Nothing Real is Deluded

            A traveler who has never been in a desert is crossing one. In the distance, they see an oasis of water. They move persistently toward it but never reach it. It is always ahead of them. This is because they do not see water but rather heat shimmering off the sand. They were sure they saw water, but it was a mirage—an illusion.

An illusion is something that is taken to be real that is not. For illusions to be illusions, they must be convincing. This is their seeming power and why they can seem hard to overcome.

To pure consciousness (truth), ego, the material world, thoughts, and feelings are merely appearances. They are not real. They have no meaning. They have no effect on pure consciousness. But for ego, ego, the material world, thoughts, and feelings are reality. Since they are not true but ego believes they are, for ego they are illusions. Ego is delusional.

After The Break, this mind (this conscious awareness) went through a long, dark, period that often felt like insanity. This mind was always more than the insanity appearing, but it was an uncomfortable episode. Eventually, this mind came to see it was facing and coming out from under delusion—the firm belief that something unreal was real. At first, this mind interpreted this as truth coming out from under illusions. This was based on expectations of what “awakening” was supposed to be. Truth would come to see it had been “dreaming” and “awaken” to its true state. But it soon became clear that this is not what occurred. What was exposed after The Break was that no part of truth was deceived by appearances. It never thought they were real. It had not gone to sleep to dream and then awaken. Only ego was deceived by appearances. The long dark period of insanity was not truth “awakening” from a “dream” (illusions). It was ego’s delusional nature rising fully to conscious awareness.

These articles often refer to ego as illusion, but it is not an illusion to truth, which has never believed in ego’s reality. It is an illusion for itself because it is a false reality that believes in itself. For truth, ego has always only been a false idea asserting and living in a false reality that occupied this mind but in which this mind was never lost. One of the first experiences after The Break was a strong sense of “ego as insert”. This mind saw that ego was a foreign thing here that prevented it from seeing it is part of pure consciousness, but this mind never actually entered ego. Ego is not an illusion to this conscious awareness; it is a mirage that is a block to pure consciousness rising fully to conscious awareness, but it doesn’t change conscious awareness.

Ego’s core denial of truth fell away at The Break but its thought system remained to fully fall away. Ego’s thought system is persistently delusional and always will be. It can deal with its illusions within itself, like expectations and projections of meaning, but it will never see that it is not real and that its belief that it is real is an illusion. So, just as before The Break, the vacillations in this mind between ego and the world it wholly believes in and truth, for which ego and its world are mere appearances, continue. The difference is, as ego’s thought system falls away, it “shrinks” and becomes less powerful and less persistent, leaving room for truth to take its place in this mind. This means the personal life in this mind continues to shrink and empty. At The Break, Liz’s marriage, home, and dogs fell away, along with the nurturer and learner aspects of her personality. Her life is very simple. There is no point in taking seriously any personal interest in people or events or things or projects that arise in this mind because they will soon pass. If Liz does something it is because she is moved to do so, not for personal reasons. If she doesn’t do something, it is because she is not moved to do so, not because she doesn’t want to, and sometimes despite having a personal desire to do it. It is like ego continues to try to build in the middle of a demolition, but everything it tries to build soon comes down.

When teachers say to allow ego, whatever it is feeling, good or bad, it is because they recognize ego is only an appearance. Nothing real is occurring. Truth is not touched by it. You can change, “Nothing real is threatened; nothing unreal exists.” from the introduction of A Course in Miracles to “Nothing real is deluded; nothing unreal exists.” Ego is an idea of a false reality that is in conscious awareness. It fully believes in the reality of itself and its world. But everything about it will pass. To truth, it is only an appearance. Truth is never deceived by it.

Seeing this is forgiveness.

 

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