Add & Subtract - Ego compared with Self

This week we look at ego compared with Self

 ADD SELF

Self refers to our greater mind, the expansive, love-based reality of our true nature.

Our real Self is the vast majority of our mind that remains as we were originally created; extensions of Source gifted peace, joy, abundance, freedom as our birthright.

Suggestion: Think of a time when you felt centered, calm and clear. Peaceful, open and connected to life. A gentle joy in a loving moment.

Close your eyes, breathe deeply and take yourself into that state of Self once more. Know that this is the health and happiness we all seek and will all eventually reclaim as our essential nature. This state is already yours forever.

Remembering Self as described in A Course in Miracles:

“I am as God created me… [this is] the one thought which renders the ego silent and entirely undone… the sounds of this world are still, the sights of this world disappear. Here is salvation accomplished. Here is sanity restored.

This idea is therefore all you need to let complete correction heal your mind and give you perfect vision, which will heal all the mistakes which any mind has made at any time or place.

If you are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own”

Source: A Course in Miracles: Complete and Annotated Edition (Circle of Atonement)

SUBTRACT EGO

The false self or ego is the part of our mind that thinks itself separate from Reality, generating guilt, fear, rage, isolation. Living from the fear-based, separated mind is the cause of all our pain and problems.

We have become so identified with this frightened little part of our mind that we fear anything that challenges this construct, such as love and truth. As long as we block out remembering our deeper Self, the ego survives, caring not that we suffer indefinitely.

Suggestion: Pause and consider all the fear, shame, anger you experience in your life. Understand it as all coming from just a part of your mind that is insane, has forgotten who you really are.

What if nothing real has changed, that your love-based Self is there waiting patiently for you to remember and reclaim. What if all healing and awakening were simply a choice for love instead of fear, a choice if made often enough would eventually relinquish the ego entirely?

A Course of Love on moving beyond ego:

“Forget not who you truly are, but forget not also to be in joy in your experience here. Remember that the seriousness with which you once looked at life is of the ego. Drape your persona in a mantle of peace and joy. Let who you are shine through the personal self who continues to walk this world a while longer”

Source: A Course of Love: Combined Volume (Take Heart Publications)