for those who are doing the Workbook lessons, this special discussion is to be read each day for the next ten lessons:
12. What Is The Ego?
(1) The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. It is the "will" that sees the Will of God 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 God alone is true.
(2) The ego is 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 God Himself. And in its terrible autonomy it "sees" the Will of God has been destroyed. It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies, who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them.
(3) The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him? What can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy? What can he know of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack, when all there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?
(4) To know reality is not to see 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. In suffering, the price for faith in it is so immense that crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.
(5) Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him.
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This is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries from his book set called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be purchased at the following site: ~ M. Street.
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12. What is the ego?
(1:1) "The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death."
Yet this self is what we continually choose to idolize. An idol is meant to substitute for the true God, with images that take the form of our Creator, Who is abstract and formless. We then worship the idols, taking their <form> as truth, all the while we lose truth's <content> of love. Likewise, we worship the ego in the form of the body, substituting its self for the Self of Christ. The body thus becomes reality for us, the "hero" of the ego's dream, as Jesus tells us in the text:
"The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There is no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream in which it acts as if it were a person to be seen and be believed. It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by other bodies, born into the world outside the body, lives a little while and dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies dying like itself." (T-27.VIII.1.1-3).
In our insanity we actually believe that this moribund body, Hamlet's "mortal coil," is our identity.
(1:2) "It is the "will" that sees the Will of God as enemy, and takes a form in which it is denied."
The ego's unholy trinity of sin, guilt, and fear leaves us terrified of God, Who has become our mortal enemy -- at war with us because we are secretly at war with Him. Clearly, this has nothing to do with the true God, but with the vengeful deity of the ego's dream. This passage from the manual for teachers dramatically describes the ego's thought system of magic, vengeance, and murder:
"A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God, also believes it can succeed. That this can hardly be a fact is obvious. Yet that it can be believed as fact is equally obvious. And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. Who usurps the place of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly "enemy." And he must stand alone in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated, and vengeance that can never be satisfied." (M-17.7.5.3-9)
(1:3) "The ego is the "proof" that strength is weak and love is fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true."
The strength of Christ is weakness to the ego, because it is the power of perfect Oneness. The ego's strength -- truly weakness -- is the seeming power of separation, to which the world attests. We believe we are strong, because if we are here -- and we certainly believe we are -- it was due to our defeat of God. We then defeat everyone else through the indulgence of our specialness -- our twisted idea of strength. Yet we are asked to consider if this is really the strength we want, as in Helen's poem "Alternatives":
"A fantasy of pain, a dream of death,
A cry of agony, a shallow breath,
Such is the world you see. Is this your choice
To be the substitution for God's Voice?" (The Gifts of God, p.11)
In lines already familiar to us, Jesus asks us directly at the end of the text if is our wish to succumb to the ego's temptation to identify with the weak, powerless, and attacking body:
"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you be this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this: Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there. For He has come, and He is asking this.
How do you make the choice? How easily is this explained! You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you
choose is what you think is real." (T-31.VIII.1:1--2:4).
(2:1-4) "The ego is 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 God Himself. And in its terrible autonomy it "sees" the Will of God has been destroyed."
"Sees" is in quotes because the Will of God has not been destroyed. Yet underlying our belief that we exist as individuals is the thought we have indeed destroyed Him -- the bedrock of the ego's insane thought system:
"All that the ego is, is an idea that it is possible that things could happen to the Son of God without his will; and thus without the Will of his Creator, Whose Will cannot be separate from his own. This is the Son of God's replacement for his will, a mad revolt against what must forever be. This is the statement that he has the power to make God powerless and so to take it for himself, and leave himself without what God has willed for him. This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your altars, and which you worship." (T-21.II.6.4-7).
(2:5) "It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies, who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them."
This is the world's prevailing thought system and basis for its behavior: dog eat dog, kill or kill be killed, <one or the other> -- the shadowy projection of the original thought that we exist by having destroyed God. Our guilt screams that He will seek to get back His life by destroying us in return. Recall the text's succinct and telling passage of the two dreams we consciously think to be reality -- victim and victimizer respectively:
"A brother separated from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow; of this you dream. Yet underneath this dream is yet another, in which you become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of your brother and the world alike." (T-27.VII.12.1-2)
The truth however, lies safely beyond these dreams, for "God thinks otherwise" (T-23.1.2:7):
(3) "The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him? What can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy? What can he know of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack, when all there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?"
In other words, when we are in our right minds, outside of the dream and remembering our Identity as Christ, we no longer know of the madness or the death of God. Having returned to sanity, we realize this madness was a dream that has now disappeared. The above tells us once again that God cannot know of anything in this world, for how can He know of sin, guilt, fear, or separation, none of which has happened. The clarification of terms provides this contrast of the ego and the miracle, and Jesus once again asks us to choose between insanity and sanity, illusion and truth:
"This was the ego-all the cruel hate, the need for vengeance and the cries of pain, the fear of dying and the urge to kill, the brotherless illusion and the self that seemed alone in all the universe. This terrible mistake about yourself the miracle corrects as gently as a loving mother sings her child to rest. Is not a song like this what you would hear? Would it not answer all you thought to ask, and even make the question meaningless?" (C-2.8)
The next paragraph begins with the same thought.
(4:1) "To know reality is not to see 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."
When you are in the presence of reality you do not see the ego, its thoughts, or anything else, which is the point of Jesus telling us that when we awaken from the dream we will no longer remember it, because there is nothing there to remember (T-19.IV.D.6). That is why, from the non-dualistic perspective of A Course in Miracles, spirit can have nothing to do with the dream, for it does not know of the ego or its world (e.g.,T-4.II.8:6). Reality -- and the Son of God as part of reality -- is literally egoless and apart from the ego's insanity. How, then, can the ego be seen, let alone reacted to, when it is literally not there?
"What is the ego? But a dream of what you really are. A thought you are apart from your Creator and a wish to be what He created not. It is a thing of madness, not reality at all. A name for namelessness is all it is. A symbol of impossibility; a choice for options that do not exist.... What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. Yet could God's Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form? (C-2.1:4-9;2:1-4)
(4:2) "In suffering, the price for faith in it is so immense that crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die."
The term <altar> in A Course in Miracles is used as a symbol for the decision maker, as we learned previously. It is the part of our minds that can choose to identify with the ego or the Holy Spirit. The above passage describes our choice to worship at the ego's shrine -- its thought system of sin, guilt, and fear; of suffering, murder, and death -- while the following passage from the text fleshes out for us the ego's altar as manifest in our special relationships:
"Suffering and sacrifice are the gifts with which the ego would "bless" all unions. And those who are united at its altar accept suffering and sacrifice as the price of union. In their angry alliances, born of the fear of loneliness and yet dedicated to the continuance of loneliness, each seeks relief from guilt by increasing it in the other. For each believes that this decreases guilt in him. The other seems always to be attacking and wounding him, perhaps in little ways, perhaps "unconsciously", yet never without demand of sacrifice. The fury of those joined at the ego's altar far exceeds your awareness of it. For what the ego really wants you do not realize." (T-15.VII.9).
Blood flows freely at this shrine of specialness, for it represents the crucifixion of God's Son. Thus when Jesus appeared in the world, people made him part of their dream of crucifixion, idolizing their crucified savior. Yet the invulnerable truth of God's innocent Son -- reflected in the form of Jesus -- rested within the Son's right mind, awaiting his return to sanity.
(5:1) "Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself."
Our decision maker now realizes its mistake, changes its mind and turns to the Holy Spirit's light. The bloodied altar is cleansed of hate and forgiveness, which sees no sin as love has replaced fear, peace war, and joy pain. The light of truth has come to shine away the darkness of illusion:
"Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no one has entered it alone. Nor need he stay more than an instant. For he has come with Heaven's Help within him, ready to lead him out of darkness into light at any time. The time he chooses can be any time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice. And when he chooses to avail himself of what is given him, then will he see each situation that he thought before was means to justify his anger turned to an event which justifies his love. He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are really calls to peace. He will perceive that where he gave attack is but another altar where he can, with equal ease and far more happiness, bestow forgiveness. And he will reinterpret all temptation as just another chance to bring him joy." (T-25.III.6.)
(5:2) "And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one
with Him."
We have returned to our right minds, realizing there is no place we would rather be, the prerequisite for being in the real world in which the wrong mind disappears, as does the world of separation and sin. All that remains is the memory of Who we are as God's one and unified Son, as holy as his Creator, Holiness Itself:
"How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so. And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all. God is not seen but only understood. His Son is not attacked but recognized." (C-3:8)
