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January-March, 2009

Change — The Ego’s Trick, the Holy Spirit’s Treat

by Rev. Jim Armfield

Fall is the season of change. Nature, in all its forms, senses naturally its own response to the consistency and necessity of change. Beautifully without effort, change occurs. There is no resistance, no fear and in the consciousness of a tree, it accepts change by giving the world a harvest of autumn colors as its gift.

But can we face change with such grace? How does the ego use change? What is its interpretation of this natural occurrence?

The ego uses change as evidence of a fearful world. “Change is always fearful to the separated.” (T-4.I.2:2) The ego plays tricks with change — enticing with the glamour of new and better, the desire to keep up with everything material, the things of the world. But as with all the ego’s processes, duality appears — the good the bad. So this allows fear to enter and is then associated with change. Change becomes scary. It becomes hard, something to resist. Your very identity is thrust into jeopardy. This is the ego at work.

The ego does not care if your situation is mundane, dark or uninspired; the ego informs you that it is safe. This is the way your circumstances are and will be, because to change would bring a loss of who you are, and the illusion that you cannot change what you are. Time is then employed to imprison you to the past and here lies all the reasons why you cannot accept change.

Can it be as simple as thinking, “When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change”? “Learn to change your mind about your mind.” (T-7 V.7:8) Can we face change, knowing that “Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed?” (T1.V.5:1)

Can we realize that true change is available to us? “Change in motivation is a change of mind, and this will inevitably produce fundamental change because the mind is fundamental.” (T-6.V.B.2:5)

Can we remember to… “Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances”? (W-122.13.4)

As you may have guessed, the subject of change has floated in and out of my thoughts recently. Some situations could have brought the flow of these particular thoughts. For example, I am experiencing a search for a different career. I have lots of extra time, but I have found myself confused. I feel tormented by my ego. It shows up in my trying to be constantly busy so I avoid the chance to be aware of this non-career phase. It is making me nervous and uncomfortable and recently suspicious with anger overtones. The feeling then comes in with unworthiness, and lack of selfness, separateness.

It has been very interesting how my ego has so distracted me with tricks and fear. Lost in this distraction, I have moved away from my Source and the Holy Spirit’s counsel. This is indeed the ego’s version of change that I am experiencing.

My wife’s mother has just passed and I find myself experiencing this with my wife as an opportunity to be of service and a peaceful presence. But again the ego finds the opportunity to involve the past and I find myself dwelling on the many of my family who have also passed. Torments, distractions, the ego brings them all. I can remember that here are all the ego temptations and then ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. “And He [the Holy Spirit] will reinterpret all temptation as just another chance to bring him joy.” (T-25.III.6:8)

How can I have become so lost, so mesmerized by the ego’s tricks? Well, I should have remembered that we forget to remember better. And now, with the funeral at hand I have been given another chance to remember that, “Every chance given him to heal is another opportunity to replace darkness with light, and fear with love.” (T-14 III.6:2)
Seasons change with consistency and beauty shared. How then can we accept change or better yet, be aware that change is the opportunity to experience anew? How can we face what we perceive as unsettling and a threat to ourselves with the grace of nature?

As with everything God has offered us, the answer lies within us, easily reached and amply given. Our soul yearns for new true experiences so it may experience itself, its God Self. It yearns to experience itself as compassionate in the face of hatred, to experience itself as peaceful in the face of stress, to experience itself loving in the face of fear, to experience itself whole in the face of separateness.

From this place of true changelessness of who we are, can we not see change as a gift to experience that which we are truly meant to be? “The world will change through you; no other means can save it.” (W-125.2:1)

I will ask for the beautiful awareness, as with the trees, to experience change and to give to the world the beauty of this experience; being secure in the changelessness of my true identity, my true self, one with God.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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