ACIM Chapter 11. V. The “Dynamics” of the Ego, P 1-3

ACIM Chapter 11. V. The “Dynamics” of the Ego, P 1-3

V. The “Dynamics” of the Ego, P 1

1 No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready. Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The “dynamics” of the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to see beyond it, since you have made it real. We will undo this error quietly together, and then look beyond it to truth.

I noticed that when I first started learning this path, I merely transferred many of my beliefs about the devil to the ego. Slowly, that began to change, but still, I thought of the ego as something separate from me. That is why I began to say “the ego thought in my mind” and “the ego part of my mind.” I had to do something to help me realize that the ego is just a thought system we use to have this experience. From that realization came a more determined effort to look. Something that I and others say is, “I’m not guilty; I’m just looking.

That seems to be what makes all the difference for me.

I have given up the idea that I am guilty of my thoughts. They are just thoughts and meaningless until I give them meaning. Just as we all share the same Self, as we are all part of the same Christ Mind, we also all share the same ego. If a thought has landed in my mind, I can be sure it is not personal. It is just a thought in the ego mind and finding a landing spot in other minds.

If I am aware that this is an ego thought, then it must be my job to release it to the Holy Spirit and accept Atonement for it. This is done not for Myron but for the entire Sonship since we all share the same mind. Why be guilty or concerned about the thought; it has just shown up so it can be healed. I’m happy when I can do this for us and grateful to others who do this when I cannot. As we all do our part, the entire Sonship is healed.

V. The “Dynamics” of the Ego, P 2

2 What is healing but the removal of all that stands in the way of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking at them directly, without protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at is the source of fear, and you are beginning to learn that fear is not real. You are also learning that its effects can be dispelled merely by denying their reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that what has no effects does not exist. Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing has not happened. If reality is recognized by its extension, what leads to nothing could not be real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot be seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light must dispel it.

Fear is still real to me.

And I know that undoing this belief is one of the things I came here to do, maybe the only thing since all others, like victimhood, are related to fear. We cannot undo what we know nothing about, and so I had to experience fear to do this work. My mom helped set this up for me. There was a strong belief in fear in my mom’s mind, so many of the images she made were fearful. As a result, I learned fear, and at the same time, I learned what the belief in fear does to us. My mom also led me to A Course in Miracles and studied alongside me. So, I have all I need to do this work and complete my purpose.

I understand what Jesus is telling me in this paragraph. The way the belief in fear is undone is to look directly at it and to do so with the Holy Spirit, that is, to see fear through His Light. Like my mom, I believe in the fear in my mind, and so I have fearful circumstances in my life. I used to hide from these, to run, to ignore, and try to solve the problems that were caused by the fear in my mind, which is going about it backward and so doesn’t work.

I did this in many ways.

If I was low on money, I would pray for more, or I would find a way to earn more. If a relationship went bad, I ran. There! No more relationship problem. If I were sick, I would pray for this body to be healed. I would learn all about the problem and the possible solutions, and then I would go to work on it. I became a very good problem solver. But the problems just kept shifting form and continued to come because the problems were sourced by the belief in fear, and that belief was in my mind. There was no getting away from it.

One of the most helpful understandings I received from the Holy Spirit came from Lesson 325. which explains how we begin with a belief and wind up with an image (a circumstance) in our lives. Once I understood that, I was able to work it backward, beginning with the story and discovering what I wanted to experience. Then, I could ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief that was imprisoning me.

I had started realizing that I was completely responsible for everything in my life, but at the same time, I was still resistant to knowing that. Lesson 325 made it impossible to believe that I was a victim of anything, and it also helped me to see that the effects that were scaring me, the stories in my life that were so upsetting, were only images I had made from the beliefs I was holding. This meant they were not real and only as true as the beliefs. I could then ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the beliefs that were not true, and then I would stop seeing these false effects.

Just that easy, my mind began to shift, and I began to realize that fear is not real.

If its effects are not real, then it is not real. I am still working on this. We do a really great job of making realistic effects, and believing what I see is a hard habit to break. But it is happening. Now, no matter how afraid I am, in a part of my mind, I know that the fear is not real, and I continue to ask the Holy Spirit to help me see this differently. I am doing what I came here to do, or more clearly stated, I am undoing what I came here it undo.

V. The “Dynamics” of the Ego, P 3

3 Let us begin this lesson in “ego dynamics” by understanding that the term itself does not mean anything. It contains the very contradiction in terms that 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.

It is very easy to fall into old habits and project the cause of our behavior on the ego.

Instead of believing the devil made us do it, we believe the ego makes us behave so badly. But as Jesus tells us, the ego has no power to make anything, to do anything, much less to control the Son of God. The ego is nothing to fear. It is a straw tiger, an image of power, but really nothing at all.

The belief that through the ego that we have made something real and bad is the source of our guilt and fear and the reason we hesitate to return Home. But if the ego is the source of the world we made, and the ego has no power and cannot do anything, then nothing has happened. We simply have thoughts that form in our minds and play out an idea to consider. That we “feel” while we have this experience is pretty cool, but doesn’t make it real. The ego does not have the power to do anything so nothing has happened, and therefore, there is no cause for guilt and fear.

When the Course tells us that forgiveness is our function here, it means that we are to forgive the idea that anything has happened to forgive. All power is of God. The ego has no power to do anything. Nothing has happened in spite of all the dramas we have imagined. There is literally nothing to forgive. I forgive the world for what I thought I made of it, the characters in my dream for what I thought I directed them to do, the imagined attacks on myself and others, myself for believing in any of this, and myself for imagining it. How could imagination be a sin? Imagination is not reality, so nothing has been done to forgive.

In a way, forgiveness is a joke.

We played a joke on ourselves to have an experience we could not have. God provided us with a joke that would help us undo it. The joke is that there is a world and that we are separate bodies living in this world. It’s a joke because it is not real. God’s joke, designed to walk us out of the joke we made up, is that we forgive it. It’s a joke because there is nothing to forgive, being only an imagined experience anyway. When we get Home, we will have a big laugh together with our Father. In the meantime, because we believe that what we made is real, let’s use the solution, which is to forgive it all.

To read Pathways of Light’s insights of this section, CLICK HERE.