II THE EGO AND FALSE AUTONAMY, Paragraph 8
7-10-13
8 The ego believes it is completely on its own, which is merely another way of describing how it thinks it originated. This is such a fearful state that it can only turn to other egos and try to unite with them in a feeble attempt at identification, or attack them in an equally feeble show of strength. It is not free, however, to open the premise to question, because the premise is its foundation. The ego is the mind’s belief that it is completely on its own. The ego’s ceaseless attempts to gain the spirit’s acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are useless. Spirit in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does not attack it; it merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of spirit, it does perceive itself as being rejected by something greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms must be delusional. The creations of God do not create myths, although creative effort can be turned to mythology. It can do so, however, only under one condition; what it makes is then no longer creative. Myths are entirely perceptual, and so ambiguous in form and characteristically good-and-evil in nature that the most benevolent of them is not without fearful connotations.
Something that really jumped out at me in this paragraph is that Spirit is unaware of ego. Now he says it, I see that this must be true. The ego does not exist and its pretense is effective only if I believe in it. If Spirit knew the ego, the ego would be real because it was known. Here is a way I visualized this idea that Spirit does not know ego.
What if I imagined a life different than the one I live? What if I imagined that I was Myron in my daily life and as people knew me, but actually was a super hero, much like Clark Kent is to Superman? If I focused on the story of my alter-self, I could create quite a vivid mental experience of it. If I gave it enough attention it would seem very real, and if I lost my hold on Myron, I could get lost in the story and believe it was real and the Myron story was the illusion. I would probably be diagnosed if people noticed this, but assuming I maintained my illusion of “normalcy” I could engage in my imaginative story while continuing my life as Myron, mild mannered sales rep and minister.
Now suppose you were a friend who interacted with me from time to time, or even every day. You would only know Myron. You would not be aware of my super hero identity. I could be living a rich and exciting inner life that I enjoyed way more than the Myron life, but you would not even know it existed. Well, in a way this is exactly what is happening.
I am living a pretend life, and I call this the life of Myron. I pretend to be happy or sad and I make up stories to accommodate these pretenses and to make them seem real to me. I pretend to be in pain and to suffer. Such drama! The story of Myron is actually an anti-hero story. In reality I am the hero playing at being so much less. That’s why I have to pretend to suffer. I can’t actually suffer. I’m like superman without even the single weakness of kryptonite so how could pain suffering and death even be possible to me?
Obviously, this story of Myron is a myth that I made up and then in my enthusiasm, fell for to the point of insanity. I have done such a good job of pretense, and of getting so deeply involved in my story that I have had something like a psychotic break with reality. I actually believe that I am the pretense. I believe that I am weak and vulnerable and often a victim. But believing it cannot make it true and I am beginning to shake off the story. It’s been fun guys, but pretty soon I’m going to be out of here!
In the meantime though, while I do still believe in my story, Spirit, (my true actual Self) does not know about this. It is like the friends in Myron’s life who are unaware of her pretend life. From the perspective of Spirit I am still as I always have been and Spirit would never conceive of it being different since what God creates is unalterable.
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