Okay, so today I’m going to do something a bit different. I have done the “Questions from a Reader” format one other time, and we’re going to give it a go today!
I admit, I solicited a friend to ask a question for this. I just thought it would make an interested experiment, to see what “My Higher Self” comes up with. Here goes!
Question from a Reader:
“Could it serve one’s best interests to sacrifice their own life in order to save another’s?”
Chris, thank you for giving us a chance to speak on this subject. And thank you to your friend for asking the question!
We love this question. We love it because we know just how seriously you human beings tend to take it! You tend to get all bent out of shape whenever the topic of death comes up. Here it’s even “worse,” because it is the topic of “sacrifice,” which can easily appear to be one of the most loaded topics in human experience. It can bring up all kinds of ideas that can get quite confusing for people, nice-sounding ideas such as nobility, service, selflessness, heroism, courage, or even love. All these ideas, in their purest forms, are wonderful ideas, yet people often get these ideas confused, and none more so than in the topic of “sacrifice.”
So often, when people think of “sacrifice,” they literally try to leave themselves out of the equation. They believe, we think wrongly, that they ought to be motivated to do things that will serve others regardless of how they in fact feel about it.
We do not encourage this. You often hear it called “martyrdom,” and for good reason. When you defy your own nature, deny your own interests, or turn your back on what feels right to you, and when you do this supposedly in the name of someone else, you are in fact being a “martyr” or a “victim.” No real, long-lasting value is likely to come from this, because it is based on denying your nature and your own personal alignment.
However, we know there are many instances where a person “sacrificed” themselves in a genuine act of heroism, courage, or clarity that did good for others. In fact, we don’t see this as real sacrifice. We see this as a powerful expression of love, a powerful expression of clarity, in which the individual has surrendered the seeming importance of their localized ego self and instead made a “higher” cause more important. It’s that whole “sticking your neck out” thing, and though it may look to others like self-sacrifice, to the person who is doing it, it feels like courage, fearlessness, love, and power.
We strongly approve of this direction to take, because we feel that all will benefit from this. You have heard tales in your history books of such individuals: Martin Luther King and Joan of Arc and many others. Yet is this “self sacrifice”? Did these individuals really “sacrifice” themselves? Or perhaps, did they instead embrace themselves, embrace a bigger, more vast version of themselves? Did they not perhaps walk their path exactly as they meant it to be? Did they perhaps not sacrifice, but instead find themselves?
Folks, you are all going to “die” anyway. Some people have what appear to be more “noble” ways of doing it, yet in truth, all living is noble. All ways of existing in this world are noble and require incredible courage, even “self-sacrifice,” as every individual here on this planet has to sacrifice some of the knowledge of their true nature, which is timeless and infinite, at least temporarily in order to experience life in this time-space reality. So the manner in which you “kick the bucket” is not so important as the fact that you showed up to begin with.
So rather than worrying about those who “sacrifice” themselves and those who don’t, and wondering whether you should as well, we encourage you to find your own joy, your own passion, your own “cause” if that word lights you up, and commit to it fully, putting all the love you got to give into it. Then, you will light up the sky with your example, and maybe along the way someone will look at you, shining brilliantly, and comment on how much you have sacrificed yourself to be that.
And you will know differently 😉