Healing the Shadow and the Mirror of
Relationship

by Matthew Blais
<mblais@interpath.com>

I. Healing, the Ego, and the Shadow

Many of us have realized that we are here to "do healing." Healing means "making whole," and it's
become common wisdom that the only REAL healing you can do is healing YOURSELF. That
means that what we're doing when we heal is "making ourselves whole," which implies that we are
currently in a fragmented or "separated" state.

If you think of yourself as being fragmented or separated into two basic "halves," one half is the "you
that you know yourself to be" (your identity or self-concept), and the other is "your shadow"
(everything you're quite certain you AREN'T). For most of us it is very difficult to imagine that
somehow we "are" everything we know we aren't. Our current, well-established belief of who we
are naturally makes it difficult for us to imagine "being" something else at the same time, especially
something as vague and ominous as "everything we aren't."

To help clarify the discussion, we'll distinguish your "self" (small 's') as your conscious, everyday
identity, your self-concept, who you think you are when you're in a "normal" state of mind. We will
call this your "ego." We'll use the term "Greater Self" (capital 'S') or "True Self" to refer to the
"whole" or healed you that includes both your ego AND your shadow (everything your ego thinks
you aren't).

II. Recognizing your Shadow

Whatever else you say about emotions and feelings, you have to admit that you just "wouldn't be
your self" (little 's') without your own, familiar feelings. That's why we think we're going crazy or
becoming "possessed" when unfamiliar or "out of character" emotions or reactions show up in our
lives. However, there is another, more positive way to look at these disturbing occurrences.
Remember that anything that feels like it isn't "you" must be a part of your shadow, and when parts
of your shadow start to show up in your "self's" experience, this is HEALING. This is because
healing is "making whole," and it is your shadow and your ego self that come together to make your
whole/healed Greater Self.

This also points out a very reliable way to recognize our shadow when it comes knocking: in
"feeling" terms, our shadow is anything and everything that we reject, deny, disdain, fear, hate, recoil
from, and just want it very much to go away and leave us alone. This is very important, because if
you were raised like I was (on Earth, 20th century AD), you were very emphatically taught that you
should never, ever play with your shadow. When we were little and had smaller vocabularies, our
shadow was just called "bad." Now that we're grown up, we use words like "wrong," "obnoxious,"
and "evil."

III. Relationship: the Magic Mirror

People who are very different from us tend to make us uncomfortable. For example, if you think
you are a "nice" or "considerate" person, then it's the loudest, nastiest, most obnoxious brute that
you will feel most repelled by. Clearly, if our ego identifies with niceness and considerateness, then
nastiness and obnoxiousness must be part of our shadow, where we can safely label it as "not us."

What feelings do you have when some obnoxious brute yells obscenities at you? Fear? Anger?
Disdain? Do you very much want the whole situation to just go away and leave you alone? If you
answered "yes" to any of these questions, Congratulations, you've just successfully recognized and
distinguished a part of your shadow. The shadow part is whatever qualities and behaviors you
perceived that provoked your uncomfortable reaction.

This is why relationships are often referred to as "mirrors:" we tend to see in OTHER people all of
the qualities and characteristics that comprise OUR OWN shadow; that is, everything that we think
is "not us." Relationships do not mirror our ego back to us; rather, they mirror back our shadow, the
other, unacknowledged half of our Greater Self. You might think you'd prefer to have it the other
way around, but remember that we're here to do our own healing. The mirror of relationship, along
with the guidance of our uncomfortable feelings, provides us with the ability to see and recognize our
shadow, which is a necessary prelude to healing it. No, it isn't comfortable, but if it was, it wouldn't
be part of your shadow. If you were told that this healing thing was going to be all fun and no work,
then you should definitely go ask for a refund, right now!

IV. The Blame Game

We're all familiar with blame: it's that thing we never ask for, but are always giving away freely. If
that sounds suspiciously like the way we'd "love" to relate to a certain different four-letter word, it's
not a coincidence. "Blame" is a handy word that covers all the different ways we react to our
shadow: reject, deny, disdain, fear, hate, recoil from, etc. Essentially, blame is projection; it is your
ego saying "Go away, I don't like you, you're not ME." In other words, "Hello, shadow." Blame
usually accompanies uncomfortable feelings, as we strive to distance our "selves" from the source of
our discomfort, which the ego perceives as external to us. Ready for a Deep Truth? The reason
your shadow is uncomfortable to your ego is because your ego ONLY EXISTS AS an opposition
to your shadow, and your ego knows that it cannot survive as a separate little self if the shadow is
really recognized and re-membered. Blame serves to maintain and reinforce the separation between
the ego and the shadow, and maintaining this separation is the ego's only real purpose.

Think of a time when you were continuously blaming someone for something for days on end. If
you're like me, you'll notice that there is a specific feeling or emotion involved: usually fear or anger.
This other person probably did something that made you really angry, or something that hurt you
deeply. If it's anger, look a little further to find the hurt that's hidden beneath it. You may feel like
your blame is justified by their actions, or you may be all new-agey like me and think that blame is
"never justified," but there we are with our blame, just the same. Maybe this blaming feeling has
been hanging around so long that you're REALLY tired of it by now, and you've been chanting, and
meditating on love and white light, and holding your breath, and doing everything you can THINK
of to get RID of it, but it's still here! What can we do in a situation like this?

Let's pause here for some introspection. First question: Are you beating yourself up for your role in
this thing? Not living up to your New Millennium's resolutions to be all love and light and sweetness?
If so, please stop. Now: Are you beating yourself up because you WERE beating yourself up (made
a resolution not to beat yourself up, too)?

Beating yourself up is BLAMING YOURSELF. Why would we do such a thing? We blame
someone else when they exhibit part of our shadow. We do this because the shadow threatens our
identity, and our ego needs to reinforce its sense of separateness from shadow; that's its function. In
like fashion, when WE exhibit a part of our own shadow, our ego naturally does the same thing to
ourself: blame ourself and project that same hostility onto ourself that we project onto others when
we blame them. The ego is impartial when it comes to punishment, its favorite activity.

Most of us have decided that BLAMING is really "not nice," but unfortunately, it happens to be an
indispensable tool of the ego in maintaining its separateness. So the next time we bump into a piece
of our shadow out there, we find our ego blaming it, but since we've decided BLAMING isn't nice
(i.e. shadow), guess what? We just caught our self RED HANDED exhibiting shadow by
BLAMING! And what do we do when we see shadow? Blame it! We get to blame ourselves for
blaming! You can see where THAT goes in a hurry.

It may seem like we're just digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a pit here, but we're actually
about to discover that this pit doesn't go down forever. We're about to break through and discover
inner space on the other side of all this dirt.

V. It Ain't Just a River in Egypt

We all know what denial is, and we're all experts at identifying it -- in everyone except our self, that
is. This is because denial ranks right up there with blame in the ego's Arsenal of Self Perpetuation.
The ego has to DENY that your shadow is part of you in any way. What makes this "denial," is that
your shadow IS in fact part of your Greater Self. When you become fully healed, your ego will be
out of a job, since you won't need to separate "self" from shadow any more, and your ego justifiably
has a real fear of unemployment. It knows that you're on the healing path, so it's been working
overtime to convince you of how indispensable it is. It's been telling you how much you NEED it to
PROTECT you from all that nasty, dangerous SHADOW lurking out there...

Even though denial is difficult to see operating in our self, this is not a problem; our Magic Mirror of
relationship and our Uncomfortable Feelings are going to help us ferret out all of our denial with
ease.

VI. Review

Let's recapitulate. We're here to do our own healing, which means to become our whole Greater
Self by recognizing and re-membering our shadow. To do this, we must be able to recognize our
shadow, which is everything that feels like it's not "us." We can recognize our shadow by noticing
what makes us feel uncomfortable, and by noticing when we are blaming (ourself or others).
Anything that we blame and make wrong is part of our shadow. Our ego always maintains emphatic
denial that any piece of our shadow is a part of us in any way (that's its job). Therefore our shadow
is always perceived to be "out there," which is why we see it in other people. This is how others
function as a "magic mirror" to reveal OUR shadow to us.

If you have followed everything up to this point, you probably want to know what you can DO with
all this information to help yourself along on your healing journey. Now that we've covered all the
basics, we can get to the really interesting parts.

VII. Love and Blame

Most of us would like to have the relationship with love that we currently have with blame: we'd like
to always be giving it freely and never asking for it, nor feeling like we "need" it. Love is what we
feel when we recognize or remember ourselves truly, because love is our true essence. When we
recognize ourselves in another person, we feel love for them. When we recognize and remember
our True Self within ourselves, we feel love for ourselves.

Blame works in the opposite way: we feel blame when we DENY that a part of our True Self (part
of our shadow) is a part of us. This is true whether we deny it in ourself (blaming ourself) or in
another person (blaming them). By this you can see that love and blame are mutually exclusive. If
you are busy DENYING that something is a part of you (blaming), you can't simultaneously be
recognizing and remembering that it IS a part of you (loving).

VIII. Dancing with Shadows

Let's look at a practical application of this understanding. Think of a situation where someone really
hurt or angered you, and you felt trapped in blame. As much as you wanted to heal, forgive, or
simply forget about the situation, you felt unable (or unwilling) to overcome that vindictive, righteous,
blaming feeling, and move into a space of acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, compassion,
peace, and love.

This is a situation begging for healing. To enable healing, you DO need to want it, and you do need
to be WILLING to give up your blame, fear, and anger in exchange for love, compassion, and
understanding. It IS enough at this point just to be willing; it's okay if you don't feel CAPABLE, or
understand HOW to release your blame, as long as you are open to being led, and willing to work
with whatever presents itself.

Remember that blame is your ego saying to a piece of your shadow, "You're not me, go away, I
don't like you!" In this case, the piece of shadow in question is WHAT THE OTHER PERSON
DID THAT HURT YOU. Let's say, for example, that they said or did something to you that was
spiteful, disrespectful, and abusive. Of course, you feel hurt and angered by this, and react with
hostility and blame. The blame you feel IS your own denial that YOU CAN AND DID ACT THE
SAME WAY toward others, and, more importantly toward yourself. Don't read any further until
you really understand what that means.

That should be really hard for you to accept, or else it wouldn't be denial. But that's okay; you don't
need to accept it as "the truth" right now. It is sufficient for you to understand it and allow for it as a
possibility, to make room for your understanding of it to grow. All you need to do is say "Wow,
MAYBE all of this anger and resentment energy of mine is REALLY just trying to KEEP ME
FROM REMEMBERING THAT PART OF MYSELF!" Can you feel your hostility PUSHING
that shadow away from yourself, HOLDING it at a distance? Can you feel how it wants to push it
completely out of your awareness, so you won't even have to think about it at all?

Remember, this is precisely what our ego exists for: to MAINTAIN that identity of self, that
distinction, that boundary; to keep OUT our shadow. Blame is its main tool for keeping our shadow
at a distance. Clearly, your ego does NOT share your goal of reunion with your Greater Self. It is,
in fact, working determinedly AGAINST you on this journey. This is very important to bear in mind.
Your ego will work very hard to make you forget.

Again, all you need to do is recognize and acknowledge that it's YOUR OWN SHADOW
mirrored in the hurtful behavior of the other person, and reaffirm your desire to heal and to forgive.
Remember that you are blaming the other person only because YOU are still in denial about WHO
YOU ARE (because that piece of shadow really IS a part of you). The blame is your ego's way of
trying to prevent you from seeing this piece of your shadow as your own, as YOURSELF. Be clear
about your desire to release all blame and reach a place of understanding and compassion, and
acceptance. Intention and desire are supremely powerful.

Notice that you probably have a lot of JUDGMENT about hurtful, abusive behavior in general. You
may firmly believe that it's bad and wrong, never justified, and that YOU would certainly never
intend to treat anyone like that! Notice that this kind of judgment accomplishes the same purpose as
blame: it maintains the barrier between the sense of self and the "not-self" (shadow). Preconceived
judgments also allow our ego to feel justified and self-righteous in blaming.

IX. Exploring Inner Space

We spoke about seeking to remember, understand, and accept how you yourself have behaved in
the very way that you are feeling hurt and angered by in the present. Be clear that you are not
striving to BECOME hurtful or abusive, or to conceive of that kind of behavior as "good" or "okay."
Because it is part of your shadow, you ALREADY ARE it; the object is simply to realize HOW this
is so.

One way to do this is to allow yourself to explore your own hurtful and abusive thoughts and
fantasies. Most of us are horrified by this idea, but by now you should suspect that being horrified or
repulsed by something means your ego doesn't want you to explore it. That's all the encouragement
you should need, since your ego exists to keep you separated.

Exploring your own angry and abusive thoughts is very powerful and healing because it will lead you
directly to the related parts of your shadow. However, you need to be willing to examine your inner
world with the attitude of accepting whatever you find there, without blame or judgment. An
accepting attitude is very important because what you are exploring REALLY IS YOU. That's all
you need to realize.

When you can see your OWN anger and hatred and judgment within yourself, with the intention of
acceptance and healing, you are re-membering that part of your Self that you have denied and
separated from you. When this process is completed, you will no longer need to project those
"negative" emotions onto others. Then when others are angry, you will still be able to accept and
understand them, because you have accepted and understood of that part of yourself.

You can extend compassion and understanding to another only for those things for which you have
compassion and understanding in yourself. Around all else there will be denial and blame.

X. Trading Places

In the previous example ("Dancing with Shadows"), we looked at a situation where you felt hurt by
someone else's behavior. You used that situation as an opportunity to see where your own denial
lay, and what part of your shadow it revealed.

Now let's turn the tables, but with a twist, and assume that another person is hurt and angry at YOU
for some behavior of yours. Let's say you didn't consciously intend anything malicious; perhaps you
were just misinterpreted. You're completely baffled by their overreaction. To you it seems clear that
they are being oversensitive, taking things extremely personally, and not taking responsibility for their
own feelings. They're obviously blaming YOU for something.

In a situation like this, it's tempting to just shrug the whole thing off and let the other person "deal
with their own stuff." That may even be appropriate sometimes. However, remember that our goal is
to be doing our own healing, and to be using our relationships as mirrors to help us see where that
healing can happen.

In this situation you may not feel that you are blaming the person for anything at all, and in fact, you
may not be. But there is still something very important to see here: for some reason, you are not
extending compassion and understanding to the other person. You feel justified and content in letting
them deal with their own issues, in which, perhaps, they seem to want to involve you.

Notice how you react to that: probably you either feel that it is justifiable and appropriate, or you
feel ashamed and guilty for not being "more loving." The former is judging and defending yourself ("I
am right"), and the latter is judging and blaming yourself ("I am wrong"). The important thing to
notice is that these are both self-judgment, the action of the ego in its eternal quest to keep away the
shadow.

Here we have discovered the ego operating without the familiar blame. What substitutes for blame
here is a feeling of comfortable self-justification, along with ANOTHER PERSON'S blame toward
us. You can safely assume that in a situation like this, there is indeed a golden opportunity to do
some important healing of your own.

Going back to our example, let's assume that it's not all just a simple misunderstanding, but that the
other person really feels hurt by something you actually said or did, even though it seems harmless to
you. Let's say you hear the other person out, and they tell you what upset them, but you feel
resistant to apologizing, or to extending compassion and understanding. You still feel that their
reaction was inappropriate or invalid, that they have "imagined" being hurt. This is why you resist
apologizing SINCERELY. You probably feel very cool, rational and detached. You still feel
threatened by their blame. These are all good signs that you have your OWN healing to do here.

In this situation, what you are denying is THAT YOU HAVE HURT ANOTHER PERSON. You
keep telling yourself that it didn't really have anything to do with you, it was all their imagination and
hypersensitivity, etc. However, the simple fact that you ARE IN this situation should be all you need
to see to accept that you DO have some learning to do here.

Let's pick a specific example of how the person might have felt hurt by you. Let's say that they feel
hurt because you have been "distant," or "unavailable," and they have felt rejected or abandoned by
you. Some of us are very in touch with how we can feel hurt when another person is inaccessible us,
but there are also many of us who do not understand it. Let's say we believe that it is always our
right and even our responsibility to give ourselves the space we need, to remove ourselves from
others at times (physically, mentally, or emotionally) in order to stay centered and healthy. Whether
or not this is true is irrelevant here. We are only concerned with identifying our own denial in the
situation.

If we truly believe that we sometimes need to "take space" by removing ourselves emotionally from
others, then of course we feel justified when we do so. When someone comes to us and tells us that
this behavior of ours has hurt them, we feel like we are being asked to give up our right to take
space. This can be like someone asking us to please stop breathing, a very threatening request
indeed!

XI. The Biggest Shadow of "All"

What there is to see here is that a person can feel hurt by us even when we have no intention or
desire to hurt them, even when we are only doing what we truly must do. In other words, we are
powerless to prevent others from feeling hurt. This can be very difficult to accept, because it means
that WE CAN FEEL HURT BY OTHERS EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE NO INTENTION OR
DESIRE TO HURT US. The ego does NOT want to believe this, because it means we might have
created our own suffering! One of the ego's basic premises is that of victimhood, and a victim
MUST have someone to BLAME. The victim's premise is powerlessness, and the "power" to hurt
oneself must be projected onto someone or something else: the SHADOW.

So, to acknowledge that another person might have created their own suffering, we must be first
able to acknowledge that WE might have created OUR own suffering. Which, in fact, we have;
which brings us back to our own DENIAL, and our own shadow.

Think of your ego as being a victim, feeling essentially powerless, and always pointing the finger and
saying "He did it!" What is being denied here is YOUR POWER; your power to create your own
experience, including your own suffering. Remember, however, that we CAN AND DO create our
own suffering, even when others have no desire at all for us to suffer. Of course, we create ALL of
our own suffering, including when others DO desire for us to suffer! This idea is anathema to the ego
(which means we're making great progress), because it invalidates the whole system of BLAME by
which the ego maintains its separation.

Let's go back to the shadowy part of this. When your ego is telling you that you don't create your
own suffering, it is DENYING your power to create your own experience. Whatever is being
denied is the shadow. Therefore, in this case, your shadow is your power to create your own
experience! Wouldn't you like to reintegrate THAT part of your Greater Self? If so, you would
want to explore how you have created your own suffering (yes, all of it), and how you have created
ALL of your experiences.

If you start taking responsibility for having created all of your experiences, you are dismantling the
system of blame that the ego uses to keep its boundaries stable. Remember that blame and love are
mutually exclusive. Therefore, you are also dismantling the system that prevents love from being
more a part of your experience.

XII. The Unending

At this point in the journey, you need to follow your own guidance. If you do not feel like you have
guidance that will take you into these areas, remember that it is not a question of HAVING
guidance, but of RECOGNIZING it, and trusting it. We all have all the guidance we will ever need,
just waiting for us to recognize and follow it. If you desire more guidance, ask for it, and be clear
about your intention to continue on your healing path. There are also numerous books and
organizations to help you on this path (see the Introduction page).

Welcome to the beginning of the rest of you!
Loving Ourselves

by Matthew Blais
<mblais@interpath.com>

(NOTE: This article is the second in a series. The first article in the series is titled "Healing
the Shadow and the Mirror of Relationship.")

Most of us on our healing path have become very familiar with the admonition to "love ourselves."
We may be clear that our purpose is to bring more love into the world. Since how we perceive and
relate to "the world" is always a mirror of how we perceive and relate to ourselves, our goal is really
to bring more love into ourselves. It is important to understand that, in terms of cause and effect, the
external world is a reflection (or an "effect") of our "internal world: (our self), which is the opposite
of how we naturally perceive things to be.

We're generally very clear that we'd like to experience more love in our own lives, both for
ourselves and for others. Yet many of us feel "stuck" in this situation: we are always wanting more
love because it always seems to be lacking. So our clarity about wanting more love in our lives has
not of itself led to the experience of more love. When we notice this, we feel frustration, because we
don't understand why our intentions for manifesting more love have not resulted in a fulfilling
experience of more love; there always seems to be a troubling "gap" between our intention and our
experience, regarding love.

In looking at this, we may discover in ourselves a deep sense of powerlessness and feelings of
abandonment around our seeming inability to create more love in our life, and we may be prone to
angrily fling the whole painful issue away from ourselves, instead of looking at it more closely; or we
may just "drop the subject." What is left is a vague, gnawing doubt, covering up our fear of looking
at this painful issue.

Many of us are still struggling with deciding whether or not (or how) God loves us. Others have
moved beyond this struggle into the clear knowledge that God does indeed love us; but even with
this certain knowledge, we may continue to experience the same distressing lack of love in our lives.
Or, we may even vacillate between knowing that God loves us, and questioning whether He does. It
doesn't seem to matter which category we fall into; our struggle follows us like a faithful dog.

With all inner conflicts, our most important source of information is our feelings. When we have the
courage to explore them honestly, they always lead us to the true root of the issue, and to its
solution. Courage, however, is not all that is required for a "successful" inner exploration; equally
important are a willingness to learn that some of our beliefs actually are not true, and to gracefully
give up these beliefs when we recognize them. We also learn that there are things which we are
denying that really ARE true, and we must be willing to gracefully give up our denial.

Giving up our false beliefs and our denials always feels difficult and scary, because they are a form
of "protection," and there is therefore always a fear behind them of whatever they are protecting us
from. That these false beliefs can protect us is an illusion, however, because it is never US they are
protecting; their real purpose is always to protect our EGO. Our ego has convinced us that it is WE
who should fear for our survival, but that is merely our ego's projection of its own fear onto us. By
convincing us that WE are in danger, our ego gains our support for its own agenda (our ego's
survival). This is ironic, because in supporting our ego's survival, we are preventing our own healing,
and perpetuating our feeling of a lack of love.

Who WE really ARE cannot ever be destroyed nor threatened, because we are a part of God. The
ego, however, can only exist as long as we agree to continue to forget the truth of who we are, so
the ego is understandably fearful for its own existence. It knows full well that as soon as we tire of
our illusion of separateness, and withdraw our support from it, it will cease to "exist."

Love is not of separateness and the ego; it is of the unity of God, because it IS God. Love dissolves
all of the ego's tools of separation: fear, anger, hatred, blame, denial, alienation, boredom, apathy,
etc. To the ego, love means annihilation, so the ego is rightly fearful of it.

All of "our" fears are actually the fears of our insecure ego. In order to survive, it must continue to
convince us of our separateness. When we "believe" our fears, we support our ego; we identify with
its perception of separateness, which is the only thing that can really be threatened. And what
threatens our separateness is the experience of love.

The ego is insane, but it isn't stupid: it knows that you truly value love above all else, so it doesn't
simply tell you outright that love is "bad" and must be avoided; it knows you wouldn't go for that.
Therefore it schemes and maneuvers beneath your awareness to make you fearful of the situations
and possibilities that would lead to greater love. We have all experienced in our own lives how love
will blossom, only to then be systematically destroyed by fear, blame, anger, and other tools of the
ego, until it is completely gone. The ego wages a war of attrition against love, and against your value
of and belief in love.

Where there is an absence of love, blame is usually present. When we experience a lack of love in
our lives, we have probably allowed our ego to substitute blame for love.

Most of us know that loving ourselves is the basis for loving anything and everything else, but
self-love also seems to be the most difficult subject to get a handle on. When we look at issues of
self-love, we are often faced with a peculiar inner silence, a seeming lack of any data to work with.
It is easy to convince ourselves that there IS nothing there to work with, and move on to a different
subject.

All issues of love are issues of self-love. To say that we want more love in our lives is really to say
that we want more self-love. Knowing this, ANY issue of love can be used to examine our issues of
self-love; all that are needed are the awareness that all love issues are self-love issues, and the
willingness to shift our perception of the issue to the arena of self-love.

Let's look back to where we started, the issue of "wanting more love in my life." We may say, "I
want to really feel God's love for me," or "I want to experience my own deep love for
God/myself/everything." Whatever you choose to focus on, the common denominator is always the
experience of a lack of love, and we know that this must mean a lack of SELF-LOVE.

Where there is a lack of love, there is blame. Where there is a lack of self-love, there is self-blame.
Most of us have been thoroughly conditioned to believe that we are "good" when we love, and
"bad" when we don't love. We are also just as conditioned to BLAME whatever is "bad" -- in this
case, we blame ourselves, because WE FEEL WE ARE BAD FOR NOT LOVING ENOUGH.
Your ego will jump at any opportunity to blame (including blaming yourself), because blaming is its
chief way of asserting your/its separateness, and keeping love at a "safe distance." Thus, we are
conditioned to react to feeling a lack of love by BLAMING OURSELVES. Blaming ourselves
makes us feel even more separate and unworthy of love. This is clearly a vicious circle leading to
more separation and less love, and is perpetuated to the advantage of the ego.

Understanding this, we see that reducing self-blame is an important key to increasing self-love. At
this point, though, what is much more important than "action" is simply letting our awareness of the
self-blame dynamic grow and become very clear. Our urge to act and "fix" the situation is motivated
by our ego, which always judges things as "good/bad," or "right/wrong." If we act out of a judgment
of the situation as being "bad" (needing to be "fixed"), we are tacitly supporting our ego by agreeing
with its judgment, and with the premise of judgment itself. If we want to experience more love, our
goal should be not to support our ego at all, which is best accomplished by releasing our attachment
to its judgments. Notice how attached you feel to judgments like "This situation needs to be
changed!" or "You're failing because you aren't creating what you want in your life," etc. As long as
you continue to hold onto such assessments by agreeing with them, you support your ego in its quest
to keep you separate and loveless. If you DISAGREE with your ego's judgments, you are STILL
playing its game by giving your support to judgment and blame. At this point you may feel like you
can't win! Your ego will gladly support this idea.

A good tool to use in this kind of situation is FOCUS. It's all too easy to get sucked into a mental
whirlpool of judgments, evaluations, analysis, blame, doubt, fear, despair, etc., which can quickly
overwhelm you and leave you feeling confused and disempowered. ALL of this frenetic mental
activity belongs to the ego, and serves only to derail us from our quest for oneness. This kind of
"confusion attack" is a sure sign that you are on the right track, and getting close to something
important that ego is desperately trying to keep you away from.

When you start to feel overwhelmed by mental or emotional activity, you can focus your attention
(and your intention) on simply RELEASING all of that activity. Breathe deeply, relax, and just focus
your attention on your "conscious awareness" itself, wherever you physically sense it to be located
(often just behind the forehead). In this way, you can draw your awareness away from any mental
and emotional confusion, and focus it back onto your sense of self and your conscious intentions.
Allow any confusion to "just be" (don't try to "kill" it), and keep bringing you awareness back out
the activity, back to your intention to release it, and to release yourself from it. This may be effective
immediately, or it may take a few minutes, but this method is nearly always successful in "rescuing"
yourself from an ego attack.

What we can see now is that our feelings of self-blame, which may be difficult to identify, are
intimately bound to our issues of self-love. A constructive way to use to this understanding is to
create for yourself a clear intention and commitment to discover any self-blame, and to release
yourself from it. This can only be effectively done in a gentle manner, since if you "attack"
self-blame, you are merely indulging in more of it. Blame cannot be forcefully removed; it can only
be RELEASED. We are tempted to "fight fire with fire," but the tools of the ego (judgment,
vindictiveness, righteousness, attack, etc.) are like black magic; the power they seem to offer is
seductive, and although we think we can wield them to further our own purpose, we find out that
they can really only serve their maker (the ego). In using the ego's tools, we become dependent on
them, and our own will becomes subservient to our ego's.

The way to recover your OWN power is to give up the power that you have "borrowed" from your
ego in using its tools. In reality, though, you ego has no power of its own; truly, it is your ego that
has been borrowing YOUR power, which is why it is fearful, and why you should be encouraged.
Refuse to lend your ego your power by refusing to believe what is tells you (the messages of fear
and separation), or to do what it bids you. The key to success in this lies in realizing that LENDING
YOUR POWER TO YOUR EGO REALLY IS A CHOICE THAT YOU ARE MAKING. You
are struggling to break free from the spell of the "black magic" that you have embraced by using
your ego's tools of separation.

You must learn to recognize the voice of your ego -- the voice of fear and blame -- and refuse its
"power" and its tools. This means that you do not resist or fight your ego, but rather simply allow it,
release it, and choose to re-focus your awareness and your energy away from it. "Allowing" is an
act of love, and is the only alternative to resisting, which is an act of fear arising from a belief in
separation. Do not attack and resist your own self-blame; simply refuse to believe it or empower it.
Your self-blame is not really YOURS, anyway; it belongs to your ego. When you see this, you
release it, release your attachment to it, and it simply ceases.

If you accept and expect only small miracles and slow, steady progress, you will not be easily
disappointed.
Understanding Suffering

by Matthew Blais
<mblais@interpath.com>

(NOTE: This is the third article in a series. The first article is titled "Healing the Shadow and
the Mirror of Relationship," and the second is titled "Loving Ourselves.")

Suffering seems to be one of those fundamental human experiences that we all have in common, and
is perhaps the one we would all gladly give up. We often feel oppressed and frustrated by suffering
because we do not understand it. It can pierce the heart of our being and our identity, and shake
every assumption we hold about ourselves and the world. It often seems to destroy our will-power
and overthrow our commitments, to our dismay.

We fear suffering, and react to it with anger and frustration, because we feel oppressed by it and
powerless against it. This is another way of saying that we are the victim of our suffering. We take
the victim stance when we assert our powerlessness against something, and then project our power
onto the "victimizer," which gets blamed for our situation. We then indulge in feelings of
self-righteous indignation, "justifiable" anger, and self-pity. The denial of our own power (and its
consequent projection) lies at the root of suffering. We will come back to his point.

Let's look at one example of suffering that many of us experience on our path of personal growth
and healing: suffering over lost peace.

Spiritual insights seem to come in waves; that is, when we have a flash of spiritual illumination and
understanding (or a "peak experience"), it is always followed, after some time, by a return to our
previous "normal" state of mind and spiritual understanding. Our insight will often stay with us in the
form of an intellectual understanding or belief, but it may take years for it to really become integrated
into our everyday being and our way of relating to the world.

For example, many of us have had the powerful experience of realizing that our lives are guided by a
higher purpose than our own, and that every event in our lives is a necessary step in the unfolding of
our highest path. When we are actually experiencing the truth of this insight in the moment, it gives us
great relief and joy, and allows for a peaceful acceptance that lets us calmly abide in whatever
situation we find ourselves. In this space we are conscious of the necessity of every thing that has
ever happened, and of the nonexistence of "coincidence;" we have great, loving compassion for
ourselves and others, and we are in touch with our desire to "play out our part" in life. In this space
we do not suffer.

Unfortunately, we usually "come down" from this experience in short order. With luck, its effects will
stay with us for a few hours or days, giving us a chance to reexamine our lives and our assumptions
in its light. These can be occasions of powerful and effortless growth and healing. But the peaceful
experience always eventually fades, and we find ourselves back in our "normal" state of mind.

Days or weeks later, the experience has faded to a memory, a mere idea, and we can hardly even
recall its impact. Struggling to remember and recreate that sense of peace and joy, we find instead
the familiar, oppressive "reality" of our doubts and fears, beside which peace seems only a fantasy.
It is at this point that we start once again to feel powerless; frustration and anger return, as we feel
outrage at the universe or God for having "robbed" us of our peace and joy. Then we experience
the suffering of being the victim of this undeserved punishment. We may say, "Now that I have seen
that I really, truly want only love and peace, why must I go through all of this garbage all over
again?"

Inseparable from our suffering is a belief or an interpretation that we have about it, though we may
be unconscious of it. In this example, we suffer because of our sense of powerlessness to create
what we want (peace and joy), and the interpretation of our suffering is that WE ARE
POWERLESS, and a victim to God (or the universe). In order to transform suffering by
understanding it, it is necessary to clearly see what meaning or interpretation you have attached to
your suffering. This is because your suffering is, in truth, a RESULT of the interpretation, and NOT
the other way around. First, you form a belief based on some experience, and THEN you
experience suffering, BECAUSE OF that belief.

A BELIEF CAUSES US TO SUFFER SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS UNTRUE. Restated, suffering
results from believing an untruth. Notice, in our example, that we did not start to suffer until we had
given up on creating peace, and decided that we were powerless to do so. That is the point where
we start believing the untruth of our victimhood, and simultaneously start suffering. All suffering has
victimhood-- the belief in powerlessness-- at its root.

So far we have only looked at the CAUSE of suffering, which is a necessary first step in
transforming it. What about the purpose of suffering?

If we allow the idea that all suffering is the result of a false belief in powerlessness, then our suffering
is the messenger that reveals to us our areas of disempowerment. Whether or not we then take
steps to heal these areas is our choice.

Another way to look at suffering is to see it as the universe's way of showing us what we are
attached to. Any attachment is also rooted in a belief in an untruth, and is therefore a cause for
suffering. For example, we may be suffering because we have no life partner at the moment, and we
believe that we are lonely and unhappy because we have no partner. In this case, our attachments
are to (1) having a partner, and (2) the BELIEF that we cannot be happy without one. The way out
of suffering is to release the attachments and untrue beliefs at its root. The fact that we suffer over
our attachment is what tells us with certainty that the underlying belief is, in fact, untrue.

The harder work, by far, is this matter of releasing our attachments and untrue beliefs; this is truly a
lifetime's (or many lifetimes') work. In the meantime, we may take some comfort in understanding
the purpose of suffering not as some form of cosmic punishment, but rather as our higher guidance
faithfully showing us all of the areas where we are mired in attachment and resisting growth.

When you think about the incredible number of attachments we have, it is enlightening to realize that
we seldom suffer over more than one at a time. Perhaps this is because our higher self knows that
we cannot realistically work with more than one attachment or belief at a time, so there would be no
point in our suffering over more than one at a time.

It is also helpful to remember that suffering is not something that is thrust upon us like a punishment
by the universe; it is what we ourselves have created by choosing to deny truth and believe in
untruth, and it is our incentive to reconsider these false beliefs. When we are in the midst of
suffering, realizing this may not give us any peace. We need to be careful not to BLAME ourselves
for having created our suffering. This would only be the creation of more suffering through the false
belief that we DESERVE to suffer, which is a self-supporting vicious circle.

Identifying the false beliefs that underlie our suffering will bring us closer to healing our
disempowerment, but it will not always bring us immediate release. In the meantime, we can fruitfully
use the experience of suffering to teach our subconscious that our suffering comes from denial and
giving away our power. To do this, when you are suffering, you could use an affirmation like,

"This is what it feels like to give my power away.
This is what denial feels like.
This is what blaming feels like.
This is what attachment feels like.
I choose to release my false beliefs and attachments,
and remember my Truth.
I choose to take back all of my misplaced power,
and remember my role as the creator of all my experiences."

Using an affirmation like this will help us stop projecting the CAUSE of our suffering onto God, the
universe, or others. This we must do in order to remember that only WE have the power to stop our
suffering. First we must come to terms with being the creator of our experience-- without blaming
ourselves or others. Then we can focus on how and why we HAVE created our experience and
suffering. This leads to understanding, and allows us to release our attachments and false beliefs, and
thereby release ourselves from suffering.
Desire

by Matthew Blais
<mblais@interpath.com>

(NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of articles. The first three articles are "Healing the
Shadow and the Mirror of Relationship," "Loving Ourselves," and "Understanding
Suffering.")

I. Desire

Desire is one of the great paradoxes of being human. We find desire both at the heart of our
greatest joy, and of our greatest suffering. Sometimes we are empowered and uplifted by our
desires, and at other times we feel enslaved to them.

Our desires reach down to the very center of our being, and if we know how to listen, they will tell
us important secrets about the hidden parts of ourselves. When we are sincere in seeking to truly
know and understand ourselves, our desires give us the keys to a deeper self-knowledge and
understanding.

When a desire enters our awareness, it usually takes the form of a concrete desire to posses a
certain THING, or have a certain SITUATION. For example, we may desire things like money,
clothes, a new car, "toys," chocolate, etc. We may desire situations like a romantic relationship, a
secure or rewarding job, more free time, or parents who really understand and support us.

Our culture has taught us that the way to achieve happiness is by acquiring the things and situations
that we desire. However, by the time we reach adulthood, most of us have noticed that new desires
arise as quickly as we satisfy our old ones. We can see that chasing our desires is a journey without
an end, and that lasting happiness is not a product of that journey. If we look closely at our desires,
we can understand why this is so.

On the surface, our desires seem to be for a specific thing or situation. On closer examination,
however, we find that behind every "surface" desire for a thing or situation lies a deeper, more basic
desire for the EXPERIENCE that we believe the thing or situation would bring us. For example,
behind our "surface" desire for more money lies a deeper desire for the experience of security,
freedom, or power that we assume having more money would bring. On the surface, we may desire
a relationship, but we really only want it for the experience of love, connection, intimacy, sex, etc.,
that we hope it will bring us. When we crave food, what we really desire is the experience of satiety,
the pleasure of consuming it, and the other feelings that it brings. In every case, our deeper "root"
desire is for a certain EXPERIENCE, and the apparent OBJECT of our desire is merely the means
to achieve that end.

Think about the deeper feelings and experiences you desire that are behind the apparent objects of
your desire. Examine the underlying desires for these feelings, but instead of using the word "desire,"
substitute the phrase "have a need for." For example, instead of saying "I desire security, I desire
love, I desire excitement" say "I have a need for security, I have a need for love, I have a need for
excitement." At a deep level, whenever we feel a NEED for something, we desire it; and, if we
desire an experience, it is because we feel a need for it. All of our desires are reflections of needs
that we feel at a deep level.

You feel a need for something only because you feel that it is lacking, or "missing." Your desires
reflect what you feel a need for at a deep level, in order to feel more fulfilled and "complete." What
you desire, then, is whatever feels fundamentally missing or lacking within you. YOU DESIRE
ONLY WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU DO NOT HAVE. When you are feeling safe and secure,
you are not desiring safety and security. When you are experiencing great love, you are not desiring
love, because it does not feel missing; you are simply experiencing it, being it.

II. The Ego

Our ego is the part of ourselves that believes in the separateness of all things. It believes that it is
separate from everything else in the universe. Most of the time, without realizing it, we are
completely identified with our ego (we believe that we ARE our ego), and therefore we believe that
WE are separate from everything else. Our ego tells us "what we are" and "what we are not." It also
tells us what we "have" and "don't have" (e.g., happiness, love, suffering, patience, good looks,
etc.).

By telling you that you are or are not something, your ego distinguishes "you" apart from everything
else. This is how it creates and maintains your "separate" identity. When you feel like a separate,
individual person (which is probably 99 percent of the time), you are identifying yourself with -- and
AS -- your ego.

As long as we are identified with our ego, we are identified with separation, so we experience
separation. Learning to recognize what our ego is -- and to recognize that WE ARE NOT IT -- is
how we learn to let go of the experience of separation, and all of its associated suffering. Our ego is
not "bad," and it is not our aim to try to destroy it. Rather, we need only distinguish it, recognize it,
and recognize its activity and effects in our lives. This alone increases our ability to relax our
identification with it.

Desire can play a very important part in learning to recognize our ego. We saw that we desire what
we believe we do not have. Another way to say this is, WE DESIRE WHAT WE BELIEVE WE
ARE NOT. For example, we desire happiness because we believe we "are not" happy. But it is the
ego that says "you are this," and "you are not that;" therefore, what we desire is what our EGO
believes we "are not."

So your desires show you what your ego believes you do not have, and are not. Therefore, your
desires reveal parts of your "identity of separateness," which is your ego. This is very valuable
information, if you are interested in understanding yourself and healing your separation. It helps to
know some specifics about your identity of separateness in order to recognize it, and to recognize
how and when you identify with it.

Your ego IS separation, and it will always be so. "Healing your separation" is NOT healing your
ego; rather, it is healing your IDENTIFICATION WITH your ego. The ego itself does not cause
your experience of separateness; rather, your IDENTIFICATION WITH your ego does. Your ego
only has power to define your life and your experiences to the extent that you are identified with it.
The more clearly you distinguish your ego, the more freedom you have to NOT identify with it -- to
not "be" it -- and therefore the more power you have to transcend your ego's world of limitation and
separation.

III. Attachment

How we relate to our ego (i.e., whether or not we identify with it) determines how our ego affects
our experience of life. In the same way, how we relate to our desires determines how our desires
affect our experience. When we identify with our ego, we take on its belief that we do not "have"
certain qualities and experiences, and so we feel a need for them. Thus desire arises, pointing the
way for us to obtain (or somehow make up for) what we believe we are missing.

What makes a desire problematic is our becoming ATTACHED to it. When we are completely
identified with our ego, we really BELIEVE we are missing some experience or quality; then we feel
a deep, great NEED for it. The more firmly we believe that it's missing (i.e., the more completely we
are identified as our ego), the stronger our need to somehow "replace" it. It can feel absolutely
VITAL for our well-being and wholeness that we "get it back."

This overriding urgency and importance we feel IS our ATTACHMENT to our desire, and we
experience this attachment only because we really BELIEVE we are missing a piece of ourselves.
This is because we are totally identified with our ego; "missing a piece" is our ego's belief about itself
(and it's TRUE about our ego, but not about US).

When we are firmly identified with our ego, we are quite convinced that we do not have anything
that is "not us," and therefore the only thing we can do in order to "fill the hole" is to go looking for
the missing qualities "out there". Then, if we find what we're looking for, we latch onto it for dear
life.

We believe that by chasing our desire and "obtaining" the missing quality or experience, we will fulfill
the deep need we feel. The problem here is that, when we "succeed" in obtaining the experience,
our ego's belief in separation is completely unaffected. If your ego believes that love is "missing"
from itself (and it DOES), then when you do experience love, your ego will experience it as coming
from "out there."

The ego's belief that it is missing love cannot be changed by experiencing love. The ego REALLY
IS missing love, because it was made without love, and that cannot be changed. So to the degree
that you are identified with your ego, you WILL experience "missing love."

If you chase your desire for love and find it "out there" in someone or something ELSE, you will
have to HOLD ON to that someone or something else in order to prevent the return of the painful
experience of "lacking" love. Finding love "out in the world" does not equate to healing your sense of
separateness from love. That requires healing your separateness from your True Self, which is the
same as healing your identification with your ego.

When we do achieve our desires, we give up our freedom in an effort to keep what we have
"gained." When we finally find that relationship we've been searching for, we immediately start to
censor ourselves and restrict our expression, to ensure that we don't scare our partner away, or
offend them and cause them to withdraw "their love." The love that is filling our need is clearly "not
ours," or else we would not be afraid that someone else could take it away.

By chasing our desires, we are treating the SYMPTOMS (the feelings of lack) of the experience of
separation, while the DISEASE (the experience of separation itself) goes unhealed. In addition,
every desire we fulfill then demands our eternal allegiance and vigilance to make sure that we do not
"lose" what we have achieved, lest we once more experience the symptoms: the feelings of lack.
Losing what we have "gained" in this way is especially painful, because it reveals the ugly truth of the
impotence of "fulfilling our desires." To face that difficult fact is to face the real powerlessness and
the certainty of ultimate failure that are inherent in chasing desire.

IV. Empowerment

Our power to create (or our empowerment) can be understood in this way: whatever is "real" for
you has "reality" because you have empowered it, and whatever you empower becomes "real" for
you.

When you are identifying with your ego, you are empowering it by lending your own creative power
to its beliefs. This is the only way your ego can have any reality for you; it has no creative power or
"reality" of its own. When you identify with your ego, all of its beliefs in limitation and separation
become YOUR "reality." Then all of your experiences reflect the rules and assumptions of this
reality of separation.

You cannot simultaneously empower two contradictory realities. Therefore, if you are empowering
the separation-based reality that you are NOT love, are MISSING love, and need to "find" love to
be fulfilled and complete, then you cannot BE love, and BE fulfilled and complete. Before you can
empower the reality of being fulfilled and complete, you have to stop empowering the reality that
you are not.

Our desires are like representatives or emissaries from our ego's belief system of separation and
incompleteness. They come bearing the ego's message of lack and need, and then wait expectantly
for us to validate and empower them. And if, in our habitual empowerment of our ego's beliefs, we
accept what they represent as "truth," then we DO empower them, and we empower the ego's
beliefs in separation and limitation, and thus that becomes our "reality." And thus we experience that
reality.

Because of their "emissary" role, our desires are a "leverage point" in the ongoing process of
empowering our ego. Our desires are highly visible to us; we are very conscious of them, in direct
contrast to much of our ego's system, which is mostly hidden and obscure.

What we empower is always our choice. Our power cannot be "taken," nor, once we have
empowered something, can our power be "kept." Since the ego cannot take our power, it must
convince us to lend it. Because it cannot keep our power, the ego must continually persuade us. It
does this by constantly sending us messages on the wings of desire, each of which solicits us to
empower its belief in lack.

What your ego believes it is not, it tells you you can never be. What it believes you do not have, it
tells you you cannot create, because IT cannot create. To believe this is to be identified with your
ego, and to believe that you, like it, are limited and separate from everything that it is not.

Because you have identified yourself as your ego, you have empowered the reality that you are not
love, do not have love, and cannot create love for yourself. Within this reality, to have love, you
must find it outside of yourself. This is the message that your desire for love brings you.

The desire itself is quite valuable, because it reveals the belief that we cannot have or create our
own love or belovedness. The desire has no power over us; it merely shows us what we believe to
be true, what reality we are empowering. Ordinarily, we choose from sheer habit to empower our
desire (and empower its reality source of separation), without even realizing that we HAVE A
CHOICE.

Not seeing our choice, we assume there is none. Thus we lose the opportunity to be CONSCIOUS
of what reality we are empowering, and to empower our reality consciously. Simply by becoming
aware of this choice, and becoming aware that WE ARE CONSTANTLY MAKING THIS
CHOICE (whether consciously or not), we reestablish the option to choose differently. For this
powerful step, it is not even necessary to actually choose differently, but only to observe the
choosing that is already, always taking place.

As long as we are empowering a reality of separation and limitation (e.g., we do not have, and
cannot create, our own love), we cannot simultaneously empower the complementary reality of unity
and unlimitedness (that we have, are, and do create love).

V. The Other Way

A desire is a "representative" from a limitation-based belief system, or "reality." You are intimately
familiar with that reality by now, so you have the experience you need to be able to recognize it.
You are beginning now to CONSCIOUSLY recognize and understand the nature and experience
of that "reality," and so you are starting to recognize its echoes within the choices you make. In
consciously distinguishing the "reality" of separation that you have empowered, you automatically
begin to distinguish HOW the choices you make are empowering it.

One of the ways you make these choices is how you relate to your desires. In "valuing" or "agreeing
with" a desire, you empower it, and you empower its underlying belief in lack.

By choosing NOT to empower a desire, you choose not to empower the "reality" of limitation that it
represents. In recognizing the belief or "reality" that the desire represents, you gain the option of
choosing to empower a different and contrary "reality," such as the reality of wholeness and
unlimitedness.

To make this choice is to heal your identification with your ego, with separation. Every such choice
you make returns some of your power that has been "lent" to the ego's belief system of limitation.
This is the very power that has made limitation and separation your "reality."

Initially, this may look like a severe ascetic's path, leading to a boring life with no desires. You might
hear "not empowering your desire" to mean that you should not want what you want, or that you
should simply not try to achieve what you desire.

This is not at all what is meant, however. The real goal is to distinguish the underlying beliefs in
separation and limitation that we have empowered. Once we bring these beliefs to consciousness
and see their effects in our lives, we start to become aware of the choices we make to empower
them.

Choosing not to empower a desire does not rob you of what you are desiring, nor does it prevent
you from experiencing it. What it does is allow you to empower a reality where you don't NEED
something that is "missing" from you. Not empowering a desire allows you to empower a reality
where you simply HAVE and ARE what was missing, but to do this you must cease empowering
the reality that you ARE missing it.

The needs and desires that we used to feel are thus replaced by experiences of HAVING and
BEING what we used to "need." Having these things, we no longer feel desire for them; they are
now simply a part of us. Thus, where once there was the feeling of a lack of love, and a desire for
love, now there is simply the presence of love, as a part of one's being.

VI. Victimhood

Do not fall into the trap of making your desires (or the fact that you continue to empower them) into
another testament to your belief in your powerlessness or your unworthiness. To do so is simply to
choose to empower yet again the belief in separation and limitation. By now, you cannot help but
realize that it is a CHOICE to do this, to continue to use your power to create beliefs that trap you
in feelings of victimhood and disempowerment.

To believe in your own powerlessness and unworthiness is to agree with your ego's negative
assessment of you. This is your ego's assertion that YOU are IT, in all its limited, separate glory.
When you see that YOU choose to empower this "reality" of powerlessness, the illusion of the
"victim" is apparent:

THE VICTIM CHOOSES TO EMPOWER THE REALITY THAT HE IS POWERLESS TO
CHOOSE WHAT REALITY HE EMPOWERS.

(That sentence is worth studying until you really understand it, and understand the self-contradiction
that it is).

The victim chooses to believe and empower that he has no choice and no power, and that belief has
reality for him because he HAS CHOSEN to empower it. When the thought "you are powerless"
comes to the mind of the victim, he says "I certainly agree," and that is how he empowers it.
Someone who is not a victim might have the same thought, but say, "I may FEEL powerless, but I
know that it is always my choice as to which thoughts I will agree with and empower, and which
ones I will ignore, and I know that to FEEL powerless is different that BEING powerless."

To FEEL powerless is to experience limitedness. We all choose at times to empower a belief in
limitation, and experience that "reality," so we all know what it is like to FEEL powerless. On the
other hand, to "BE powerless" is to empower the belief that you are not empowering your belief,
and to experience that "reality." It is a valid experience, but a dismal one.

VII. Listening for Empowerment

When the voice of desire speaks to you, do not hear the voice of your ego telling you what you do
not have and cannot be; hear instead the voice of your Greater Self, reminding you of what you
have forgotten you always have, and always are.

Let the voice of desire remind you of the separation you have chosen to empower, and let it remind
you to choose consciously what you would create now.

Let it remind you that you seek to understand what you have created, so that you may release it and
free yourself to create anew, to create consciously.

Let the voice of desire remind you to recognize the seeds of experience that are within every choice
to believe, and every choice to cast away belief.
THE NATURE OF DREAMS

by Matthew Blais (mblais@interpath.com)

(Note: this article was written mainly for students of A Course In Miracles, and builds on the ideas
in The Course)

Reason shows us that "belief" and "experience" are one and the same. This understanding is crucial
to understanding illusion, and it is difficult for most people to grasp. If I experience the pain of loss, I
must be saying that such loss is not only possible, but REAL; i.e. when I experience loss, I
BELIEVE in the REALITY of "loss." I cannot meaningfully say that I can experience something that
is unreal; that would be to say that there is no way to distinguish real from unreal, making the word
"real" meaningless. When I was an atheist, and believed that the universe was mechanical in nature, I
did in fact EXPERIENCE it to be so. I could explain how all my experiences were consistent with
my beliefs, and I would explain to you how the experiences of a "mystic" were merely delusions
(i.e., unreal, because they did not fit with my beliefs of what was real).

When you have an experience that contradicts a belief you hold, you either modify your belief
accordingly, or quickly deny the experience. This is because belief and experience are not two
distinct things; they are the same. You cannot believe that two contradictory things are both true and
real, nor can you experience them both as such, if they are actually contradictory. This is inherent in
the meanings of "contradictory" and "true."

In our nightly sleeping dreams, we experience (believe) things that, from the waking perspective,
seem ridiculous: obviously unreal and impossible. In dreams, our awareness is so focused and
constricted that we DO NOT NOTICE the contradictions and inconsistencies within the dream, or
we simply do not have enough "presence of mind," or awareness, to realize that such inconsistencies
denote ILLUSION (hence we must be dreaming). But upon awakening from the dream, we laugh
incredulously at how we could have overlooked such wild discrepancies and implausibilities. Such is
the power of a narrowed focus of awareness: when constricted enough, it allows us to avoid
noticing any particular level of inconsistency and contradiction, which a greater or more "awake"
level of awareness could not possibly ignore.

In our normal "waking state," the same overlooking of inconsistency IS occurring all the time,
because this state is no less a dream than what happens during nightly sleep. The only difference is
that our awareness while "awake" is not quite as focused and restricted as it is during "sleep," so that
BY COMPARISON, what we experience while awake seems much more self-consistent, and
therefor valid. As long as a dream continues, from within the dream you continue to miss the telltale
incongruities. It is only when your awareness awakens to a higher level that a broader view is
attained, and then the limited perspective and beliefs of the dream are seen for the illusions they
were.

From WITHIN any particular focus of awareness (either a sleeping dream, or our "normal waking
state"), it is very difficult to follow a rational line of reasoning that shows the focus itself to be
inconsistent, self-contradictory, and therefore invalid. Our focus seems to usually be just limited
enough to jump from one idea and belief to another, always managing to avoid focusing on any
inconsistencies at the same time and place. To see, side by side, the inconsistencies within the
system would be to realize that the system itself is inconsistent, irrational, and therefore illusory. This
is true regardless of the level of awareness -- dreaming or waking. The only difference is the scope
of your focus, your awareness. It is a quantitative, not a qualitative difference; how much illusion can
you believe in one bite? In a sleeping dream, where your awareness is very tightly focused, you can
"believe" just about anything without questioning its consistency and sanity; in the waking state, your
focus of awareness is broader, so you require more consistency of your perceptions and beliefs
(i.e., your experiences).

In our waking state, we dream, believe, and experience that "we ARE" separate human beings,
living in a world of separate entities. Even though we may understand the logic of A Course In
Miracles, and realize that our "separate identity" must be somehow untrue, our BELIEF in and
EXPERIENCE of our identity is instilled at a very deep level. It cannot be completely released
without also releasing all of the layers upon layers of beliefs and experiences which rest upon it.
They are all interconnected. And yet, in "peak" experiences such as the holy instant, we are granted
a moment of expanded awareness where we clearly recognize some of the inconsistencies of our
everyday identity, and its ideas of what constitute truth and reality.

Life is an identity crisis. We dream that we ARE separate human beings, and thus we
EXPERIENCE that belief. And while we experience it, we believe it. All of us shift back and forth
between identifying and experiencing ourselves as awake human beings, and experiencing ourselves
as something much more limited, with a stunted awareness (i.e., in sleeping dreams). Most of us also
shift occasionally into an awareness more expansive than that of our normal waking identity. Again,
these are all quantitative differences in the degree of limitation of our awareness; they are not
qualitatively (i.e., meaningfully) DIFFERENT KINDS of experience or awareness.

At whatever level of awareness we find ourselves in the moment, we identify ourselves to BE that
limited awareness, along with all the beliefs and experiences that fall under our shifting focus. And
when our awareness shifts back to a higher level, we laugh at how we could ever have actually
BELIEVED that the dream was REAL. The magic of forgetting (i.e., constricted awareness) is to
be able to believe (to experience) illusion as REAL. But that magic fades instantly and the illusion is
seen for what it is when awareness expands, when we "awaken."

One difficult point to grasp is how the concept of CHOICE fits in. The Course teaches (as do many
esoteric sources) that we always CHOOSE our beliefs (i.e., our experiences). But when we desire
and attempt to choose a more expansive belief of our ourselves, often it seems that nothing changes.
It is like being in a dream where you say to yourself, "Aha, I'm dreaming! Now I'll wake up!" But if
you don't immediately wake up, you conclude (in your dream, still) that it must not be a dream after
all, and so you continue on in your dream with the firm belief that it ISN'T a dream. But it IS a
dream nonetheless. The belief that an illusion is real does not make it so; it only means that we are
dreaming, and still overlooking the inconsistencies and contradictions of the dream.

A choice must always have a chooser, and much of the confusion about "choice" is the confusion
about our identity. The important relationship between identity and choice is this: the "little dreamer"
WITHIN the dream is not the DREAMER of the dream. The "little self" you seem to BE within your
sleeping dreams is not who you ARE; it is not that little, illusionary, dream self who is doing any
choosing. That dream self is only an illusion about who you ARE, and illusions neither dream nor
choose. It is the real YOU, the dreamer, who chooses the dream, and then experiences it from a
different, more limited perspective (that of the little self within the dream), temporarily forgetting the
larger perspective and awareness of the true self who chooses and dreams. There is much that the
true, dreaming self must forget (namely, everything not of immediate import to the dream) in order to
experience the dream as REAL, and experience that more limited perspective as its own identity.

Likewise, neither is your waking identity your TRUE (real) identity, since what we believe and
experience in this world is only the dream of separation. Who you BELIEVE you are here -- your
waking identity -- is not choosing and dreaming what you experience here. It is who you REALLY
ARE, at a higher level of awareness, that chooses and dreams THIS level of focused forgetfulness.
What you call your "waking identity" is only the "little dream self" in THIS dream, who can
experience this dream as real, and this limited identity as your own. And you have needed to forget
much, in order to experience this illusion, this dream of separation, as REAL.

In our nightly sleeping dreams, if we realize that we are dreaming, we will often awake. There is,
after all, little point in continuing the dream once we recognize it as UNREAL. The "purpose" and
effectiveness of the dream is lost if the dream character knows that he is dreaming, because he will
not "take it seriously." If you know that the pouncing tiger is "only an illusion, " you cannot be very
scared. If you went to a movie and the person sitting behind you kept talking about what happens in
the next scene, you would get very annoyed, because you would constantly be pulled out of the
experience of the movie, and be reminded that there's nothing really there except shifting patterns of
light and some prerecorded sounds, and an itch on your nose. If you know what's going to happen,
you also know that it ISN'T REAL, and you can't immerse yourself in an experience that you
KNOW isn't real. This is to say that the PURPOSE of a dream (or any intentional illusion, like a
movie) IS TO EXPERIENCE IT AS REAL. If you spent the whole movie thinking of it AS A
MOVIE and not immersing yourself in it, then you'd probably either feel cheated, or else you're a
cynic (and cynics LIVE to feel cheated).

This has been long on theory and short on practical advice, but there is a good reason for that. The
whole point is to UNDERSTAND, rationally and intellectually, the nature of dreams, of illusion.
When your intellect is clear about the nature of illusion, it will gladly point it out to you wherever it
appears. This is very useful in personal growth and healing work, because your intellect is a very
powerful force to have on "your side," when your ego is fighting to justify its fears and grievances.
To truly understand illusion is to understand reality; To truly recognize shadow is to recognize light.
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