Yesterday, I wrote about the child egoic state in contrast to the transcendental Self, the soul, and the need to discriminate between the two. Today, let us turn our attention to the parental egoic state. Underneath the parent lies emptiness, angst, and a profound sense of inadequacy. The parent responds to these uncomfortable feelings by taking control, blaming, criticizing, shaming, and manipulating others. In both behavior and communication style, the parent treats other people as children, talking down to or over them. The parent compensates for anxiety by attempting to control everything and everyone. Instead of surrendering to God, the parent plays God. Living in the parent state is a recipe for stress, strain, and loneliness. The antidote to the parent state is the experience of grace wherein we surrender everything to the guru and God’s providence—-including the future, the world, our own spiritual realization, our children, and so forth. Of course, such surrender cannot happen without a commitment to meditation and prayer as well as a spiritual community to love and support us. We can only let go of our need for control to the degree that we experience an intuition of God‘s truth, beauty, and goodness. Letting go is not being out of control, but rather being in the flow of a higher intelligence, power, and love.
Divine Mother, Beloved Guru,
My parent self is exhausted.
Lead me to the grace
Of surrender.
