The Ego Slowly Dies

“Once you are what you have learned, there is no room in which the ego can exist and,, banished from the home you made for it, it slowly dies.  Until this happens, the ego takes pride in what the mind has acquired, even unto the greater peace and contentment offered by your learning.  (A Course of Love, 2.19)”

Affirmation:  “I would see the ego die a little each day, including today.”

Reflections:

1 – A Wily Ego

I have often used the term “wither” in regard to the dying of the ego.  But Jesus hear speaks firmly, saying that the ego “slowly dies.”  The ego, as we all know, is wily.  And we even take unto ourselves the credit for our increasing peace and contentment while we learn; this is the ego speaking, for we ourselves, in the egoic state, are doing nothing to increase our peace and contentment.

2 – Christ-Consciousness

Jesus would have us identify with what we have learned, and I think that this is a secret to why many of us are heading now into the era of Christ, leaving behind the era of the Holy Spirit.  We are identifying with the higher Self, the Christ, in us, and when we do so, we recognize that looking inward and not perceiving that an external help, in the form of the Holy Spirit, is meant to make our decisions.

3 – Identify with the Christ/Self Within

But let us not move too carelessly, but move carefully.  The ego will still speak to us as long as it is alive in us, in even the smallest degree.  And we will be misled.  Let us commune with God, as A Course in Miracles asks us to do, and only when we know, internally, that a given course of action is right should we take the first steps in that direction.  This will then be the clue that we have identified with our learning, and that we are listening to the Christ within.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have made many promises to myself and God about the ego, but still the ego has hung on.  I do know that greater degree of peace and contentment in which the ego can take comfort.  But this is thinking that goes awry.

Today I choose instead of the ego a sweeter living, a calmer me, a more tranquil identity.  This inwardly focused identity is the Self that I really, and this Self conjoins the human and the divine.  Until I can live it, let me experience this blessing in snatches in my heart.  I would be through with the intellect trying to think its way into heaven.

Amen.