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Study of the Text 7-9-13

7-9-13
The Ego and False Autonomy, paragraph 7
7 The ego literally lives by comparisons. Equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of “getting” arose in the ego’s thought system. Appetites are “getting” mechanisms, representing the ego’s need to confirm itself. This is as true of body appetites as it is of the so-called “higher ego needs.” Body appetites are not physical in origin. The ego regards the body as its home, and tries to satisfy itself through the body. But the idea that this is possible is a decision of the mind, which has become completely confused about what is really possible.

I am continually amazed at my ability to ignore, confuse, and overlook the obvious when studying the Course. I have read this paragraph many times. I have noticed what it says about appetites and even been surprised by it. But there was a resistance in my mind to this idea and I obstinately refused to fully accept what I was reading. I mean, I said the words and repeated them. For heaven’s sake, I taught them, but I never really surrendered to them until now.

What are the body appetites and what am I trying to get through them? Sex is a body appetite and what it offers (falsely) is closeness and joining. Its lie is that it will alleviate the nagging feeling that we are alone and unloved because we are unlovable. It offers the promise of acceptance and desirability fulfilled, the assurance that we are wanted and treasured. It often disappoints because it is ego based and the ego is not about joining and love is not about the body, though when given to the Holy Spirit’s purpose love can be expressed through the body.

How about food appetites? We need food to fuel the body, but what about the cravings? Is the desire for chocolate really divine in nature? I am especially attuned to the appetites for foods as this is my favorite substitute for God’s Love. I can swoon over a perfectly baked coconut cake or creamy pie. I can be driven from my bed to seek out a sweet relief to my craving for some desert or other. What drives these appetites?

I used to think it must be genetic or something, and that my body just longed for sugar and I was victim to that longing. Now of course, I understand the body is just a tool, a way of expressing what is in the mind. Jesus is helping me to understand that my cravings are in my mind and then projected onto the body (which is in my mind). He is also helping me to see that, like sex, food has become, for me, a way to satisfy my deeper longings for love and acceptance, and primarily for the love of God.

Because appetites are ego based, they are guilt based, and so I delight my taste buds (create in my mind a sensation of tasting and pretend it is happening in my body) and feel guilty for it because I see it as further betrayal of God. I push this thought down far enough to keep it from my awareness, but while I can hide from the reason, I cannot hide from the guilt.

The guilt drives me to punish myself and so those sweetly delightful treats settle around my waist and in my hips and I fear to step on the scale. Like any addict, I promise myself I will stop this indulgence and of course, I don’t have any true intention of doing so. I am as addicted to the guilt and punishment as I pretend that my body is addicted to the sugar.

The body appetites are literally a substitute for God’s Love. They do not originate in the body, but in the mind, and so all attempts to control them through suppression or denial, through abstinence or dieting is useless. It is just playing into the ego’s game of guilt and sin. I give my appetites to the Holy Spirit and ask that He heal my mind of my false beliefs about them. I entrust my body and my ego to Jesus and let him teach me their unimportance. I continue to accept the Atonement and allowing my mind to be healed, I undo the ego.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 7-8-13

7-7-13
II The Ego and False Autonomy, paragraph 6
6 Only those who have a real and lasting sense of abundance can be truly charitable. This is obvious when you consider what is involved. To the ego, to give anything implies that you will have to do without it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, you give only because you believe that you are somehow getting something better, and can therefore do without the thing you give. “Giving to get” is an inescapable law of the ego, which always evaluates itself in relation to other egos. It is therefore continually preoccupied with the belief in scarcity that gave rise to it. Its whole perception of other egos as real is only an attempt to convince itself that it is real. “Self-esteem” in ego terms means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality, and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This “self-esteem” is always vulnerable to stress, a term which refers to any perceived threat to the ego’s existence.

“Giving to get” is an inescapable law of the ego. Looking at this idea I first thought of giving money or some valuable object. Do I always give to get? I give money to my children, to charities and to other people who need it. What do I get out of it? If it is my ego that is giving, I get to present a generous ego to the public eye. I get to feel like I am now less guilty than before having made up for my bad acts with good works. I have appeased God. This is ego reasoning, and to the ego any one of these results would be worth a certain amount of money depending on the level of guilt it was feeling at the moment.

Do I ever give for the pure joy of giving? Do I ever give because it is my nature to give? I don’t know because giving is so mixed up with my ego motives that I can’t tell. Trying to purify my motives in giving would be going at it backwards and wouldn’t work. I can only continue to do the work of undoing. When the ego is undone the issue of giving to get will no longer be an issue.

I see that it is not just money and other material possessions that are used in the egos “giving to get” game. It gives compliments to get compliments. It gives kind acts to look kinder than other egos and so look better than others. It works harder at the job to increase its value to the company in the hopes of standing out from the other egos and thus insuring employment.

This giving to get mentality shows up in every special relationship, which is every relationship until it is given to the Holy Spirit for purification. Relationships are reciprocal in every way. The ego dresses to attract, that is, to stand out from other egos. It is kind and loving, not for the joy of it, but in the hopes the other will be kind and loving. It gives whatever it has to the other in the hopes of getting something it thinks it needs in return. Everything the ego gives is in the hopes of getting a return and it hopes that return is greater than the outlay.

The entire concept of giving to get is always born of guilt and so guilt underlies every action.  It wants to make the other feel guilty through it’s giving in the hopes that one will then reciprocate in some way. Or the ego gives because it is trying to fool everyone, especially God, into believing it is not guilty. The ego is like a hamster on a wheel, running, running, running, and never getting anywhere.

The ego works very hard on its self esteem issues so it will seem stronger and better than others, thus proving it is better than those others. The ego will never get anywhere in its race to success because the whole race is a farce. Everything it does is an attempt to prove its existence through proving the existence of other egos, and since egos do not exist it is doomed to failure.

Instead of letting go of the insane idea that ego is real, I try to make my ego look better than your ego. Even as I write this my ego hopes you will be impressed with my writing and will think of me as “special” because of it. It uses even my desire to wake up and my desire to love God as a way to feed its need to be absolved of guilt. Being the ego it thinks that to be guiltless it must look less guilty than others.

My ego thinks like this: It gives its time and effort freely and gets nothing in return. “Look at me, God. I am doing Your work and now You have to love me. See, how others are impressed with me? See how they look to me for answers? Surely You recognize my value now, God. I am Your special teacher, I sacrifice more than anyone for you. Surely You will forgive me for my sins and not punish me for leaving You.” And of course, whom do I look better than? All those other egos, and since they exist I must exist.

It is all very convoluted and very depressing and impossible to fix. As Jesus said, giving to get is an inescapable law of the ego. I cannot fix the ego, repair it, shore it up and make it better. I can only undo it. The ego is the idea of guilt, fear and lack, and therefore can only be those things no matter how hard I try to make it look different. I want to be generous and loving without an agenda. I want this because under the ego façade, it is my nature to be so. True love, true generosity, and true giving is what I am and that is what will bring me joy.

As I accept the Holy Spirit’s healing of my mind and finally give up on the idea of a better ego, I will let that impossible idea go. Just beneath my belief in the ego is my Self, which is not a belief at all and so cannot be lost or damaged by my silly thoughts. Just beneath the belief in the idea of an ego is joy and peace and love, and without ego, I will know what it means to give just for the joy of giving. 

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 7-5-13

7-5-13
5 Undermining the ego’s thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, although they may well harm themselves if you do not. In this sense you are still a baby. You have no sense of real self-preservation, and are likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most. Yet whether or not you recognize it now, you have agreed to cooperate in the effort to become both harmless and helpful, attributes that go together. Your attitudes even toward this are necessarily conflicted, because all attitudes are ego-based. This will not last. Be patient a while and remember that the outcome is as certain as God.

This paragraph makes me want to laugh. I am like a baby who is resisting giving up the sharp edged toys that are hurting me. The Holy Spirit will replace my ego beliefs with the truth and I will be so much happier, but I hold tight to what I have and refuse to accept the change.

I overheard someone in the office say something that made me mad. I only heard a few words, but it sounded to me like the person was saying they did not trust my judgment on a particular thing. This was my perception of the words spoken and perception is suspect at the best of times, but nevertheless, I was offended. I recognized that this was ego thinking, and whether I had an ego reason to be offended or not, it was not what I want. Even so, I didn’t stop it right away and so the ego was off and running with scissors in hand, like the silly and self-destructive child it is.

In a moment of clear thinking, I would take the scissors away and then in a bit notice my ego had picked them up again. After a few hours of this, I got tired of the conflicted thinking. I would feel resentful, realize that the resentment was caused by my own thoughts, and would ask for healing of the belief in offense that I carry in my mind. Then I would go back to feeling offended. It was making me crazy. I couldn’t believe how hard it was for me to let go of the thought that was hurting me.

I was basically making a choice to hold onto a perceived wrong rather than using this opportunity to undo the ego belief in offense. I might as well have just said it; given a choice between being offended by a few words and being at peace, I choose the offense. I really wanted to feel offended. I played with that sharp object all day long. I placed blame. I felt guilty. I became afraid. I hated. It makes me feel a little nauseous to think about it.

I finally decided that I wanted to wake up more than I wanted this person to be guilty. I asked the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking and this time I meant it. I just wanted to return to peace. I wanted to remember my purpose and to remember that this is all I want. The confusion in my mind faded and the ego thinking lost its appeal. I didn’t make it go away or figure out another way to think, I just desired peace above all else. The Holy Spirit did the rest.

I did make a choice to become harmless and helpful. At first this was done on an unconscious level, but now I am fully aware of my goal. Blaming and projecting is not harmless behavior. Even if I only think it, it is still harmful and I cannot be helpful if I am harmful. My thinking - and I never reached the point of acting on my thoughts - my thinking was harming me. It left me mired in the ego, unhappy, guilty and fearful.

It was also harmful to the person I was attacking even though I never spoke to or acted against them. We are one mind and that mind has no boundaries. As I was adding to the dream of separation with my wrong-minded thinking, I was doing so for all of the Sonship. When I came to my senses, I gave my willingness to have the ego undone in my mind, and I did this for all of the Sonship as well.

There is no way we can go home alone because we are not alone.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text 7-3-13

II. The Ego and False Autonomy, Paragraph 4
4 Think of the love of animals for their offspring, and the need they feel to protect them. That is because they regard them as part of themselves. No one dismisses something he considers part of himself. You react to your ego much as God does to His creations,-with love, protection and charity. Your reactions to the self you made are not surprising. In fact, they resemble in many ways how you will one day react to your real creations, which are as timeless as you are. The question is not how you respond to the ego, but what you believe you are. Belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief you are regarding it from an ego viewpoint. When teaching is no longer necessary you will merely know God. Belief that there is another way of perceiving is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable. That is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self.

I think that the ego is part of me, just another facet of myself, and that is the reason I am so reluctant to let it go. As long as I regard the ego as a part of me I will love it and defend it. This explains why it is so difficult for me to see it as not real. Loving and defending the ego is a hard job though, because it is so unlovable and is in need of constant defense. Looking at the ego in this way keeps me in conflict which is a very painful way to live. I am conflicted as I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of ego beliefs and at the same time I defend my ego against this healing.

Jesus said he would substitute for my ego and he said that I could entrust my ego and my body to him. When I do this I am so at peace, and so happy! But I notice that in spite of the joy this gives me, I return to listening to the ego instead. I do this over and over during the day. Jesus has told me that he teaches through contrast, and, oh my goodness, but this is very apparent as I see the difference in listening to the Holy Spirit as opposed to listening to the ego. I listen to the Holy Spirit as he interprets my world and I am peaceful and happy. I listen to the ego as it interprets the world and I am suspicious and defensive. Why on earth, would I continue to choose the ego as my guide?

Jesus says the reason I do this is because I think of the ego as part of me and so I am protective of it. This will continue as long as I think that what I am is open to belief. Jesus says that I am created by God as part of God and this cannot be altered. I believe I did alter myself when I made the ego to take the place of God’s creation. I think that believing this to be true, makes it true. Clearly this is insane.

I know a little about insanity. I used to be married to a man who qualified. His ego was a paranoid schizophrenic. He heard voices no one else heard. His voices were as real to him as any voice you and I hear during the day. He was constantly defending his ego from everyone who wanted to give him medicine to make it go away. I saw him as suspicious to the point of paranoia. He saw himself as attacked on all sides. He believed in his “self” and so thought it was real.

It was clear to me that Charlie was mistaken about who he thought he was and that his belief in this confused self did not make it real. I knew that if he would just give in and take the medicine he would see that what he believed was wrong. He would then know what I knew, that believing in his voices did not make them real. I wonder if Jesus sees me in the same way I saw Charlie.

I hear a voice in my head, too. It is the ego which is just as made-up as are the voices Charlie heard. I believe in my voice, too, because it seems so real to me. I think that because I believe in the self I made, that is enough to make it real. There is not so much difference between Charlie and me as I used to think there was. I defend my made-up self just as fiercely as he did, and my defense does not make my ego self real any more than defending his ego self made it real.

Jesus will substitute for that ego voice in my head if I will simply allow him to do so. I only need to stop defending against his help. Charlie could have made the voices go away with medicine if only he would have questioned his belief in them enough to allow himself to take the pills. I can stop listening to that voice in my head if I will question its reality enough to accept the Holy Spirit’s “medicine.” There is an alternative Voice in my mind that will heal the confusion I live with all the time. It will return me to sanity and to Reality.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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