We have all done it at one point or another—been the victim of the dreaded ‘green eyed monster.’

Whether it has been someone’s looks, their wealth, their social status or their success in the outer world we have all done it, myself included. Heck, I have even been guilty of envying someone’s spiritual progress thinking that they were more spiritually evolved or had more knowledge than me.

This was all before I knew how to access my own authenticity.

I was never one to compare myself with others when it came to the looks department, although it was quite common in the small town I grew up in. I always knew that beauty is only skin deep—it’s the inner beauty that shines (or doesn’t) regardless what one looks like. Investing in outer beauty as my sole identity in how I relate with the world never held substance for me.

How many of us have know someone who had incredible outward beauty but the moment they opened their mouth we could wait for them to shut it! And what about those who appeared by societal standards had ‘average looks’ but they were so intriguing and interesting all we want to do is be around them because they radiate such intense beauty.

My guru Paramahamsa Nithyananda describes authenticity as this “Authenticity is you being established and responding to life from who you believe yourself to be for yourself, who you believe yourself to be for others, and what others believe you to be for them. Authenticity is you living to the peak of your capacity every moment of your life as per your understanding of the peak of your capacity and others understanding of the peak of your capacity.”

When we are not in alignment with who we really are and living authentically our vishuddhi chakra (throat center) gets blocked. It also get blocked when we entertain lower emotions like jealousy and comparison with others.

When our vishuddhi chakra is blocked from jealousy and comparison we start shrinking in life.

The way to unblock our vishuddhi chakra is to start living authentically and stop the comparison. When we start living authentically we start expanding in life.

When we are caught up in jealousy eventually it turns into supremacy and always starts out as a justification on our part. We start making up excuses why we are not living authentically. Our ego comes up with all sorts of things like ‘well they have it better than I do, they were born more physically beautiful, they had a better up bringing, rich parents, better schools, etc.’

The list is endless with all the excuses we come up with as to why we cannot live authentically. Eventually, this supremacy slowly turns into a toxic violence that we carry towards others and ourselves. Once we start declaring supremacy over others that the moment jealousy becomes cancerous to our being. It permeates such a toxicity that it keeps us in illusion and eventually destroys our whole life.

Most of us as children we were not allowed to be and express who we really were. We were told to tone it down, stop jumping, stop playing with that, stop singing so loud, etc. All this had serious implications to our souls evolution. In essence it meant stop living and expressing who you really are.

It was in those moments that most of us shut down and gave up on life and ourselves.

Many of us had big dreams when we were children. Some of us wanted to be artists, musicians, actors, etc. and many of us were told “you can’t make a living painting or writing.” Because we were so young and trusting of our advisors in the form of parents, teachers or society in general, we believed these lies and sealed our reality.

Some of us may have even had parents (because of their own lack of fulfillment) who force us to be in high paying professions which they were not able to fulfill such as doctors, lawyers, or engineers, but all we wanted to do was make art and earn a living this way.

This creates a conflict between our souls calling and what is expected of us by society. It then feels like we are betraying our own Selves. We know inwardly what we should and want to be doing but without the external support we don’t feel brave enough to outwardly express it due to fear of rejection from our peers and society.

Unlimited potential lies within each and every one of us and all we need to do is activate it, re-claim it—right now in this moment.

When we access our own authenticity the flood gate of absolute possibilities open up and opportunities show up where we never thought were possible.

As my guru says “we are all not equal, we are all unique.”

We hold ourselves back by not remembering who we are—and this is equal to life imprisonment. We lock ourselves up in an illusionary jail and throw away the key by giving up on ourselves.

The same way flowers bend and stretch towards the sun and same way our spirit yearns to fulfill it’s calling. We are here to step into the greatness of our true being.

Attachment to the psycho-drama of our ego keeps us from being who we really are. We have to let go of these limited false identities we have built for ourselves and step into our greatness, the power of our true Self. This attachment keeps us feeling that were separate from the Whole.

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. Our reality is projection of how we identify ourselves.

Each of us are extensions of the greater whole and have unique abilities, talents and treasures to share with the world unlike any other being in the universe. When we unleash the unlimited potential inside of us we start living authentically.

We all have our own path to follow and honor. We cannot imitate someone else’s trip. We have to cultivate our own path and walk the walk.

Remembering and re-claiming our internal magnificence is not ego—not remembering is ego. It’s self defamation, atman droha (soul suicide.)

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Flickr/Pixoto