Value Your Awareness of Truth

            A recovered memory showed up a few years ago, as I was writing the memoir. It took a while to come to fruition, but it turned out to be just a memory of how around the time Liz was seven years old truth (pure consciousness) rose to conscious awareness. There was a brief lovely episode with love in conscious awareness. But ego was exposed, too, because when truth is in conscious awareness ego’s denial of truth becomes apparent. There was a moment when Liz felt that “good and evil” were “fighting over” her—a childish characterization, but it is interesting that at that time I felt I as I do now, merely a neutral consciousness that registers the presence of either ego or pure consciousness. In other words, it was an impersonal experience. There was no sense of choice, either then or now. Liz was merely the “territory” over which the denial of truth (ego) fought its battle against truth (pure consciousness).

           This was almost entirely forgotten for almost fifty years. If I recalled it at all when I was twenty and a new student of A Course in Miracles and had similar experiences, I do not retain any memory of that remembering. The long-hidden aspect of that memory made me think that maybe there was something significant to see. But nothing has emerged. It was just the first episode in this life where truth rose to conscious awareness for a while and I was aware of the split between truth (pure consciousness) and illusion (ego) before ego took center stage again.

I’ve come to see ego as an insert in consciousness, like a small fence in an endless field, seeming to cut off one part of the field from the rest of the field. The Buddhists say “life is suffering”. Well, ego is suffering. It denies truth; it denies wholeness, which feels like boundless love and peace and security. Ego is also called fear because of the many feelings it induces: anxiety, guilt, insecurity, weakness, etc.

My experiences and what I have heard or read of others’ experiences over the decades shows me that all that is happening in consciousness is a play of ideas, of a truth, represented by pure consciousness, and something that denies it, represented by ego. As truth is true and cannot be undone, the outcome is inevitable. But there is no speeding up ego’s end. Even when I see its falsity in this consciousness, it must play itself out. So, there is no point in resisting it. Rather. Learn to live with it.

 Before the shift in consciousness here—which I did not seek, much less expect—when ego was the center of this consciousness, I had a growing awareness of truth. This brought relief from the worst of ego. As far as ego-consciousness is concerned, it was a better way to live. I felt I had a good life. I expected this to continue; I expected my awareness of truth to grow. I valued what I had. And I hear from others who are somewhere in a growing awareness of truth, somewhere I used to be. Some have maybe a dim but growing awareness, others are much further along, living with an awareness of the split-mind, able to get relief from ego much quicker. There’s a wide range in there, and I cannot tell if anyone is going to shift or not. But it does not matter. The truth in my awareness now is the same truth that was in my awareness before. It’s just a matter of degrees. The amount of the degree only matters to ego. Foolishly, because what it says it wants—enlightenment—is its end. It does not survive its denial of truth being stripped away.

One’s degree of awareness of truth depends on their role in the play of ideas occurring in consciousness. It isn’t personal, it isn’t about a “soul’s” worthiness or attainment in this or over many lifetimes. Some use the word grace for truth coming to awareness without personal effort, as it seems to come willy-nilly, to all sorts of minds. But that implies special dispensation from a distant higher power, or special responsibility, a burden. Those are ego ideas. You would have to see the whole picture to understand why truth rises to conscious awareness, to whatever degree, where it does.

If you are reading this, truth is probably rising to your conscious awareness to some degree. Value what you have. It does not matter that ego is still here, too. It does not matter if ego is still the center of your consciousness. An awareness of truth is valuable, no matter the degree. 

>>>> 

If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered in this newsletter/blog.