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I’ve been journaling a lot lately on my computer where I ask Jesus a question, and then listen for the answer. I don’t claim that what I’m hearing as an answer is coming through 100% from the right mind (of which Jesus is only a symbol), but I do know that it’s been VERY helpful for me. Anyway, here’s the latest Q&A session:
Erik: I seemingly have a strong urge to fix everything. I want to fix up NLC (Note: NLC stands for New Life Clinics, the hypnotherapy organization I’ve been working for as a director for several years) so that we are a “perfect” organization, with perfect therapists, perfect CDs, and perfect methods which will be enormously helpful to the Sonship. What’s the deal with this desire? And why can’t I seem to ever actually do anything that I think will make it more perfect… like create new and improved CDs for example?
Jesus: It’s because of a tug-of-war going on in your mind between the two teachers. Creativity and helpfulness flows naturally from the right mind, but the ego is very invested in taking those resources and twisting them for its own purposes, i.e. to make itself “better” or to reinforce guilt. The guilt that you feel from this interference from the ego (which is happening very quickly in your mind, and then being denied in an instant) is what is preventing the free flow of creative helpfulness. If you truly want to heal the Sonship, you must only heal your own believe that separation is real. The desire for a perfect organization or perfect CDs is the ego’s defense against the perfection in your right mind. It wants to take the idea of perfection and make it about form.
So here’s what I suggest. Every time you find yourself craving a more perfect anything in form, ask me for help in remembering the perfection that already exists in content. Rest there, and forget about the form; it was made by the ego to try substituting for God’s perfection, yet it made everything imperfect so that you’d constantly be running on the hampster wheel trying to perfect it. It’s a great strategy for staying on a meaningless hampster wheel. But believe me… there’s nothing to do in form that will make any difference for the Sonship. The only way you can truly be of service is to accept the Atonement for yourself.
I know you are still addicted to the ego, and you’ll have to forgive yourself for that. Practice remembering that you have an addiction to the ego; being honest with yourself about that will help you heal it much more quickly. And relax… it’s not a real problem, just an imaginary one! In truth, you’re already healed and safe in heaven with God and all your brothers in Christ. Peace is with you now.
If I’m feeling conflicted about what to do, then it must be because I chose the wrong teacher. That is all I have to remind myself of… that I chose the wrong teacher and that is why I feel conflicted. If I feel overwhelmed because of lots of tedious busywork that seems to need my attention (taxes, paperwork, etc..), all I have to remember is that my overwhelm must be because I chose the wrong teacher. And that is all I need to remember. As the Course teaches, all we have to do is see the problem as it is, not how you have set it up. We don’t have to try choosing the Holy Spirit; all we have to do is realize that the pain we’re feeling is because we chose the ego. To realize this means that in that instant we chose the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have remembered why I was upset! The ego would never let you realize that your pain is because you chose it. Therefore, if you remember the truth, it’s because in that instant, your decision-making mind chose the Holy Spirit.
Realize that you as a person cannot choose the Holy Spirit. If you ever think that you as a person are choosing the Holy Spirit, then you’re deluding yourself. So long as you think of yourself as a person, all you can do is try reminding yourself as often as possible whenever you’re unhappy, that your unhappiness is solely because you chose the wrong teacher. Seeing this fact is what will cause you, as a decision-making mind, to stop choosing the ego.
Simply say to yourself, “I’m in pain right now because I chose the wrong teacher.” Then be silent and let that sink in. There’s nothing else to do but really get the truth of that. Again, once you really get that deep down, you’ll automatically stop choosing the ego, at least for a moment or two, and experience a moment of peace. And each time you remember that you’re in pain because you chose the wrong teacher, you’ll become less and less tolerant of making that choice again. This is what will lead you to finally give it up once and for all.
One of the metaphors I sometimes find helpful for understanding the Course’s metaphysics is by imagining one of those virtual-reality video games. You know those 3-D virtual reality games they have now where you can put on a headset and experience the video game as if you were really inside of it? Even if you’ve never experienced one of those games, I’m sure you can imagine what it would be like.
Well, that’s what this world is like. It’s like nothing more than a virtual reality video game, in which there are a fixed number of choices, and every game ends in the death of our video-game character. It’s a game we never win. And it’s a game in which we are constantly afraid, to some degree or another.
In that original, insane instant when, as a Mind (before time and space seemed to exist) I chose the ego over the Holy Spirit, it’s almost as if I got so scared of being punished by God that I quickly put on a virtual reality headset to try and hide from God. I began playing an imaginary video game inside the headset, pretending I was something called a human being, hoping that God would be fooled. I hoped that He would either not find me in the headset, or if He did find me, that He’d be fooled by my new “appearance” as a pathetic human being and take pity on me.
This “escape technique” would be ridiculous enough if my fear of God was based on truth, but the fact that it’s based on an erroneous fear makes it quite tragic. There’s never been any real threat, and I’ve been hiding for what has seemed like eons for absolutely no good reason at all.
All I have to do now is realize how erroneous my fear of God has been, and be willing to let the Holy Spirit remove the virtual-reality headset for me. The video game inside the headset is meaningless and has never brought anything of value to me. Within the game, I have absolutely no power whatsoever. Withn the game it’s as if I’m nothing but a robot with limited choices, playing a meaningless game against no one but myself.
It’s time to stop playing against myself. It’s time to allow the headset to be removed. It’s never really satisfied me anyway. Only God’s Love can do that, and He’s waiting to embrace me with it fully the moment I choose to listen to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows I’m still afraid of that Light, and so I can trust Him to remove the headset gradually, allowing my eyes to adjust to the Light gradually and without any pain whatsoever…
I haven’t posted anything on this blog in quite a few months, but today I felt inspired to start again. I realized that one of the reasons I stopped was because it felt like too much work to write a whole article. Also, I’m somewhat of a perfectionist so even when I do write down some thoughts, I find it hard to publish them unless I think they are really, really good. But fortunately, I’m beginning to take myself a little less seriously as I used to (I still take myself VERY seriously though, mind you), so I thought I’d start writing again and not worry so much about whether it’s “really, really good”…
And as far as it feeling like too much work, it occurred to me that I really don’t have to write that much. It’s not like I work for the New York Times and I have to pump out a 400 word article everyday or something. I could just write down one helpful insight that had occurred to me, and that would be enough. If nothing else, it would be another opportunity to watch how invested my ego gets in the personal identity thing, “MY” blog, etc..
So today, I thought I’d just start small by sharing some things I typed up a few days ago after a very deep meditation. I was at my good friend Carin’s house in Austin, and was trying to get some work done on my laptop. But it was feeling too much like walking through mud, so I just decided to give myself a break and just commune with God a while. So I sat on her couch and got into a very deep meditation in which I began to have a very profound experience of my decision-making mind at work. It felt like I could actually watch the inner process of how I begin to disappear into the Light… and then quickly choose the ego by projecting some worrisome thought outside myself as a distraction. At some point during the experience I got on my computer and typed out some of the thoughts I was having, and here’s what came out:
Instructions to Self:
God. That is the Goal. Nothing else will satisfy you.
Anytime you believe you are in a body, you are by definition believing that you are a sinner, that God is a Sinner, and that He wants to kill you.
I MUST return to My Source. No more projection. No more thinking about frivolous things. It’s time NOW to go to the Source and disappear into it, once and for all. Nothing else is worth wasting time on anymore.
And yet I can watch how my fear causes me to run away from that Empty Silence. It is the Peace there that attracts me, but then as I feel myself disappearing into That Silence, I quickly conjure up meaningless images in my mind and make them mean something. Somewhere in those images is always an image that I call my self. It seems to be the thinker suddenly. It seems to be “me”. It seems to be the one who’s “messing up this enlightenment thing”. And of course, that is its purpose that I gave it. I designed that ‘self’ for the sole purpose of deceiving my Mind so I’d forget my reality as Christ. Here is the process by which that seems to occur:
As I’m disappearing back into the Light of Perfection, I suddenly get scared of disappearing, and then poof… a worldly “problem” shows up in my awareness that demands immediate attention. It always is a problem having to do with the little self that lives in the world that I identify with. In an instant, I’ve forgotten all about my desire to remember God, and temporarily can’t think about anything else but that worldly problem and my perceived need to find a solution to it. Sometimes, a series of problems pop up into awareness, just to make sure my Mind stays preoccupied. Anything to keep me from disappearing into God…
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Never underestimate your fear of disappearing into God. It is the cause of everything you perceive, and of all your suffering. But the good news is that the moment you become honest with yourself, and admit to Jesus or the Holy Spirit that you afraid of disappearing into God, the fear lessens, and peace becomes possible once again. They will shine unconditional love into your mind which reminds you that your fear was unfounded…
