Nothing Real is Having a False Experience

           It is popular to explain what is occurring in consciousness as a movie or a play, and until recently, I did so, too. The idea was that some part of Reality took on a role, played a character, for a while. For those for whom reincarnation makes sense, they speak of some part of Reality taking on several, usually evolving roles, over many lifetimes. I was not wholly comfortable with this idea of an actor playing a part, but for a while it was all I had because ego was still here saying identity is real. But I could not figure out who the actor was supposed to be, because my experience is that consciousness is simply the space in which images, thoughts, and feelings appear, but it has no agency, no will, no identity. And Spirit is Reality’s extension into consciousness, always aware of Its Source. Spirit has never been lost to Reality or even felt It was lost to Reality. So, if the actor isn’t Spirit, then it is not anything real, either.

Finally, this was answered when I realized that the experience of identity is a part of the illusion. So, there are no actors, only characters depicting a story, which ego says is real. It is more apt to describe what is occurring in consciousness as a dream or a novel, where one mind (consciousness) is the source or author of the characters and everything else appearing. But in this case, the source, that one mind, is itself an illusion. So, the character (Liz) is wholly a cypher. There is nothing real inhabiting the character. This was liberation! While any part of consciousness seemed to have any reality, illusion seemed true.

In a way, I was in touch with this long ago when I stopped trying to “see Christ in my brother” because I saw Christ instead of others. But the idea that some kind of identity was real persisted while ego was still here and I could not see that my experience was showing me that there was nothing real at all about others as well as Liz. The entirety of consciousness is a projection, a depiction, a representation of an idea, none of which is real. Reality is represented in consciousness by the Spirit (Idea) of the Absolute, but It is not an identity, It does not live in, as, or through the cypher of the character (Liz).

My problem finding the actor was also my problem finding what A Course in Miracles means by the “Son of God.” If God means the Absolute, only Spirit could properly be called the “Son” (or Extension) of God. But the way it reads, the one taking the form of many, the Son of God could only be consciousness—but that’s the illusion! (The Course is full of contradictions.) In any case, I could not reconcile my experience with what the Course teaches, and I believed and taught for so long. And it was here that I encountered ego’s deepest delusion, its spiritualities, which validate, but do not undo, the illusion. I realized that the Course is just as much a part of ego-consciousness as any other spiritual teaching. It is not intended to undo ego, but it serves it with the idea of a “Son of God” on a journey back to God.

It is simply not true that something of the Absolute seems to have left the Absolute and needs to return to the Absolute, or to discover it only dreamt it was lost to the Absolute. Not just the “error” or “separation from God” is a false story, even a “journey back” is a false story.  Nothing real is having a false experience. A false experience—consciousness in its entirety—appears in the Absolute and dissolves as the illusion it is. This is liberation!

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