Day 104
5 Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear. Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in the world’s thought system becomes apparent. A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God, also believes it can succeed. That this can hardly be a fact is obvious. Yet that it can be believed as fact is equally obvious. And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. Who usurps the place of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly “enemy.” And he must stand alone in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated, and vengeance that can never be satisfied.
This phrase is most meaningful to me: …the mind which believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God, also believes it can succeed. When I read that, I felt it in my gut. I know the Course has been trying very hard to get me to understand the source of my guilt, and then to understand that the guilt is unfounded. But it has been hard for me to embrace this idea.
Intellectually I can accept it, but I can’t feel it. This phrase is helping me to more fully accept that I harbor a deep reservoir of guilt which affects everything I believe, and this guilt was born of the belief that I can and did separate myself from God, and that I have a will that is in opposition to God.
Only recently have I understood that the whole world as I see it is a projection of that guilt, a repository for the guilt that is so deeply buried that I am, on the surface, unaware of it. Letting go of the idea that the stories of my life are the source of my fear and guilt has been very hard for me to do. I will think I understand this, but then I notice I still look to my stories for the cause of how I feel.
I had to stop and laugh because just this moment I was thinking that I woke up feeling draggy and was wondering what caused it. Did I sleep too hard? Was it a dream I had? Was it working such a hard week and not sleeping well during the week that caused this draggy feeling this morning? It is, indeed, hard to remember that the cause is not to be found in the story.
Something else that has helped me very much came from The Teachings of Inner Ramana. It talks about fear, but fear and guilt are so closely associated they are interchangeable. This is what it says.
The mind is afraid because the unnatural is not natural. The mind that has forgotten reality knows that something is wrong, but it does not know what that is. It projects stories in an effort to give itself a reason for its fear, but it cannot find the answer it seeks because it is looking in the wrong direction. Its fear does not come from its own projections, and so solutions to those projections cannot end the fear.
My sluggish body is the projection and not the cause. Figuring out how to wake up energetic is not the way to solve the problem. That is looking in the wrong direction.
This really helped me to see that the fear and guilt came from someplace else, not from what was happening in my life. In fact, what was happening in my life came from the fear and guilt that the Course has been trying to help me see. It must be some incredible fear and guilt for me to bury it so deeply that I seem unable (or perhaps more truthfully, unwilling) to extract it. But now I know that I will never be rid of the guilt through trying to fix the story.
As I look back on my life it is as if it were made of one guilty, fearful situation after another with me always trying to make up for something. I would do something that caused circumstances that made me feel guilty and I would then try to fix it, or be a better person to make up for it. I never caught up. I see now that this is because all those things I did were caused by the buried guilt in my mind. Trying to fix the story was like trying to repair the reflection in the mirror. I really was looking in the wrong direction.
I still don’t feel the full burden of that guilt, and that’s ok. I am willing for this slow and gentle healing. I am willing to take the next step and the next. The Holy Spirit knows the perfect path for me and I am content to walk it. I continue to watch my stories and notice what yet needs healing within my mind. I am being guided now to see my innocence and for that I am supremely grateful.
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