ACIM Chapter 6. IV. The Only Answer, P 4, 5

ACIM Chapter 6. IV. The Only Answer, P 4, 5. It interprets this as a justification for attacking its maker.

IV. The Only Answer, P 4

4 It interprets this as a justification for attacking its maker. The ego cannot hear the Holy Spirit, but it does believe that part of the mind that made it is against it. It believes that the best defense is attack, and wants you to believe it. Unless you do believe it you will not side with it, and the ego feels badly in need of allies, though not of brothers. Perceiving something alien to itself in your mind, the ego turns to the body as its ally, because the body is not part of you. This makes the body the ego’s friend. It is an alliance frankly based on separation. If you side with this alliance you will be afraid, because you are siding with an alliance of fear.

This whole ego/body identification we are attached to is just insane. None of it makes sense. In our mind is an idea of separation that we call the ego. We made this ego, but when we think of ourselves as the ego, we cannot remember who we really are. We don’t remember we are the maker of the ego. This mistake in identification is what causes all suffering.

However, the truth is also in our minds but hidden from our awareness by our desire to be separate and special. We cannot lose this because it is what we are. That is our true Identity. The Holy Spirit speaks to us of the truth throughout the day and thus keeps the memory alive. The ego cannot hear the Voice for God, but it perceives there is something in the mind that is against it, and so attacks its maker.

The ego believes that the best defense is attack.

It wants me to believe that, too. In the past, when I was so completely identified with that part of the mind, I believed what the ego believed. If someone said something that threatened me, I immediately defended myself by attacking the person in some way. For instance, if my friend said something unkind about my husband, I might defend myself by attacking her ability to discern the truth. I might intimate in some way that, judging from her past relationships, she was no arbiter of character.

This conversation with my so-called friend would leave me feeling defensive and afraid. Maybe she was right, and my husband wasn’t what I thought he was, which would cause me to doubt myself. Maybe she was only pretending to be my friend, and really, she looked down on me and would leave my house to talk about me to other friends. Maybe I was stupid, and soon everyone would know it.

All of that from what might have been, and probably was, an offhand remark made by a friend. This is the way the ego works. It is always about defending and attacking and when we side with that part of our mind, we, too, will be about that. This kind of thinking keeps us trapped in fear, doubt, and guilt. In other words, it keeps the ego alive and well.

Jesus tells us more about how the ego thinks.

Jesus has said that because the ego doesn’t feel safe in the mind with our true self, it makes its home in the body, and the body becomes its ally. It doesn’t like the body because it doesn’t feel it is good enough for it, but it uses it to keep our attention and convince us that we are really here. It uses pain and sickness as well as bodily appetites to keep us convinced that we are the body or at least in the body.

We feel hungry, and if we don’t have food, we suffer. We feel sexual urges, and if we don’t have those “needs” met, we feel deprived and lonely. The ego’s gifts are unpredictable and can suddenly become destructive. Sometimes, hunger goes awry, and we deliberately starve ourselves or overfeed ourselves. Sometimes, food makes us sick. Sometimes, sexual urges become distorted, and instead of being an urge, they begin to drive the individual to actions that harm themselves or others.

We are not the body, but when we believe that we are, which is what the ego wants us to do, we live in fear. We are afraid the body will suffer in some way, and we know the body will die, and seeing ourselves as the body, we think we will die with it. No wonder the ego doesn’t love the body, but it does use the body to trap us and keep us away from the truth. It cannot afford to let us notice the part of the mind that knows who it is. The body is perfect for this purpose.

These days, my mind is not fixated on ego identification.

I know I am not the ego but I have not fully accepted my Self either. I exist in a borderland, shifting uncomfortably between the two. But always, always, without fail, moving toward my true identity. I am no longer lost in the ego or even fooled by the ego. This morning, the attack was one of guilt. I am learning to welcome these thoughts and fears and the emotions they elicit. I welcome them to just be there, knowing the Holy Spirit is healing them as we look together. Without fear and guilt for having fear-based thoughts, they have nothing to hold onto and so fade away.

Another attack is on the body.

It seemed to feel pain, and the ego uses pain and sickness to prove I am a body and at its mercy. At one time, this effort on the part of the ego would have been successful. But now I know too much to allow the ego to use the body in this way. I still hear the annoying little voice, but I either don’t believe it or if I do believe what it says, I know what to do with it. I am not this body, and this body does not exist anywhere but in my mind.

If I have pain, the pain is not really in the body but is in my mind and is projected onto the body illusion. Each attempt the ego makes to keep my attention on the body is met with my desire to wake up. I don’t fight the ego; I just remember the truth. When I am confused, I ask for clarity. I don’t try to make anything happen. I just accept the Atonement and my true identity to the best of my ability. I forgive everything else.

IV. The Only Answer, P 5

5 The ego uses the body to conspire against your mind, and because the ego realizes that its “enemy” can end them both merely by recognizing they are not part of you, they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the mind is the ego’s learning device; and further, that the body is more real than the mind is. No one in his right mind could possibly believe this, and no one in his right mind does believe it.

When I look at this situation with Jesus, it is very clear. The mind is real; the body and the ego are not. The ego uses the body to convince me it is the other way around. Amazingly, this was news to me, as it probably was to you the first time you read this, or at least before you started your spiritual path. I have certainly spent most of my life firmly fixed on the body as who I am.

 I felt like a body and acted like a body. I took care of the body and carefully clothed and decorated it. I exercised it and tried to compensate for how I often misused it. I tried to make it feel better, and I used it to both attract and attack other bodies. Even now, a part of my day is spent worrying about and regretting body stuff. The only difference is I notice this behavior and ask for the Atonement. All of this concern and activity around the body occurs because I identified (and, to a lesser extent, still identify) with the body as self.

I also knew that I had a soul and that the soul was eternal.

But that didn’t seem as real to me as the body did. And really, I thought of it like this: I am a body with a soul. Because I had that belief, it was easy for the ego to use the body to keep me engrossed in the story and distracted from the Holy Spirit’s Voice. The body needs so much attention! And the body is so vulnerable, so fragile. How could I be God’s Son if I was so unlike God?

The term mind is used to represent the activating agent of spirit, supplying its creative energy, and when capitalized, Mind is Spirit or Christ or can refer to the Mind of God. How could the mind be schooled by ego or body? Our attempts to do so are laughable, really. All we are ever really doing when looking at the world with the ego is gathering and organizing information that we have ourselves projected to prove our point. The most this accomplishes is to cloud the mind with our separation ideas. Once those are released, the mind returns to its true vocation, and we see that nothing is lost.

What I am remembering now is that I am not Myron.

Myron is the hero of the story I am experiencing now. Even this experience that seems so real is not actually happening. It is only an ancient memory of an idea that lasted an instant. But I can use the story of Myron to discover what in the mind needs to be healed so that we can all wake up.

To do so, I must let myself know the thoughts and feel the emotions appropriate to the experience. But what I don’t have to do is believe in it. I can’t, from the perspective of Myron, make myself stop believing in it. That is why we have the Holy Spirit in our minds. He will correct my thinking and heal my mind as I experience the world with Him directing me. It will all happen more quickly and with less suffering if I learn to listen only to His Voice.

I am grateful for Pathways of Light. I have learned so much from taking their courses, and of course, I have a ministry through them which I love. If you would like to know more about Pathways of Light, CLICK HERE.