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Hi
Happy New Year!
A New Look At A Course In Miracles
The counseling course I am taking right now is founded on the principles of A Course in Miracles. I have not always been particularly attracted to this book as the language is dense but as I work more with my own ego, I realize the profound truths of this book.
It is helpful to recognize that our ego is our shadow self - our egos - simply put - are our mistrust in the divine "rightness" of life. Our shadows work against us constantly. To the degree you allow your ego voices to run your life is the degree that you are working against yourself.
This year on New Years Day I am going to subscribe to the 365 Lessons in A Course in Miracles. You can also do so here. What this offers is an opportunity to change your "endarkened" protective, ego perceptions into seeing this life as the divine playground that it is.
It takes effort to change our perceptions...to see the divine in everything. This requires a higher will and a willingness to stop indulging in unnecessary darkness.
Darkness will arise to be cleansed, felt and healed...this is our journey as humans...but on the path to the light there are certain negative habits of mind that can be quickly and accurately seen and dispensed of.
It is interesting...I have been noticing something these days. I notice that as I stand up to my own ego victimization/negative/anger/guilt patterns in myself, I no longer believe in them or indulge in them in others.
I no longer see these patterns as real or as contributing in any way to life. I see a better way. As A Course in Miracles would call it, much of our negative ego indulgence is "voluntary dispiriting."
The Yes and No of the Mind
I have long been enamored by this collage above. I created it several
years
ago but I return to it again and again because there is a such a human
dilemma that lives within it.
The no arises from self-protection,
separation and ego. Negativity can feel like a stronghold...negative
habits of mind can take me over in an instant....it is the quickest
neuro-pathway to go the negative ego route...this is our heavily
conditioned...repetitive mind. In counseling class we call it the
"super highway."
It is the joy that comes over me that I often find difficult to sustain. When I feel too
good I watch myself trying to tamp down the energy...if the joy goes on
too long...I find myself turning to familiar negative feelings and thoughts.
My
spiritual practice these days seems to be about invoking joy and seeing
how long I can sustain it before the next layer comes up to be healed.
Creating Our Own Heaven or Hell
"We are making hour by hour, our own heaven or our own hell." -Ralph Waldo Trine
Did
you know that the word heaven means harmony? The word hell comes from
old English and it means to build a wall around, to separate, to be
helled means to shut off from. To be in right relation with anything is
to be in harmony with it...to say yes.
This does not mean we have
no boundaries and indulge abusive or disrespectful behavior. We can say
a loving, authentic no to people's egos if they are destructive or
unkind. There is a kind of yes and no that says, "I am saying yes to
what is higher in you but no...I will not engage in your ego
manipulations." This is true love, this is a discerning yes.
These
days it is the yes and the doors that open to yes that feels like the
most mysterious and wondrous path to me. No longer do I want to be
bound by darkness. Healing the shadows fiercely and quickly seems the
order of the day...moving through the no's...and saying yes to more and
more of life....for the New Year.
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