13. WHAT IS THE REAL MEANING OF SACRIFICE? P 4
4 God’s teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children’s toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice its values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his peace. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. And to possess them must he sacrifice his hope of Heaven and remembrance of his Father’s Love. Who in his sane mind chooses nothing as a substitute for everything?
Journal
I cannot say how I will feel when I have completely given up all value of the world, but as I have some experience with this, I can extrapolate from that success and say that I believe what Jesus says here. I am not angry that we made the world or that we chose to have this experience. I don’t even regret it. I am ready to be through with it, but I don’t condemn it or any of those who are still interested in it.
But nor do I regret any part of it that I have given up already. I used to take great pleasure in winning. I loved competitive games. I enjoyed being better than others at my job. My last job was in sales, which is very competitive. It was a perfect job for someone like I was, and it was a perfect job to discover that winning didn’t have any real value and that it didn’t really make me happy. I don’t miss competing or winning at all.
When I began to do my job solely with a focus on being helpful, I enjoyed it more and so much of the stress fell away. It did not happen all at once and I had to work at it, but it was worth it. Work helped me to let go of other things I used to value, like projecting guilt. I used to think that finding someone to be guilty instead of me was quite literally my salvation. Now, I just notice the old habit trying to reestablish itself and I choose again. There is no value in guilt. Taking responsibility and making different choices is far better.
I can enjoy standing on the shore of a beach and listening to the surf. I can enjoy good music that stirs my soul. I can enjoy trees and the green of the grass and the vibrant colors of my zinnias, and at the same time, I can enjoy the stark beauty of the desert earth colors. I like movies and vacations and family gatherings and all manner of beauty in the world. And yet, I would not hold onto any of it. I suspect that there is something far more beautiful than what my eyes show me and that it is just waiting to be known.
Special relationships are maybe the most convincing prize the ego offers, and it is the one that still compels my attention. It is one of the few things that can draw me into the ego story so deeply that I still have trouble resisting. But even that fails to keep my attention completely, and, always, eventually, I turn from this false happiness. I remember that I can have a holy relationship instead and that it is the only kind of relationship I want. The relinquishing of the special relationship is not the sacrifice the ego claims it to be.
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