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january-March, 2008

Who Are You? and What Do You Want?

by Nouk Sanchez

What do you want? What is it that you really want, and are you ready to hear the truth?

The truth is that we don’t really know what we want and until we get clear about recognizing and owning this fact, we’ll never know what we’re really looking for let alone ever hope to find it!

Perhaps superficially we think we need money, a house, car, partner, better relationship or an education for our kids. Or maybe we think we need a special experience. Perhaps we think we need to control or avoid, or get healthier. Could there be an addiction that we want to give up?

But the real question here is just who is doing all this wanting? Who desires to be in control and to know? Who is perceiving scarcity? Is it you?

Most would answer, “Yes it’s me.” But the truth is it’s not. It’s nothing even close to who you are. Who you are is an extension of immense and infinite Love. You’re a living extension of the awesome power of Love with no opposite. That means that you’re a co-creator with infinite ability to extend What you are. And in giving your infinite abundance, you increase It all around and within.

You know that there is nothing to need, to have, to become, or to avoid. Can you imagine that? So, if you’re not experiencing this wonderful state every day then you’ve forgotten Who you are and therefore, what you really want.

Let’s talk about the ego. The ego is a lot more than you think. It’s you and it’s me. It’s who we think we are. It’s the ‘me’ factor that’s unconsciously called upon every time we utter the word ‘I.’ The ego consists of all our past memories and future hopes and fears. It’s every single thought we have that’s not joined with the Holy Spirit (Wow, that’s almost every decision we make!). All our judgments and all our beliefs are the lifeblood of the ego.

Even every urge we have to control our partner, child, work associate or situation arises from the ego. Every time our life presents us with something we don’t like (a flat tire in heavy traffic) and we say, “This is wrong,” that’s the ego. Feelings of anger, fear, frustration, lack, distrust, and guilt are all the ego. Whenever we think we know what’s in our own or another’s best interests, it’ll be the ego. In fact the ego is who we think we are. You can substitute the word ‘me’ with ego.

The ego is a thought apart from God, apart from infinite Love. In reality, nothing exists apart from God so we, as we currently think of and see ourselves, don’t exist.  A very frightening thought! It needn’t be though because A Course in Miracles clearly tells us that we are not who we think we are and it sets out a very clear pathway back to the awareness of our loving Oneness.

Earlier I said that we don’t know what we want. And I meant it. You won’t know what you want until you undo who you think you are, because what you think you want comes from the incessant neediness of the ego. And being a will that’s apart from God, the ego ensures you keep searching everywhere for what you want except within your mind; the only place where change and healing is required so you can remember Who you truly are.

The mind is the cause of everything. The world we see is its effect. The ego is a figment of our imagination that seems so real. It’s only a pile of uninvestigated beliefs based on past individual and collective beliefs that we rarely question like the prized value of the body, money, education or gaining more knowledge and skills. All our current beliefs are to keep the ego alive and to fuel the separated state. Of course many are cleverly concealed beneath a beneficent exterior.

If you’re a Course student/teacher then you’ll realize that our mission here is to unlearn everything we think we know including the identity we’ve mistaken as ‘me.’ And it’s not until we’re committed to unlearning that we begin to understand that the ‘I’ we thought we were didn’t have a clue what it really wanted. The ego is a self-perpetuating saboteur whose only goal is to keep us looking out there for something that will never deliver.

On the spiritual path what we often aim for is to transform our lives. And what we find difficult to grasp or accept is that no real transformation is possible at the level of form because the only place transformation can take place is in the mind.

The ego however, is constantly trying to transform us, others and situations. We have an addiction to transformation at the level of form and we’re not even conscious of it. We are constantly trying to improve our lives at the effect level and not at the cause level (mind). The real aim therefore for any serious spiritual seeker is to transcend our life. That means we acknowledge that change occurs only in the mind and that we surrender our beliefs and values to the Holy Spirit for reinterpretation. This is undoing the ego; undoing the belief in separation.

We will not know anything until we un-know. The ego can’t love, period. It cannot give Love and it can’t receive Love. And while we’re still mistaking the ego for the “I” we think we and others are, we’ll never know Love. Even the love we have for our children, partners, and parents is strongly tainted by an unconscious fear of loss and expectation.

Love and fear cannot co-exist together. So the best we can hope to attain in the ego state is a pseudo love that’s always under threat of loss through separation or death. Love transcends the body but how many of us really know and experience this consistently? Aren’t we devastated when we lose a loved one?

Wouldn’t you want to know a Love that couldn’t ever be terminated? Wouldn’t you want to feel just as close to your loved one while they’re on the other side of the world or after their body died? This is the level and perception of Love that the Course is offering us, not in another life-time but now, here in this life.

Jesus said that we could experience the same miraculous perception that he lived (and still does!) to share, not some time in the future but now.
 
On a personal note, Tomas and I have that miraculous experience of transformed Love. It is the fuel of our commitment to share our book and message with you. We have an unusual story of Love. We were guided to release the ego form of the union (marriage) in order to save the relationship.

So we’re now a divorced couple who absolutely adore each other! We had a (special) love that was miraculously transformed during the process outlined in what A Course in Miracles calls ‘The Development of Trust’ (The Manual for Teachers, page 9). And it’s this very process (the six stages of undoing the ego) that we so want to help facilitate by explaining in simple terms just what is likely to be involved at a practical level in these stages of spiritual awakening.

We are Love but we can’t possibly feel and know this until the one block to the awareness of Its presence is dismantled. And please don’t make the same mistake Tomas and I did many years ago. Don’t think that it’s remotely possible to keep your own will and experience real Love and abundance at the same time. It cannot be done and will inevitably lead to more suffering.

This idea of undoing who you think you are is a very threatening one. Because you think you’re going to sacrifice so much. The truth is that once you truly commit to this process, you grow to appreciate the absolute valuelessness of what you previously valued. You don’t lose anything; except your fear, distrust and need to control. And that’s when the absolute delight of realizing and receiving comes in!

You don’t just hope, you know that Holy Spirit’s Will is all you want and you’re overjoyed to recognize it as your own. The need to have, to get, to avoid, and to control, falls away and you see that you have no needs. There’s no doubt and there’s nothing to lose. There’s a genuine growing urge to give unconditionally because we no longer feel empty, we feel full.

We know that giving is receiving and we experience the principle that whatever we give only increases both for the giver and the receiver. And replacing the ego’s miscreations are the Holy Spirit’s inspired desires to give that arise from abundant gratitude leading to increasing gratitude as they are extended.

Now do you know what you want? And if this is really what you want then are you prepared to commit to undoing, to unlearning and listening to Holy Spirit’s Voice instead of the ego? If you are, then you will come to find an experience far more wonderful than your wildest imaginings. And what will it cost? It’ll cost nothing less than your self, the false ego self that is.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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