The Ego is Benign
One of the things I help my clients sort out is what is the
neutral personality of the self and what is the ego (personal thought system).
They are confused because the ego is the thought system in their mind that
tells them that the self is their reality and that they need to measure
themselves by the self. So it’s hard for them to see that the self – the body
and personality – is neutral and that it is the ego that is not neutral.
For example, clients will say something like, “I know it’s
ego but…”
“…I like mountain biking…”
“…I want to study medicine…”
“…I enjoy horror stories…”
“…I prefer to be alone…”
Etc.
First, you can see by the “but” that what they mean is, “I
want this even though I know it’s bad.” They judge the ego as “bad” so what
they see as expressions of ego are therefore “bad”. But actually the ego is not
wrong or bad. It is nothing. Second, all of those traits that come after the
“but” are just neutral expressions of a neutral personality. They have no
meaning in themselves. They are not expressions of ego, which is a judgmental,
evaluative thought system of lack, guilt and fear. It is the ego that has
determined, after you start reading A
Course in Miracles, that the ego is bad. And it is the ego that judges
neutral personality traits as bad.
I used to write about the ego attacking me to hold my
attention but I have come to see that the ego is actually benign because it is nothing.
It cannot change Truth so the ego has no real effects and I can see that now.
When I listened to the ego I projected my belief in guilt, which I learned from
it, onto it. I really believed I was guilty, but saw the guilt in the ego, just
as I often saw guilt in others. But the ego does not attack. When your
attention goes elsewhere it will do
what it has to do to hold your attention once you turn its way again. It will
pursue the thoughts, usually negative, in your mind that it knows work to hold
your attention. But if you don’t believe in it, this will not work. Just as
with others, you are only affected by what the ego says about you if you
believe what it says about you.
The ego is really just the thought system of the human
animal. And it functions like an animal, doing what it has to do to “survive”.
In its case, “survival” means seeming to exist for you. Your belief in it is
its sustenance. And when you withdraw your attention it seems to “attack” to get
you to feed it again. But you won’t experience its attention-sustaining measures
as an attack when you see that it is nothing.
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Comments
I am assuming when you say in the last line "when you see that it is nothing" is a shift that only the Holy Spirit can provide. If we read this blog intellectually and then begin to tell others, thinking 'I' have made this shift by understanding what I read, it only reinforces the ego?
while i can see both these perceptions are flip sides of one story about selves as real, i really cant seem to find a restful place with the ideas when it comes to the decisions i make in life. practical decisions dont seem to get me, but anything else and wham im selfish.. which i AM! ;) i see victims and perpetrators left right and centre.
so it seems that the ego is inherently selfish, as a story about the self as real and self centred. day to day, it feels like this selfs desires mean something valuable, so that i cant (in my current head space) be at peace no matter what choices im making, altruistic or self centred. 'one or the other' seems like a very true statement.
lol, so my sentence would be.. "i know i want this even though it affects others in ways they wont like, but.." so HOW do i look on this in myself with holy spirit? what would holy spirit remind me of?? does the self eventually give up all attachment to its own desires?
"For obvious reasons the two greatest sins that you can commit from the personal thought system’s point of view are to question your guilt and to question its god. But these are what you must do if you want to release guilt and be at peace."
what it feels like is, i can rest in the zone of.. peace that is 100% totally unaffectable, complete and unwavering and loving. (i experienced it completely once and when i described the experience to you, liz, you told me that i had experienced knowing what god is.. and that beautiful, quiet, peaceful, all-encompassing experience is what i turn to in memory with the knowledge that it reflected truth, and do my best to let it flow into the now) but when i come to make a choice again in the world, it comes back down to choose for me or choose for choose for another.. feel deprived or upset someone elses peace.
everything it comes into contact with to reassure a being
that they are no good.
The mind and its tricks seem to never run out
Remember, the goal is not to perfect the ego or to make it Truth-like. It's not going to change. It is inherently selfish. But you are perfect in Truth so you do not need to perfect the ego. The goal is to let it go in the recognition that only the Truth in you is true.
T-12.VII.13. Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and have condemned yourself to death. (2) The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. (3) The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. (4) Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. (5) It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. (6) For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only end with which it will be satisfied.
So if you believe in it, then you experience it as harmful. But when you realize it is nothing it has no effect on you.
The Course is different. It’s like those 1000 piece box puzzles you get at the store. You learn something and it becomes a piece to put in the pile with the other pieces. You don’t put the puzzle together, the Holy Spirit does. When you have enough pieces that fit together you get a miracle. Voila! Wa-Lah! I understand!
and i can see what youre saying about codependency and taking responsibility for what is being chosen in a another seemingly individual mind. yet the following is coming up as an obstacle to staying in that awareness: my desires are outside of the social moral codes of others at the moment.
you said recently that once the belief in absolute or intrinsic guilt is released, following the social moral codes of your current society is easy (or thats my understanding of what you said), so i obviously still hold a belief in intrinsic guilt, which im currently constantly using to remind myself that only the truth is true. but alongside this practise, i feel like im repressing something in me if i respect those rules of society, and thats what is getting me tangled. i either feel selfish or repressed, victimiser of victim. its a relief to know that its all just.. nothing playing games with nothing, but practically i dont know how to be at peace with my current desires being either fulfilled or unfulfilled!
I was taken aback when I read your words Liz, 'The ego doesn't attack' but became determined to figure out what you meant. You wrote that the ego, ‘is a judgmental, evaluative thought system of lack, guilt and fear.
I’m beginning to see what you meant and what the Course meant in Lesson 2, when it said, “I have given everything I see, all the meaning that it has for me”.
If we entertain the ego’s thought system, we will utimately use attack against ourselves or others but it is OUR decision to do so, based on listening and believing these ‘thoughts’ which color our reality and keep us from truly seeing Reality (our Oneness with our brother.)
This seems to apply to what Richard quoted from the Course on the ego’s wish for our death. If I ascribe to the thought system of duality, of me vs other, and use judgment of that ‘other’ to condemn and attack (them and ultimately my self), and ascribe wholeheartedly to the false belief of separation, then I DO own the reality of death for me… I own what I ‘believe’ to be inevitabiity of a death of the my self as opposed to the eternal Truth of our Divine Eternal Self.
T-12.VII.13. Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and have condemned yourself to death.
You have condemned yourself to the ‘belief’ that you are separate from others, that judgment of guilt and shame is possible, for yourself and others, and that you are finite and can die, which denies your unity (your joint Selfhood) with Divine Loving Awareness (aka God) …which is eternal.
Therefore, what I believe becomes real for me. Death becomes real in my thought system. But the ego didn’t actually do the attack or desire anything. It’s just a ‘belief’ in unReality and that belief accomplishes the task.
(2) The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. (3) The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. (4) Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. (5) It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. (6) For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only end with which it will be satisfied.
Sometimes the Course personifies in order to teach. I am prone to read and it try to fit these precepts into my existing reality. It doesn’t go well LOL
Maybe I could just interject ‘thought system’ for the word ‘ego’.
All I can say is thank God that my True Self is One with the Divine and remains undisturbed by ‘thought sytems’ which create this illusion.
At least that’s what I’m bankin’ on!! ;-)
i have been torn by being able to see and feel potential for healing and/or growth in areas of self worth no matter what choice i made. but only one choice does not involve going behind someones back. that is what still makes me feel guilty.
and thanks for yout comments will, as always xx
Personally, I think the Course defines 'the ego' as the idea of BEING A SEPARATE PERSON AT ALL, not what that person does or thinks...good or bad, selfish or unselfish... I recommend reading workbook part two, 12. What is the ego ? - (relates to the fact stated by the Course that (in Truth) you are not a BODY - which then relates to 14. What am I ? ). Blessings and peace to everyone !