VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 4. 4-10-15
4 The ego is immobilized in the presence of God’s grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because you will give up all investment in it. Grandeur is totally without illusions, and because it is real it is compellingly convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not remain with you unless you do not allow the ego to attack it. The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your release. It will tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur cannot be a real part of you because of the littleness in which it believes. Yet your grandeur is not delusional because you did not make it. You made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack, but your grandeur is of God, Who created it out of His Love.
Journal
Oh my gosh, Jesus has obviously been hanging out in my mind, looking at my thoughts. Or maybe we all have similar thoughts. My grandeur is real because I did not make it. It is mine simply because of who I am, simply because I was created in the image, as an extension of, my Father. It is mine because creation is eternal and unalterable, so I can only be what God created. If I were not grand, it would mean that God is not grand. And yet, I hear compelling evidence from the ego that says this is pure arrogance on my part and is going to get me in big trouble if I don’t show some humility, and sometimes I listen and believe.
Humility, in the ego’s eyes, is the denial of truth. In God’s eyes, humility is stepping back from my own vision to accept His Vision. Humility is letting go of what I have believed about myself and accepting what I must be, that is, accepting my grandeur. I have done this and do it often, and yet, I still return to the false humility and to the grandiosity offered by ego. This is why Jesus tells us that the ego will react, and so we must protect our newfound understanding if we are to keep it. This is why I stay vigilant for ego attacks on my grandeur, and why I release those thoughts to the Holy Spirit every time I notice them.
In Lesson 100, I am being asked to accept happiness as my natural state. This is my function as I accept my part in God’s plan for salvation. I wrote about this in my journal, and it is also an example of protecting my grandeur. Here is what I wrote.
Today, my goal is to be happy. My happiness will heal the world. My smile will heal the world. This should be a goal that I eagerly embrace and I do, but not before I sat with this lesson for my first five minutes. I didn’t go to sleep happy, and I didn’t wake up happy. I have had some back pain and leg pain, the first time in a long time, and I have ignored the idea of healing.
My brother who is in prison is sick and has asked me to make calls to the prison on his behalf to get the treatment he needs. It has not been going smoothly. I have more to do at work than ever, and I have to get everything ready for the conference. This morning, I realized that I need to make plane reservations and other plans for a workshop I will be doing shortly after the conference.
A lot has changed at work and I am having to adjust to the changes. The most discouraging and upsetting of all is that I am aware that I have been resisting some of these lessons. I have been doing them, and I have received a lot of benefit, but I have also been resistant. I hate when this happens because it feels like I am at war with myself. How can I win if I am my own enemy?
The strongest resistance occurred the other day while doing one of the lessons. I had great success. I experienced something that was not an effect of the ego thinking, something the ego self could take no credit for. It was a small thing not lasting but a few moments, but it was wonderful, and it was important. It represented my desire to awaken. The ego mind went from suspicious to vicious in less than a minute.
That is when everything became a problem I couldn’t solve. Looking at it this morning after the meditation, I see that I brought into this story of Myron all sorts of problems and upsets and distractions. Anything that would stop this spiral toward awakening that was scaring the ego mind. So when the lesson said that my goal was to be happy today, I felt like it was the one more thing that was just too much and I couldn’t do it.
But I am not alone in this. I do have much Help. My Help whispered in my heart to just do the meditation as suggested, and not to worry about it. I sat there with my hand on my heart and I called for help. I poured out all my fears and disappointments and discouragements. And as I did so, I realized that I was sinking past these thoughts as I named them. I remembered that peace and joy are in me because God put them there, so how could I fail to find them?
Again, there were no bright flashes of lights or fanfares of any kind, but it was like the sun had come from behind a cloud and illuminated my thinking. I saw how all my problems were just thoughts in my mind, and that everything is fine. I saw the confusion in my mind unravel and everything became clear and simple.
Happy, happy, joy, joy! I can’t help but smile and laugh now. Nothing had really happened except that I let the ego mind lead me back into its darkness, into fear and guilt and doubt. And now I have returned to reality because it is my desire to take my part in God’s plan for salvation, and nothing can thwart the desire of a Son of God.
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