Just ordered this written by “Anonymous”. When I became nobody I felt like I had nothing to lose. I’m learning to hide in my own nothingness. The more I’m somebody the more ego and the more anxiety and paranoia. When I become nothing I become invincible. I carry this out into the world as I go with the flow. I’ve lost my anxiety and paranoia. This is also why AA is anonymous - to deflate ego and get rid of anxiety. There’s a peace in learning to hide in your own nothingness. A joy in humility.
Anonymous
Hiding in my nothingness I can see
That I’m freed from paranoid anxiety
Stripped bare of all self glory
I’m Finally off the radar screen
Now they don’t come after me
Because I’ve lost my ego personality
As I become an anonymous nobody
I’m an unknown and can’t be seen
Holly Tree
From the book
Only God has ultimate, eternal significance, and the only way we mortals get it is by joining our lives to His, instead of spending our days struggling for significance, living under the shame of failure, and watching what temporary significance we do achieve fade away, Christ offers His significant life to us all. We cannot earn it; we simply receive it by faith. He is our significance. ~~ Anonymous
It’s when I feel like I’m somebody special that I feel separation. It’s when I’m nobody special that I’m united to everything. I lose myself in love. There’s no more separation.
Lost In Love
I am in love and I don’t know with who
Dead to myself as I am lost in You
Drunk in Beauty my heart is made new
Sweet Divine Mystery I’m in love with You
Reason is gone, love’s arrow goes through
Opposites unite as both sides hold true
United with love we are no longer two
Lost in this ocean I’m in love with You
Holly Tree
1 Like
I’m hidden in Christ
God’s people don’t become nothing. They become everything in God’s eyes, and after they relate to Him, they become more their true selves than ever before.
Sorry Paidion. But you have to die to self (Ego) before you are united to Christ and hidden in God. When I’m compared to God I am swallowed up into nothing as I become one with the ocean of love. It’s when I feel like I’m somebody special that I feel separation. It’s when I’m nobody special that I’m united to everything. I lose myself in love. There’s no more separation. The old ego self is emptied out as I come into union with my true self (love).
Only God has ultimate, eternal significance, and the only way we mortals get it is by joining our lives to His, instead of spending our days struggling for significance, living under the shame of failure, and watching what temporary significance we do achieve fade away, Christ offers His significant life to us all. We cannot earn it; we simply receive it by faith. He is our significance. ~~ Anonymous
You have to lose yourself to come into union with God. The sense of dignity you are looking for comes when you are united to Christ and become a child of God. It’s happened for me in stages and I’m still not perfect. But you have to reach a point where you let go and surrender and let God have control. This is faith. Gaining self knowledge helps also. Aware of myself produced pain and shame and guilt. It’s through prayer and meditation that you can let go of your false self or character defects to where the light of God’s grace shines through. Peeling away the layers is a process. Quite painful at times. Another thing that has helped me is meditating on God. Contemplating His attributes. There’s a separation that takes place as you come into union with Christ. Just as He emptied Himself and became nothing. For example: There are ways we are like God and ways we are not. Knowing the Creator creature distinctions should produce a measure of humility in us.
God is all-powerful - I am not
God is in control of the universe - I am not
God is self-sufficient - I am not
God is infinite in wisdom and knowledge - I am not
God is perfect - I am not
God in infinitely glorious and beautiful - I am not
I have faith and rely on God. His glory is the beauty of His infinite perfections. The more I glorify God like Jesus did the more glorious I become. The glory of the creature is in humility. God is all powerful. I’m powerless and depend on Him. It’s when the ego takes control we try to exalt ourselves on the level of God. This is what Satan did and since he’s a finite creature it leads to megalomania. It has for me as well. I start seeking my own glory instead of being satisfied in God’s glory. But when I’m empty of self His grace enters in and He receives the glory. In not seeking our glory we receive a glory but it’s not intrinsic. It is derived from God. The paradox is that we keep it by giving it to God. Or as A.A. tells us we keep it by giving it away. In losing ourselves we find ourselves. As an empty vessel His love and beauty flow through. It’s when I empty myself and become nothing that I’m filled with God’s love and come into union with Christ. Christ came for the outsiders. In losing myself I’m united with all. That’s why I make a distinction between my true self and false self. The true self is in union with love. The false self is grounded in fear and ego driven. Self-esteem and being somebody special inflates my ego. I go along with this scripture:
he emptied himself (became nothing)
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Phil. 2:7-8
This is what we do when we empty ourselves and become nothing. It gets rid of my grandiose megalomania of being at the center.God’s love for us keeps God at the center. Grace is unmerited favor. God doesn’t place us at the center and make much of us. This turns grace over on it’s head. Grace empowers us to enjoy making much of God.
The love and beauty of God is what unites me to Him. His unique holiness separates me from Him. God is all-powerful. I depend on Him. In Him we live and move and have our being. I empty myself so the God becomes all in all. The Bible doesn’t tell us to think highly of ourselves. Jesus gave us the example to follow in the above scripture when He emptied Himself and became nothing. Specialness is ego. I am nobody special:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ~~ Matt. 5:3
Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, ~~Genesis 18:27
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; ~~ Romans 3:12
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ~~ Galatians 6:3
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” ~~ Romans 12:3
My significance is found in Christ.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God ~~ Col. 3:3
Why does God love you? Because you’re nothing? Why would God love nothing?
God loves His people because His people have, through God’s enabling grace, become righteous people— giving people who serve others. So God loves those people whom He has so enabled.
A loving parent loves the child he has trained to be considerate of others and giving. What is there to love in the child who has become brain dead and is therefore nothing?
Paidion,
Grace is unmerited favor. We don’t deserve it. God’s love for me keeps God at the center. His love isn’t placing me at the center and making much of me. Grace empowers and frees my to enjoy making much of God. You have to die to self (Ego) before you are united to Christ and hidden in God. When I’m compared to God I am swallowed up into nothing as I become one with the ocean of love. It’s when I feel like I’m somebody special that I feel separation. It’s when I’m nobody special that I’m united to everything. I lose myself in love. There’s no more separation. The old ego self is emptied out as I come into union with my true self (love). John Piper:
2. Therefore, the basis of God choosing you is not in you, but in grace.
Take God’s Old Testament people Israel, for example. Why did God set his favor on Israel above all the peoples of the earth? What was the basis of God’s calling them “my chosen” (Isaiah 45:4)? Here’s Moses’s answer:
The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers. (Deuteronomy 7:6–8)
This is amazing: “The Lord set his love on you and chose you . . . because the Lord loves you.” He loves you because he loves you! That’s the deepest, and ultimate, basis of God’s choosing Israel.
Paul underlines the wonder. Why was Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel, chosen over his twin brother Esau? Paul answers, “Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing either good or bad — in order that God’s purpose to choose might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — their mother was told, ‘The older will serve the younger’” (Romans 9:11–12).
And the principle holds today. Paul would say, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). So it is with every true Christian. Behind our believing — behind our coming to Jesus — is grace alone. There is no ground for our being chosen beneath the all-wise and incomprehensible love of God. Oh, the vastness of the repercussions of this unfathomable truth!
The old fundamentalist line. Of course grace is unmerited. I don’t know anyone who claims that it is merited.
That statement comes as no surprise. Do you know anyone in the whole world who claims that we do deserve it? Never have I heard anyone make such a claim.
“Enablement” is a more descriptive word for “grace.”
For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and devout lives in the present age, expecting the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; encourage and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2:11-15)
How do we appropriate this enabling grace? We appropriate it through faith. Jesus died to provide this enabling grace, and by trusting Him to do so, it becomes a reality in our lives.
At the centre of what? You said you are nothing. God can’t be kept at the centre of nothing.
Paidion,
To be united with everything you have to become nobody special. You lose yourself in love. When you become nothing you are swallowed up into everything. There are ways we are like God and ways we are not.
ST JOHN OF THE CROSS
(1542-1591)
To reach satisfaction in all
Desire its possession in nothing,
To come to the knowledge of all
Desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to possess all
Desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
Desire to be nothing.
To come to the pleasure you have not
You must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
You must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
You must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
You must go by a way in which you are not.
When you turn toward something
You cease to cast yourself upon the all,
For to go from the all to the all
You must possess it without wanting anything.
In this nakedness the spirit finds its rest,
for when it covets nothing
nothing raises it up and nothing weighs it down,
because it stands in the centre of its humility.
Humility—good
Nothingness—bad
he emptied himself (became nothing)
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Phil. 2:7-8
To empty oneself is not tantamount to becoming nothing.
You might empty a glass of coke by drinking it. The glass becomes empty, but the glass does not become nothing.
Jesus emptied Himself, taking on the form of a slave, but He didn’t become nothing in doing so.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (verses 12 and 13)
I once wrote a short song based on this passage; it can be sung to the tune of “Jesus, Lover of my soul.”
Let in you be the same mind
Which in Jesus Christ we find,
Who, though fullest Deity
Did not seek equality.
But He emptied Himself to save
Having taken the form of a slave.
So my brethren now obey
Even as you have alway.
The passage contradicts you. You twist the Bible:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ~~ Matt. 5:3
Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, ~~Genesis 18:27
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; ~~ Romans 3:12
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ~~ Galatians 6:3
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” ~~ Romans 12:3
My significance is found in Christ.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God ~~ Col. 3:3
According to the Catholic monk Thomas A. Kempis in his book “The Imitation of Christ”
But if I humble myself, admit my insignificance, rid myself of all self-esteem, and regard myself as the mere dust that I am, then Your grace will come to me and the light of Your understanding enter into my heart; so that, through perfect knowledge of my wretchedness, all self-esteem will be lost in the depth of my own nothingness
Next to the Bible “The Imitation of Christ” is the most read book by humanity. Moreover, as St. John Of The Cross has said “Humility is hiding in your own nothingness”. It is here that true happiness is found as one comes into union
I decided that it’s helped me so much not to let it go entirely. I just hold to other traditions as well. Like the mystic OSHO from India:
Only one who is nobody is not drunk. Only one who is nobody is fully awake, fully alert. And in his alertness he gains the whole world; in his nobodiness the whole universe can disappear. It is so vast. Your somebodiness is so small. The more you are somebody, the more small you are. The more you are nobody, the bigger… Be absolutely nobody, and you are one with the existence itself.
And Alcoholics Anonymous. They all say the same thing in losing yourself to find yourself. That’s what I hold on to with the mystics of all religions including the Bible. They all teach a union with Ultimate Reality.
Some of the commands in the OT like People eating their children as a punishment for their sins. And babies getting dashed to pieces against rocks.