VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 4
4 We said before that the ego attempts to maintain and increase guilt, but in such a way that you do not recognize what it would do to you. For it is the ego’s fundamental doctrine that what you do to others you have escaped. The ego wishes no one well. Yet its survival depends on your belief that you are exempt from its evil intentions. It counsels, therefore, that if you are host to it, it will enable you to direct its anger outward, thus protecting you. And thus it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special relationships, forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief; that the more anger you invest outside yourself, the safer you become.
Journal
It is so hard to understand how I could keep falling for this, and yet I do. I see it more quickly now, and I find it easier to let it go, but I still sometimes believe that I can protect myself by projecting my anger onto others. Somehow this still seems like a reliable defense. If I see someone else as the problem, then I think I will feel safe from condemnation, guilt, and responsibility.
This morning as I wrote in my daily lessons journal, I saw how I did this very thing last night. Here is what I wrote.
In the evening I read an article about a politician. He made some remarks that were so blatantly wrong and so foolish that I just couldn’t believe what I had read. I shared it on my Facebook page with the remark, “Did he really just say this??”
Someone commented right away with outrage. I felt uneasy, but still right. People needed to see this, I thought. I went to bed and as I lay there, I could not relax. My mind was brought back to that post every time I tried to fall asleep. Holy Spirit was prompting me to look at this.
What am I doing? Is increasing the divide between people God’s plan for salvation? Is attacking this brother of mine God’s plan for salvation? Is inciting my dear Facebook brother to anger God’s plan for salvation? This turning inward and questioning my thoughts and actions is part of God’s plan for salvation. The ego mind was so sure that I was in the right, but after looking at this with the Holy Spirit, I lost all interest in being right. I removed the post.
That experience is exactly the kind of thing being discussed here in this paragraph. I have fear in my mind about the gun situation here in our country. My daughter is a teacher and I don’t want to see her killed in her classroom someday, nor do I want to see my grandchildren suffer that fate. I don’t want to see anyone’s children die at the hand someone’s rage. And yet, I was inciting rage with my post. How could that possibly help? Adding rage to rage is not going to heal rage in the mind.
And directing my rage and fear outward onto this clueless politician is not going to make me feel any safer. On some level, I know that I am making the problem worse by spreading fear and anger throughout the Sonship. I am making it worse by increasing a sense of separation between us. There is no way I can feel safe doing this. What a terrible plan for salvation! I have a relationship with this politician and the relationship can be loving or it can be hateful, and this is another way of saying it can be special or holy. It is up to me, but if I want a holy relationship, I must withdraw my projections and let them be healed instead of trying to get rid of them by projecting them onto this man.
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