I’m continuing to appreciate the peace attained through practicing advanced forgiveness as modeled in The Disappearance of the Universe. I know it’s working when I find no reaction from something that would definitely have upset me before. Forgive, realizing it never really happened, and so re-train the mind to eventually see everyone as innocent. It’s the gift that keeps giving, and as we’re all one, I’m giving it to myself.
Body symptoms have been up for me lately. The Course teaches that my body is a symptom (of separation)! When I asked for information, I had to be redirected to asking the ‘right’ question. “Do I want to let Holy Spirit be in charge of my life, including my health?” According to Arten & Pursah, and the Course; all illness, pain, and suffering begins in my mind due to the unconscious guilt from the mistaken belief it denied God. It is here that correction is to be applied, but an overview of my devious methods to create these effects was helpful. DU Chapter 10 ‘Healing the Sick’. (Forgive me ahead of time for indulging my conversations with mySelf. I won’t know if you don’t read it, only if you don’t forgive me :-)) just joshing.
I just looked up indulgence in wikipedia: ‘the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution.’ On second thought, I’d rather not receive any indulgence, thank-you very much.
My ego has been feeling threatened by the shift in perceptual reality from bodies to Spirit. By handing over my health to Holy Spirit, He will take charge of it all, including inspiration as to what ‘magic’ (medicine, exercise, etc.) would be helpful after forgiving the situation I made up to hide my guilt in. But the big one, letting God’s Love back in, so I can begin to trust in Him for everything, brought up the old unworthiness delusion. I’m often lax in this area, as was obvious in that I wasn’t even aware this was the subject I needed to ask help with! When they say the guilt behind our suffering is unconscious, they mean it!
The ego feels unworthy because it thinks it should be punished for defying God. (silly-willy). It projects this belief on to the body and the world and situations, then screams ‘abandonment!’ whenever things don’t go its way. It’s really accessing this unconscious guilt around separation from God and trying to mete out its own punishment by investing in the temporal: bodies, special relationships, validation, money, or power. These are its gods, and if I root for them, I’m in for a big disappointment! When the idols crash, as the ego knows they must, it tries to convince me I did something wrong: ‘that’s why they got angry and withheld the goods!’ It infers punishment by God. ‘You musta done something wrong; now you’re gonna get it!’ Here cometh the God of Abraham! And so starts the vicious cycle of unworthiness all over again.
I interjected at this point. ‘So how do I see this correctly!? What if I realize the ego is meaningless?’
From the silence: “Once you sided with the ego during the first split, you were bound to a script that must be played all the way out. It is possible to save time, however. But not by letting the ego analyze itself. That only reinforces your belief in its reality.”
So, like getting the cliff notes to a bad play, I could come to the instructor with a forgiving attitude and tell him “Confessions of a Madman” should have closed after the first night. The cliff notes being the ability of Holy Spirit to collapse time if I do my homework, I could get a passing grade even if I did leave right after intermission. (Bill Thetford, co-scribe of the Course with Helen Shucman, actually toyed with a musical based on the Course, “Call Me Mad” instead of Madam. Helen would come in with her operatic voice in a duet with Bill and they had them rolling in the aisles, even if it was just s friends living room).
Out of the silence, again: “How to see this correctly? No one is unworthy of God’s Love. You are that love! Put Holy Spirit in charge; keep forgiving and joining in silence until your experience reveals this is true.”
So I guess it would be curtains for the ego and it’s dark play?
The ego’s investment in images of bodies and personalities are used by Holy Spirit as vehicles for his communicating to our right mind that we are neither. And all the world’s just a stage. But we have to ask, or hand in our 3-d glasses to Him at some point during the last act, for him to correct our vision. Then they get used for his purposes and the final draft of the script gets rewritten into a comedy! The lines are the same, but the actors have changed and now we all get to laugh at our tiny, mad idea of separation–like watching a Godzilla movie, originally mis-created to terrify my tiny, mad ego.
My ego perpetuates the B-Movie with thoughts of self- (and other-) judgment to hide it’s sinister game. They go right to me, since there’s no one else out there. Self-judgment (my favorite poison of choice) results in apathy and depression; rage and vengeance from judging others. Now I can see ‘therapist’ Bob Newhart’s advice (on his comedy clip on Mad TV) to just ‘stop it!’ as more than a quick fix. “We but do this to ourselves.” The choice has always been mine.
Opening up to receiving love in the world can help support ‘true worthiness’ at the level of effect, but joining with God in silence, and inviting His Love into my mind by loving Him as best I can, goes to cause. There, I can see that I must give the Love I want to remember I have it, and so begin to receive healing for those damned unconscious blocks to It’s awareness. All little needs are contained in this one. I am so grateful to Arten & Pursah in The Disappearance of the Universe for demonstrating how to ‘pray’ in silence by joining with God and forgetting the things we think we need by getting ‘lost’ in His Love (our one need, and our inheritance to be rediscovered). [DUp351]
A lot of mental wandering, I know, for something that Mother Theresa practiced without a second thought! Babies get it too, but for whatever reason, I need to be led by the hand in this area, a bit like a toddler! As I visualize taking J’s (or the Holy Spirit’s) hand, I am reminded to offer love at every opportunity, no matter how weakly at first, to make practice become habit. Thanks for helping me remember to ask for help. I have it on good authority it’ll come right back to you!
So, as the curtain falls, I most humbly take my leave (cancel actual Hamlet ending).
Actually, at my wits end, I offer my love to you. May it continue to strengthen as I ask His Wits to rule this unruly mind.
Yours, in true worthiness,