ACIM Chapter 7.VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 3, 4

ACIM Chapter 7.VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 3, 4. The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it stems from the very power of the mind the ego denies.

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 3

³ The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it stems from the very power of the mind the ego denies. This means that the ego attacks what is preserving it, which must result in extreme anxiety. That is why the ego never recognizes what it is doing. It is perfectly logical but clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source that is totally inimical to its existence for its existence. Fearful of perceiving the power of this source, it is forced to depreciate it. This threatens its own existence, a state which it finds intolerable. Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way. It does not perceive its existence as threatened by projecting the threat onto you, and perceiving your being as non-existent. This ensures its continuance if you side with it, by guaranteeing that you will not know your own safety.

Jesus did an excellent job of explaining something unexplainable, but to understand it better, I will put it in my own words. First, I will remind myself that the ego is not a person or entity of any kind. It is a way of thinking, a thought system that produces effects. The effects are like the thought system, so all effects are separate, vulnerable, weak, defensive, fearful, guilty, and mortal.

This thought system was made through the power that is ours as creations of God.

It was made as a way to deny God and exist outside God. So, for the ego to continue to exist, it must depend on the power that it is trying to deny. This causes extreme anxiety within the thought system. I can understand this. In fact, I wonder how we tolerate it.

The ego has a plan for dealing with this impossible situation. It simply denies it. It refuses to see what is happening. And rather than perceiving itself as threatened, it projects onto us and sees us as non-existent. So, the ego is a thought system made up by us, but in order for this to work, the ego must see us as made up instead of it as made up. Is this really what I believe in? Apparently, it makes logical sense in a way, but as Jesus says, it is insane thinking.

It reminds me of an ex-husband who was a paranoid schizophrenic.

His brain didn’t work right and showed him things that didn’t exist. His defense was to project the insanity onto the world. So, instead of seeing himself as insane, he saw everyone else as insane. It seemed to him that all these insane people were out to get him because they kept saying there was something wrong with him.

This seems a lot like what the ego is doing, and I see it played out all the time. It is usually subtler than it was in Charlie’s case. Or maybe that is because most people are in agreement with its insanity, so it looks normal to us. For a long time, when I became upset about something, my first response was often to blame it on someone else.

For instance, Here is something that happened when I was still working. One year, the pay structure at work changed. As a result, I made less money that year than the year before. I felt fearful, and I blamed the new pay structure at work and, of course, my boss who implemented it. Then I saw what I was doing, recognized it for the typical insane logic of ego, and asked for a correction. If I make less money, it is a reflection of my belief in loss, and everything that occurs to give me what I believe in is my responsibility.

But the ego will always project what is intolerable to it onto us.

In this way, it can perceive us as weak instead of it. And when we identify with ego, we do the same thing. We project what we find intolerable onto others. It’s a good plan for ego. It defends itself, and at the same time, it keeps the separation idea in place by keeping attack and defense in place. I cannot afford to be one with my brother if I need him as a place on which to project my fears.

If I continue to side with the ego, to believe I am protecting myself through projection, to believe I am weak and vulnerable, and to ensure I never learn differently by believing that I need to hide from God, I am virtually guaranteeing I will never know my safety. The way out of this dilemma is to ignore apparent threats and the defenses my ego would have me use against them and accept that I am saved from my insanity.

I am asked to come out of hiding, to stand before God stripped of my defenses, and to trust that I am loved. And to trust that I am not what I made of myself when I made the ego and that nothing ever really happened anyway. At first glance, that seems kind of iffy and pretty scary. But actually, if I take the first step and disregard appearances, everything else follows logically and easily.

I am learning through doing this that I am not the ego.

The truth is, I can only dream of being endangered. I am sane.  I am safe and strong. And I am loved. I am in God and part of Him. I am Spirit. Nothing can touch me where I am. The ego can project and project, and nothing happens unless I agree with the ego and believe in the ego. Then, although nothing happens, I will believe that something is happening and will suffer for my belief.

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 4

⁴ The ego cannot afford to know anything. Knowledge is total, and the ego does not believe in totality. This unbelief is its origin, and while the ego does not love you it is faithful to its own antecedents, begetting as it was begotten. Mind always reproduces as it was produced. Produced by fear, the ego reproduces fear. This is its allegiance, and this allegiance makes it treacherous to love because you are love. Love is your power, which the ego must deny. It must also deny everything this power gives you because it gives you everything. No one who has everything wants the ego. Its own maker, then, does not want it. Rejection is therefore the only decision the ego could possibly encounter, if the mind that made it knew itself. And if it recognized any part of the Sonship, it would know itself.

Some paragraphs have several ideas that I can look at with the Holy Spirit. This is one of them. It begins by telling me that the ego cannot afford to know anything. This is because Knowledge is total, and the ego doesn’t believe in totality. The whole point for the ego is to allow the idea of separation to be experienced, so if it cannot know wholeness or totality, or it could not be ego. The bottom line is ego is not where I would want to go for knowledge because it does not know anything.

Another idea is that the ego begets as it was begotten.

The ego was produced by fear, so it reproduces fear. If I feel fearful about something, it will do me no good to check in with my ego for a solution. Even though I do this sometimes, I immediately recognize the futility and change my mind. The ego will not give me comfort or a real solution because it was not created in love. It will only give me fearful thoughts and solutions that lead to more fear.

All of my life I have been a problem-solver. If something went wrong, I looked at the options and chose the most likely to fix the problem. Then I got busy. This process always made me feel like I was in control. I still solve my problems in the same way, but there is a difference now. Here is an example. If I am concerned about income, in the past, I would look for ways to decrease expenses or increase income, or perhaps the problem calls for a defensive strategy. Then, I would get busy making it happen.

Now, if I am concerned about finances, I look at my thoughts about lack and loss, and I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind and show me how to see this problem differently. The difference is that I no longer ask the ego for help. First, it doesn’t know anything; second, it only begets fear because that is how it was begotten. None of its solutions will fix the problem. Using the ego will sometimes change the form of the problem, but no healing has transpired, so the problem will reoccur, and I will be left with more fear than ever.

The ego is against me always because it cannot afford to be for me.

The ego is made from fear, and I am created in Love. There is no common ground between the two. Fear cannot act in love, and love has no use for fear. I have no use for the ego as my Self, as Love. Love is whole, complete, and safe. What use would I have for ego if I remembered who I was? My very being is a threat to my ego’s existence. For its own preservation, it must always strive to keep me from knowing my Self. This is our purpose now: to accept what we are, Spirit.

I do this in two ways.

First, I learned to recognize ego thinking so that I could forgive it. I looked at it with the Holy Spirit and let Him correct it.

Second, I remind myself that I am Spirit. I am always Spirit, even when I forget and slip into ego thinking. Spirit is eternal and never ceases to be what it is, so I never cease to be what I am. In a moment of confusion, I may not be aware I am Spirit. But that does not in any way change the fact that I remain as I was created. I remain Spirit.

The last sentence is the one that grabs my attention the most. Jesus is telling us that we would reject the ego if we knew who we were. Then he says, “And if it recognized any part of the Sonship, it would know itself.” The mind that made the ego will know itself as soon as it recognizes any part of the Sonship. So, our goal is to recognize some part of the Sonship for what it is. It does not matter where that happens. We can see Christ in my mirror or in a precious child, or in the homeless person on the street. Our true Self can be known through knowing any part of it.

This reminds me of Jesus’ teaching that giving is the same as receiving.

For instance, if I give you money as an expression of love and know that money is just a thought made manifest and so cannot be limited, I can give truly. In fact, as I give without thought of loss and with a loving heart, I receive that lesson, which is strengthened in me. As I give, I receive. This is the truth in every circumstance. If I give love, I receive love, and love takes many forms. It might be my time, my understanding, or just my willingness to hear your story.

It works the other way, too. If I give through projecting my fear onto you, I receive that as well because I have reinforced the belief in fear in my own mind. Jesus says that giving is how we keep something. This is a hard lesson for us to learn because we set up this world just so that we can give away what we don’t want and convince ourselves that we no longer have it. Separation makes it easy to believe I lose something when I give it away.

But we must learn to undo what we did, and these lessons are helping us to do that. One may or may not believe that giving is gaining when first considered. However, I remember what Jesus told us in the introduction to the Workbook. He said we don’t have to believe the lessons. We only have to do them. I have discovered this applies to everything in the Course.

Having done so, I can testify that this works as he promised.

I do understand that giving is how I keep something. I know this is true because I have proven it to myself. So, I want my brother to be happy. I want him to be peaceful and joyful, and I want this to be my gift to him. All I need to do to make this happen is not wanting anything else for him. And to make no exceptions. This is what I want for every brother.

I have found this book to be really helpful. A Course in Miracles – The Direct Path.