A Somewhat Healthy Ego Required

It’s ironic, but true, that you must have a somewhat healthy personal mind to be able to let it go. Think about it: If all that you know of yourself is a personal self, then your feeling worthy of God’s Love must initially come to you in that identification. The personal mind is inherently unstable and insecure and can never be truly ‘healthy’, but if it is all that you know, then, at first, it is only through the personal self that you can learn about yourself. When your self-esteem in your identification with a personal self rises to a point where you can let the Holy Spirit into your awareness and begin to trust It, then you are ready to begin to let go of the personal self.

Remember, you are Christ, but you have been identifying with a personal self. You cannot be without an identity; if you are one, then you are not the other. Everyone hears the Holy Spirit, but you have to learn to single It out of the personal mind’s cacophony of voices in your mind. You are not going to do this, much less accept that the Holy Spirit is in you, if in your personal identity you feel so unworthy of God that to hear God would terrify you. You will end up punishing yourself to justify hearing the Holy Spirit, or to mitigate the punishment that you feel you deserve from God for hearing God in your unworthy state.

Most students who come to A Course in Miracles have already done a lot of personal work, through personal-growth programs; traditional psychotherapy; kinder, gentler forms of religion, etc. All of that was necessary to prepare them for God’s Unconditional Love. Some students, after starting the Course, still have some personal work to do to accept God’s Love. The tremendous fear that they experience during the initial Loving experiences that they have practicing the Course reveals how unprepared they are for God’s Love. Don’t make any mistake: The personal mind will always tell you that you are unworthy of God. It will always be insecure and defensive. But, after you have reached a point in your personal self-esteem where you can let the Holy Spirit into your awareness, you have an Identity to replace the personal self, and you can let it go.

>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.

Comments

Jeremy Finkeldey said…
Thanks Liz. I have been waiting and waiting for a Course-wise person to say something like what you have just said here:

"... after you have reached a point in your personal self-esteem where you can let the Holy Spirit into your awareness, you have an Identity to replace the personal self, and you can let it go."

An 'Identity to replace the personal self'. Now I am better able to accept what the Course teaches. And now my only question is why isn't the Course CLEAR FROM THE VERY BEGINNING ABOUT THIS POINT!?

~Jeremy
5:20 AM
Anonymous said…
Thank you,Liz,for making this Course easier to understand.
You are much more advanced than I am with this,but sometimes I think the lack of self esteem is what brings us to ACIM in the first place;speaking for myself only,it's when I'm the lowest that I return to the Course,not when I'm feeling good about myself.
AGAIN,THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.
Ellen
9:44 AM
jacomina said…
I too just feel the urge to express my thanks and say what incredible insight.
7:53 PM
Joe E. said…
You always seem to say what I need to hear at the right time. The one time in the last year I totally didn't identify with/understand your post made me wonder what I was missing/resisting. Anyway, I sometimes feel everything I experience is this universe is just ME teaching me that me is ME. I am grateful you are part of that universe. Please keep teaching me.

Thank you,

Joe E.
10:36 AM
Anonymous said…
Liz - this is so helpful to me!
I came to ACIM in a very fearful state. I was reading a lot of spiritual books to try to gain some peace, and messages that I was receiving from the course sent me into a tailspin!
I had been taking (literally) the verse in the Bible "to die to self" or similar ones that seemed to suggest that "I' needed to dissolve so that "Christ" could live in me. I totally lost any sense of identity!!! Talk about a state of terror!
Finally, I see the wisdom of why a healthy sense of self is needed and that the "self-help" books that suggest that you "love yourself" have a grain of truth in them (all the while I have been rejecting any attempts to allow myself to feel good about my individual self).
Total confusion has reigned for guite a few years and I thnk you for your advanced knowledge to assist me in my journey to Truth.
Suzan
7:14 AM
2shoog said…
Only loving thoughts are True. Criticism does not come from God. Don’t try to Become... just be whoever you are at the time. You can never know Who you are. You can only be who you are now. If I would see myself how God does. I’d smile a lot more.
7:39 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Committed to the Spiritual Process

If you’ve been reading my blog/newsletter for the past few weeks then you know significant things have occurred in the life of this mind. Four years ago the ego (personal thought system) fell away. I didn’t realize it fully and I spent three and a half years personally in a rather barren place in this mind, though there was peace in the rest of my mind. I did feel done with the world, but I didn’t know what that meant. I just stayed with the feeling, wondering what would come next. The next thing arrived in this mind last summer with a subtle shift from emptiness to a delicious Spaciousness. This was followed by beautiful Golden Light, Love, and Joy filling the Space. Bewilderingly, an effect of this was a romance novel! From there, the Light and the shifts continued. During this time a client in Australia whom I have called Zelda in these articles, but whose real name is Hannah, became a friend as well. We grew closer over several months and began to experience a lot of sync...
Read more

Ask: What is meant by "extend Love"?

I wonder exactly what is meant by "extend love" or how one extends love. Is it a loving intention toward the person, or a wish for them, or what? Can you give an example? – JO “Extending love” means replacing unloving thoughts in your mind with the awareness of Love in your mind. For example, your peace of mind is disturbed while watching something on television. Your peace is gone because you believe that what you see is reality. You extend Love in this situation by turning inward to Truth (God), feeling Love’s Presence within you, and remembering that It, not the images appearing, is What is Real. It may take you a while to accept that only your own thoughts cause you pain. So at first you may feel that you need to extend Love “out there” to the images that seem to be causing you pain. Or you may extend Love to another who is sharing their painful story with you. You can do this by imagining the situation or the person in a Loving Light. Or you may use some other image to ...
Read more

Evolving Practice with ACIM

           The Course was dictated to two who had a sense of Spirit working in their lives. After all, they were taking down the Course itself! The Universal Christ Mind sought to develop and grow their awareness of Spirit through the lessons in the Workbook as well as simply in discussion with them, privately and through the Course . And for those who find the Course and already have an awareness of Spirit, even if only dimly, the Course functions in the same way. Through the practice suggested, they develop their trust in Spirit. But for many who come to the Course , the discernment of Spirit within has not yet occurred. For them, practice is the means of opening to the awareness and experience of Spirit. Those who do not understand this often feel frustrated and even angry with the Course for suggesting that they should be having experiences that they do not yet have. They feel that they fall short when they read the instructions and descriptions ...
Read more