The Body

The body is the ego's home, by its own election. It is the only identification with which the ego feels safe because the body's vulnerability is its own best argument that you cannot be of God.

This is the belief that the ego sponsors eagerly, yet the ego hates the body, because it does not accept the idea that the body is good enough to be its home.

The mind, and not without cause, reminds the ego that it has itself insisted that it is identified with the body, so there is no point in turning to it for protection.

The ego has no real answer to this, because there is none; but it does have a typical solution. It obliterates the question from the mind's awareness.

Once unconscious, the question can and does produce uneasiness, but it cannot be answered, because it cannot be asked.

This is the question that must be asked: "Where am I to go for protection?"

Even the insane ask it unconsciously, but it requires real sanity to ask it consciously. When the Bible says, "Seek and ye shall find," it does not mean that you should seek blindly and desperately for something you would not recognize.

Meaningful seeking is

The goal must be formulated clearly and kept in mind. As a teacher with some experience, let me remind you that learning and wanting to learn are inseparable.

All learners learn best when they believe what they are trying to learn is of value to them. However, values in this world are hierarchical, and not everything you may want to learn has lasting value.

Indeed, many of the things you want to learn are chosen because their value will not last.

The ego thinks it is an advantage not to commit itself to anything that is eternal, because the eternal must come from God. The ego compromises with the issue of the eternal, just as it does with all issues that touch on the real question in any way.

By compromising in connection with all tangential questions, it hopes to hide the real question and keep it out of mind. The ego's characteristic busyness with non-essentials is for precisely that purpose.

Consider the alchemists's age-old attempts to turn base metal into gold. The one question which the alchemist did not permit himself to ask was, "What for?" He could not ask this, because it would immediately become apparent that there was no sense in his efforts even if he succeeded. If gold became more plentiful its value would decrease, and his own purpose would be defeated.

The ego has countenanced some strange compromises with the idea of the eternal, making many odd attempts to relate the concept to the unimportant, in an effort to satisfy the mind, without jeopardizing itself. Thus, it has permitted minds to devote themselves to the possibility of perpetual motion, but not to perpetual (eternal) thoughts.

This is the question that you must learn to ask, in connection with everything your mind wishes to undertake:

What is the purpose?

Whatever it is, you cannot doubt that it will channelize your efforts, automatically. When you make a decision of purpose, then, you have made a decision about your future effort, a decision which will remain in effect, unless you change the decision.

The Ego Is Part of Your Belief About Yourself

Only your allegiance to it gives the ego any power over you. We have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and must realize how much of your thinking is ego directed.

We cannot safely let it go at that, however, or you will regard yourselves as necessarily conflicted as long as you are here, or more properly, as long as you believe that you are here.

In learning to escape from the illusions you have made, your great debt to each other is something you must never forget. It is exactly the same debt that you owe to me.

Whenever you react egotistically towards each other, you are throwing away the graciousness of your indebtedness, and the holy perception it would produce. The term "holy" can be used here because, as you learn how much you are indebted to the whole Sonship, which includes me, you come as close to knowledge as perception ever can. The gap is then so small that knowledge can easily flow across it, and obliterate it, forever.

Remember that the ego and the Soul do not know each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating. Having done this, it utilizes repression against all truly natural impulses, not because the ego is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that you are.

The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only your willingness to use the device that enables it to endure.

 

SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM ACIM:

THE BIBLE

GOD'S FINAL JUDGMENT

THE RESURRECTION

THE CRUCIFIXION

THE ATONEMENT

THE HOLY SPIRIT

A Delusional Thought System

Let us begin this lesson in ego dynamics by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything.

In fact, it contains exactly the contradiction in terms which makes it meaningless. Dynamics implies the power to do something, and the whole separation fallacy lies in the belief that the ego has the power to do anything.

The ego is fearful to you because you believe this. Yet the truth is very simple: all power is of God. What is not of Him has no power to do anything.

When we look at the ego, then, we are not considering dynamics, but delusions.

We can surely regard a delusional system without fear, for it cannot have any effects if its source is not true.

Fear becomes more obviously inappropriate if one recognizes the ego's goal, which is so clearly senseless that any effort exerted on its behalf is necessarily expended on nothing.

The ego's goal is, quite explicitly, ego autonomy.

From the beginning, then, its purpose is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power except its own. This is why it is the symbol of separation.

Every idea has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural extension of what it is. Everything that stems from the ego is the natural outcome of its central belief (of autonomy). And the way to undo its results is merely to recognize that their source is not natural, being out of accord with your true nature.

We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking, and not real willing.

His Will is One because the extension of His Will cannot be unlike Itself.

The real conflict you experience, then, is between the ego's idle wishes and the Will of God, Which you share.

Can this be a real conflict?

Yours is the independence of creation, not of autonomy. Your whole creative function lies in your complete dependence on God, Whose function He shares with you. By His willingness to share it, He became as dependent on you as you are on Him.

Do not ascribe the ego's arrogance to Him Who wills not to be independent of you. He has included you in His Autonomy.

The ego sees all dependency as threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of establishing itself. But do not be deceived by its interpretation of your conflict.

The ego always attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it has the power to do this, it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy is nothing else.