ARCIM

Daily Lesson 331 ~
November 27

What Is the Ego?

Lesson 331: In truth there is only Harmony, for the Divine’s Will is mine.

What Is the Ego? (Lessons 331-340)

The ego is a delusional frame of mind, a belief in something that has no being, the sign of a limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. It is a false wish that would replace the true will, and that looks upon the Will of the Divine as enemy, and takes a form in which It is denied. The ego is the “proof” that Strength is weak and Love is fearful, Life is really death, and what opposes the Divine alone is real.

The ego is the projection of the mind that has split and thus temporarily become insane, and so the ego is also insane. In fear it stands beyond the Everywhere, apart from All, in separation from the Infinite. In its insanity it thinks it has become a victor over the Divine Itself, and in its terrible autonomy it believes the Will of the Divine has been destroyed. It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams: its enemies who seek to destroy it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them.

The Children of the Divine eternally are, without ego. What can they know of madness and the death of the Divine, when they abide in their Creator? What can they know of sorrow and of suffering, when they live in eternal Joy? What can they know of flaw and separation and guilt, of fear and punishment, of hatred and attack, when all there is surrounding them is everlasting Peace, forever conflict-free and undisturbed, in deepest Silence and Tranquility?

To know Reality is not to identify with the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its “salvation,” and the cost belief in it entails. The price for faith in it is so immense that, in the tragedy of the ego’s nightmare, the suffering of the Children of the Divine is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and “blood” must flow upon the sacrificial stone where its sickly followers prepare for death.

Yet will one flower of forgiveness change the darkness into Light, the nightmare into happy dreams, and the shrine to illusions to the Altar of Life Itself. And Peace will be restored forever to the holy minds that the Divine created as Its Children, Its Dwelling Place, Its Joy, Its Love, completely Its, completely One with It.

 

What is the ego?

Lesson 331
In truth there is only Harmony, for the Divine’s Will is mine.

 

How senseless, Creator, that Your Children could believe they could cause their holy Self to suffer! Could they make a plan for their damnation, and be left without a certain Way to their Release?

You love us, Creator. You could never leave us desolate, to perish within a dream of pain and cruelty. How but in utmost delusion and confusion could I think that Love has left Itself?

The Will of Love is the only will there is. Fear is a dream of darkness, and has no power that can conflict with Your Will for us. Conflict is sleep, and Peace awakening. Death is illusion, and Life is eternal Truth. There is no opposition to Your Will. In truth there is only Harmony, for Your Will is ours.

 

Forgiveness shows us that the Divine’s Will is One, and that we share It. Let us behold the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the Peace of the Divine. Amen.

 

Corresponding Manual for Teachers Section

 

Chapter 3: How Is Healing Accomplished?

 

1. The Perceived Purpose of Sickness

True healing – the healing of the mind that has become enmeshed in illusions rather than merely alleviating the symptoms of sickness in the body – involves an understanding of what the appearance of sickness in the body is for. Why does the mind, which has power to allow the body to be free of all pain, suffering, sickness, and infirmity, choose for it to experience weakness and to seem to be at the mercy of forces of deterioration and even death? True healing is impossible to achieve without understanding and answering this question, because true healing is of the mind and not the body.

Because sickness is a decision of the mind projected onto the body, healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer decides that sickness in truth offers nothing they would value. Who would unconsciously choose or consent to the traumatic experience of suffering unless they believed on some level that it brought them something of real value? They must have decided beyond conscious awareness that suffering was a smaller price to pay for something of greater worth. For sickness is the choice of weakness in the mistaken conviction that it is actually strength, because it proves the strength of the mind to project its thoughts of suffering onto the body. When this occurs, real Strength – the Strength of the Divine Which always results in perfect health – is perceived as threat to the ego’s autonomy, and health is perceived as weakness of the individual’s “will” to express itself as it wishes through the body.

Thus for true health to be achieved it must be understood that sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for demonstrating that one’s wishes have power over the Divine’s Will, even if this demonstration must come at the cost of one’s well-being. It is thus a specific example of attempting to place oneself in the Divine’s Role of Creator. In this insane hallucination of the separated ones, the Divine is perceived as outside themselves, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Itself. Only by overcoming the Creator’s Will can one’s individual sovereignty be established. Such is the nightmarish belief of the deluded ones.

And what, in this nightmare, does healing stand for? It symbolizes the defeat of the one who chose sickness and the triumph of their Creator over them, for sickness was their strategy for maintaining separation, and healing proves that the Divine’s Will for Union has prevailed. To those who have chosen sickness as a form of safety from the “threat” that connecting with others means to them, healing unconsciously represents this threat multiplied, for it demonstrates that their defenses haven’t worked. Healing thus stands for all that they would hide themselves from to protect their “life” within their fearful dream. If they are healed, and thus not able to maintain their illusion of separation from their sisters and brothers and their Creator, then they must be responsible for their thoughts, including the thoughts that brought about the illusion of sickness. And if they are responsible for their thoughts, they believe that their existence will be terminated by their Creator because their thoughts are unworthy of being in Its Presence.

These unconscious beliefs are obviously insane, but no more insane than the belief that a Child of the Divine can be sick. Is it not time to heal the erroneous beliefs causing the appearances of sickness in any form, so that these appearances can be corrected meaningfully at their source?