Emerald Heart School principal, Tim Dyson, pens a powerful clarion call to those waking up to the realisation that the direction society steers the individual into, can be one of selfishness, whereas a true spiritual path, as with the Emerald Heart, leads the individual to a greater understanding that the main focus of personal evolutionary effort is the benefit of humanity as a whole.  

Moving Beyond Self-Help To A True Spiritual Path

When it comes to Enlightened Consciousness, it keeps coming to me that the reason we might not be where we feel we need to be or should be at this point in our development, is because our intention or our motivation is just too limited.

Self Help

Self improvement or self help is very in vogue at this time, with endless books on the subject and countless different approaches and modalities, it is in fact a huge growth industry. Some of it is quite spiritually orientated or presented, some of it less so but they all seem to have one thing in common, they are all about the ‘self.’

Now growth and self betterment are very positive things and good motivations, why not be a more refined and developed individual and if this is linked to motivations such as wanting to cause less harm in the world by being less reactive all the better. The problem though, as I see it, is that the vision is not clear or vast enough and this causes a misunderstanding that limits us when it comes down to real Enlightenment of Consciousness. If our motivations are driven by just wanting something better for ourselves such as being happier, more at ease, more content, being a better person etc then this is still at the end of the day all about us, our small agendas and how we want to see ourselves and be seen by others. Why do you think there is very little talk in the self help, self development world about the ego and of people struggling with their egos? I believe it is because the ego is reasonably happy to come on board and so doesn’t cause too many problems. It might struggle with any change to a certain degree but as long as change is linked to the desires of the small self and superficial identity concerns then the ego is not fundamentally threatened.

Western Individualism

Even if our motivation is Enlightenment and we are driven very much by strong spiritual desires as long as it is rooted in ‘my own Enlightenment,’ the vision still feels too limited as there is still far too much room for ego to come along for the ride. The wisdom traditions were developed long before modern western individualism and although this individualism brings many obvious benefits, it falls crucially short when we approach a spiritual endeavour such as Enlightened Consciousness from this position.

Leaving the Ego Behind

To begin to leave the ego behind requires a deeper understanding of consciousness in the first place and a far bigger motivation. If we can start to grasp that what I think of as my consciousness is not really mine in an individual separated sense, it is part of a whole then things can start to open up. We tend to think of ourselves as self contained units and view life from this perspective. Although we are unique characters, when it comes to consciousness we are not separate in this way. Consider how affected you can be by a terrible act you hear about in the media, how much it affects your consciousness, also how good you can feel by a great act of kindness or self sacrifice you hear about. Our consciousness is indivisible from the whole of consciousness, we can’t understand this vast infinity with mind or grasp onto it but it might be helpful to think of it like a great sea. Just as we use the Emerald Heart essences to drop beads of High Vibrational Liquid Light into our consciousness to change things for the better, so it is similar with the whole of consciousness. For the more awakened we become; the less ignorant and the more enlightened we are, so this creates ripples of goodness that spread into the Whole. Whatever happens in consciousness affects ‘my’ consciousness and whatever I do affects the whole of consciousness. This deep understanding is often called non-duality in the wisdom traditions because it points to an experiential understanding of the non-separate nature of reality. From this non-dual understanding, it should start to dawn on us and become clear that the goal of Enlightenment is not something we will attain if we merely want to feel happy or blissful as a motivation, but is something that is a God given imperative.

Life in Service to Something Greater

This imperative to evolve the whole of consciousness by our endeavour to awaken should start to become our driver beyond any perceived personal needs, which incidentally get met along the way for the most part anyway. If we hold this vision; which is one of service to the evolution of the whole of consciousness, you can start to see how there is little room for ego to come so easily on board. The small agenda is absent from this picture. In surrendering our lives to doing our part in the uplifting of consciousness to higher and higher levels and expressions of goodness we start to realise the truth; that actually our lives were never merely ours to do with just what we will anyway. We come to this realisation through the act of working for a Higher Order of Goodness in this Universe and beyond. In accepting and embracing this truth, a large amount of the struggle can begin to fall away and we start to gain clarity. As we surrender our small agendas and consciously take our place in the bigger picture of the awakening and unfolding of the whole, we start to really grasp the truth of the saying that ‘We are all One.’

As we embrace our role of being in service to lifting this whole ‘thing’ up into purer and more enlightened expressions and manifestations of consciousness so we can start to glimpse how important our lives are, how much they actually matter in what is often termed the Great Mystery. It is termed this because it is largely unknowable which means we are being called to evolve and uplift something that is so vast and so precious that we can’t ever come close to knowing it in any kind of intellectual sense. This takes courage as we have to step beyond our need to know and to understand and to allow ourselves to be led and guided, to be shown the Way by something beyond which we can ever understand but it is this very act of surrender that will begin to leave the ego behind.

 A Shared Vision

This may feel like a rather daunting challenge to us as individuals but we are not just individuals for we belong to one degree or another to a spiritual school or family called the Emerald Heart School of Enlightenment. We work for and with a Light whose purpose is the awakening and evolution of consciousness. If we can surrender to the notion that we work FOR the Emerald Heart Light then through the Law of Reflection it can serve us fully in our endeavour to uplift and evolve the whole of consciousness. It can work most effectively when our purpose is as fully aligned with its purpose as we can make it and I believe that this will work best when we can see our purpose as a collective purpose and motivation held by all those within the School.

When all those that work with the Emerald Heart Light and benefit from it have a shared vision and understanding that they are member of a spiritual community or school that has as its clear goal the awakening and evolution of the whole of consciousness then I believe we can make much more of a difference. If we can start to see ourselves as more of a collective with a shared intention rather than as individuals working to evolve just ourselves then the Light will be stronger and more effective as our basic foundation to work from will be strong and stable and ego will have lost some of its position of dominance. This is my vision for the School but I can’t create a dynamic spiritual school alone, I need others who share this calling to take their place with me. If we can just adjust our inner positions in this way, then I believe the Emerald Heart as a School will grow from strength to strength as we learn to work for the Light with clear purpose, with big hearts bursting with the motivation to take our places at the cutting edge in the unfolding evolution of consciousness.

I absolutely know that if we align ourselves with the Sacred in this way, our lives will start to feel richer and we will begin to feel more whole, as abilities come to be revealed and accessed that can be really awe inspiring in nature. We will come to realise that our small desires were actually so limited that we will wonder why we were so concerned about them in the first place.

As the old saying goes; ‘If not us then who?’ for if we, the ones that hear the call to awaken, won’t take our place, then who will.

Love & Blessings,

Tim Dyson

Principle of the Emerald Heart School of Enlightenment

London, England