D: Doug;
N: Nieca;
The ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of peace. T-5.III.9:4
D: Everything our body’s eyes see is symbolic.
I have given everything I see … all the meaning it has for me. W-pI.2
D: The world arose from the thought of being separate from our Source (God/Love). This wish for separation/specialness to be real is the cause of all the symbols we see in our world. Every individual thing, every particular symbol now becomes a symbol of fear because it unconsciously reminds us that we are apart from our Source, estranged from Love. Separation from love is by definition fearful, therefore our world is made of fear.
Even when I call you beloved, if my mind becomes troubled about you, I have confused symbol with source. Love is permanent. Symbols are transient. If I love you, but find myself worrying about losing you, I’ve confused your body with love. Whatever happens to your body, I cannot lose love. Love is not contained in the body. Love resides only in the right mind, which is a reflection of the eternal and is always available for us to choose.
The world has to be left behind, not made better. We can use the world to wake up, but that’s not because the world has anything to offer us – its because our right-minded teacher does. The fearful thought that you and I are on our own is the basis of the ego thought system. I adapt by thinking that this is a form of separation that I like, because we can cooperate and help one another – so I think that I am happier being on my own with your help. However, since separation is the source of fear, the fear is hidden, not dissolved.
N: Then the entire world is a magical solution.
D: Once the world appears to be real, the world seems to contain the solution. We’re intent on looking for magical solutions (which are solutions at the level of effect) – and never addressing the cause. The cause is the mind’s decision to look with the ego instead of the Holy Spirit. The ego then counsels the mind that the world is the cause of our experience instead of the truth. The truth is that our interpretation of the world is the cause of our experience.
N: The ego has convinced us that we can make the world work.
It’s intense.
D: The intensity is just part of the defensity.
The intensity is one of the ego’s ways of saying “Don’t look within your mind (where the problem really is); go out and fix the world”. We construe changing our minds as being difficult because we want to give ourselves the experience that it is difficult. It’s not nearly as laborious as maintaining the illusion!
N: In a movie, ‘Marvin’s Room” – a dysfunctional family came together through trauma. In the storyline, the caregiver of two elderly family members had received a compliment as to how much these elderly people loved her. She said: “Oh no. It was I who got to love them.” She had recognized that she got to uncover that love in herself.
D: Ken (Wapnick) says that we have it backward when we seek for love. What we have to do is offer love. When we offer love, that demonstrates that we have it to give. We couldn’t offer it if we didn’t have it. So, it was the movie character’s privilege to learn that love comes through her. All we have to do is share it to see it. When I love, that’s what I see, when I judge, that’s what I see.
N: I think that fear is part of my response with anyone I feel close to! It’s a gasp of “Oh, they’re loving me!” I don’t want to feel the (eventual) loss of these people.
D: Yes, because you have confused the symbols of love (the figures in the dream who are loving you) – with the Source of Love, which is God. The symbols are temporary and the Source is permanent.
N: My confusion, then, is in believing that I can lose love.
I haven’t understood that loss and lack are the same.
D: The lack that we experience here in the world is merely a shadow of our belief that we have lost our innocence by abandoning the Oneness of Heaven on behalf of our desired individuality.
This is the cost of living in a world of duality: if we can win, we can lose.
