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January-March, 2013

Noticing Spiritual Ego

by Rev. Ken Gorman, O.M.C.

The way I seem to currently relate to what could be called the spiritual experience and the teachings of ACIM is that:

• We are ‘now’ unlimited being, unified in Love with everything and all we will ever be.

• This is how we were created and what will always be the case beyond time.

• The only thing happening is that our awareness is being hoodwinked by a bunch of illusions/stories by a part of our mind we call the ego.

• ACIM teaches us to notice the ego and choose the Voice of the Holy Spirit instead, which tells us the truth and gradually unwinds our addiction to ego’s illusions… not a big deal really.
The ego has a few key attributes or behaviors to watch out for:

• It is always operating from fear and telling us we need to spend a lot of time protecting little selves.

• Other people are either below us or above us… equality is not in ego’s thought system.  It especially likes pedestals… both to be on them or looking up at them.

• It generally thinks it knows what is going on and has opinions about the current landscape that it vigorously holds on to (including that we are in a body and this is all real… and that the other political party has it all wrong).

• As its main job is to keep us from the truth of what we really are, it has sophisticated mechanisms for tearing our self-image down… one of the most clever is by attacking our brothers, not realizing this creates guilt and subconsciously creates a mirror effect about what we really are.

So we get involved with ACIM (or other spiritual practices) that teach us about this ego and that we don’t need to listen to it and there is another choice (Holy Spirit/Truth)… But then the ego is very clever, very good at being the ‘wolf who puts on sheep’s clothing.’  It learns all of the concepts along with us and learns to adopt the language and the context of our new spiritual path. But… ego is still up to the same game (as it knows no other)… and so something I call my ‘spiritual ego’ is born.

Now, spiritual ego uses wonderful ACIM language and spiritual contexts to:

• Tell us there is much to ‘fear’ if we do not follow these practices and in fact we are generally failing which has implications beyond this life.

• Decide others are below or above us spiritually and especially the addiction to either being on or looking up at pulpits which subtly demonstrate inequality and lack.

• Decide it is now well educated and knows exactly what the text means and what the plan is and how others (and ourselves) are failing or succeeding and what should happen next or else.

• Becomes the judge (given it is now so educated) of when we are failing in our spiritual practices, not doing them enough, judges others likewise, buying into the fear of what happens if we fail to get the material, etc…

• This all demonstrates ego’s core premise that we are not really worthy of God… in fact this really proves it when we can’t even follow a basic spiritual program that Jesus has taken so much time to give us.

Fortunately, I think the instruction for spiritual ego is the same… notice it when we can, chose the Voice of the Holy Spirit which tells the truth… and if we really get what’s going on… laugh our heads off 😉. ❦

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