Finding Ourselves
by Tom Baker
Lesson: Chap. 4, The Illusions of the Ego, IV. This Need Not Be and W. Lesson 124,
Let Me Remember I am one with God
Date: June 1, 2008
We are all looking for ourselves. When people come for counseling, in addition to the presenting problem, there is also the multi-part question, "Who am I? Who am I really? And is that person O.K?" For the answer to that question we look to our family of origin, our friends, our intimate relationships, our achievements and failures, our jobs and careers, our diseases and medical conditions, authority figures we respect (and some we don't), and finally and most often, the mirror. We squint into our reflection and ask, "Is that you? Whose face is that?" There is never a final, satisfying answer.
We keep coming back to the mirror (or in my case to my office) with the question more urgent, sometimes more complicated but still unanswered. A Course In Miracles explains why we never get a final, satisfying answer: we are seeking to save the face of the ego. In other words, the question is really about the image of ourselves we make up as we try to cope with our exile from God. The Course puts it this way: "Your mind is filled with schemes to save the face of your ego, and you do not seek the face of Christ. The glass in which the ego seeks to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick of its existence except with mirrors? But where you look to find yourself is up to you." (T. Chap. 4, IV, pp. 62-63). We are looking for our true identity in all the wrong places and using the ego as our guide. Jesus acknowledges our freedom to search for ourselves where we choose. At the same time he points us in the true direction which is to see the face of Christ in all the faces that we meet and think about, including our own.
What we often do not acknowledge is the suffering which our schemes to save the face of the ego entails. How much depression and resentment is about the ego image of ourselves not feeling good enough or loved enough, not listened to or noticed, not succeeding, not feeling good? Yet even as we try to find our way through the ego maze of our self made identities, there is often the deep down knowing that there is an authenticity to ourselves and others that we intuit but are not quite in touch with. As a teenager I remember thinking that there was a real and somewhat mysterious person behind both the pretty face and the plain face, that my own face was more a mask than a portrait of myself. As I fell in and out of love, I discovered that intimacy, both sexual and emotional, occasioned the voice for authenticity. Did I love her or did I love her body, was she fascinated with me or what I represented to her? As a priest, hearing confessions and ministering to people in extremity, I saw how vulnerable and full of doubt people are, how no one really knows themselves in any sure and final way. When I left the priesthood I was shocked at how nearly devastating it was for me to lose the role identity of priest and face the mystery of who and what Tom really was. I remember standing in front of the mirror one morning feeling suddenly calm and spacious as I asked myself, "Who are you when you are just you, without your dream of you come true?" The voice of authenticity was speaking. The Course would call that voice the voice of the Holy Spirit, calling us to our holiness, our innocence, our joy and seeing in our face and in the faces of others the face of Christ.
As Jesus goes on to explain how to think with God, two things stand out for me. First, Jesus is actively involved in our project to stop thinking with the ego and thereby supporting it. Second, we are guided not by theory but by feeling. When we feel bad (sad, mad, enraged, judgmental, exhausted, etc.) we can properly judge that we are thinking with the ego. Then we ask Jesus and ourselves how God would think about this person, situation or dilemma. As I try it, I find it amazingly easy. I think judgmental thoughts about my wife and a colleague, I acknowledge the tired, empty feeling I have just below my heart, and then I ask myself, imagining Jesus standing behind me, how God would think about it. Instantly I have a bright thought illuminated with understanding and compassion. I try this with my neighbors, my parents, even a telemarketer and every time I am left beaming. Yet I notice that it is easy to forget to engage in this process. I am accustomed to feeling bad, conditioned to it, and my judgmental thoughts carry me away very quickly. I am also used to thinking on my own. As I sit with this thought, I realize that I am really used to thinking of myself as all alone and so forced to think things out by myself. In my habitual isolation I do not feel worthwhile enough for Jesus to help me. I notice how this feels: heavy, desolate, anxious--centered in the area of my stomach. Then I ask how God would think of it. I see myself standing in a circle at A Course In Miracles meeting and I hear a bird singing outside my window. Amazing.
Jesus ends this section with a sobering yet encouraging thought: "I am your vigilance in this, because you are too confused to recognize your own hope." Like someone blindfolded and spun around in a giant game of pin the tale on the donkey we have become confused, disoriented, and hopeless as we blindly wander the world, trying so hard to find the point and purpose of it all. Jesus volunteers to be our eyes, and more important, he temporarily stands in for the right-minded belief that there is no order of difficulty in miracles, and that they are natural, because they are expressions of love, which of course, is our nature.
The lesson I link with this passage from the text is Lesson 124, Let me remember I am one with God. This lesson has us practice the reality that underlies our thinking with God, namely, our oneness with God. It is almost entirely an inspirational lesson and assigns the Course student a half-hour devoted to the thought that we are one with God. The tone of the lesson rings with a joy and confidence that the half-hour promises to bring. The motivation for giving a half-hour to such a thought is that it is a gift to God that will return "a sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body's eyes to see." (W. Lesson 124, p. 223). This suggests that our search for ourselves will conclude with an ecstatic joy beyond words and that the mirror will become radiant light. Imagine that on a Monday morning or, better yet, every morning to come.
The assignment for next week is Chapter 4, VII. Creation and Communication, pp. 69-71 in the text and Lesson 61, I am the light of the world, pp. 102-103 in the workbook. I also suggest you read 1. WHO ARE GOD'S TEACHERS? - from the Manual For Teachers, p. 3-4.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2008