ACIM Chapter 4, I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 11, 12

ACIM T-4. I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 11, 12. The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise.

I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 11

11 The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. Its weakness is your strength. Only God could make a home that is worthy of His creations, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession. Yet His home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter it. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the perishable as the ego is of making the eternal.

There was a time that I was tempted to believe the ego’s home was salvageable. This was even after I discovered I had another choice that there was something besides the body and the world and the idea of separation. I tried to make my ego bolder and braver, stronger, and more attractive. I tried to make it smarter and wiser. And I even tried to make it more spiritual.

The ego goes on with this program, like an abandoned clock that has not run down yet, but I can’t see any purpose in it myself. Every so often, I see the frantic thoughts in my mind warning me that I must live up to expectations or I will be judged. Sometimes I fall into these traps and play that game for a while, but I know too much to go back and pretty quickly remember to ask for the Atonement.

Learning Through Contrast

Jesus has taught me through contrast that I want to leave this shabby home, and now when I spend time believing in the ego plan for salvation, the discomfort of being there convinces me to seek Jesus’ plan of Atonement instead. When I act from fear and defend myself against perceived attack, I suffer, and I have lost my taste for suffering.

I have always suffered when this happened, but it wasn’t until I practiced the Course that I even realized I was suffering. Now that I have experienced peace, I have little tolerance for suffering. And now that I understand what interrupts that peace, I am quicker to seek relief. I had a recent experience in which I seemed to be a victim of someone’s carelessness. First, I tried to solve the problem with my ego. Ego has this new, nicer, kinder façade to keep in place, so it offered helpful sounding words and reasonable sounding solutions. But the ego always has an agenda. It is always trying to win at someone’s expense.

Briefly, I was convinced that I was doing some good and that everything would work out. The person involved would learn a valuable lesson, and I would control the outcome to my satisfaction. The ego had me there for a while, and I was playing its game. But I tell you, the ego may confuse me with its logic, but it can’t fake peace. I felt the wrongness of it, and I was suffering. Because suffering is no longer my desire, I was given the solution.

Learning I Want to Change Myself, Not the World

I was doing a Pathways of Light course with two other people when the answer jumped off the page at me. We were studying from The Song of Prayer, and this is what I read: “The poisonous thought that he is your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be relinquished before you can be saved from guilt.” Ouch! No wonder I was not at peace. I was teaching guilt and learning guilt. Suddenly I knew exactly what to do and exactly the right words to use. After that, everything fell gently into place. I knew this answer was the right answer because it felt exactly right. It felt peaceful at every step.

My first response came from the ego, and it was an effort to make the ego home safe. There is nothing I can do to make the ego world safe. I don’t even want to try to do this. Working from within the ego thought system to make it something it can never be is not going to work. It never has, and it never will. I do have a home, though, that is safe without my effort. It is God’s Will that I return to my home because it is God’s Will that I not suffer and that I be happy. I have seen the ego will, and I reject it. God’s Will is my true will, and I choose that now.

I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 12

12 Of your ego you can do nothing to save yourself or others, but of your spirit you can do everything for the salvation of both. Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere. The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them truer perception. The Kingdom of Heaven is the spirit’s right, whose beauty and dignity are far beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the Love of God for His creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and only of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself.

In the past, I wasn’t interested in these kinds of paragraphs where Jesus describes my true self. They made me uncomfortable because I didn’t relate. I didn’t see where it was helping me. I was more interested in the paragraphs that talked about the ego. This was familiar territory. I wanted to read something that told me what to do about it. I was a fixer and wanted some solid leads and good advice. And I wanted to do something because doing made me feel like progress was being made.

Busy Work VS Real Work

Most of my life has been spent doing and making progress, at least according to the way the ego keeps score. I solved the problems the ego pointed out, and then the ego pointed out more problems. I’ve been a busy girl, ticking off items on my list as I got to them, figured them out, and took care of them. The ones I couldn’t fix, I deep-sixed. So, in a way, I did something with that, too, because it was out of sight, out of mind.

With all this busy work and illusion of progress, you would think I would be happy to read about my true self, about spirit. But reading that I am perfect just as I am left me uncomfortably confused. How could I be perfect when there was still so much to do? How could I be worthy when I still made so many mistakes, did so much wrong? There is just too much work to be done, but I will keep working diligently, forgiving, forgiving, forgiving, and one day I will receive my reward, or so I told myself. Not in so many words, but that was the underlying belief.

I’m all for doing the work. There is still work to be done. I still get confused about my identity. I still get enticed by ego thinking sometimes. But now I am not confused about my part. I watch my mind. I ask for the Atonement, and I accept healing. And I don’t figure anything out, and I don’t seek solutions within the ego mind. I ask, and I receive. And my Self is being revealed to me.

Embracing My True Self

Wow! You and I made that discovery together. As I wrote that last line, I felt a rush throughout my body. Heat, chill bumps, tears. I didn’t see that coming.

These days I love reading about spirit, about my true Self, and about God’s Son. I may not always exhibit the traits I read about, but I can envision it, and as more and more ego is undone, I can see signs of what lies beneath, what has always been just beneath the thin façade of the ego self.

Now I am beyond humble. I recognize my radiance and gladly shed my light everywhere I go. My ego is meek, and surrender is no longer seen as loss, so it is with profound relief that I allow myself to be taught. I see with a truer perception because of it. The Kingdom of Heaven is no longer a far-off dream, but it is my right. God loves me, and I am worthy of His love. I am hungry for more truth, and I no longer feel the need to hide behind my sins.

When I get up from this meditation, and begin my workday, maybe I will again relate with the ego self, and become confused about what I am. But I don’t think I can ever fully believe that again. It is different now. My experience has been that once we know something, we cannot unknow it. There is no way to get the toothpaste back into the tube. I wonder how this will change things. There is a world of difference between being the ego and being the Son of God in an experience of ego.

CLICK HERE to read something I wrote on my Pathways of Light blog about focusing on the error.