You — An imitation, or masterpiece?

You are a painter, the world is your canvas, now choose the brush you would use — your ego or your higher self. The former will leave a cheap imitation, the latter, a masterpiece.

“Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”

– Pope John Paul II

We are replicating beings — we have a natural instinct to want to replicate what we see and perceive. It is a part of our survival makeup. We get uncomfortable with the unfamiliar and a little bit insecure with the unknown.

In this environment, our ego runs rampant because it is constantly looking for a stage on which to perform to please, and be pleased. And for the most part, at your expense.

The more familiar the audience, the more sympathetic their views are to its views, the more effect it has. It is why we at times mistakenly associate the extent to which a view is held to the extent of its truth.

It is why, for example, public opinion polls are quoted to establish the truth of a position.

And so the ego by its nature perpetrate, not according to rules based on truth and veracity, but according to rules based on popularity. As such, its creations are bound to be just copies of what is out there in the first place, at times cheap imitations.

Your higher self, properly cultivated, or your spirit, recognizes the above and choose not to function in this environment. It is interested in one thing only — truth. It has no interest in perpetrating anything else and so it is not susceptible to taking comfort from knowing that the world agrees with it nor susceptible in being uncomfortable with the world disagreeing with it.

As such, all its creations are bound to be masterpieces because they represent truth.

It is when we allow our higher self to be in control that our lives are bound to be masterpieces. A masterpiece is not a masterpiece because the world recognizes it to be so, it is a masterpiece because it truly represents what it is purporting to represent in an authentic way.

Do not give in to the temptation to create cheap replications by conditioning yourself to seek after anything but the truth. You may never come to know the truth about most things, but what is important is that you condition yourself to not to have to fill that unknowing with something that is clearly false.

Anything that is known to be clearly false cannot be fulfilling, and so your spirit will always be yearning for something else and will never feel its authentic self.

Cultivate an open mind so that the truth can feel free to enter without the insecurity of the ego making it feel unwelcome.

Having an open mind reduces the temptation of only inviting things there that are primarily about massaging the ego.

How many times have we seen people, and even ourselves, getting involved in arguments with others that challenge the beliefs that we hold? Arguments that bring new information that we probably never considered. While the argument goes on we are adamant that we are right, twisting, turning, spinning everything to satisfy what we already believe.

Yet, at times we walk away with a nagging feeling in our stomach that those same arguments we strenuously just resisted could very well be true.

Because we are so conditioned to perpetrate, not truth, but what we already believe and think we know, we instinctively distort and twist stuff, perpetrating that which we chose to imitate in the first place.

The ego, threatened by your own desire to be the truly authentic you, will do everything to convince you that you are threatened by the truth and the unfamiliar.

You have to quietly resist the vicious power of the ego, and embrace the kindness of your spirit.

Every day you have the opportunity to turn your own cheap imitations into masterpieces by at the very least deciding to perpetrate fully only that which you know to be true.

Everyday you are given the opportunity to discover the masterpiece that you are.

Every day.

So what is your life going to be — a cheap imitation, or a masterpiece?

You are the painter, the world is your canvas. What will be your choice of brush? — Your ego, or your spirit?

Decide, then paint. And if you create what seems to be a mess, it may very well be a masterpiece.

Time will make it so if done from your authentic self.