After Guilt
This mind wondered, what happens when the belief in guilt
falls away? Well, first the self- concept fell away. This mind sometimes
wonders if this is the same as saying self-identification has fallen away.
After all, what is the self but a concept? Sometimes this mind is comfortable
with that. Sometimes it feels it is not quite accurate to say, yet, that all
self-id has fallen away. It sees evidence that this is not yet so.
After the self-concept fell away this mind spent a good
three years in a type of limbo or stasis. The personal thought system (ego) was
very loud, insistent, and persistent. Of course, there was also always a
present Peace. This mind could do nothing but allow the noise and wait and see
what would unfold. And, frankly, that is what is left after the belief in guilt
has fallen away! There is nothing to do but watch. Everything is automatic and
the mind only needs to observe the undoing of the part of it that no longer has
a use.
Mostly, for now anyway, this mind is unlearning thinking in
terms of guilt. It is unlearning judging the self and the personal thought
system. It is unlearning thinking as a self. It is unlearning identifying with
the doer in the mind. These all say the same thing in a slightly different way.
This mind is, of course, tremendously confused as the old
thought ways are broken down. But this mind is used to this confusion. It is
something that came on this path whenever a shift occurred. The confusion this
time is different only in depth and duration. The other shifts were shifts in
self-concepts. This shift was the dropping of all self-concepts. One thing this
mind has learned is trust so it doesn’t have to try to force certainty anymore.
It knows the limbo and confusion will pass and clarity will come. They always
have.
So this mind is learning how not to think. But how is it going to think going forward? This mind
does not know yet, but it has had glimpses that are hard to characterize, even
to itself. There is so much unlearning in the way that it cannot yet see what
will be left when the unlearning is done.
>>>>>
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Comments
If only I had the level of trust you have Liz. I got none. So I fake it. I desperately want someone to tell me how it "ends" for me so I can relax in this limbo state you describe. And boy, can I fake it. Because I've never experienced Truth, I know not where I'm going. I think I even faked the "glimpses". Your words are the closest description to what I'm experiencing so.....thank you for always sharing with us.
wondering this: how significant was the practice of returning to Truth and extending the miracle (allowing Love to flow though you to the part of your mind that experiences a world) to your present state of the falling away of belief in guilt and a self concept? and as the belief in guilt falls away, is there still the need to extend miracles, or is this the state of miracle mindedness?
your last several blogs have been especially helpful and have encouraged the building up of trust, commitment and discipline.
endlessly grateful, n
I don't think in terms of extending. I think it's the new normal.
once again i am amazed at the powerful impact your explantation here is having for me. there are no words.... but i'll try anyway. thank you. nicci
ive imagined self concepts to be like layers, or clouds of distraction, around self id. i see what liz is saying that self is just a concept though.. intriguing!
i am experiencing a shift recently, one aspect of which is simply knowing myself to be the chooser of perception, and when i recall this, in that moment, right along with it comes the relaxation into the fact that perception has nothing to do with Our Truth. and a flow on i realised is that when i dont try and project the chooser away from my mind, guilt falls away! when i dont try and put the cause outside this mind, for some reason it becomes clear that what i think i do to you, i think i do to me, and vice versa.. and then what i FEEL from the world is either Love, oR calls for Love. i dont feel attacked!!!
Its strange feeling this, as i have been surrounded by close loved ones experiencing pain and devastation over loss, and my conscious thoughts have been around facing my fear of death, which i had only just realised was a big part of why i have isolated from those close to me the last 10 years. L pondering death, specialness and responsibility.
Firstly, I've realised that I'm still confused as to what specialness is bottom line referring to in acim. 'This unique individual' doesn't seem to cut it. It seems to be encompassing 'different/not-whole/seeking'. Is it synonymous with 'personal self experience', or *belief* in lacking self concept? Or the desire for not-truth? I noticed that in your own writings you don't use the word.
As i wrote that i saw the irrelevance in truth of any definitions of dynamics/labeling, as clarity is in truth not in not-truth, but here i am still curious! I have been studying relevant sections in all my books lol, but remain foggy on the concept.
Second question, you said you sometimes saw evidence that self id has not fallen away. If possible can you describe what that evidence looks/feels like?
I just had an experience of seeing in myself a dynamic that i then described to myself as spiritual specialness. I saw how i try and direct healing, all out of the goodness of my heart, or so i thought, but i then saw all these layers under the ''love' and concern for my fellows' and i saw so much guilt. I felt this 'spiritual specialness', then how that hid from me this guilt, but then i saw how the guilt and the specialness (if indeed that is what I'm looking at) were part and parcel of this same.. well, thing, this 'Game/dynamic/idea'. Im thinking i read in rgfip that got is a form of spiritualising the self?? Is specialness just all the things we use to try and make not truth true?
It is the source of guilt, the mask of guilt, and through it we try to atone for guilt.
As to your self-id questions: I cannot yet characterize to myself how the self has fallen away so it is hard for me to characterize how I see evidence that that process is not yet complete. I just sense it when I see it. Stay tuned! I usually understand these things best in hindsight.
The "gift" given in place of truth though! No coercion. No victim/isers, no other. Just an idea of crazy. No autonomy!! One mind.
It is really quite astonishing to me that seeing the desire for guilt has not increased guilt in my mind but extended out in automatic compassion for all seeming choices of mind. This kind of blanket of sameness becomes apparent when i acknowledge the desire to cling to guilt. Hmm. I could describe it as the lines that delineate the all stories i see blur together and fade into the background and the feeling of one story comes into the foreground. And the one §tory has no real separate parts so it has no victims/victimisers and so there is no guilt there at all!
So, when i experience myself becoming depressed or short tempered as i have since seeing active choice all around, is it really accurate to call it an ego kickback? I mean. . Its a choice on my part, simply part of that thought system but a choice. Ah, i am trying to chase the fear of death, but i can't seem to find it, i find a miracle instead. Hmm.is that still spiritual specialness? I am real watch me heal me? I guess so. Another hmm,i wonder if facing fear of death could be the actual liberating thing. If it's not real. Facing belief in death? Ah, enough 2am ponderings. I'm feeling the lack of matterings one iota, such relief! Minds got this!
I shall stay tuned of course!
Ok,reading your above clarifications i can recognise the conflicted goals in my seeking and the attraction to keeping my mind focused on anything other than the still, trusting of Love, or my memories of and what i learned from the experience of the visions of innocence and oneness.
So when one isn't seeking, one is just watching unlearning unfold? Ah,my heart is thumping. I feel like if i stop moving, searching i will be engulfed by a smothering inescapable inertia of depression.
Ah, I've been avoiding this for a long long time. I think my trust is great enough to get me through this but it may be almost time to chat again liz. Maybe not. I'm aware that this stuff is all a smokescreen. After this last blanket vision miracle (i mean included all existence not just a personal story) i know its not the truth that I'm a victim of this.
Of course fear will rise and fall as i refocus. I have felt how fear is just a tool to make choice for Peace seem insane.
I am not weakness, dagnabbit, i am strength.