Because It's Not True

A couple of weeks ago I watched a movie that left me contemplating loss. The movie had a happily-ever-after ending but I got to thinking about how the characters’ relationships would change over the years, how nothing stays the same, people leave, people die, etc. I was getting depressed so, in my arrogant belief that I know what I need to be learning, I started thinking about loss in a way to get myself to stop valuing the world. I was trying to use the temporary nature of everything in the world to loosen even further any hold that I still give it over me. Then I thought that if I’m going to think about this I should do so with the Holy Spirit. So I turned to the Holy Spirit in my mind and the Holy Spirit brought me up short by saying, “I don’t want you to give up the world because it’s painful; I want you to give it up because it’s not true.”

Wow. Once again I’m slapped upside the head with the awareness of how easy it is to fall into the ego-trap of making the world real to me. The world is not a painful reality; it is painful precisely because it is not true. Hating the world, disdaining the world’s values, being bitter about the world – all of these are ego postures that make the world real to me as much as my attachments in the world do. As long as the world is real to me it will elicit a strong response, but when I recognize that it is nothingness, that there is nothing real there, then it just dissolves like mist in the sun’s rays. Then all I can do is laugh that I ever thought it was true.

Comments

will said…
We need you over at chooseagain.typepad.com

will
1:49 PM
will said…
Liz,
I guess we don't really neeeed you but it would be fun to have your input.

will
2:26 PM
Mariah B said…
Well said, Liz. I never thought of it that way. We hate the world, because its not true. Trying to make something true that is false always brings up some emotion, be it pain or pleasue. Thanks so much!
12:54 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
Mariah, I think you misread my article. Hating the world and loving the world are flipsides of the same coin - they both make the world real to you. What I said is that the world is painful because it is not true.
8:39 AM
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