VI. The Rewards of God, Paragraph 3
3 You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you turn more and more often to me instead of to your ego for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that this choice is the only sane one you can make. No one who learns from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs additional convincing. Learning through rewards is more effective than learning through pain, because pain is an ego illusion, and can never induce more than a temporary effect. The rewards of God, however, are immediately recognized as eternal. Since this recognition is made by you and not the ego, the recognition itself establishes that you and your ego cannot be identical. You may believe that you have already accepted this difference, but you are by no means convinced as yet. The fact that you believe you must escape from the ego shows this; but you cannot escape from the ego by humbling it or controlling it or punishing it.
Journal
Who am I? I have words to answer that. I am God’s holy Son, His only creation. I have concepts I learned from A Course in Miracles, ideas that I can relate to, but that does not mean I really know who I am. The more I learn, the more I realize that the truth is beyond my understanding while my mind is split. What I can do is form the habit of turning to the Holy Spirit for answers, rather than to the ego mind. In this way I will systematically undo the ego in my mind and what I am will be revealed to me.
For the most part I do this now. I place my awareness on the Holy Spirit often during the day and sometimes I remember doing it even in my sleep. When I am afraid, guilty, unhappy, or in pain, I know I have given my attention to the ego. I don’t fight the ego anymore, nor try to control it; I just ask the Holy Spirit how He wants me to see this.
For instance, sometimes I will think about my son being in pain from his back injury and fear for him will flood my mind. I don’t try to stop thinking about it. I don’t try to beat the thought back with positive affirmations. I don’t try to control those thoughts at all. I just look, without guilt, at my fear thoughts and ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.
There are still moments when I get confused and live for a bit in the ego mind, but even then I remember to ask for help, and I continue to do so until I have looked away from ego and looked to Spirit. Those moments show me where I still hold onto an ego belief such as guilt or fear. When I get caught up in one, like fear for my child’s safety, it can be like watching a train wreck. It’s awful and I know I should look away, but the mind is just mesmerized. But as Jesus says here, choosing the Holy Spirit often makes it easier to choose His guidance again.
Guilt can still hook me, but that one is easier now for me to release. Once in awhile I will remember something I did in the past and feel my gut clench in regret, but I truly understand that guilt is never helpful, that it only mires me more deeply into the ego, and so I ask for help when that happens. I am beginning to accept that guilt itself is not real. It is just another idea that is part of the separation thought. If it is not real, I can’t be guilty no matter what I seemed to do. I am grateful to myself for allowing this mind healing, and I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit’s guidance.