False Persona

“I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them together. I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind. (T-4.I.13)”

Affirmation: “I would seek to heal the mind today.”

Reflections:

1 – Undo the Ego

A Course in Miracles seeks to undo the ego, undo that part of ourselves that is a false persona. The body is normally a big part of the ego’s system of thought, for the body is the ego’s home. We need to recognize early on that Jesus can take over both ego and body, and in so doing, we will save ourselves much conflict. We will not be concerned anymore with that which is actually unimportant.

2 – The Body

It is important to note that the body is deemphasized in A Course in Miracles more so than in A Course of Love. By the time we have read, several times usually, A Course of Love, we have relinquished the ego. But we have seen from our reading that in the awakened state of mind, our physical bodies are still with us. We occupy the “elevated Self of form,” but we do not emphasize the body anymore as an ego device. We simply use the body, as it was intended, as a communication device (from ACIM). When we have relinquished the ego, we naturally do not place undue, egotistical pleasures on the body. The body cannot sustain such thoughts. We will always be dissatisfied after a moment of supposed glory in our own beauty or handsomeness. We will like our clothes, and then we will be dissatisfied. Living in the ego is a matter of living in conflict.

3 – Devoted Teachers

We are being encouraged to become devoted teachers, and there is a whole book, the Manual for Teachers of ACIM, that is designed to give us guidance. Only time separates student and teacher, and often the roles are reversed. All of us teach all the time, and we are teaching what we are (from the Manual). We are trying to teach salvation, mostly by example, but also by words. We will not be effective either as students or teachers if we cling to the ego and the body as its home.

4 – Holy Spirit

We need to get beyond ego and body. A Course in Miracles, when studied, will tell us how. Whether or not we take its advice to heart is a matter of motivation only. We will learn what we consider important. And The Holy Spirit, as described in ACIM, will guide us along the way. We will not be left to our own devices.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would move beyond the ego today and every day. There is no need for a false persona, and with Your help, my Self will assert and all will be well with me. I pray for this new direction today.

May I replace the ego with the Self. May I leave the personal or “little” self behind. I would choose enlightenment if it were up to me to decide. But You make that decision. Guide me to follow the pathway to Your choice for me of Awakening.

Amen.