Knowing What to Do

One of the ‘things’ I go back and forth on, given the ideas of living by grace, and the spirit within doeth the work, is: if anything I do is OK as long as I’m doing it with spirit, then how do I know what to choose when what I choose to do kind of doesn’t matter, how do I know what to choose to do in any given situation?

The Course says the ego always speaks first and loudest, meaning that my first, often habitual and therefore most comfortable reaction/decision/choice arises from the ego. But what about intuition and gut, I think of these as more spiritual? Don’t these often speak first but more softly? Yes. I’ll often have an intuitive sense of or gut feel for what to do but talk myself out of it.

Spirit’s still small voice is always there, always advising, always whispering of grace and release of ego, sometimes as intuition and gut feel. But even these things can become habituated to my world view and obscure my grace and reality as spirit. Besides, the ‘answers’ to so many questions and concerns in the world are counter-intuitive. For instance: the best thing to do to improve myself, is to not improve myself, but to get my bloated nothingness out of the way and allow mySelf to shine through. MySelf, being of spirit, needs no improvement, is already perfect as spirit is perfect, and if I, of myself, seek to improve myself, others or the world, I am deep in the illusion and under the influence of ego.

Yet I believe I am here in the world and do seek to improve myself, others or the world itself. To know what to do or refrain from doing, I need to undo the illusion of the ego and awake to my reality as spirit. This is a choice by choice process, an often frustrating, ongoing, never ending process. I discover what to choose by knowing how I feel when I choose the ego.

When I think about choosing something, and whenever possible I need to develop the habit of pausing, thinking, reflecting and gut checking before I choose - if I’m feeling rushed, urgent, excited, worried, ‘should’ or ‘must do’ and worst of all, ‘have no other choice’, then I’m deep with ego.

When those feelings and thoughts are present, my practice is to pause, breath deeply, say a mental ‘thank you’ for the opportunity to remember and actually experience the ideas by grace I live and by grace I am released, and the lord doeth the work, and invite my decision maker to let go of the ego and choose spirit instead. I forgive myself for once again falling into the ego’s web of illusion and wanting to fix everyone and everything but myself. No guilt, no blame, no drama, just a deep breath, a sigh and a ‘there I go again.’ Then from that place, the choice is usually clear.

This is a moment by moment, choice by choice process, an often frustrating, ongoing, never ending process. But the more I do it, the easier it gets and the more I want to do it.