Questions

The ego will question even the idea that a universal experience of love is possible, never mind the experience itself. But it is the experience that counts. It is the experience of love and ‘unearned’ grace where it shouldn’t be--in the midst of a traffic jam, or a radiation treatment, in a grocery store line or at a funeral, the experience that the brain denies, but is nonetheless there, that makes the ego a liar.

 

The ego will demand many answers that cannot be given. It will ask: if God is Love, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? How could a part of perfect Oneness be separate from Itself? How can individuals exist? Though these are in the form of questions, they are really statements, actually one statement:  I believe the ego, separation and individual consciousness are real, and I want you to explain how they happened.

 

The seeming question is an attempt to seduce us into the questioner’s web of separation. To attempt to answer the question, affirms the underlying statement. The only way to truly answer the question is to come from love. That means not letting the obvious differences in form keep us from experiencing the less obvious oneness of content—either a call for love or an expression of love.

 

Underlying the ego’s questions, doubts, fears and constant shrieking is a call for love, a fervent plea: ‘Please help me realize that the separation is not real and I am wrong. Help me shift and choose again.’ The only way I can hear this call for love and respond appropriately, in a way the questioner can hear and accept, is if I realize I am and want to be an expression of love and want to answer without judgment, fear, anger or impatience, as love would answer.

 

“The ego may ask,” The Course says, “‘How did the impossible occur?’, ‘To what did the impossible happen?’ and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this and do not let theology delay you.”

A Universal Experience of Love

My intention is to have experiences of spirit more often; to allow these to undo my ego’s sense of separation, alienation and specialness.  Beliefs about how to do this vary, and so it’s not possible to have a universal belief system. Yet such differences are meaningless, for all can serve the single purpose of moving us beyond the form to the universal experience of love.

 

I don’t have to agree with everyone and can’t. But I can experience differences as an opportunity to learn, to see the ego world as a classroom in which to learn that though we may differ on the level of form, our content—either an expression of love or a call for love, remains the same. Form is irrelevant, content is all.

 

Many religions seem to have forgotten this, substituting the rituals of love for the experience of love. Love alone is constant. Once put into form, theology or belief, uncertainty is introduced because not everyone will agree. Brains differ, but the mind is one—both the wrong minded ego—the call for love, and the right mind of spirit—an expression of love. That’s why the experience of spirit’s love is so important. A universal theology is impossible but a unitary experience of spirit is not.

Puny Gifts

Actively being with spirit, aware of Its presence and open to Its guidance, not only saves me from the mistakes and inadequacies of my puny mistaken ego but opens me to the realization that I am part of something greater, that this is not all there is. Realizing that, ‘of myself I can do nothing,’ is a seeming paradox that enables me to gain all power. As a spiritual being, as God created me in Its own image and likeness, I have all the power of spirit; as an ego, I have very little. I need to let go of the power I thought I had, and accept instead the power of spirit that is the still small voice in my mind. The still small voice knows the truth about me, that I am more than the image I made, the ego does not.

 

Yet despite its obvious and complete ignorance, this image assumes it knows most important things because I have given it that belief. Me, the decision-making self in the mind, not the body’s brain, have given it that belief. “Who assumes a power that he does not possess is deceiving himself,” The Course says. The power the ego has on its own is nothing because it is only the power to make illusions. “Yet,” The Course says, “to accept the power given by God is but to acknowledge [It] as Creator and accept [Its] gifts. And [Its] gifts have no limit.”

 

As I awaken to my spiritual reality, I understand I have thrown away the unlimited gifts of spirit and accepted in their place the puny and limited gifts of my ego. Boo! But, as I release the guilt, anger and shame that comes from understanding this, I am able to change, shift and choose again. Hooray! I need not remain only with my ego.

Taking Things Less Seriously

When I take things seriously, which I do most of the time, I’m essentially saying, ‘If I (my ego self) don’t take care of this or do this, it won’t get done.’  This is denying mySelf, my reality as spirit and even that there is a spiritual reality. It’s saying, ‘What you see is what you, get’; that ‘this material reality of time and space is all there is.’ It’s saying, ‘I am separate from God, can live without God, and without spirit’s loving, inclusive, fearless, wise, compassion and creativity in my life.’ Of course, from perspective of every day living it’s true that if I don’t wash my hands and brush my teeth, they won’t get washed or brushed. Spirit won’t do that for me.

 

But what if, as I’ve posted before, my imagined separation from God never happened? What if the still small voice within, the alternative to the ego, speaks for ‘God’ and is constantly reminding me of my oneness with God and my spiritual reality? What if the ego made up this whole belief system of original sin and separation to keep itself in charge and us separated but it’s not the truth?

 

Simply recognizing that this is so, that what I’ve been taking as the ‘truth’ is not the truth but an illusion created by the ego, then recognizing that there is a presence within that does know the truth opens up the possibility of new joyous, compassionate, inclusive, fearless and creative ways of living. I still have to wash my hands and brush my teeth, but I’m doing it with spirit, with the realization that I am part of something greater, that this is not all there is.

Taking Things Less Seriously

Taking things less seriously, doesn’t mean I don’t care. I do care deeply about politics, justice, inclusion, environment and contributing to a world that works for everyone and everything. Taking things less seriously simply means not only do I understand how my ego works, but I understand how to get past it and move forward. It means it’s not up to me fix the world, know all the answers and to be right most of the time. Whew! What a relief! It means all I need do is give my fear, concerns, blaming and sense of urgency over to spirit and go forward with spirit’s guidance. My fear, sense of urgency and concern are ego, made to keep from spirit. As long as I cling to the fear, danger, blaming and sense of loss and doom, I am cut off from spirit and Its guidance.

 

All I need do first is to bring my illusory perceptions of what’s going on in, around and through me—be that cancer, global warming or the so-called fiscal cliff to the decision maker within and choose spirit over ego. Choosing the content of spirit: peace, joy, compassion, fearlessness, creativity and inclusion first, having the intention to manifest this in the world, rather than the ego’s various forms as anger, fear, competition, blame and guilt is what taking things less seriously is about.

 

The only work I must do is bring the ego to spirit. After all, can I really be responsible for decisions about which I know so little? Spirit knows…like the Shadow knows…. We judge what we know nothing about, and are thus always wrong. Our limited egos can never understand the meaning of things or even what is in our own best interests, let alone the whole world’s. To try and judge, which we do constantly second after second, is the height of arrogance. Yet this is exactly the ego’s plan, which we follow slavishly, to have us think we know and understand.

 

Taking things less seriously, pausing and shifting to the inner decision maker is spirit’s plan and it works better.

Birth

Understanding and reframing the ego’s panic—thinking about it differently, helps me be kind and gentle with it as I continue the process of shifting away from it towards spirit. Thinking about the shift process as a birth and the ego as an expectant mother who knows nothing about birth, helps me be kinder and gentler with it.

 

If I was a mother going into delivery and had never heard of birth, I might think I was dying. If I didn’t know the baby would grow up, it would be very difficult to care of it. The ego is the expectant mother that doesn’t know about birth and evolution of its child. Of course it’s going to panic! But I, the decision maker, know and I can inform and comfort my ego as I continue to shift away from it and choose spirit. Of course the birth and awakening of spirit is scary, messy and dangerous…to the ego. But not to us. Knowing of the peace, joy, compassion and creativity that is mine as spirit, makes it easier to be compassionate with the ego’s fear and panic and to soothe and love it each time I experience it.

The Never-Ending Process

I definitely wish and want the identity shift away from ego to spirit to be done already! God knows, and She knows everything, that I’ve been working on it consciously for a quarter of a century, so it’s time already! But no, it’s a process, a seemingly never ending process. From an ego perspective, this seems like punishment, like failure and inadequacy. Why can’t I—the ego, get this done!  Well, fact is, the ego will never get it done, because that would mean its demise. So like the old Playboy philosophy of ‘look but don’t touch’, the ego makes spiritual noises, but will never be spiritual.

 

What moves me forward with the process of shifting is my intention to move forward, my realization that I am spirit first, and my compassionate understanding of how the ego works. Something else that helps with the forward motion are my experiences of being light—of being pure, fearless, limitless, creative energy.

 

Light is energy and energy is, like consciousness, ever present in and thru all that is. Since there is no beginning or end to energy, so there is no beginning or end to ‘me’—the non-ego me. Thus, when I awake from the ego nightmare of life and get my bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits, all that’s left is my light--the natural joy, fearlessness, compassion and creativity of spirit. It’s my intention to experience that light more and more, to shift from ego to spirit and to keep on keeping on, even tho the ego panics, yells, screams and berates me for wasting my time.