Yesterday as I rode along my mail route, I listened to The Course of Miracles coming from my Kindle…I have it strapped to the headrest so I can hear it without headphones.
A jotted down a few things that seared my mind…and then this morning wanted to go back and find the text, but I haven’t been able to find all sections that caught my ear.
Here is one I found.
“When you feel guilty, remember that the ego has violated the laws of God, but you have not. Leave the “sins” of the ego to me. That is what Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those whom your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. While you feel guilty your ego is in command, because only the ego can experience guilt.”
I stopped and wrote that down. “Only the ego can feel guilty” this was an incredible thing to hear for its implications are mountainous. No one ever has said, “sins of the ego” instead they act like our spirit has sinned and in order to get a clean spirit to heaven you have to get it forgiven. Imagine if you raised a child to understand there is an ego and there is spirit?
Imagine learning that there are two ways to view the world, by ego or by spirit…and to know this as a child.
If only the ego feels guilt, what is religion for? So when we were made to feel sinful and unworthy who were they talking to??? It has to be the ego, for if the only the ego can experience guilt, they surely were not talking to our spirits.
I also wrote down, The ego can’t Know, that Knowing is of the Spirit. The ego can’t know, it perceives and the spirit can’t perceive, it Knows.
Here is something else I hadn’t considered.
“The ego and the spirit do not know each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating. Having done this, it denies all truly natural impulses, not because the ego is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that you are. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only your decision to use the device that enables and endures ”
This makes perfect sense to me, for when I was a fully engaged ego whom I lovingly call “the mental woman” I had zero contact with my Spirit…I love that they don’t know each other.
And imagine…the ego is a device use for separation?
To me it kept me separated from God and Spirit.
Then, came a section on Judgment…
“Have you really considered how many opportunities you have had to gladden yourself, and how many of them you refused? There is no limit to the power of a Son of God, but he can limit the expression of his power as much as he chooses. Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, releasing the strength of God into everything you think and do. Do not settle for anything less than this, and refuse to accept anything but this as your goal. Watch your mind carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one right use of Judgment. Judgment, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect; to hurt or heat. The ego should be brought to judgment and found wanting there. Without your own allegiance, protection and love, the ego cannot exist. Let it be judged truly and you must withdraw allegiance, protection and love from it.”
It seems that the church taught us to judge another, but not to judge the ego. I love that we are to judge how we are doing by how we are feeling.
Mostly what I listened to yesterday were the differences between the ego and the soul…and it made sense to me.
“Any thought system that confuses God and the body must be insane. Yet this confusion is essential to the ego, which judges only in terms of threat or non-threat to itself. In one sense the ego’s fear of God is at least logical, since the idea of Him does dispel the ego. But fear of the body, with which the ego identifies so closely, makes no sense at all. The body is the ego’s home by its own election. It is the only identification with which the ego feels safe, since the body’s vulnerability is its own best argument that you cannot be of God.”
Imagine, the ego only judges what is a threat or non-threat to itself. It could care less of how this impacts your life or your souls journey.
It was so beneficial to my peace of mind to listen to the antics of the ego and its needs and how they contrast directly the spirit, and it made perfect sense to me in my experience.
And when you read this book, depending upon who has a greater control in your world, the spirit or the ego, it will land differently as you read it
I am not here to try and convince anyone, I am here to share what I heard. It brought me peace…and it helped me understand the confusion I have with religion, for it seems to me that religion courts the ego with guilt and judgment.
I M Perfect lady 