Ask: If peace and good are real, why this pain?

             When I write or talk about truth and how it is peace and “the good” as I did the past two weeks, readers and clients ask why they aren’t experiencing it, why they are having this experience of inevitable pain, lack, and loss? I have explained this often through the ontology that came to me long ago and I will use it here again and elaborate.

The absolute (truth), being all, must contain the idea of its own opposite. But as the absolute is all, it cannot have an opposite. So, the opposite-of-the-absolute can only be an idea that is undone by the allness of the absolute as soon as it arises.

However, within that idea there is time (the opposite of timelessness) and in time it seems as though the idea of the opposite-of-a-truth arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. This is what is unfolding in consciousness. Pure consciousness before anything arises in it is the truth and ego (“I”, self, identity) and its world are the idea of its opposite. So, the experience of inevitable pain and loss that seems to be occurring is part of an illusion depicting a truth and the idea of its opposite and that truth undoing the idea of its opposite.

A corollary to the question “why is this occurring?” is “if truth is peace and ‘good’, why doesn’t truth stop the pain?” The answer is above—it has! To truth, the idea of its opposite never came to be. Only in the illusion does the illusion seem to be real. In consciousness, this means ego and its world are only appearances in pure consciousness. They have no reality; they are illusions.

These questions are really ego’s way of saying something real is occurring. And to it, it is. So, it would be better to say, “Pain is inevitable in this life. How do I navigate this?”

Enter A Course in Miracles and like teachings that help you to mitigate inevitable pain, lack, and loss so you do not suffer. What asks and complains about the experience of inevitable pain, lack, and loss is the source of inevitable pain, lack, and loss, ego. Its grand projection is that something else, a god or a cruel world, is doing this to it. When the Course says to ego, “You are doing this to yourself” it means to lead ego to take responsibility for itself so it can make another choice. It suggests to ego that it put the worst of itself aside and follow an inner teacher for its own “individualized curriculum”. The inner teacher is an awareness of truth that guides ego past inevitable pain, lack, and loss. This requires ego to be humble and accept, not that it is an illusion, which it will never accept, but that its story for its person can change.  It can “choose once again”; it can ask for another way to look at a situation. And in this it can find relief from itself, the idea that pain, lack, and loss are reality, are all there is.

>>>> 

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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