The Second Coming is merely the return of sense.
(A Course in Miracles)
I think of some of my friends who are married to some very attractive women, and who have young children as well as college-age kids from previous marriages. There is a certain weariness in their eyes. They certainly would still have the testosterones and to do it all over again; they still have the looks and the money to seduce even younger and more attractive lovers, but they don't do it again because by now they know the pain of separation. The ugliness of divorces, broken childhoods and shattered dreams. No, this time they do the super-human thing, they choose love over the interest of the self, and make it work despite themselves.
Do you realize that the ego must set you on a journey which cannot but lead to a sense of futility and depression?
(A Course in Miracles)
Some write e-g-o this way to alert you to the fact that there is an inner psychological force that "edges-GOD-out". Shadow work is the ongoing discovery what this dark force is all about. You see the attractiveness of the idols that have lulled you into temporary happiness before, but you start to awaken to the broken China on the floor. While the desire for having a little fun on the side is as intense as before, you realize that going down that path is meaningless because you now know how the movie ends. You don't need bible thumping threats, and you don't need daily AA meetings. You make this choice as a free man, just as the middle-aged manager who finally keeps his hands out of the cookie-jar, encouraged and motivated by the Angels surrounding him.
Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wants. This can be corrected only by accepting a unified goal.
(A Course in Miracles)
I have seen friends who couldn't handle the pressure of the situation they were in and broke down under they weight they thought they carried, attacked but the force that we call "e-g-o". Panic attacks, hallucinations; the fear suddenly became simply too much to handle. Anyone who has ever experienced a breakdown like that would do anything to never go back to this moment. It is almost like the dark-side mirror image of the "I AM THAT I AM' moment. The point when you realize what happens when you let that psychological force that edges-GOD-out run to far. Actually, painful as this temporary insanity is, it might just bring about the change in orientation that starts a life-long quest for the SELF.
Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always reflects a wish to be a self that you are not.
(A Course in Miracles)
We all have our different shadow experiences. I missed a few steps along the WAY in prior years when I exchanged fantasies with others in on-line communities. It is amazing, you literally see how your idol drills itself into the pleasure center of the brain. And while it is hard to wean yourself off this pleasure ride, you in fact learn so much about your psyche that way. The adjustment is complete when you see the idols for exactly what they stand for, and when you consciously say "no" to them. Not because the craving for them has lessened much, but because we realize that this "I" is not what we are all about.
Fantasy is a distorted form of vision. Fantasy is an attempt to control reality according to false needs. Fantasy becomes totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent.
(A Course in Miracles)
In the novel Lolita, a middle-aged intellectual who married a single mother only to seduce her teen-age daughter. He got the sex he was after but he ended up insane. The other wake-up call got delivered by 17th Century Marquis de Sade who ended up obese, impotent and blind after devoting his life to writing about, and experimenting with bdsm. The stories got darker and more violent with every year that went by until they ended in murder. That is what the "e-g-o" does when you let it run, a demolition course into nowhere. These psychological wake-up calls will become ever more relevant in today's age. In a few years everyone will be able to live out their most perverse fantasies with the help of artificial reality. The orgasmic highs of these twisted experiences will become ever more potent, and while we know that these pleasure rides are fake, they will leave a psychological stain behind. Many who go down this path will have an unpleasant encounter with the "e-g-o". Panful as these experiences are, the silver-lining is that nothing can ever completely crowd GOD out. Amazingly, it is during these break-downs when the SELF suddenly answers, and the journey HOME starts in earnest.
Be never fearful of temptation, but see it as another chance to choose again.
(A Course in Miracles)
The journey HOME is the art of bringing the emotions along on a journey that the intellect of the spiritual traveler has decided on. God, in Neale Walsch's "Conversations with God", says that when you want to head south it makes little sense to move up north instead. So what if you suddenly find yourself on the highway up north, taken again for a ride by your passions, and you ask yourself, "Why I am doing this? I want to go south instead." You know what, these little back and forth are what it takes to get suppressed drives out of the system. Shadow work is the practice to get your arms around to what is truly happening beneath the hood. Life can be perceived as the route planner that catapults you HOME on the fastest route possible.
That is why you must choose to hear one of two voices within you. One you made yourself, but the other is given by GOD.
(A Course in Miracles)
We can change directions every day just as we choose. Today is a great day to see the e-g-o for what it is, a voice that temporarily crowds GOD out. But when you spend every day perceiving GOD this distracting voice will soon become too annoying to bother with. So what if we missed a beat along the WAY, today is a great time to dance with HER.
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