VII. The Two Evaluations, P 6
6 You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its range precludes this. You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where sanity exists and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be judged as insane. With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little and to lament your littleness. Within the system that dictated this choice the lament is inevitable. Your littleness is taken for granted there and you do not ask, “Who granted it?” The question is meaningless within the ego’s thought system, because it would open the whole thought system to question.
Journal
I understand what Jesus is saying about not being able to evaluate an insane belief system from within it. My ex-husband, Charlie, who was schizophrenic would experience his illness in cycles. There were times when he was perfectly sane (or at least as sane as any of us) and then he would go into a cycle where his brain misfired and he thought everyone was out to get him. He would imagine things and believe them. He would hear voices that no one else heard and he thought they were real.
When he was in a good cycle he would be able to recognize that he had a mental illness and that his behavior had been erratic at best. He knew that he did not think straight when this happened. He even asked me to put him away someplace if that became necessary because he didn’t want to hurt anyone. But when he went into the cycle where he didn’t think straight, all that went out the door. He couldn’t, from within that insane thought system, realize that he was not thinking clearly. From within that strange thought system it seemed as if everyone else was insane.
I see that his condition is not uncommon, simply extreme. When I have become caught up in an ego storm of some sort, I became very confused. I forgot what it is like to be sane. In those times I thought that fear and guilt, anger and depression were not only normal, but absolutely justified. I thought that there was nothing else to feel.
This is not so extreme for me now, but that is because I have been out of the ego system enough that even when I get lost in ego, I can still remember enough to know what is happening. For this reason I can get out of it faster and not suffer so much while I am in it. I can even see that someday, maybe soon, I will no longer fall back into that thought system. Even now, I can laugh at it when I see what is happening, so perfect freedom can’t be too far off.
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