Living in an Expression

            A rose is an expression of a rose bush. Or, if you need a broader example, we say the weather and plants and animals on earth are expressions of that abstract idea, nature. We have no aspirations for these expressions, we don’t expect them to lead somewhere, because we understand them as expressions. They will arise and they will pass and we accept this.

So, when I say that what appears in consciousness, including your life, is only an expression this is what I mean: Everything appearing in consciousness is not to bring something about but is part of a depiction of what A Course in Miracles calls the Atonement, or the correction of the perception of separation from God. To put this in the terms I use now, everything is part of a depiction of the moment the idea of not-truth arose and was simultaneously undone by truth’s all-encompassing nature. It is pre-determined, “the script is written”, because it depicts over time a moment whose outcome—the undoing of the idea of not-truth—has already occurred. Therefore, everything that occurs contributes to the depiction of an inevitable undoing, no matter how any situation or person looks right now.

Of course, this is not exactly comfy for ego, which likes to think it is eternal—meaning, real—not just something temporarily expressed. This is why ego looks for the true “I”, the one that doesn’t pass away with the body, coming up with ideas like a “soul” that goes on after the death of the body to either heaven or to reincarnate. This is why ego gloms onto mystical experiences of truth that rise to conscious awareness to reinforce the notion that it goes on when those experiences reveal the eternal is already here apart from ego.

The awareness of nonduality—one immutable, absolute truth—has nothing for ego! It is exposed as only a temporary expression—a passing idea, an illusion. Ego squirms at the notion that there is no real “I”. When it hears that nothing appearing is real, in its typically self-centered way it turns to hopelessness or nihilism.

Of course, those responses are expressions, too. Specifically of ego! But there are other responses possible, too. Ego can learn; it can choose a “better way.” But this requires that it humbly accept another approach. Like living in the moment and enjoying what appears as the passing expression it is, just as you would a rose you know will whither and die. As truth began to rise to conscious awareness here, Liz was no longer attached to the “good” things but appreciated them when they occurred and let them go. In fact, she enjoyed the “good” more because of this. It turned out clinging to the “good” was a drag on enjoying it. And when the “bad” happened, she was also not destroyed by it as she knew that it would pass, too.

How different you see the past when you understand it was an expression, that there is no real “I” here that was to use life to “get somewhere.” What happened was to happen and it was never going to be anything else. In ego’s valuation some things that occurred were ugly, some beautiful, but they all passed as the mere expressions they were. And seeing this about the past you can approach the future not asking what you want, or even what is “right”, but asking, “What is to happen?” because it is already set what will happen. You can watch what unfolds, feeling for the movement of your person’s part in it.

“As truth began to rise to consciousness here”—of course, this is not the case for everyone. It may not be possible to enjoy things as a passing expression without this awareness, when it is only an intellectual idea. I don’t know what ego here would have done with this information before there was an awareness of truth. Perhaps felt powerless to change its story. Perhaps felt deprived of a better story, as though it was not a part of the expression itself. Ego holds itself off from what appears as though what happens is supposed to be at its direction and feels confused at best and furious at worst when things don’t go its way.

Ego cannot bring truth to conscious awareness, but it can ask for help to see things another way. Truth meets you where you are. The answer may simply be a way of seeing a situation that makes it “better” or acceptable to you.  Or, who knows, truth may be rising toward conscious awareness and you have a “higher” view. But, of course, whether an ego accepts this or not is also part of the expression. 

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