This morning we're going to talk about, "The ego made me do it!" This, of course, is a
phrase more well-known as "The devil made me do it," and while some people may use this
facetiously, very, very often it's used as a way of avoiding responsibility. And one
of the key themes of A Course in Miracles is that we are responsible for every single
thing we think, feel, say, and do. While the world may certainly impinge on our bodies
and affect our bodies and determine how our bodies act, in the end it is the mind that
is the source of everything because there is no body outside of the mind and there is
no world outside of the thought system that thought it up. So the idea that the ego made
me do it, which very often Course students will resort to, to explain, "Well, I don't
know how this happened. I don't know why I'm feeling so depressed. I don't know why all
of a sudden I got so angry. My ego made me do it!" A variation of this, of course, especially
for people who come to the Foundation where we speak about the decision maker a lot, is
to say, "Well, my decision maker made me do it!" In other words, I'm not only a victim
of the devil or the ego; I'm now a victim of my decision maker, which seems to be only
a more sophisticated version of the ego very subtle attempt, the ego's very subtle attempt
to try to get us to avoid all responsibility for the power of our mind to choose. The ego
can't make me do it because when our decision-making self, our decision-making mind chooses the
ego, we become the ego. We're the ones who are the ego. The ego is not a separate entity.
There's a passage early on in the text where Jesus actually specifically refers to this
and kind of virtually apologizes to us, his students, for talking about the ego as if
it were a separate thing acting on its own. And he does this, just as he does the exact
same thing with the Holy Spirit, for pedagogical purposes. It's a way of helping us recognize
that we are a decision-making mind and the power of decision rests between two thought
systems: the ego's thought system of separation and attack and judgment and the Holy Spirit's
thought system of correction, forgiveness, and healing, and that is the choice. There
are no other alternatives to choose between. The section, "Rules for Decision," at the
beginning of Chapter 30 in the text makes this very, very clear. We always have to choose
and we could only choose between the ego and the Holy Spirit, and there is no other possibility.
We have to choose and these are the only things we can choose. So speaking about the ego or
the Holy Spirit as if they were separate entities, the case of the Holy Spirit as separate Person,
makes it easier for us to kind of get in touch with the fact that we really have the power
to choose between these two thoughts. But there's always a danger, which is why Jesus
makes this apology, because it could lend itself, once again, to our thinking, "The
ego made me do it," as if I'm not my ego, as if some kind of alien power took over from
me. No different than from how Christians have spoken about for centuries, "The devil
made me do it!" You know, "It's not my fault." You know, "It's not my fault I slipped. The
devil pushed me. It's not my fault that this happened; it's the devil doing it. The devil's
jealous of our relationship with God or with Jesus, and somehow I'm the victim of a power
beyond my control." And from the level, from the point of view of content this is no different
when Course students say, "The ego made me do it." So the point of all this is to really
have us accept the fact that we are totally responsible for everything we feel, everything
we think. There is no power outside of our minds that can determine what we choose and,
of course, this is a part of the Course, I think, that's particularly difficult for students—excuse
me—because it does place total responsibility on our feelings. We can no longer claim with
any sense of justification that we are the victims of the world outside of us. All right,
so an early workbook lesson says I'm not a victim of the world I see. "The secret of
salvation is but this," the end of Chapter 27 says, "that you are doing this unto yourself."
I mean, we are doing this. It's our decision. I am not responsible for the egos of the world.
I'm not responsible for what your ego does to me or those people that I identify with,
but I am totally responsible for how I respond to you. So that line in the text that says
I am responsible for what I see does not make me responsible for what my eyes literally
see. I'm responsible for the way that I see it. I'm responsible for the way my mind tells
my brain to interpret the sensory data that are being inputted. I am responsible for what
I see, meaning do I see a world that is hostile and evil and vicious or do I see a world that
is calling out for forgiveness? And the way I see the world would directly come from the
thought system that I choose to identify with, which means the teacher I choose to make my
guide. So it is never the ego made me do it; it is always my decision-making mind that
is who I am. Within the dream we are decision-making minds; is what my decision maker chose. And
it chooses what it wants to believe in: a thought system of separation and a world that
arises from it or a thought system of forgiveness that helps us awaken from this dream and return
home.