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When Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time, the Gospel account tells us that he rode the colt of a donkey and was greeted by crowds who threw their cloaks and palm branches on the ground before him. This is known as the Triumphal Entry and is commemorated on Palm Sunday.

Many interpretations are put forward concerning the significance of the crowd’s gesture. If we look at the three main elements of this story, we can form an interpretation that has significance to our own spiritual understanding. The three elements are earth, cloaks/palm branches, and Jesus. We have the earthly (road) and the divine (Jesus), and we have a point in between (cloaks and palms). While we might think of the cloaks and palms as a dividing point between two worlds, let’s think of them instead as a connecting point.

Let’s explore this idea with a simple illustration. Imagine opening the front door of your home and standing on the threshold. You can turn one way and face the inside then turn the other way and face the great outdoors. When you’re facing the interior, you are turned toward your personal habitation. When you face the outdoors, you are turned toward the habitation of many. You are gazing into the universal. You are, in this sense, the cloak and palm that stands between the two worlds of the personal and the universal.

Our tendency is to close ourselves inside the personal house of our self-image and view the world only from that perspective. We peer out our windows and get some sense of that world, but most of what we think we know about it we glean from the opinions of others. When we step outside our home, we see something very interesting. Ours is not the only house on the block. Ours is not the only block in town. Our town is not the only town in the state, and so on up to the very galaxy we inhabit and claim as our own. In other words, there is a vast world that begins right outside our door. We are the connecting point between the personal and the universal.

If you are going through a challenge, remember that you are looking only inside your house. You can turn and see that life is much greater than this defined space you call yourself.

Not long ago I was talking with a woman about spiritual guidance. She complained that she was at a crossroad in her life and that the spiritual principles that had worked in the past seemed to have no impact. “I’m looking for guidance, but all I see is fog.” Because I too have stood at a similar crossroad and stared into that same bank of fog, I shared a truth that I have come to know: It is often when your world is shrouded in fog that you gain your clearest vision.

In thinking of spiritual principles, our tendency is to see them as tools that will help lift the fog. Our fulfillment is somewhere out there in the distance but we are unable to see it. We cannot see it because some distracting condition has occurred. So we reach into our spiritual bag of tricks—positive attitude, denials, affirmations, forgiveness, tithing, random acts of kindness—and we make a renewed effort to apply one or all of these until the fog of uncertainty lifts.

The problem with this approach is that it does little to either lift the fog or to advance our spiritual understanding. Whether or not you do anything about it, fog, in its many forms, comes and goes. Things go well for a time, then they seem to fall apart. The deeper spiritual issue has less to do with the fog and more to do with understanding the one who is peering into it.

The self-image that we drop into the world every day is full of specific dreams and desires meant to enhance and protect its stature and increase its peace of mind. The soul, however, is not tied to the needs of the self-image. To the contrary, the soul issues a perpetual reminder that we are much more than we think.

The self-image is like a glass jar into which we have tried to stuff the soul. From within the confines of this jar, we have tried to live a free life. What many are calling spiritual development and self-improvement is nothing more than a scramble for a bigger jar. Our spiritual arsenal is a bag of tricks intended to protect and bring stability to this inherently fragile structure. Rather than understand the vulnerability of the jar, our mission becomes one of protecting it from the possibility of breakage. Thus, our aversion to fog. We might crack our jar bumping into something we cannot see.

What if we understood that the fog is not a thing out there, but a film on our glass jar? What if we realized, as Paul suggested, that we are merely seeing through a glass darkly? Would we not stop battling the fog and turn our attention instead to climbing out of the jar? In its second noble truth, Buddhism attributes the cause of suffering to the act of clinging. In our analogy, this implies something much more than the tendency to cling to the needs of the jar. We are to examine our need to cling to the jar itself.

Can you, for a moment, imagine shedding the image of the person you think you are, to rise from the confines of your jar and simply let yourself be? In the few moments it takes to accomplish this, you see you are not the least bit threatened by those glass-breaking people and things you encounter in your life. The stones they cast pass right through you. You no longer have to wait for the vision-impairing fog to lift. You yourself rise above it. And it’s not because you have suddenly become something more than you were just moments ago. You are simply experiencing the truth of who you are and who you have always been.

Question: If I understand you right, you are saying the self-image is something separate from the soul. The soul, which is already complete, is the real of us. If this is true, how do I reclaim the soul as my true identity?

Let’s say someone gives you tickets to the Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz. As a member of the audience, you seat yourself before a stage. The house lights are still up, the curtain is drawn and the audience murmurs in quiet anticipation of the drama about to unfold before them. At this point, there are two worlds. There is the world of the audience and the anticipated world yet to unfold on the stage. The music begins, the lights go down, and a hush falls over the audience. At this moment, a transition occurs. Two worlds merge into one. As a member of the audience, your world is dimmed while the world on the stage before you is brightened.

To make this arrangement work, you must suspend your disbelief and agree that the world you live in is no longer the real world. The world that is taking place on the stage is now the real world. Your problems are of no concern. It is now the problems of the protagonist, in this case Dorothy, that become the full focus of your attention.

Think of Dorothy in Oz as your self-image and you, the observer in the audience, as your soul. Dorothy and her problems are really not your problems. You and your house have never been caught up in a Kansas tornado and dropped into a strange new world populated by munchkins, flying monkeys and good and evil witches. But you momentarily allow yourself to be caught up in this world as if it were real.

The self-image is a character that you and I create and drop into this play we call our life. The mistake many make with this analogy, however, is that you, the audience member, have written the play, set the stage and created the cast. They suggest that you are the actor, the self-image. This is not true. Regardless of how convincing this play is, there is always a part of you that remembers that you are you and this play and its actors are something else entirely. You have simply agreed to give your attention to this world, but you never fully enter it. You remain an observer.

Those who suggest that you are the actor in the play will advise that if you don’t like the play you are experiencing, simply write a new one. In other words, if you don’t like your life the way it is, get your creative imagination flowing, break out the vision board (story board), visualize and create a new set, a new story line and a whole new cast that is more to your liking.

But you are not the actor or the producer of this play. You are a member of the audience, an observer. The observer neither creates nor acts in the play. When the play is over, you, the observer, get up and return to a different world. Get your self-image to write all the plays it wants but you, the observer, will never participate in a single one.

The breakdown in this illustration occurs with the realization that your soul never attempts to escape its reality. It will never buy a ticket to a play produced by your self-image. It never enters the world of the self-image as anything more than a distant observer. At the soul level, you know you are not the self-image or the world of problems it has created. Your soul always knows it is sitting in a theater observing a play that is being acted out by the self-image.

So, who is this observer? And what is the true nature of this stage you call your daily life? Can you leave this theater created by your self-image and step into a world that requires no acting, no suspension of disbelief, no role playing, no convincing others you are something you are not? Can you enter this world with no makeup, no costume, no techniques or acting skills that require much effort to sustain?

The beauty of The Wizard of Oz is in its portrayal of a story within a story. Dorothy’s adventure in Oz was a dream brought on by a severe blow to the head. In truth, she never left her home. She became the actor fraught with the problems of a world that did not exist. In this sense we can think of the Dorothy who resided in Kansas as the soul. The Dorothy who found herself in Oz is the self-image. The remedy to all her Oz-based problems was not found following the yellow brick road. These problems were solved the moment she woke up. The real Dorothy exited the theater.

As you think of your life and all of its many issues, it will help to focus on yourself as the observer who is looking at all of this. Your soul is not suffering from physical illness or limitations. Your soul does not experience financial challenges, hunger or fear of the unknown. Your soul has never been chased by flying monkeys. Your soul is that part of you that looks upon all of these things with the understanding that they are projections of the self-image.

While you do not want to ignore this play and pretend like it is not going on, you do want to make the conscious distinction between the onlooking soul and that actor that is your adopted self-image. The problems of the self-image are not the problems of the soul. You are in that world as the observer, but you are not of this world you are observing.

Think of the events of your day from this perspective. Who knows, you may join Dorothy in her great relief of waking from this very strange dream.

In a spiritual context, an issue often raised is one that revolves around desire. Is this thing I desire for my highest good, or is it born out of greed and selfishness? On one hand, there are those who approach God as a great genie standing ready to grant them any wish they make. On the other hand, there are those who feel deprivation is good for the soul, that any desire we may have is a temptation that should be kept in check.

The perspective offered by an understanding of the complete soul can be helpful here. Does this desire advance a strength, or is its purpose to protect a weakness? In a broader sense, does this desire rise from my soul, or does it rise from my self-image? A soul-based desire involves the greater expression of life, love, power and intelligence. Desires that rise from the self-image are usually a reaction to some deep-seated fear generated by feelings of inadequacy.

You may recall Jesus stating that he came that others may have life and have it abundantly. He was interested in helping people become free of the shackles of spiritual ignorance. He desired to share the joy of his own inner freedom with others, that their joy may be as full as his. He empowered those who would listen with the understanding that the same innate intelligence that cared for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field would also care for them. Fulfilled from within, the bird erupts in the sweetness of song. The lily expresses itself as beauty and fragrance. As we draw closer in awareness to the freeing truth of God as our own spiritual source, we too become a conduit of inspiration to others. A true, soul-based desire will reflect this.

In contrast, a desire that rises from the self-image is usually fear-based. Fear of failure, fear of lack, fear of the future, fear of losing our health are but a few of the many ways fear manifests.

I once knew a woman who covered her refrigerator with affirmations for healing. As a child, she suffered from severe health challenges and she was deathly afraid of going back there. The weakness she was trying to protect was her fear of disease. Her affirmations were actually a reinforcement of this fear. Another man, who grew up in dire poverty, became a millionaire who was plagued with the fear of losing everything. His affirmations, while appearing to be centered on prosperity, were actually centered on his fear of poverty. The irony is that no amount of material wealth could eliminate the weakness of his fear-based self-image.

The motive behind our desires may not be so pronounced. We can, however, check our motive with a few simple questions: Am I looking for a way out of the life I am now experiencing? Do I see the fulfillment of this desire as a means of escape? If the answer is yes, I am probably trying to protect a weakness. If I understand that my life, just as it is, is the perfect environment through which I may let the light of my soul shine, then I am seeking to express a strength. Conditions that seem unacceptable at one level can become opportunities to express spiritual assets we did not know we had.

A cup held under running water will fill and overflow. A cup of water standing alone will eventually evaporate. When our desires rise from the soul, we are like the cup held under running water. If we are the stand-alone cup, our desires are centered around the fear of evaporation. The soul-based understanding of ourselves includes the continual flow of water. The self-image defines itself only by the water it has in the cup. To become something more, it must go out in search of more water. More money, stronger credentials, more friends, more control over others all become the means of addressing our fear of evaporation. Our treasure is in what we can acquire and where our treasure is, there our heart is as well. And because we can never get enough, our heart perpetually aches for more.

In most cases, it is not the thing we desire that matters; it is our reason for desiring it that makes the difference. We are either looking for ways to direct our overflow, or we are looking for ways to compensate for our fear of evaporation. It really doesn’t take a lot of thought to figure out which of these two we are doing. Like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, we too have a body with material needs. Why is the bird and the flower taken care of and we are not? It is because they do not have the ability to create a self-image perceived as separate from its spiritual source. Because we humans do have this ability, we have created a self-image that feels all alone. To compensate for this feeling, we obviously need to escape from where we are. In this quest to escape, we desire things we believe will help us get away from the life we are experiencing.

Though the inadequate self-image would love to have the wings of the bird, the bird does not use its wings to escape its life. And the lily does not use its beauty to trick others into taking it away from its boring circumstances. It blooms right where it is planted.

If we are confused about the nature or validity of our desires, it may be best to spend time releasing them all and exposing ourselves to that inner fountain of life that is our true source of fulfillment. When you can truly look at your life just as it is and see it as your perfect place for expressing the strengths and the beauty of your soul, your need to compensate for a spiritually weak self-image will vanish. This single desire to bloom where you are planted will put all your desires in harmony with the life that is now bubbling up from the depths of your being.