Seek but do not find is a core dynamic of the ego’s strategy to use the world to keep the problem of the decision maker’s wrong decision from awareness. The ego knows that a problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. That’s why it keeps us busy in the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved; indeed, it never happened. All the complexity of the world is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the real problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved.
The ego loves to make up nonexsistent problems and trick us into devoting our time and energy to solving them. Haven’t you noticed this phenomena in your own life, where something seems like a problem and you wonder and worry and as it unfolds it’s no problem at all? So much of our experience is coming up with solutions to nonexistent problems. One of my favorite sayings in the Course helps me remember this – I am never upset for the reasons I think. There is only one reason I am upset and one problem to be soled, my mistaken belief that the impossible has happened and I have separated from God.
That’s what forgiveness can help us understand, that there is no real reason for guilt, fear and terror except in the illusion; that when we’re feeling guilt, fear and terror we need to know we’re experiencing the illusion and need to forgive ourselves and the other people and things we mistakenly believe are the cause of our misperceptions. Trying to work out the seeming problem’s meaning, why is it there, why it is happening now instead of yesterday or tomorrow, why me and not my friend - is all taking the tiny mad idea of separation seriously.
Saying, ‘oh, well, there I go again,’ is the way to deal with taking things and seeming problems too seriously and returning our minds to choosing again.
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