you are the student and the teacher acim

You Are the Teacher and the Student | ACIM Manual For Teachers

February 9, 2022

My ‘Start Your Day with Spirit’ Prayer & Meditation Practice

May 20, 2022

Busting Out of the Ego’s Prison

YO, My Love Chain Gang!

I’m here to talk to you today about the ways in which our ego minds imprison us.

If you have been studying and practicing A Course in Miracles for any length of time, you have probably felt the relief of being released from guilt and judgment in adopting its philosophy.

But there is another part of our minds that does NOT want us to know our innocence. Our ego mind actively resists this, choosing instead to remain behind the bars of a fear-based thought system.

When you make the decision to love-tunnel your way to freedom – to listen to the Voice for God – the ego does not retreat quietly and obediently into the back of the paddywagon when you hand the keys to your will over to Spirit.

Nope, it pretty much actually does the opposite. It retaliates by resisting, fighting for control, kicking, punching, and using whatever weapons it can find in it’s attempt to wrestle control of your mind. Or at least run you off the road.

Just so you know.

This is not something you need to be afraid of – although your ego will attempt to use fear to keep your will united with its own.

The Truth of you is that you are a precious, beloved child of God – perfect, whole, and innocent. You are the Light of the World. You are made of pure love, and you possess every characteristic and quality of the Divine.

And you are not in prison. You are free.

You are not guilty, so there’s nothing to be punished for.

The ego does not want you to know this. The whole purpose for its illusory being is mind control – keeping you in the Big House of fear – but not really recognizing it as fear, so you won’t make the connection between it and the ego. More like fear…ish.

A Course in Miracles teaches,

“The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.” So, basically, fear is fake. The Course then goes on to say, “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”
(T-In.2:1-4)

Which, loosely translated, means that God is love, you are an extension of God. You are made of love, by love, for love. Therefore, God is real, and infinite, and is everything.

By extension, so are you. You are all-powerful, because you have the Love of God running through the transmission lines of your being.

Conversely, the ego is made of fear, by fear, for fear. It is, therefore, not real, doesn’t exist, and is nothing.

That means it is powerless. Except for the power you give to it.

That is what the ego depends on – that you don’t ever realize that. That its power is coming from you. That as soon as you recognize that, and cut off the supply of your allegiance to it, its power ceases to exist. As you connect to the Source of your true power – the I AM which is the Source and Truth of you, you will see your life becoming more beautiful, radiant, peaceful, fun, abundant, inspired, joyful, and FREE.

Sensing this threat to itself, the ego mind will attempt to derail your journey toward freedom. It does not want you to get too close to the open door of Light, because your mind would be illuminated with the Truth, and you would renounce the ego immediately and walk right through.

As long as you are afraid, depressed, resentful, angry, attacking, sad, jealous, anxious, feel like a victim, or a failure, or embody any other expression of egoic thought, you are being a cooperative prisoner and the ego can relax into its normal level of suspicion and hypervigilance.

If you’re being a good inmate, obeying the ego’s rules and not stepping out of line or threatening authority, the guards might relax a little, throw you a carton of cigarettes here or an extra five minutes on the conjugal visit clock there.

But when you start that jailhouse rock of getting happy – hanging with the Spirit gang, listening to your Inner Teacher, surrendering your will, staying in trust, practicing forgiveness, and as a result, feeling your worth – the ego goes on red alert.

It’s like a prison break. As it senses you running toward freedom, alarms go off, searchlights glare – and those same ego guards that cut you some slack yesterday are chasing you with guns drawn today, ready to throw you back into…

Wait for it…

Solitary confinement.

Aka separation.

As long as we believe the ego’s judgment that we are guilty and deserving of a life sentence, we will resign ourselves to that cell of littleness and powerlessness, believing we are alone.

So we “forget” to engage in those endeavors that keep us connected to the Voice of Spirit. We don’t make time for our spiritual practice. We talk ourselves out of forgiveness. We don’t ask for guidance. Or we refuse to hear it. We listen to the ego’s interpretation of everything from A Course in Miracles to what someone really meant when they said this or that. Those are the times when the ego is, as the Course refers to it, “suspicious at best”.

But sometimes it pulls out the big guns, like on the heels of our stepping up our spiritual work. The sh*t starts to feel like it’s straight-up hitting the fan. Problems crop up seemingly out of nowhere – relationships hit the skids, our anxiety gets jacked up to number 11, finances take a dive, we have a new symptom in the body, we lose our job, we have to find a new home… whatever.

The tricks the ego uses are all the same – weapons to scare us into submission. Its fondest hope is that we will just abandon ourselves and our spiritual practice, decide that the devil we know is better than the Spirit that knows, and resign ourselves to life without parole.

But the Jesus, Judge and Jury of A Course in Miracles has a few choice words to say about prison, asking us to remind ourselves:

“My chains are loosened. I can drop them off merely by desiring to do so. The prison door is open. I can leave simply by walking out. Nothing holds me in this world. Only my wish to stay keeps me a prisoner. I would give up my insane wishes and walk into the sunlight at last.”
(W-p1r.57/31)

“I made up the prison in which I see myself. All I need do is recognize this and I am free. I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God.”
(W-p1r.57/32)

“I see everything upside down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I see the world as a prison for God’s Son. It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free.”
(W-p1r.57/33)

In other words, whatever we think is happening in this world is a prison of our own making. We make it real with our judgement, and we recognize its unreality by remembering who we are. It is in this remembering that we reclaim our freedom and walk into the light.

There is no prison, no ego outside of our minds, and it has no governance over us that we do not give to it.

As JBro reassures us,

“Fear seems to live in darkness, and when you are afraid you have stepped back. Let us join then join quickly in an instant of light, and it will be enough to remind you that your goal is light… Truth has rushed to meet you since you called upon it. If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible.”
T-18.III.2:4-3:1