More About the Illusion of Power

            Last week the article here was about discovering that power is an illusion. Some have asked what is meant by power.

Power refers to the force, the energy behind an experience, or how strong it seems to be. Specifically, the article was about the power of ego and personal experiences in ego, in fact, the whole world ego seems to make.

If you’ve ever experienced pure consciousness (truth), then when ego returns it can feel quite powerful—powerful enough to override the experience of pure consciousness, which had been revealed to be truth. The power of ego seems to imply that the experience of truth, which you knew to be true when you experienced it, is not real—even though you know it is. You cannot do anything about this, ego is too strong, it just returns to take over your conscious awareness. For ego, this proves it is real. To ego, power = truth. (Yes, it’s a bully.)

A common example with newer students of A Course in Miracles is how ego returns when they have spent quiet time in study and contemplation and meditation, wiping out any peace they felt they experienced: “I was home for the weekend reading the Course, listening to teachers, meditating a lot, and felt so at peace. But as soon as I walked out the door on Monday and became involved with the world again, my peace was gone!” The experience is confusing, disorienting: Which is real? The peace or the powerful world that seemed to take it away? The world dominates conscious awareness, even when one comes to see that “the world” is made up of their own thoughts. Ego seems just too powerful to not be real, to be overcome.

Mystical experiences, too, can seem very powerful. Overwhelming love and joy, for example, the power of which is never sustained, but which still seems to assert the reality of the experience. For Liz here, when the shift in consciousness was occurring, there was a near-physical sensation of a great power looming over her. She was tempted to walk around ducking. This was not truth, but ego’s experience of truth. Ego projects, and since it thinks it is a power, it assumes truth is, too.

Due to ego’s projections and expectations, as well as mystical experiences distorted by ego, the expectation here was that truth must be a “greater power” that would at some point override ego. But it isn’t. Truth does not assert itself. It is simply quietly here as ego rises and passes, even its power, which turns out to be part of the illusion that is ego. Power is not proof of reality, but proof of ego.

 

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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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