Touched by an Angel

Do not feed your ego and your problems with your attention… Slowly, surely, the ego will lose weight, until one fine day it will be nothing but a thin ghost of its former self. You will be able to see right through it, to the divine presence that shines in each of us.” Eknath Easwaran

We all have angels in our lives: sometimes we see them, sometimes we don’t. Angels are spiritual beings often depicted as messengers of God. The Hebrew and Greek words originally mean messenger, either human or one that is supernatural.

Heavenly angels, often referred to as guardian angels, are mentioned numerous times in the Scriptures. Therein we learn that angels are spiritual beings created by God to serve him; and sent by God to watch over the human race; to deliver his messages; to guard and protect us from danger; and to do battle with the other spiritual beings on our behalf. Since the beginning of time, angels have delivered God’s messages to mankind. Sometimes the messages are warnings of impending danger, sometimes they are instructions as to what we are to do in a particular situation; they have been known to bring joyful announcements, and yet sometimes they are simply there as protection from enemy forces.

Why do we need angels? In truth, I do not know. God can deal with us in any way that pleases him to do so. He can speak with us directly, in a burning bush, in our dreams, visions and specifically through the Scriptures. Yet, he also employs angels. The Scripture says angels were created for his pleasure. Perhaps it is as simple as that — it pleases God to send the supernatural heavenly beings we call angels to minister to his children. Some of the roles of angels include protecting, guiding and directing human beings to carry out God’s tasks.

Angels can guide you in your life where you are stuck, leading you to discover the blocks in your life and helping you to work through them. When you are sick, feeling lonely, depressed or lacking energy and unable to motivate yourself, you may wish to ask the Angels for their healing support. Children have no trouble seeing and believing in angels, because their personalities or their egos have not fully developed. In fact children, until discouraged, will often tell you about the angels they see appearing in the form of a grandfather or grandmother they have never met. What makes us lose our spiritual intelligence and distrust that is natural to children?

Angels really want to help guide you, but most of the time we are not listening. This is when something called our EGO (Edging God Out) gets in the way and blocks our spiritual intelligence. As we get older, we develop roles to play in our lives to stay safe and loved. It is then we learn that love comes from something outside of ourselves, and that we must do something to get love. Our personalities, or our egos, become somewhat deaf, blind and forgetful to the truth of who we truly are, stopping us from seeing our true, divine selves. Thus, we have messengers in our lives, called angels to remind us.

Is it possible to have met an angel without knowing it? Angels can act as symbols to remind ourselves of our true purpose when we become distracted. Symbols have been around for ages. Plato cites Eros as a mighty demon, halfway between God and man. Eros, always present in the unconscious background of the psyche, animates the inner world and keeps the channels open between the ego and the unconscious. Our angels are catalysts we can use to get in touch with our inner genius. They act as a bridge between our rational and spiritual intelligences. In this way we are able to elevate the conscious mind beyond the boundaries of ego.

When people embark on a journey of personal growth, they hope to overcome feelings of fear, addiction, self-hatred and unworthiness. Becoming identified with mind and emotion can sabotage our relationships, preoccupy our thinking, increase our state of anxiety and unhappines and keep us out of a state of joy. As we begin to identify with our minds and emotions, we identify with ego, and any time we become identified with something, or label ourselves, we feed the ego and not the soul.

On some level, our soul always tries to express itself through unconscious means.

Our unconscious may be out of awareness, however it directly influences our behavior, finding expression through dreams, slips of the tongue, forgetting, delusions and projections. Our spiritual growth process is achieved by breaking the barriers to our repressed Higher Unconscious (i.e., fear of letting go and surrendering) and embracing it, representing an increase in the experience of higher, mystical and spiritual states of consciousness.

The trick is to become fully present to hear these messages from our divine. The ego is very busy blocking these messages through words, labels, judgments and criticisms. When we become present, either through joy or fear, our egos surrender, move out of the way and give up control. We need to move back from our rational intelligence to our spiritual intelligence that we once had as children. Sometimes we do not surrender until we are older and forgetful. Perhaps if we can get in touch with our angels, we will not have to wait that long.

To go further, there are many dimensions of reality below what we normally see and hear. We need to be open to the mystery, as well as the mystical experiences, to begin to see each happening and circumstance as a message from God. The secret of successful change is that although the change may look negative on the outside, it is creating a new space for you to grow and develop. Although soul works through individuals, its focus is on the needs of others and on service to humanity. So we will live in a wonderful state of mystery and not see it as something we need to control. Once we become open to connect with something, we open to its essence, its purpose, and meaning. When our hearts and minds are truly open, we can really hear what’s being said, or really see what’s happening in the moment. Openness demands that we be willing to move to places we’ve never been before. It asks us to continually challenge the foundations of our belief systems so we can test out new ideas. And to do that we need to accept insecurity. It means we are continually learning, unlearning and relearning.

The transition from the level of the ego to the existential requires the ego to deconstruct, let go, suspend controls with pleasure and to permit ideas and fantasies to emerge in a regressed state, thus furthering imagination, play, humor, inventiveness and creativity (Pahnke and Richards, 1972).

Identify Nine Core Characteristics of mystical experiences:

1. Unity: Internal (the usual sense of individuality falls away) or external (one’s identity merges with the sensory world in recognition of an underlying oneness).

2. Noetic quality of experience: Direct insight into the nature of being, accompanied by the certainty that such knowledge is truly real and not delusion.

3. Transcendence of space and time: The experience of time and space shifting their usual parameters.

4. Sense of sacredness: A non-rational, intuitive and quiet response to inspiring realities.

5. Deeply felt positive mood: Feelings of joy, love, blessedness, bliss and peace.

6. Paradoxicality: Experience of unity of opposites is felt to be true in spite of violating normal logical principles.

7. Ineffability: The inability to adequately express the experience in everyday language.

8. Transiency: The transient nature of the experience relative to the apparent permanence of everyday consciousness.

9. Positive change of attitude or behavior: Resulting from having had the experience.

The angels can help us to develop our spiritual intelligence, to surrender and give up control and listen to the angels and the messages they bring. When we develop our spiritual intelligence, we include values, such as courage, integrity, intuition, compassion and love, implying responsibility to one another. Developing our spiritual intelligence is critical today, so that we can have a strong enough inner world to sustain our need for belonging, self- esteem, contribution and love. Maybe we can ask the angels for help.

I have experienced many angels in my life, some I have seen and some I have felt. They come in the form of teachers, mentors, helpers, my children and my parents. These angels have guided, inspired and protected me. Sometimes an angel appears as a stranger that says hello, and we simply ignore this.

Angels can appear through our senses and intuition. When we see, hear, feel and smell them, we are fully present to their divine guidance. There are many angels, and they are not to be worshipped, but simply seen as co-creators with our divine selves. Who are the angels in your life? They are the ones who often make you see things in a different way. Perhaps we as humans are simply fallen angels.

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