The Only Rational Choice

Choice is the obvious escape from the experience of opposites and opposition. Since I cannot hold two mutually exclusive thought systems simultaneously – either ego or spirit – choosing one resolves the conflict and lets the other go. I can’t expect to find peace, joy and love by believing in sin, guilt and fear. If I accept two mutually exclusive thought systems, which I do, then peace is impossible. If I identify with both and teach both, which I do as long as I believe in both, I am teaching conflict and learning it. Yet peace is what I want. Since, the ego thought system seems to be my, and your, default, being mindful and choosing becomes an ongoing, minute-to-minute necessity, a constant process.

Time, like everything else in the ego’s world of form, can be considered neutral. I can be mindful, give it over to spirit, and use it to choose spirit. Time and effort are useless unless I encourage my decision maker to use them in the continuous process of choosing spirit. When consciously engaged in this process, I see the world and my experience in it as a classroom, with spirit, not ego, as my teacher, teaching me that there is another way to experience things; reflecting another way of looking within my mind.

Experiencing the world as neutral and myself as responsible for choosing which teacher I will follow – ego or spirit – opens the door for my decision maker to make the right choice. Attempting to fix things in the world is pointless if it does not lead to changing my mind. Choosing spirit is the only meaningful decision I can make.

Non-Duality in a Dualistic Framework

The spirit teaches non-duality in a dualistic framework. To say that truth is possible here, in the ego’s dichotomous, dualistic, illusory world, is to make the mistake of bringing truth to illusion, to believe that God and spirit can be operative here, in the illusion. It’s not so much that they do not do things here, they cannot do things here, for ‘here’ is an illusion in the mind of the decision maker and unknown to spirit. Yet, in our right minds, when the decision maker chooses again, we can experience the reflection of the love, joy and compassion of God here.

But we must be vigilant not to confuse the reflection with the truth, which is what occurs when religions and spiritualities build a theology based on the reflection, not the thing itself. This is the elevation of form over content – form, illusion, content, spirit. A church or temple, a gospel or bible, dogma and rules are not necessary to experience our oneness with spirit. Whenever I seek for love in ritual, I want to remember this is a confusion of form and content, settling for the reflection of truth, rather than truth Itself.

There is no meaning in form and there never will be. Form must be recognized for what it is: a distraction; there is nothing so blinding as the perception of form. Ritual in the ego world is temptation. It’s intent is to distract us from the truth, to substitute something in the world for a reality not of this world. In our awareness of the real world, we simply say, ‘God is,’ and cease to speak, knowing that words are symbols of symbols, twice removed from reality, and meaningless. I don’t say God is something. You do not see God is anything. God, and my reality as part of God, is. Period – a perfect non-dualistic statement.

Spirit Teaches Indirectly by Contrast

Spirit knows no opposite, It is perfect oneness, now, and I share that perfect oneness, now. But here in the ego world where we dwell as bodies, opposition and contrast are ‘real’ and necessary. Perception works by contrast in the context of figure ground, light and dark, space and shading. This ‘natural’ way of experiencing, makes the choice of spirit seem to be the same as releasing the ego, because in the world of duality, choosing spirit or anything, appears necessary, because again, we perceive in terms of opposites. But really, no choice is necessary because spirit is all there is, knows no opposite, is perfect oneness now and I share that oneness, now.

So the world needs to be re-interpreted. Spirit reinterprets the world the ego made, when we allow it to. Spirit ‘perceives’ the world as a teaching device to awaken us to the truth of our shared oneness. Spirit, tho non-dual, must teach through duality because It must work with and for a decision maker that thinks it is not only dual, but separate, and in opposition. What is true in the reality of spirit, cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the world can understand.

Thus, spirit does not teach truth directly, because we could not understand it nor handle it, but indirectly, through reinterpreting illusion and contrasting it with truth. Miracles come in an ego framework, complete with duality and contrasts. Miracles and the Course remain within the ego framework, because here is where they are needed. If we knew our oneness, neither miracles nor the Course would be needed; we would not be here, nor would we exist as bodies.

But because we do believe we are here as bodies, we must first recognize that this way of being is not working for us, that we are miserable, unhappy and want to see things differently, with spirit, not ego. So spirit contrasts the fear, misery and occasional joy and glory of the body with the wonder, peace and compassion of its Self. True oneness and love cannot be taught or experienced here, and no one in a body has a clue to what they are. Yet their reflection can be taught.

If spirit could talk it would say, ‘How can you teach someone the value of something they deliberately threw away when they chose the ego instead of spirit? They must have thrown it away because they did not value it. You can only show them how miserable they are without it, and slowly, bringing its reflection nearer, they can perceive how their misery lessens as they approach it.’

Thus, spirit teaches indirectly, by contrast, reinterpreting what the ego has wrought; not
judging, forcing, coercing or punishing, but leading, teaching and showing through our daily experience how even the reflection of spirit’s love and oneness, is more desirable than the ego’s fear, complexity, terror and loathing.

Duality and the Decision Maker

Once the decision maker has chosen the ego’s dualistic, dichotomous world of either/or, the ego’s concern, and the only threat to its existence, is that the decision maker might change its mind. To prevent this, the ego works to keep us in the world and unaware of our decision maker’s ability to choose spirit instead of it.

Ego wants to keep us mindless, unaware of the decision maker and unaware of the alternative to its sin, guilt and fear. The ego tells us that because the decision maker choose to live as an individual – the so-called ‘original sin’, it attacked spirit’s perfect oneness and spirit will come roaring back to reclaim what belongs to It and destroy us.

To escape the sin, guilt and fear of attacking spirit and of having spirit attack us in turn, the decision maker flees the mind and projects itself into the world of time and space in which it sees outside the sin, guilt and fear it did not want to see within.

The result of this is that the decision maker seems forever buried, hidden by sin, guilt and fear which are in turn hidden by bodily experiences in the physical world. In order for the decision maker to choose again, this time for spirit, it must first recognize its original choice for the ego. Spirit’s goal is to help us see the ego projections for what they are so we can learn that what we perceive outside, reflects what we first made real inside, then work from the inside out.

In our dualistic ego world, we think all things have an opposite. If heaven is real there must be a hell. Contradiction is the way we make what we perceive and think real. Western biblical religions are classic examples of the ego’s dualistic thought system. There is God and the devil, heaven and earth, spirit and body, good and evil, forgiveness and sin.

However, this is not the metaphysics of a Course in Miracles, which is non-dualistic. The Course teaches that perfect Oneness is all there is. Reality is not found by reconciling opposites – God does not have a shadow side known as the Devil. There is only truth, light, love – the definition of God. In the ego’s dualistic world, the opposite of love is fear, but in the non-dualistic world of our reality as spirit, what is all encompassing can have no opposite.

Since our self is born out of fear of love, and sustained by fear as well, this self becomes a creature of opposites, inevitably giving rise to a world of opposites contradicting our non-dualistic reality, and witnessing non-dualism’s seeming non-existence. But my self is not my Self. My Self is real, while my self is part of the ego’s dualistic illusion.

Time and the Ego Illusion

Time is but another meaningless defense my decision maker allows as part of its choice for the ego and against the truth of my reality as spirit. As a defense, time is part of the separated world that seeks to prove my existence as an individual entity within a body, a creature not of perfection and eternity, but of time, matter and space.

Bringing the ego to spirit is bringing error to truth where it can be corrected. Error is undone because the contradiction is so obvious, the decision maker can not let it stand. Error disappears in the light of truth, not because it is attacked, but because light simply dissipates the darkness.

We do not have to wait for some future time to have truth be our reality. It comes at the instant we welcome it by being aware of the contradiction and how much we do not want it. It is not that truth comes to us; we come to it. The still small voice is forever within and forever calling. It is we who choose not to listen and who have wandered away by choosing the ego’s illusion, forgetting we chose, then erecting the defenses of sin, guilt and fear to keep us busy in the world. The ego’s world of time: past, present and future, mirror the defenses of sin, guilt and fear. We are like the prodigal son, and like the son of the story, will be welcomed back with open, forgiving arms if we choose to choose anew and return.

Time: Another Part of the Ego's Trickery

So, spirit simply reminds us of another choice our decision makers can make. It does not do anything because there is nothing to be done. It does not solve the problems I, in my ego identity think I have, for that would establish the world’s conditions as real. My, and your reality, is as a part of the timeless, fearless, loving and compassionate experience of oneness and wholeness.

Our ego identities desperately seek to deny this reality, affirming the illusion of a fearful, troubled world is true. Yet, in the part of our minds at one with spirit, tho denied by the ego, and therefore barely accessible, the still small voice affirms our at-one-ment. Thus there is no distinction between having the perfection and timelessness of the Kingdom of God and being the perfection and timelessness of the Kingdom of God.

The ego would have us believe that there is a distinction between having and being, but our reality remains well beyond the ego’s control and outside time and fleeting conditions. Given this, the traditional view of performing good works now, in order to receive God’s rewards and gifts in the future, may therefore be seen as another part of the ego’s trickery. We have already received spirit’s love, we are spirit’s love; spirit’s love is forever, timeless and apart from time. Spirit’s gifts have been given and received and are not something we earn or pay for, but simply accept, now, in the present.

We can know this now, in this holy instant, if our decision makers will release the ego and thus allow spirit to shine through. “The thought God holds of you is perfectly unchanged by your forgetting. It will always be exactly as it was before the time when you forgot, and will be just the same when you remember. And it is the same within the interval when you forgot.”

What is Everything Leaves Room for Nothing Else

“The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you [in your separated ego state] thought to govern it. And heaven is not bowed to hell, nor life to death.” Spirit our source, knows nothing of our insane belief that we have separated from it. This is a good thing because if It did, it would mean the ego was real and the impossible had happened. Indeed, building on this, the most comforting thought of all is that spirit does not even know about me as an individual, either. All is one to spirit. Of course to the ego this is infuriating and insulting. I am, the ego says. How can you doubt Me? Look about you, see how complex reality is. But to spirit, all this is illusion, a dream of a separation that could never happen, and has never happened. Complexity is of the ego, spirit’s truth is simple – what is everything leaves room for nothing else.

“You[r decision maker] can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way.” Under the influence of the ego’s dichotomy our decision makers can believe in our separated individual identities, but that does not make that identity real in fact. The decision maker is free to deny our inheritance and reality as spirit, but not to establish what our inheritance is. Tho we can identify with the ego and make it our treasure, that does not make it true. I can violate spirit’s laws in my imagination, but never escape from them. They protect me and ensure my safety and sanity no matter what I dream.

In my separated delusion, i can think myself very evil, fearful, hateful and terrible, and do many evil, fearful, hateful and terrible things, but my Self is always glorious and inviolate. Plus, what I do under the ego’s influence is only ‘real’ in the dream, not in fact. In fact, I am home with God dreaming I am awake on earth.

“What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin. Such is the simple truth. It does not make appeal to [complexity] might nor triumph. It does not command obedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempts to plan defenses…. Truth merely wants to give you happiness, for such its purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows, with perfect certainty, that what God wills for you must be received.”