The Course defines the ego as the thought of separation from God. This was the "tiny mad idea" that crept into the mind of the one Christ at which it forgot to laugh (T-27.VIII.6). We asked, "Could there be something better than oneness?". "What if I became God instead of the second class son of God?" Such mad ideas could not be achieved in reality, so part of the Christ mind fell asleep so it could experience them. Not that it felt like a dream - for that would have defeated the purpose.
Time and space arose in which we could play out our desires of hiding from God whilst playing God, hoping he would never find us here and act out his justified revenge for us breaking up his heaven and leaving. In fact, we wanted an angry God for that would make our dream seem true. We could tell ourselves we had actually succeeded from breaking away from our father. In reality, however, God knows nothing of our childish dreams, for He can only know what is eternal. Sin would only be real if we could change the eternal, the Christ in us, and that is impossible. But in our dreams we feel we have much to be guilty about and the ego makes full use of this. Guilt is the food of the ego, without which it can not exist.
The ego dictates a steady stream of advice to help get us what we think we need, missing the point that the ego's real motive is "seek and do not find" (T-12.IV.1). The ego is our creation, our child, and wants to live. In giving us counsel that never works it forces us to return to him for more of the same. In time we start to suspect the motives of the ego - that he is our enemy and not our friend. This usually leads to the conclusion that the ego must be fought and overcome. Big mistake! This attitude makes the ego seem real - an example of what the Course calls "making the error real". Thus we need not try and change the ego or "improve" it. The greatest fear of the ego is not to be taken seriously. With no guilt to feed on the ego will simply "fade into the nothingness from which it came from" (M-13.1).
But if we fight (or love) the ego we have made it real. And what could fight the ego but the ego. The other counsellor in our mind, the Holy Spirit, never fights or opposes anything as He does not recognise the ego as real. The truth needs no protection from the false. Instead He asks us to simply look at our ego without judgement.
Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is. A Course in Miracles W-pII.1.4.
The very seeing of what the ego advises us to do, which is always some form of attack upon ourselves (e.g. sickness) or others (e.g. anger), will eventually lead us to not following its advice. If we see that putting our hand in a flame causes pain we will not do it. No effort or practice is required.
One form of attack upon ourselves is not so easily seen. This is the ego's advice on how we can improve our image, perhaps to become more 'spiritual'. The Course teaches us we are created in the image of God. The only difference, which led to the idea of separation and hence to the birth of the ego, is that we cannot create God. He is the Father and we are His Son - the Christ. Apart from that one difference we share all of God's nature.
The truth about you is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you. T-9.VII.8.4
If we ponder this a moment we realise that any desire to improve ourselves, to be better people, is playing directly into the hands of the ego. Can we improve what God created? What we are trying to improve is our ego - our treasured image of individuality and specialness. This can only increase our sense of guilt as it reinforces the idea of separation believing what we have miscreated is superior to what God has created.
All things you seek to make your value
greater in your sight limit you further, hide
your worth from you, and add another bar across
the door that leads to true awareness of your Self.
Lesson 128
Deep within you is everything that is perfect,
ready to radiate through you and out into the world. Lesson 41
As we start to awaken from our dream of separation the ego becomes ever more subtle in its advice. We may have seen through the ego's ploy that we can achieve happiness by attacking others and pursuing material goals, but how easily he can snare us again by encouraging us to pursue spiritual goals. Looking with horror at all our character defects we vow to conquer the ego and become better, more spiritual people.
Your worth is not established by teaching or learning. Your worth is established by God. As long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful, particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority and inferiority. T-4.I.7:1-3
The ego rubs its hands in glee as we take up the long path of fighting against all our newly discovered sins. The resulting guilt from our failures will be a rich source of "food' for the ego for a long time to come. Nor do we easily see that our fight to become 'good' is just a reaction to the guilt we feel at seemingly separating from our Father in Heaven. But the separation is an illusion, we are simply asleep in Heaven. There is no need for sacrifice, suffering or redemption. All that is required is a desire to wake up and leave the dream behind.
Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and despised. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. Yet the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy. T-18.VII
The spiritual self we are trying to cultivate will never feel adequate because it will still be the ego, but now wearing spiritual clothes. We are doomed to suffer a lack of self worth until we realise that what we are trying to create is false. How could we possibly improve on the perfection of our Christ self? It has ben nothing but a hopeless journey of arrogance.
Do not strive for spirituality. If you do, you will block it.
It will be prevented from coming into your life.
That is the most difficult thing for most people to learn,
not to get in their own way. It is already yours.
It has always been so. Relax, be still, and you will see what I mean.
It has never left you. Your mind, with all of its endless demands,
has taken you away from that clarity.
Raymond Karczewki
Can we look at all our spiritual striving and smile at it?
Can we learn not to take the ego seriously, which means we no longer try to change it - ours or another's?
Can we stop trying to be good and simply relax into a non-judgemental awareness of what our mind gets up to?
Are we willing to say to ourselves, "I am no longer in charge of my spiritual journey. I know nothing. Please teach me."?
Are we ready to awaken from the dream of separation which also includes releasing our attachment to the parts of our dream which do give us satisfaction?
If we can the Course promises us the peace of God. If we are not ready it counsels us not to fight ourselves (T-30.I.1.). The happier parts of the dream still call to us to stay asleep. This is not a sin, simply a painful mistake most of us are making. One day we will tire of all dreaming and finally let the hand of the ego go. Then the light of spirit will be allowed to shine in our mind, the ego will disappear and we will awake to our home in Heaven which we never left.
The acceptance of the Atonement (waking from the dream) by everyone is only a matter of time. This may appear to contradict free will because of the inevitability of the final decision, but this is not so.You can temporize and you are capable of enormous procrastination, but you cannot depart entirely from your Creator, Who set the limits on your ability to miscreate. An imprisoned will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point. T-2.III.3:1-7
Q #35: It seems the more I study A Course in Miracles, I begin to think I am going backward instead of forward. My mind is more noisy than ever. Why is that?
A: The Course has a helpful perspective on this: ÒPut yourself not in charge of this [wakening to knowledge], for you cannot distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of your greatest advances you have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats you have evaluated as successÓ (T-18.V.1:5-6). The fact is we really do not know where we are in our progress; we do not even know if we are going backwards or forwards. It is important to remember this in our study of the Course so as not to waste a lot of time and effort judging or evaluating ourselves. Most likely the ÒnoiseÓ in your mind that seems to be more than ever was there before your study of the Course; the difference is now you are aware of it. Now you know you have a mind and that it is a noisy mind, and that is exactly what the Course is helping us to learn.
We begin our practice by learning not to deny that we are using our noise to drown out the Òstill small VoiceÓ (T-21.V.1:6) of the Holy Spirit. Since denial is part of our defense strategy as egos, beginning to hear our noisy minds is the beginning of undoing denial. As we deepen our commitment to study the Course, our noise may actually seem to get louder because of our resistance. Our ego identity feels threatened by what we are learning and puts up a fight in a variety of ways, one of them being a noisy mind. This is also a ploy of the ego to convince us to stop our pursuit of the truth, because it tells us we are Ògetting worse.Ó Our task is to begin to pay attention to the chatter in our minds because it is telling us what we believe. The whole point of the mind training of the Course is to uncover the thoughts, judgments, beliefs and lies hidden in our minds causing us to feel guilty and fearful. The good news is that ÒThe still, small Voice for God is not drowned out by all the egoÕs raucous screams and senseless ravings to those who
want to hear ItÓ (T-21.V.1:6). We will hear His promptings when we have heard and forgiven all of our objections.
A Course in Miracles W-pII.253.1
Watching is the key, nothing else matters, slowly slowly an understanding start growing, a witness arises and this witness is the bud of our being, the miracle that transforms, the miracle that heals, the miracle that gives birth to your authentic self.
Deeshan
Conceptualization is a deadly obstacle for a Zen yogi, more dangerous than poisonous snakes or wild animals. People of powerful intellect are virtually always possessed with the desire to convert everything into mental concepts; they are never able to completely free themselves of this in any of their activities. As months and years go by this craving grows even stronger. Without their realizing it, the mind and conceptualization gradually become inseparable. Those who desire to free themselves of it discover that it is impossible.
That is why I say poisonous snakes and wild animals can be avoided, but there is no way of evading intellectual conceptualization.
Tai-hui Chinese Zen Master
Gently, gently, I trained my mind to suspend its processes and thoughts. Then (in the windless calm), the flame of the Lamp, shining steady and bright, Revealed my true nature unto me.
Lalla
One is more likely to awaken through surrender than through seeking to waken. The effort to awaken is the effort of ego, whereas to surrender is to give up all efforts and to place oneself in the hands of a vast force that is more powerful than any realization of non duality.
When one finally gives up oneÕs futile attempts to make reality conform to oneÕs own wishes, and allows it to unfold on its own terms, all the energy that was tied up in foolish attempts to manipulate the universe is freed up.
Mariana Caplan from Half Way Up the Mountain
In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part.
Keep quiet, undisturbed, and the wisdom and the power will come on their own. You need not hanker. Wait in silence of the heart and mind. It is very easy to be quiet, but willingness is rare. You people want to be supermen overnight. Stay without ambition, without the least desire, exposed, vulnerable, unprotected, uncertain and alone, completely open to and welcoming life as it happens, without the selfish conviction that all must yield you pleasure or profit, material or so-called spiritual.
Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe.
Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance.
Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.
When you accept what is, every moment is the best moment. That is enlightenment.
Eckhart Tolle
If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you back to God.
A Course in Miracles