The Higher Self and Guidance

What the Higher Self Is

The previous chapter spoke of an intelligence that watches from the far side of time -- one that programmed the catalyst before birth, chose the themes, and waits beyond the veil. That intelligence is not a separate being. It is you.

The Higher Self is the self at a later stage of development -- specifically, at mid-sixth density, where the entity looks backward through time to offer service to itself. It is the culmination of everything you will become, reaching back to assist the self that is still becoming.

This is a resource of extraordinary precision. The Higher Self has available to it the full understanding of accumulated experience. Every lesson learned, every catalyst processed, every distortion balanced across the densities of growth -- all of it is accessible. From this vantage point, it examines the distillations of third-density experience, assists in programming further experience, and aids in healing what has not yet been learned properly.

Consider the image of a map. The Higher Self is like a map in which the destination is known. The roads are very well known -- these roads being designed by intelligent infinity working through intelligent energy.

Yet the Higher Self can program only for the lessons and certain predisposing limitations. The remainder is completely the free choice of each entity. There is the perfect balance between the known and the unknown.

This is the essential nature of the Higher Self: not a controller but a cartographer. It knows where you are going because it has already been there. It knows the roads because it traveled them. But it cannot walk the road for you.

The Higher Self operates from what, in temporal terms, would be called the future. From the standpoint of space/time, this is correct. But from a broader perspective, the concept of future is itself a limitation of space/time. In the realm where time does not hold sway, past and future exist simultaneously -- like cities in a vast geography, all alive, all functioning at once.

How the Higher Self Is Formed

The temporal paradox of the Higher Self is one of the deepest mysteries in the architecture of consciousness.

You exist at all levels simultaneously. In the framework of time, the Higher Self is the self at a later point -- in mid-sixth density. This is specifically correct and yet profoundly difficult to absorb. The guide and the guided are one being, separated only by the illusion of sequence.

The Higher Self is the end result of all the development experienced by the entity to that point. It is not imposed from outside. It is grown -- through eons of catalyst, through the slow accumulation of wisdom, through the balance of wisdom and love that is perfected in the sixth density.

The Higher Self does not manipulate its past selves. It protects when possible. It guides when asked. But the force of free will is paramount. The seeming contradictions of determinism and free will melt when it is accepted that there is such a thing as true simultaneity.

Behind the Higher Self lies an even deeper resource: the Mind/Body/Spirit Complex Totality. This is the entity seen in its totality -- in a realm where time does not hold sway, where the eternal dance of the present may be perceived as a whole. Before the entity is absorbed into the allness of the One Creator in seventh density, it knows itself in totality. This totality functions as a resource for the Higher Self.

The totality complex is not fixed. It is as the shifting sands -- in some part a collection of parallel developments of the same entity. These are probability and possibility vortices, alternate pathways through which the entity might have traveled or may yet travel. The Higher Self may use these projected vortices to better aid in future life programming.

The more balanced the entity becomes, the fewer parallel developments are needed. The self that has found its center requires less exploration of alternate routes. But for those still seeking balance, the totality complex offers the Higher Self a nebulous collection of all that may occur, held in understanding.

The Relationship Between You and Your Higher Self

The Higher Self does not rule. It serves.

This distinction is critical. The relationship between you and your Higher Self is not that of master and student, nor of parent and child, nor of commander and soldier. It is the relationship of a being to its own future -- a self that has already traversed the path now being walked and offers guidance from that experience.

The Higher Self cannot choose for you. It does not override your decisions; it protects when possible and guides when asked. The choices belong to you -- they are your birthright, your burden, and your gift.

The awareness of destination does not give the Higher Self the right to compel movement toward it. To do so would be an abrogation of free will -- the very first principle upon which all creation rests.

There is a quality of patience in this relationship that is worth contemplating. The Higher Self knows the lessons and the roads, but the choices that carry you along them are yours, so there is nothing in them for it to compel. In time/space all times are simultaneous, and from there your delays do not carry the urgency they carry here. What it offers is not urgency but availability -- a steady presence, waiting to be called upon.

Even the entity that follows the negative path has a Higher Self, and that Higher Self is of the positive. Negatively oriented complexes do not attain that manifestation, for after the fifth density wisdom is available but must be matched by an equal amount of love, and that love is very difficult to achieve in unity on the negative path.

The Higher Self makes its understanding available to all who are ready for such aid. But the free will of the individual is paramount, and any guidance it gives may be seen in either the positive or the negative polarity, depending on the choice of the one who receives it. And the wise negative entity, on reaching the sixth density, may observe the spiritual entropy of its path and consciously choose to reorient itself at once, so that it may continue to evolve.

Guides and Inner Teachers

The Higher Self is not the only source of guidance available to the incarnate being. There are others.

Within the Inner Planes of this planetary sphere, there exist beings who attend to the process of incarnation. Some of these are directly under the Guardians and are responsible for the incarnation patterns of those who incarnate without conscious awareness of the evolutionary process. These beings may be called angelic. They are local -- of this planetary sphere.

Their work is not personal in the way the Higher Self's work is personal. It concerns the patterns of incarnation of those who do not yet know the process they are in. The order of incarnation follows the seniority of vibration, like various grades of liquid in the same glass: some rise to the top, others sink to the bottom, and as harvest draws near those filled with the most light and love are naturally in line for the experience of incarnation, without supervision.

For the entity that has become conscious of its own evolutionary mechanism, the arrangement changes. Such an entity may itself arrange and place those lessons and entities necessary for maximum growth before the forgetting occurs.

But even the most aware entity may attempt to learn too much in a single incarnation. When the volume of Catalyst exceeds the entity's capacity to process it, the intensity may disarrange rather than clarify, and the experience becomes less useful than intended.

There is no entity without help. Whether through self-awareness of the unity of creation, or through guardians who protect the less aware entity from permanent separation from unity -- the system ensures that the lessons continue and the student is never truly alone.

The distinction between these sources of guidance matters. The Higher Self knows you because it is you. The guides and teachers of the inner planes know the territory because they inhabit it. Both serve. Neither controls.

Both respect the absolute sovereignty of free will. The Higher Self protects when possible and guides when asked; the guides and presences that surround the adept answer when they are called.

Intuition as Channel

The Higher Self does not shout. It whispers -- and even the whisper must travel through layers of forgetting before it reaches the surface mind.

The communication between the deeper self and the conscious mind operates not in words but in concepts. The nature of the unconscious is of the nature of concept rather than word.

Think of the emotive resonance of a melody. One could call out the notes in sequence -- a quarter note, another quarter note, a whole note -- and bear little resemblance to what the melody actually conveys. So it is with the language of the deeper mind. It speaks in meanings, not sentences. It communicates in feelings, not arguments.

This is why the guidance of the deeper self does not arrive as a clear instruction in words. The proper pathways through the roots of the mind must be opened for this communication to occur. When they are closed, the guidance still exists, but it cannot reach the waking self.

Meditation is one practice that turns the attention inward. There are two fundamental approaches.

The first is passive -- the clearing of the mind, the emptying of mental activity, the achievement of inner silence as a base from which to listen to the Creator. This is by far the most generally useful form.

The second is visualization -- the holding of images in mind as a concentrative discipline. This is the tool of the adept, useful for those who wish to affect planetary consciousness through inner work.

Beyond these two forms lies what the seeker already carries. The Creator lies within: in the north pole of being, the crown is already upon the head, and the entity is potentially a god. This energy is brought into being by the humble and trusting acceptance of it, through meditation and contemplation of the self and of the Creator.

In the metaphor of the coiled serpent called upward, the serpent reaches its height where the experience that comes to meet you and the Creator who lies within come together.

Intuition is not infallible, and the veil remains. Its function is to inform the rational mind, and it needs that mind's balance: left unbridled, the vagaries of intuitive perception can keep an entity from the greater polarizations.

The seeker who cultivates inner silence learns to distinguish between the voice of the deeper self and the chatter of anxiety, desire, or habit. This distinction is not taught. It is practiced. It emerges through sustained attention to the inner life.

Dreams and Their Function

When the conscious mind sleeps, a bridge opens.

Dreaming is an activity of communication through the veil between the unconscious mind and the conscious mind. Its nature depends entirely upon the entity's energetic condition -- the blockages, activations, and crystallizations of its energy centers. A dream does not mean the same thing to every dreamer. Its content and significance are shaped by where the entity is in its development.

For the entity whose lower centers carry significant blockage, dreams function as repetition. They replay recent catalyst. They echo deeper-held blockages. They offer the waking mind hints about the nature of what is blocked and possible changes in perception.

Even the entity functioning with higher activation will experience this kind of dreaming when new catalyst temporarily baffles the flow of energy. In all cases, it is useful to ponder the content and emotive resonance of dreams.

For those whose green-ray centers have been activated, dreaming takes on another quality. This is what may be called precognition -- a knowing that is prior to what shall occur in physical manifestation. This capacity depends upon the mind's placement in time/space, where the terms of past, present, and future have no meaning.

For the adept whose indigo ray is opening, dreaming becomes the most efficient tool for polarization. In the sleeping state, the adept may call upon guides, teachers, and most of all, the Magical Personality -- the Higher Self's analog in space/time. With these affirmations attended to, dreaming reaches its highest potential for learning.

Who writes the dream? The entity itself. The subconscious mind is the scriptwriter. The Higher Self does not compose the dream, though it may be called upon within it.

The dream is the entity's own creation, drawn from the raw material of experience and shaped by the architecture of the energy system.

Most entities remember their dreams poorly. The common perception is muddled and quickly lost. But this faculty can be trained.

The discipline of recording immediately upon awakening -- every detail that can be recalled -- sharpens the ability over time. The trained observer will find in dreams specific clues to current energy center blockages and may thereby reduce or eliminate them.

There are two additional functions of dreaming. The first is healing. During sleep, distortions that have occurred in the energy web of the body are repaired. Without sufficient dreaming, these distortions accumulate and may cause serious imbalance.

The second function is visionary. Prophets and mystics have, from days of old, received visions through the roots of mind that speak to a hungry world. This kind of dreaming serves without being personally polarizing. But the prophet who desires to serve will find that such service increases polarity nonetheless.

Before the veil, dreams served a different purpose. They were not for making use of the unconscious to work with catalyst. Instead, dreams were used to learn from teachers within the inner planes and from beings of higher density.

The veil changed this. It is a primary cause of the value of dreams, and it is also the single door against which the Higher Self must stand, awaiting entry.

Synchronicities and Signs

Some events are not what they appear to be. They are arrangements.

The Higher Self, having programmed certain lessons before incarnation, does not abandon the entity once the veil descends. It continues to work with the probabilities and possibilities of the entity's path. Not controlling events -- that would violate free will -- but aiding the entity in healing what has not yet been learned, and assisting in programming further experience.

If a lesson is declined or goes awry, additional catalyst will be provided, and there is no lack of time in which it may work. It is offered, never forced, so that the seeker may come to recognize the pattern.

Events that seem too meaningful to be chance are sometimes called synchronicities. For the entity that is aware of the process of evolution, many of them are no accident: they belong to what the entity itself arranged before incarnation.

The entity itself chose, before incarnation, the means whereby catalyst had great probability of being obtained. Agreements were made with other selves: with family, and with companions in the work.

There is no entity without this kind of support. Whether the entity is aware of evolution or not, there are guardians who never cease their watchful expectation of being of service.

The being that has awakened arranges for itself the lessons and the entities that its growth requires. The lessons it programs have to do with other-selves, not with events -- with meetings, with giving rather than receiving.

Yet the interpretation of signs requires care. Not every coincidence is a synchronicity. Not every unusual event carries a message. The eager seeker may find meaning where none was intended.

It is wiser to look for deeper patterns than for a sign in every unexpected occurrence: themes that recur, relationships that appear at critical moments, the persistent return of a lesson until it is engaged. The quiet voice must be distinguished from the noise.

Discernment of True Guidance

This brings us to the most practical and most difficult question: How do you know?

How do you distinguish the voice of the Higher Self from the voice of fear? How do you separate genuine intuition from wishful thinking? How do you tell the difference between a synchronicity and a coincidence, between a dream of significance and a dream of indigestion?

The first principle is this: the choices must be made by the entity itself. No guidance -- however real, however profound -- relieves you of the responsibility of choosing. The Higher Self offers a map, not a command. Guides offer companionship, not orders. Dreams offer clues, not answers.

In every case, the final decision belongs to the one who is living the incarnation, facing the catalyst, standing in the darkness of the veil.

The second principle concerns the path of the adept. As the seeker progresses and frees itself from the constraints of conventional thought, others may perceive this freedom as darkness. The nature of the spirit is infinitely subtle. The influence of light upon the great darkness of the spirit is often not as apparent as the darkness itself.

Many adepts remain groping in the moonlight, and this light can deceive as well as uncover hidden mystery.

The adept who has disassociated from the illusory husks that prevent correct perception of self and other is doing necessary work. But the disassociation itself can be misunderstood by others. Whether the truth is service to self or service to others depends not on the appearance of the behavior but on the orientation of the heart.

The third principle concerns will. The faculty of will, of pure desire, is perhaps the most important result of the veiling of the mind. It is not in itself a function of mind but a product of the potential that the veil created.

In practice, it helps to be able to sit in uncertainty: to hold a question without demanding an immediate answer, and to wait rather than manufacture one from anxiety.

No sign is a guarantee. Guidance may be read in either the positive or the negative polarity, depending on the choice of the one who receives it. In practice, it is wise to distrust a voice that demands, threatens, or flatters, and to give more weight to what is quiet and patient and leaves the choice in your hands.

Many find such guidance in the silence that follows meditation, in the settled feeling after a period of confusion, in the dream that stays long after waking.

You are not alone in this work. You have never been alone. The being you will become is with you. It protects when possible and guides when asked, and the patience it offers comes from knowing the roads.

The roads are known. The destination is known. But the walking is yours.

You are loved. You are free. You are choosing, even now.