement as mentioned in the email is this: in essence we are the soul or spirit, which is beyond our sanskaras, beyond impressions. We are timeless and beyond space in essence, as Darwin would frequently say. But our consciousness has gotten identified with our personality self (the ego) which is made up of a finite bundle of countless impressions (sanskaras) that we’ve accumulated over lifetimes. It is an imitation self, a false self, that is just mimicking, and masquerading as, our real self. And as we identify more and more with our real self (our spirit or soul)—that is, the Love that we are, Baba Himself—we are automatically effacing ourselves, our false self, our imitation self.

As Baba has said, as we turn toward the sun, our shadow is behind us; we are turning away from our shadow self, so to speak. And in doing so, our personality self is being effaced automatically. It is like eliminating weed grass by just not watering it. As we turn more and more to the sun (Baba), we are tuning into our spirit self from which flow our divine attributes or qualities (our better angels) directly from Baba—among them, forgiveness, patience, courage, humor, honesty, empathy, compassion, generosity, poise, enthusiasm and purity. Rather than forever battling the selfishness of our personality self, we are emphasizing our positive nature, our better angels, as we dissolve gradually in Baba’s Love and Light. And as we experience our divine side more and more, we are more amenable to allowing Baba to dismantle our personality self (our ego) and replace it with Himself. Not that this is a painless process, but with Baba as our Companion we know we are not alone in this.

Each session evokes invaluable discussion that does not require having attended the previous sessions; each section stands alone and provides a window into the inner life of the lover/Beloved relationship and is virtually independent, like facets of one diamond—Baba.

For those who do not have a copy of the book, below is an attachment for following along:

https://issuu.com/ompoint/docs/shaw_effort_grace

To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela

This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily