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.

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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
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