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Study of the Text 7-2-13

7-2-13
3 Your own state of mind is a good example of how the ego was made. When you threw knowledge away it is as if you never had it. This is so apparent that one need only recognize it to see that it does happen. If this occurs in the present, why is it surprising that it occurred in the past? Surprise is a reasonable response to the unfamiliar, though hardly to something that occurs with such persistence. But do not forget that the mind need not work that way, even though it does work that way now.

I asked Jesus for an example of how I threw knowledge away and it was as if I never had it. I wanted an example that was recent and very clear to me so I could be sure I understood this passage. I thought of the day I said I was tired of the food game where I pretended I gained weight because I ate the wrong thing. I said that I was ready to know the truth once and for all. I had a moment of brilliant clarity and I knew the truth. It was so clear I could not imagine that was I ever confused, and I could not imagine ever being fooled again.

Within a couple of days fear and guilt arose in my mind around this issue and my clarity was gone. I was confused as I ever was and had to start over. Where did the clarity go? It felt like I forgot, but how could I forget something that crystal clear? In two days? How could that be? Am I victim to my own mind? Is it so slippery that I cannot hold onto something so real, so lucid?

Indeed that is the ego’s explanation. I forgot. I cannot do this. It disappeared all on its own. It’s not my fault. It’s hopeless. But that is not the truth. The truth is that I very deliberately threw it away. This lucidity was not what I really wanted. I wanted it for that moment I asked for it, but then I changed my mind and threw it away. Easily done when you realize how much practice I have had. This is exactly what I have done since the beginning of time . . . literally. After I threw it away, I used fear and guilt (handily made by my mind for this purpose) to demoralize and to discourage a return to truth.

This is the way my mind works. I decide on a thing and it is mine. I decide against it and it is as if it never existed. My mind is wiped clean of that belief and its effects go with it because cause and effect are never separate. This is the only way I could possibly keep the dream going. Our saving grace, the reason I can and will wake from the dream, is that while that is how my mind works to keep the dream alive, it does not have to work this way. Jesus is taking us by the hand, and gently, paragraph by paragraph, helping us to see differently, easing us out of our self-imposed confusion.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 7-1-13

6-28-13
2 Everyone makes an ego or a self for himself, which is subject to enormous variation because of its instability. He also makes an ego for everyone else he perceives, which is equally variable. Their interaction is a process that alters both, because they were not made by or with the Unalterable. It is important to realize that this alteration can and does occur as readily when the interaction takes place in the mind as when it involves physical interaction. Thinking about another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as is physical interaction. There could be no better example that the ego is only an idea and not a fact.

If you ask folks where their ego came from, most will tell you that it was formed through their interactions with other people, that they are the way they are because of how they were treated while they were growing up. They will say that it was further affected by things that happened to them as adults, the loss of a loved one, the birth of a child, getting fired from a job, all the things that happen in the life of an ordinary person go into making them the person they are. In other words, that they are the victim of their DNA, their childhood and people and circumstances in their life.

Jesus tells us that we are never a victim. He says that we make our ego ourselves, and that we continue that process all of our lives because we did not make our egos out of the Unalterable. Not only did we make our egos but also we make an ego for everyone we know. I read someplace (maybe from Regina) that we never know another person. We only know our thoughts about that person. Wherever I heard it, I knew that it was true.

Then Jesus says that we interact our ego with their ego and this produces changes as well, again, because they were not made from the Unalterable. So in the relationship I had with my ex-husband, for instance, I had ideas about him that I attributed to him. I told myself that what I see with my body’s eyes is what is true. I told myself that how I see him is how he is. But truthfully, I projected onto him everything I thought I knew about him, and where do you think I got the ideas that were projected? From my own mind, of course. Where else?

I can understand how it is that our interactions change our egos. I tell my husband that he is guilty often enough, and he is going to begin to live up to my expectations.  But Jesus goes even further with his explanation. He says that it doesn’t even matter if we speak to each other or interact in any way in form. Just the thoughts in our mind affect the other. Of course they do. I made his ego with my mind, so if my mind changes, so does his ego. And as he changes, so do I. We are so entwined that it is remarkable that we were able to convince ourselves that separation is real.

Here is an example of how this works. I have made a very complex ego involvement between my boss and me. Because he is also my brother, this man’s ego and mine evolve on several layers with each interaction, physical or mental. One day, I was walking through his office and glanced at him. Our eyes met for a moment and I noticed that he seemed very unhappy. He didn’t smile or acknowledge me in any way. His mouth was turned down and he looked tense.

I continued on my errand, but mentally I stayed with him. I interpreted his facial expressions as meaning that he was unhappy with me. I went several places with that thought! But where I ended up was that I believed that he was going to fire me. With a one-sided interaction that occurred only in my mind, I altered the ego I had made for him. Instead of being the loving and caring brother, he was now showing his formerly hidden true colors. He was a hard man, unreasonable, and willing to fire his own sister. My ego changed from the sister who looked up to her younger brother and admired and respected him, to a frightened and resentful person who blamed her brother for her fate.

He didn’t fire me. He never said anything to me about that encounter and I doubt that he was even thinking about me when he looked at me. But in my mind, a change in our egos occurred that day. He became a harder person, someone to fear. I became a more frightened person, more defensive, and guiltier, and my interactions with him changed for both of us because of this change. His actions seemed to prove my beliefs about him.

This remained true for years until I realized what I had done and forgave the situation. I asked for a new way to see him and I asked for a new way to see myself. With a healed perception I was able to see him with more clarity. When the guilt I projected onto him was withdrawn, I was also able to withdraw the guilt I had projected onto myself. Again, our egos were altered, and again our interactions changed. Now his actions seem to prove my transformed beliefs about him.

The ego I make for the both of us changes and transforms depending on my thoughts about it, and my perceptions. It is very clear to me that the ego cannot be real and that it is not a fact, but just an idea. I breathe a sigh of relief as I think about that.

We have no idle thoughts. We are creating on one level, and making on another, and we are doing this all the time. Here in egoland we are making egos. We do this constantly with every thought we have. It would behoove us to be mindful of the thoughts we think and to ask for correction when they are dark thoughts. What we make here is not eternal. It is not even real. But what we believe in is real for us, and, until we stop believing all our thoughts, we make a hellish world and believe we are in it.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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