Walk a Flower – Strewn Pathway

“You cannot take fear into Love.  You cannot take judgment into forgiveness.  You cannot take limitation into unlimitedness.  These things must be released at the level in which they were first created.”  (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 12, Page 146)

Jesus’ channeled writings (the principal of which are A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, and The Way of Mastery) could not have been written in the manner given prior to Sigmund Freud.  Freud developed the idea of a subconscious mind that the mind of conscious awareness knew not of.  The fear, the judgment, and the limitation are lodged in this subconscious.  In the quotation for today, Jesus says that these things “must be released at the level in which they were first created.”   And this means the subconscious.

We didn’t set out to be fearful, to be judgmental, to be limited in our personalities.  These things developed over time in a world that impinged upon us.  We inherited much of this, but it is a dead-end street to blame our parents.  They too were hoodwinked.  People have simply not known any better because of the construct called the ego.  This is the false persona that rose up when we decided that we wanted a make a world different from what God had created.  We would try to do better than he.  And in this ridiculous notion, we retreated into fear when we “separated” from Him.  He let us go, knowing that with his gift of free will, He did not want to coerce us.

We cleanse the mind of fear, judgment, limitation by spending time communing with God in prayer, meditation, quiet times that nourish our soul.  We learn again that we are not sufficient unto ourselves, that we need each other.  We join others in relationships that promote the unity that we have to realize we need with God.  We take a step back from the ego.  We begin again.

We need to remove the blocks to the awareness of love.  This may take time, but it does not, should not, be a struggle.

When we seek, we do find.  And in the finding are all things made right again.  One with God and with each other, we walk a flower-strewn path—even in this world.

A Choice Bringing Peace and Joy

“You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will increase as you turn more and more often to me instead of to your ego for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that your choice in turning to me is the only sane one you can make. No one who has learned from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much conditioning.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.VIII.10:1-3)

In the beginning chapters of A Course in Miracles, where we are now, Jesus counsels turning to him; he has not yet focused on turning to the Holy Spirit in ACIM, and it is not until much later, in A Course of Love, that he will counsel that the time of the Holy Spirit is past, and that in this time of Christ, we ought to turn to our inner Christ-Self, the mind that is one with God, found deep within us.

If we turn to Jesus, we will turn away from the ego, the ego as defined as a false persona (not in the Freudian sense of a persona that we need to develop to live well). And turning to Jesus will give both peace and joy, two aspects of what we want with all our heart. Turning to the ego is the choice for insanity, and insane thinking, because it is so convoluted, is the choice for chaos and disaster. We know this way well; we have lived it for eons. Now is the time for something better; now we are ready to leave all this chaos behind.
When Jesus senses that we are becoming too dependent upon him, he will withdraw, letting us make our own decisions, but decisions made without the ego in ascendancy. When we make our own decisions, we will look inward, where both the Holy Spirit and the Christ-Self dwell.

We can still have the peace and joy, for guidance from within does guide us truly. Our days of being insane, mad, are drawing to a close. We know better now; we know to let inner guidance wipe our minds clean of conflict.

Gently we come to know what to do. When we have faith that this is so, we certainly do discover that it IS so.

Our Heart Knows

“In its characteristic upside-down way, the ego has taken the impulses from the superconscious and perceived them as if they arise in the unconscious. The ego judges what is to be accepted, and the impulses from the superconscious are essentially unacceptable to it, because they clearly point to the nonexistence of the ego itself. When this occurs, the ego experiences threat, and not only censors but also reinterprets the data. However, as Freud very correctly pointed out, what you do not perceive you still know, and it can retain a very active life beyond your awareness.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.V.3:1-4)

The quotation for today alludes to the concept of the mind to which Jesus subscribes. The superconscious is “above” us, devoid of the ego, and is actually a bridge to God, the Holy Spirit, the Christ-Self. Freud, misunderstanding, called this part of the mind, the “superego.” As this quotation points out, the ego actually has nothing to do with it.

The conscious is our normal waking awareness.

The unconscious sinks below thought, but is still (unlike what Jung thought in his “collective unconscious”) unique to us. Jung thought that underneath, we all think the same, and in some sense this is akin to an awareness of our Creator, God Himself—a Source found, according to Jesus, in the superconscious.

We don’t have to fully grasp these differences in consciousness to make use of them. Helen and Bill, co-scribes of A Course in Miracles and psychologists, would have been very attuned to this portion of ACIM. Jesus would be talking right up their alley.

We do still know what is in our mind, even when we are not conscious of it, and then it causes a subtle (or not so subtle) uneasiness. It can affect our actions, something that we all know. When we are driven by schemas that draw upon childhood conditioning, we are very lost in the mind.

The solution, according to A Course of Love (what many believe to be a continuation of ACIM), is to draw upon the heart. The heart by-passes the confusion of the mind, because the heart doesn’t demand proof of what it knows.

The heart just knows.

Are We Afraid of Religion?

“However, the major purpose of his [Freud’s] incarnation was not neglected. He did succeed in forcing recognition of the unconscious into humanity’s calculations about itself, a step in the right direction which should not be minimized. Freud was one of the most religious men I have known recently. Unfortunately he was so afraid of religion that the only way he could deal with it was to regard it (not himself) as sick. This naturally prevented healing.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-2.XI.18:1-5)

More on Freud in this quotation. So Freud was “one of the most religious men I have known recently.” That is not an evaluation that would occur to us. But it is in A Course in Miracles, the complete edition. So we ought to take it seriously.

Freud was “afraid” of religion, and so he formed a particularly negative attitude toward it. We might ask when and if we do the same. Are we afraid of these assertions, so cogent and illuminating, in A Course in Miracles? Where do we fear Jesus? Do we see him as a judgmental figure?

If we open our hearts to the man Jesus, we will see that there is nothing to fear about him. He is not lying in wait to judge us. We judge ourselves, and in the last judgment, Jesus’ brothers, the Sonship, will assist. But it is final evaluation in which we retain only what is good and true, and so there is no reason to place “hellfire” in it.

If Freud was afraid of religion, having such a good mind, then we too may be, perhaps without fully realizing it. This bodes ill, and we ought to correct it.

Spirituality is our savior from miscreations of the mind. Let the heart lead to true spirituality.

Freud

“The structure of the psyche follows along the lines of the particular libido concept the theorist employs. Freud’s psyche was essentially a good and evil picture, with very heavy weight given to the evil. This is because every time I mentioned the Atonement to him, which was quite often, he responded by defending his theory more and more against it. This resulted in his increasingly strong attempts to make the illogical sound more and more logical. I was very sorry about this, because his was a singularly good mind, and it was a shame to waste it.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-2.XI.17:1-5)

Freud! Jesus, it seems, consulted with Freud, and even though Freud barricaded himself against Jesus’ advice, we see here that Jesus respected him. Freud originated the concept of the ego, without which A Course in Miracles could not have been written in its present form. Prior to Freud, we had only the “devil” to contend with, and this projection of the ego did not serve humankind well.

So Jesus “mentioned” to Atonement to Freud “quite often,” but Freud was not open to these thoughts that were occupying his mind. He resisted.

We might as where we are resisting, for we are bombarded daily with advice, good advice, that we don’t take to heart.

Open our minds and hearts to advice from the master, Jesus himself. He seems omniscient, and so he can certainly be with all of us. He comes upon a “single unequivocal call” (from ACIM).

Forsake Anger / Guilt Forgiven = Overlooked Completely

“And now is guilt forgiven, overlooked completely in His sight and in God’s Word.

“Anger but screeches, ‘Guilt is real!’ Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God’s Word.  (M-18.2 – M-18.3)”

Affirmation:  “guilt forgiven”

Reflections:

1 – Varying Definitions of the Ego

Anger is empowered by the ego when it screeches at us, “Guilt is real!”  This is a tenet of A Course in Miracles which differs from traditional Christianity.  But then the ego was not known about, in the sense that we know about it now.  Freud changed all that, though Freud’s definition of the ego is not the same as that of Jesus.  Freud thought that we all needed a strong ego to mediate between the superego and the id.  Jesus’s definition of the ego as a part of our belief about ourselves, but not a necessary thing to secure a central place in our psyche.  Jesus would have the ego wither away (though he does not use the term “wither”).

2 – The Ego Becomes Strong in Strife

We cannot let the ego wither by trying to overcome it with drastic measures.  We cannot launch a frontal assault.  The ego becomes strong in strife (a Text tenet).  That is why anger is so real when the ego is in the ascendancy.

3 – Jesus Corrects Errors that Are Beyond Us

But we have only made correctable mistakes.  And Jesus stands at the end to correct all errors that we ourselves cannot correct (an ACIM tenet).  This suggests that he is our friend, as traditional Christianity tells us.  He is always there for us, taking our hand, if we wish to so imagine.  He says that this is no “idle fantasy” (a quotation from ACIM).

4 – Mistakes / Not Sins

Because our mistakes are correctable, they are not “sins,” which would seem to be forever uncorrectable without a sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross.  And Jesus in A Course in Miracles asks us to look beyond the cross to the resurrection.  He says that we make a mistake when we “cling to the old rugged cross.”

5 – Theology May Delay Us

These ideas are definitely a step beyond the New Testament, and Christianity as taught in most of our churches.  If we are not yet ready to entertain these concepts, do cling to the practical nature of A Course in Miracles.  Theology will only delay us, and we do not need to be controversial.

6 – Guilt Recedes when Anger Recedes

See if the idea of guilt does not recede when anger recedes.  That is really all that we need to test.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would let the ego wither; I would not accentuate the ego through anger, for the ego is strong in strife.  I would feel no strike today.  And that becomes easy when I am having a good day.  Thank You for this good day today.  And may the same occur tomorrow.  We need Your help to be happy, for many of us have not always thought that happiness is a laudable goal.  But it is one of our functions, along with salvation and forgiveness, and I believe that when we reach for salvation and forgiveness, we find ourselves, unaccountably, happy.  We grow from the days spent in pain, but we do not have to learn through pain, as Jesus says in A Course in Miracles.  We can learn through rewards, which give us a lasting learning experience.

Be with me as the day closes.  And help me to remember to express gratitude to You tomorrow morning, first thing, for another day in which to enjoy this world.  We are not meant to yearn only for a hereafter.  We are meant to be happy with this world as well, and the Holy Spirit will see that we have happy dreams in this illusory world.  Healing may occur for us, emotional and/or physical, and we would do well to remember that we are making the illusion that we live in.

Amen.