The Good

           Last week, I wrote that you should trust the still, the quiet, and the gentle over dramatic mystical experiences of love and joy. Dramatic mystical experiences do represent truth rising to conscious awareness, but they do not mean anything in themselves. I shared how for ego, though, the drama was what it looked for. In fact, Liz here missed how significant it was when The Enlightened Mind showed up to stay because it didn’t come with any drama at all. It was just quietly and matter-of-factly here. Oh, she knew it was important, but not how important. It was only when reading back in her journal while writing her memoir that she saw that it had been life changing.

When you hear or read teachers who have had nonduality experiences (the onlyness of truth) say of truth “it’s so simple” and “it’s right here and always has been”—yes! We miss it because we’re looking for something dramatically different. But the different is actually ego. It is the stranger here. Your experience vacillates quickly between both, so it seems they are the same experience. And ego certainly benefits from you feeling it is all one experience. Because ego is harsh but does not want to face that fact. I’ve come to experience it as violent relative to gentle truth. If it could destroy it would. All discomfort is ego and this is what it offers to replace truth.

I’ve had a new experience of truth lately that I can only think to call “the good”. Words are tricky when describing truth because we associate them with personal experiences. For example, when someone says they’ve experienced unconditional love they mean love that does not arise from or depend on a condition, or a situation, like a relationship. It really means sourceless love, love that just is. But when people hear unconditional love, they think they are to love others without conditions, which is not possible, because “I” and “others” is a condition.

So, I cannot characterize the good beyond those words for it. Nor is this good something that can be mimicked. It does not refer to good feelings or good thoughts or a good attitude or good behavior (whatever that would be). Like unconditional love, it has nothing to do with people, with the world. It is simply the fundamental good that is. (I’m not familiar with Plato, but I am aware he wrote of a good that he felt was reality beyond appearances. I assume the good I write of here is what he meant.) The good has emerged, seemingly wholly new to me, as ego’s dark roots of fear have risen fully to conscious awareness to fall away. It seems to be specifically what ego blocked. And it seems to be the source of true peace and quiet love and joy.

>>>> 

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.

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sister said…
thank you...
7:52 AM
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