The Awakening of the Inner Spirit 

Who am I? Why am I living on earth? What is my mission, my task in life?

Existential questions

By Margarete van den Brink

Translated by Philip Mees

Who am I? Why am I living on earth? What is my mission, my task in life?

About forty years ago, I noticed for the first time in counseling conversations with people that it was not only very specific personal problems they were struggling with but that more and more often the above kinds of questions were also brought up. I experienced that as a fundamental change in the psyche and consciousness of us human beings. It is as if in our time we are waking up out of a long sleep or enchantment and are saying: “All well and good, but now I want the truth: Who am I really? What am I on earth for? What am I supposed to do here? Have I forgotten something?

Those questions are remarkable because they don't come out of our normal intellect—we don't make them up—they come out of deeper layers of the soul. They rise all by themselves, as it were, out of the depth of our inner world and ask for our attention with a certain urgency. They come back time and again, especially in the midlife crisis, but increasingly also with younger people. These inner questions help us become conscious of “something” that is happening in us, is coming into movement, is waking up and asking fundamental questions about the essence of our existence on earth.

Inner spirit

What is this “something”? From oriental and western esoteric knowledge we know that our I consists of two parts, a lower and a higher part. The lower part is often called the ego or the regular, everyday personality. The designation “low” means that the level of consciousness is connected with earthly materialistic thinking and with forces like instincts, passions, desires, emotions, etc. that come from the lower parts of our soul and corporeality.

The higher part of the I is often called the spiritual Self. It is our spiritual core—that which we are in our deepest essence. Our spiritual Self comes from the divine world and is part of it. It is also called the divine spark or “a drop of the ocean of the Divine” or the higher I.

Our spiritual Self lives as a primal spiritual force in the depths of our soul, unconscious to our everyday earthly consciousness. Why unconscious? Because our ego, our personality, is not yet strong enough to bear this spiritual element in itself consciously and bring it to expression. Our spirit has such enormous power and wisdom that we could not bear it if it now worked fully in us. Our ego would even be destroyed by it. This is why everything in human development is focused, on the one hand, on making our personality ever stronger, so that in the future it can in the right way become the bearer of the spiritual Self and, on the other hand, on bringing the spiritual Self very gradually to expression in the ego.

Our spiritual Self is the element in us that goes from one life on earth to the next and, in between, lives for a period of time in the spiritual world. Our ego or personality, however, is a different one in every incarnation. The purpose of those ever-returning incarnations of our spiritual Self into a physical body on earth is that we slowly but surely become aware of who we really are. We may also say: The purpose of our human evolution is that slowly but surely we learn to transform the lower part of our I, our ego, in such a way that we learn to express in it ever more strongly the divine powers of our spiritual Self.

Thus we bring to realization—and we become—what is called in the Bible “the image of God in which we were created.” Or, “we become in Him (God) that which He is,” as is indicated in the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.

The turning point

The fact that in our time we ask ourselves those fundamental questions such as “Who am I really? Why am I living on earth? What is my task?” means that the transition of the old to a new time is beginning to manifest ever more clearly in our own inner being. The questions that are being asked are signs that the new time—the new period of development that wants to realize itself out of our inner being—has definitely begun. For centuries, our spiritual Self has lived in the deepest depths of our soul. Now the time has come when it may step out into the open. The higher I or the spiritual Self becomes visible in our conscious ideals and in the human being we want to become. We are also starting to experience it as we become conscious of the tasks of our life, of the lessons we want to learn, of the tasks we want to fulfill, of the contributions we want to make to other people, the world, and humanity as a whole.

The ”something” in us that comes into movement and becomes active is therefore our own higher being. That is why the above questions rise up in us. It is our higher I itself that is asking us these questions and is knocking on our door to wake us up so that we will work on ourselves. In this way the forces of our higher I will grow in us.

The confusing thing for us is that because of the turning point that is taking place in our time we inwardly have to deal with three different processes:

1. The first process develops because the “old” spiritual powers that have carried and led us from primeval times are withdrawing.
2. The second process means that the spiritual forces of our own higher Self are waking up and becoming active.
3. The third process is brought about by the fact that—because the higher Self in us is beginning to come to light—a door has opened and as a result, in addition to this higher Self, also dark forces are infiltrating us, dark forces that work into our ego.

All three processes are of course closely related. But if we want to brave the chaos that takes place in us as a result of all these changes, we have to get to know each of them separately so that we can distinguish them from each other. Hence the following sketch of:

• What the withdrawal of the old spiritual powers brings about in our inner world, and
• What other, dark spiritual forces are beginning to have more access to our soul in our time.

The consequences of the withdrawal of the spiritual powers

As we have shown before, our personality developed in the course of human evolution because high spiritual powers connected us ever more strongly with the physical body. As a result, we lived more and more on the earth and our attention was focused on earthly reality. At the same time, self-consciousness unfolded in us. That whole process was cared for, carried and guided by high angelic beings from the spiritual world. We did not need to do anything for it. It took its own course.

Now that the development of our I has reached a certain point and our spiritual Self wants to be born in us, the old carrying angelic forces are in a certain way pulling back from our personality and our I. They are making room so that the inner turning point can take place. However, this withdrawal of the carrying angelic forces has radical consequences, both for ourselves and for our relationships with our fellow human beings. Some of the changes that are happening in our inner world are as follows.

The consequences for our personality

By the withdrawal of the old angelic forces that kept everything together and carried everything, the connection of our spiritual Self with the physical body is loosening again. It takes us too far to give more explanations of this secret, which is very well known in exoteric tradition. But this is an important factor and has a decisive influence on the changes in our personality.

One of the consequences of this loosening connection is that our thinking is becoming somewhat less materialistic and that therefore there gradually grows more openness to non-physical reality. The fact that people in recent decades have become more interested in spirituality, and also have more spiritual experiences, has everything to do with this development.

The structure of our personality is also becoming more flexible and open. This works in such a way in us inwardly that we become less often stuck, but also that we sometimes feel as if we are losing the ground under our feet and our sense of security.

The changes in the structure of our personality also have a profound influence on our thinking capacity, our feeling, and our will. Up to this point these three were kept together by the angelic forces and attuned to each other in the right way. That gave us a certain sense of balance and harmony. In our time, however, this is changing more and more. What we think is less and less automatically connected with our feeling, and what we want or do less and less obviously with our feeling and thinking. This causes chaos and disharmony in our inner being, and we become afraid that we will lose a grip on ourselves.

As human beings of our time we have the task to take on those earlier tasks of the angelic powers, and to learn to create harmony in our feeling, will, and thinking for ourselves. If we learn to do that, the withdrawal of the supportive angelic forces will lead to fewer problems. And at the same time, this spiritual effort will help us bring the forces of our higher I to development.

Inner emptiness

As we indicated, because of the changes that are taking place in our personality, a kind of empty space grows in our inner being. The idea is that this space be filled with new spiritual energy of our own higher Self. This new energy comes into being when we, for example, strive to develop deeper insight into things, when we try to have spiritually nourishing thoughts, occupy ourselves with meaningful things, or cultivate understanding and loving feelings and deeds for others. In our time we learn to do these things more and more consciously out of our own inner needs. It is a development that will demand much time and effort.

In the meantime, because the old angelic forces are withdrawing, the emptiness in our inner being grows. And that is the reason why human beings these days can often feel so empty, and in desperation go in search of something that will fill them. Katja Schuurman, a Dutch television personality, said about this in an interview:

It is sad to see how desperately people are looking for things that actually matter. For then you don't need to brood on the total emptiness in your life. I also feel that total emptiness. That's why I want to drug myself.

It is understandable that people want to take drugs as a reaction to their inner emptiness. For emptiness evokes fear; fear of losing yourself and fear of the unknown in your own soul. After all, you do feel, kind of semi-consciously, that there are forces living in you that are asking for attention, and therefore create unrest: Is this now all? What is the point of life? Who am I really?

Because we don't want to feel that fear and don't want to hear those inner voices, we smother them in activities that distract us and give us a kick—always busy and working, watching TV evening after evening, going out or watching games and sex videos, and using drugs and alcohol. In Holland, out of every three persons between ages 18 and 25, one has a serious alcohol problem, and so does a large number of young, well-educated women.

The question therefore is: How do we handle this inner emptiness?

Dark forces are increasing

Another phenomenon that is occurring as a result of the inner changes—we have mentioned it before—is that human beings are becoming more aggressive and violent in their behavior. That is true not only for adults, but also for (young) children. We are more quickly irritated and it is more difficult than it used to be to control our irritation or anger, especially when for some reason we feel provoked, stymied, undervalued, short-changed, ignored or treated without respect.

The examples in Chapter 1 clearly demonstrate this. If things are not happening the way I want or if I feel personally provoked, irritation and anger will rise up in me faster than it used to, and may express itself in verbal or physical violence. Murat D., for instance, who shot a teacher to death in 2004, felt himself unjustifiably blamed for his negative behavior toward teachers of his school and for his use of alcohol and drugs. When he was to be suspended, he refused to accept it. He announced what he was going to do, had a friend come with a weapon and walked into the school with a loaded pistol.

Why is this aggression and violent behavior increasing so much?

We have already mentioned that in the depths of our inner being there are spiritual beings working that we may call dark forces or powers of evil. Their being consists of hatred and aggression and the will to break and destroy things. Every human being on earth bears such spiritual beings in him, even the gentlest and most kind-hearted person. Until now the working of these beings was largely covered over and neutralized by the leading angelic forces. But because a door has opened in our inner being and obstacles have been removed, these aggressive, destructive beings gradually penetrate into the soul and the lower part of our I, our ego. From there, they work into our passions and our thinking and deeds, and try to influence them. This leads to situations such as we described in Chapter 1, aggressive, antisocial or violent behavior if you think that others are against you, are in your way, drive you into a corner, or don't do what you want.

The powers of darkness therefore don't work on their own in the world, but in and through human beings. And it is through us human beings that they expand their influence in society and create chaos, insecurity, and danger. In the negative developments that have been occurring in our society in the past decades we can clearly recognize the workings of these dark beings. By itself, this is of course nothing new. Dark powers have always been there; they have been working as long as humanity has existed. But what is new is that in this time of transition they are coming out more openly than before. In the future this will even more strongly be the case. We have to prepare ourselves for this.

To conclude, let us note the following. The dark spiritual forces aim to occupy our soul and our ego and make us unfree. They try to prevent us from creating a connection with our higher spiritual Self. In this way they try to prevent the inner changes that have to take place in our time and to thwart the development of us human beings to a new time.