Identity is Mortal

            It seems so obvious now, but only recently did I see, as I wrote a few weeks ago, that identity is not necessary. The constant search for “What am I?” or, later, “What is real and true and where do I fit into that?” was an obstacle to seeing Truth. It was the primary obstacle to seeing Truth because it was always ego straining and striving to find out how it fit into Truth and it doesn’t because it’s an illusion. How simple to just see that there is no need for identity of any kind! Truth is here, whole and complete, and quite apart from identity.

I used to say, correctly, that the Truth is here in consciousness and always has been. Truth meaning God’s (Reality’s) Spirit. But I thought—without question—that identity was neutral and could be ego or Spirit. In other words, I thought consciousness = identity but it turns out only ego = identity. So, I kept waiting for Spirit identity to take over and it never did, although Spirit’s Presence grew in conscious awareness here. I did come to feel that the line between “me” and Spirit was blurring, thinking this was about shifting identity, but that was ego claiming Spirit’s growing Presence in conscious awareness for itself. Never did ego and Spirit actually blend and never did Spirit take over here as an identity. Spirit is merely present in consciousness. Consciousness (Liz) registers either the assertion of ego as an identity or the Presence of Spirit. When ego is not here, consciousness is free to be the space it is. Thoughts, feelings, and actions appear and pass through, and Spirit is merely here with them.

So, it turns out that “I” am mortal, that “I” does pass away. Although I didn’t come to A Course in Miracles through an existential crisis—I was only twenty years old and had hardly started living—I find ego expected to find immortality for itself in spirituality. But enlightenment has instead brought ego face to face with its mortality. It turns out there is a lot of wisdom in the world about mortality, limited time, and the ultimate nonexistence of ego. It is all valid. Ego knows the truth about its seeming existence. Identity comes to an end, either before or with the body’s death.

No part of God (Reality) has put on mortality to try it out or to have a different experience or whatever. The mortal experience is like a puppet show rather than a part that the Immortal plays for a while. The Immortal in consciousness is not deluded by the appearance of consciousness or by what appears in consciousness. It has never forgotten Its Source, What It is, or fallen asleep and dreamt it is something other than What It is. Mortal ego and God’s Immortal Spirit in consciousness have nothing to do with each other. One falls away, before or with consciousness (the death of the body), and the Other remains with Its Source beyond consciousness.

To use an analog from a recent article, if the sun is God and consciousness is a house, its occupant is ego and the sunlight incidentally streaming into the house through the windows is God’s Spirit. The occupant of the house falls away either before or with the house. But the sunlight remains as the extension of the sun it has always been, simply no longer shining into a house.

 

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