Judging Books by Their Covers

February 6, 2024

Just as we may judge a book by its cover, we can do the same to ourselves. We can use only our surface characteristics to evaluate ourselves.

The word surface comes from the Old French sur, 'above'/' on,' and the word face, which means external appearance (from Latin' facia'). So, sometimes, we judge ourselves by our face value. Many of us do not know how to evaluate ourselves by any other measurement than our surface characteristics because we are not connected to our real selves, only our false selves.

Face value is not our entire value. We are much deeper and more precious than we can ever imagine. If our ego has trapped us into judging ourselves by our surface persona, we will likely see ourselves as less than or more than we really are. If we have an overactive inner critic, we think we are flawed, out of alignment, and substandard. If we tend to be more on the arrogant side, we see ourselves as better than others and that we can do no wrong.

The fact is, we are not only the cover of the book about ourselves. We are the content of it. Mystic Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) said, "Every person is a book about God." If Meister Eckhart is accurate, we are expressions of the Divine, yet many of us are so hooked into our false selves that we do not explore or live from these qualities. Imagine that we can live our entire lives without reading the only book about us.

The book's content about us includes our surface self but is primarily composed of our Divine or Higher Self. Our soul child is the embodiment of our higher self, our essence, but we lose the connection to it when our egos take over. By getting to know that pure soul child inside us, we know the true contents of the book about us.

Our Divine qualities are in our depths, although they come to the surface and are expressed in our virtues, essential aspects, Holy Ideas, etc.… These more profound aspects of ourselves are not surface personality traits and inclinations. They are the bones of our soul. They are our most authentic nature; they are our essence. These divine qualities are not our false selves but our authentic selves. Each one of the books about us is filled with our divine nature.

Inquiry: What does your book have in it about your divine nature?

Dear God,

I pray to see me through your all-accepting eyes. Amen

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