One or the Other, 2

The self I’ve made, my ego self, can never be my true Self, and my true Self can never be split in two and still be what It is. When I think my Self can be split in two, into ego and spirit, good and evil, as I do 99.5% of the time, I’m making the split real, experiencing it as if it really happened, which it hasn’t. What has to be undone is not the split and my ego which I experience as real, but my belief in them. Trying to undo the split or the ego, merely strengthens my belief in them. To have peace and joy, I have to undo the mind’s belief, what’s going on in the projection booth, not the screen, the decision to be separate from spirit.

Mind, equated with spirit, and body, equated with ego, cannot both exist. It’s one or the other, ego or God. I see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real, the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite. I know which I’m identifying with by how I’m feeling – peace – spirit, anxiety – ego. I’m constantly shifting between these two all the time, usually unconsciously. When I become aware of these shifts, I try to reconcile the two. But this can’t be done for one denies the other.

Trying to reconcile the two, to integrate mind, body and spirit, which seems like a wonderful goal and useful spiritual practice, is bringing spirit into the world to fix the world, which denies the singular reality of spirit and the illusory nature of the world. Once dragged into the world, spirit ceases to be itself. What is all-encompassing can have no opposite. The all-encompassing spirit has no place in a world of opposites. Spirit, mind and body cannot be integrated, which is what the ego urges us to do, because spirit transcends the mind and body entirely.

If I am spirit, one Self united with my creator, unified within myself, I cannot be a body, nor an individual. Yet my ego ‘reality,’ my everyday experience denies this. Of course I’m a body, I hurt, feel joy, get hungry, have ideals. But really, there is one choice for the millions and billion of earthly phenomena, problems and pleasures in my life, and that is: spirit or flesh. Remember, this does not mean undoing the world, flesh and ego, but simply looking at them from the perspective of my reality as spirit and forgiving the mistake of identifying with my small self, instead of my big Self. With each experience and each moment we have the opportunity of deciding who we are, children of the ego, or children of spirit, then forgiving ourselves when 99.5% of the time, we choose the ego.