Our Private Selves Part 7
February 14, 2026
Our Private Selves Part 7
“I know my divine essence,” she said, and told others the formula for finding theirs. But when her husband forgot their anniversary, she shattered like glass. The books and discussion groups had exposed her to spirituality, but life demanded something more than exposure.
Some may say that knowing our soul child and remembering our innate divine qualities are false forms of spiritual growth. They call it “spiritual bypass,” which is an easy detour around the rugged terrain where fundamental transformation happens. “Just because you’re in touch with your soul child,” they warn, “doesn’t make you spiritually conscious.” They insist that unless you’ve confronted your shadow, wrestled with your passions, and faced the downsides of your ego and soul type, you’re merely wandering in circles, mistaking the trailhead for the summit.
Spiritual bypass is the illusion of spiritual maturity expressed by those who’ve memorized the vocabulary of enlightenment without earning it through lived experience. People who bypass echo the words of wise teachers as though they had the same depth of wisdom; they speak of presence and transcendence, while their own lives remain untransformed. These bypass travelers skip the rugged mountain passes, then wonder why they come tumbling down so easily.
The truth is profound: knowing our soul child alone cannot carry us to spiritual consciousness. But it offers us a precious glimpse of our essential nature, our original face “before our parents were born,” and the world taught us to hide. But between knowing and being there is a vast ocean of inner work.
The soul child is not the destination; it’s an invitation to ask harder questions that address the real question: is my soul growing, progressing, and becoming more conscious? Some essential questions are:
Why did I separate from my soul child in the first place?
Does this essence continue growing even when I’ve lost touch with it?
What happened that forced my soul child into hiding beneath an ego’s protective armor?
Why did I forget the very qualities that once defined me?
What are the shadow sides of my soul child… the vulnerabilities that invited wounding and triggered the flip into ego defense?
What role does my soul child play in my journey toward higher consciousness?
Now that I’ve reconnected, what work must I do to move forward?
Why do the masters say that addressing our soul’s deficiencies is brutally difficult yet absolutely necessary?
And what are these “holes in the soul” that must be filled?
The answers are unique to everyone. Each of us must walk our own path inward, and we cannot begin that journey until we choose the road less traveled toward spiritual integration, amalgamation, and toward becoming whole.
Gurdjieff understood this with piercing clarity. He said that sitting on a meditation cushion might offer refuge from the world’s chaos, but it isn’t the real work. The real work, he insisted, is living consciously through the peaks and valleys of daily life while using every disappointment, every conflict, every moment of friction as our practice. The proving ground is not the meditation cushion where everything is controlled and quiet. It’s the argument with our partner, the betrayal by a friend, the moment our child’s struggles break our heart, the harsh word said by someone we love and respect. What good is even as much as fifteen hours of daily meditation, if we crumble when life asks us to stay present through pain… if we disintegrate when there is a conflict… if vengeance and envy visit every hour and have their way? It is in the painful, awkward, and confusing times that the soul arises in its fullest force, and we shift to it as our essential self instead of allowing the old patterns to take control.
This is where spiritual growth becomes authentic: not in knowing all of who we were as soul children, but in doing the painstaking work of reclaiming that essence while standing fully in the messy reality of being human. The soul child shows us what we’re reaching for. The private struggle and the conscious engagement with our shadows, our wounds, our habitual reactions, is how we get there.
Self-inquiry: Imagine what your soul child might say to you about our being tethered to the Divine?
Spiritual practice: In a conflict or uncomfortable situation, try to be aware of the problem and be present even during the most painful times. What did you pull from to get the peace required to walk through the difficulty instead of falling into it?
Prayer:
Dear God, I pray from my soul to arise in every hour. Amen
