III. The Investment in Reality, P 6
6 To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. What he experiences then is depression or anger, because what he did was to exchange Self-love for self-hate, making him afraid of himself. He does not realize this. Even if he is fully aware of anxiety he does not perceive its source as his own ego identification, and he always tries to handle it by making some sort of insane “arrangement” with the world. He always perceives this world as outside himself, for this is crucial to his adjustment. He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him.
Journal
I have become very aware of this split in my mind. I sometimes identify with my true self and when I do, I see the world as perfect. No matter what seems to be happening, I see it as perfect. I am happy and I am at peace and what is happening around me has nothing to do with that state of mind. It does not encourage nor discourage it. At those times I am experiencing my mind and it is a lovely thing to experience.
Other times I identify with the ego mind. When that happens it seems to me that the world is frightening. I see people filled with terror and rage, and they seem to be all around me, a threat to me that must be defended against. I feel confused and depressed. This is true no matter what is actually happening in the world. Whatever is going on is perceived as a threat, and everyone as my enemy. At those times I am experiencing my mind and it is a dark place.
Usually, the darkness is not so dark as it used to be. And even in the dark I perceive the light and move toward it. This was not always so. I used to live in that dark place a lot. When that was true, I was always at war with someone or something, or I was self medicating to dull the effects such a world induced in me. I used relationships in an effort to gain some kind of relief, or at least so I would have someone to suffer with me. These were some of the arrangements I made with the world in an effort to survive it.
Now, I understand that there was never anything out there, no world at all. It was and still is, only in my mind. I am still coming to terms with this, and can be drawn back into the illusion of a world outside myself, but I cannot be lost in it now. I know too much to go back. I also know how to find my way out of the dark now. It is my mind and I can allow the light to shine away the darkness. I simply choose light. Who would have thought it was so simple?
Yet it still feels difficult at times, even knowing that the answer is always the same because the problem is always the same. I only have to accept the Atonement for the false thoughts that are making the world (my mind) seem dark. When I fail to do that it is because I still imagine I need to be the “me” I made through the ego.
When I resist the light, it is because I imagine I am guilty and need the darkness in which to hide. If I resist the joy and the peace of reality, it is because I don’t feel worthy of it. I believe in the world I imagine, and am afraid of what I have done. At those times I find it intolerable to accept responsibility and so I pretend it is outside me and I am the victim.
Thank God that A Course in Miracles is helping me to accept my innocence. That is what happens when I accept the Atonement for the ego thoughts in my mind. My innocence is revealed and I am able to accept responsibility for what I made, knowing that it is nothing. I remain as God created me. My mind is perfectly protected and completely unassailable.
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