Major aspects of the personality will start to loosen and dissolve away.
And I do feel like um there may be aspects of the personality self,
skills, abilities, definitely that the Holy Spirit can use.
But um, the purpose for those skills and abilities is so different than for building a self-concept.
And, like strengthening the personality is more actually for loosening from it and serving the whole,
really the kind of like service mentality.
So um, I find that it's kind of fun to watch how personalities come together almost like a symphony,
with people playing different instruments and you can hear the beauty of the symphony.
But uh, it takes a lot of practice, it takes a lot of mind-training,
and, you just have to be very patient and really tolerant, um, while you're going through the process,
'cause other than that it can just kinda shut off the process again.
With a split mind, there can be the feeling of a deeper sense of guilt,
and a sense of being out of control.
What the world does, is the world um, is just like a menu of different options.
But, the struggle comes in with um with observing these behaviors and trying to control them.
And uh, and it's just a version of this ego pattern of trying to bring stability
and trying to maintain existence by controlling the world.
So, controlling weight, or controlling what the body eats is just an example.
It plays out in different ways for other people.
That's just an example how this kind of addiction plays out.
Addiction really is the judgement, the mind is addicted to judging.
And, it's a very unnatural thing.
You know, the mind wasn't created to judge.
It was created to BE.
So, judging is very, very unnatural.
And then, in order to kind of bring a sense of control,
there can be a sense of trying to control the body or control behavior.
And, at some point, when you start with working with the Course it has to become more and more obvious,
that, ahh this is gonna be a mind- training, I mean you have to do a mind overhaul here,
before I'm going to have a sense of peace and stability coming in.
So, you could say that the food and the sugar is getting your attention.
Also, it can be very stressful, because when there's beliefs around
particular foods and beliefs on it's interaction with the body, that's all learned as well.
So, there's causation that's given.
Like sugar, sometimes like sugar and hyper.
Or, you know, sugar can be associated with various states of mind and so forth.
Ultimately A Course in Miracles is about flushing up into awareness
all these false cause effect beliefs that involve form and releasing them to the Holy Spirit.
So that you become more stabilized in CHOOSING WITH the Holy Spirit.
And starting to realize that the mind is causative, and ONLY the mind is causative.
In one sense it's like, okay, I've got my spiritual path,
but, I'm gonna be, there will be temptation that will arise here and there, and here and there.
And, it's the very things that where it seems to be wildly out of control,
that the ego will try to use, you know to increase the sense of anxiety,
or a sense of fear of literally losing control.
And, that's the feeling of of an addiction, it's as if you're at the mercy of something.
That you are losing your sense of choice or your sense of control with it.
And A Course in Miracles is bringing you back you know to a sense of that control.
But, it's all at the level of mind and thoughts.
It's not about, it's NEVER about trying to control behaviors.
Oftentimes too, there's a lot of self-concept conditioning about weights and body image and looks.
And so, certain thoughts are raised up as being, you know, really important,
based on these self-concept and these body image thoughts.
And, the ego is using this body image, you know, as a replacement for Spirit.
And, eventually as you keep doing the mind-training, then
you find that the things that seemed to be addictive patterns,
just start to become less and less and less.
You like loosen from them.
You outgrow them, literally,
as you are able to focus more on the miracle, the other things just fall away.
The symbols of the world is what the sleeping mind believes in,
you know, so of course, they're great tools for practice.
So, things like food, diet, exercise, you know, it's common
that the Holy Spirit can use these as mind-training devices.
The GOAL is peace of mind.
The goal isn't a particular outcome or appearance.
So, all of the ego's self-concept goals are form based.
You know, bigger, better, faster, more.
It's this sense of self-improvement of trying to whatever,
make the body look better, make a better house, a better car, you know.
There's this, a tendency of the ego to glorify physical structures,
whether it's the body or other structures.
And then there's also the sense with the body that, the ego actually hates the body,
'cause it doesn't feel like it's a good enough home.
So, it's the flip side, the ego literally doesn't know what anything is for,
and it has no unified goal for the form.
So, at times it tries to glorify, glorify, build it up, build it up, build it up,
then, rip it down, rip it down.
With the golfer, Tiger Woods, oh, great, great, great, the best, the best, the best in the world,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom AAHHHH, YEAH, good! (audience laughing)
The ego loves to see him fall.
You know, the higher they rise, the farther they fall.
And the ego loves the drama of the whole thing.
You know, it loves to see idols raised up and it likes to see them ripped down.
As long as you keep believing in the idols, it doesn't care if they are raised up or ripped down.
And, we can say that, that the definition that Jesus gives of um temptation,
Jesus says, "What is temptation but the wish to make illusions real."
So, once you start to follow that definition, it's like aahhh that's what temptation is.
It's the ego's wish to make illusions real.
What does that even mean?
Um, if illusions, by definition are false, and it's an attempt to make them true, how's the ego do this?
It does it through preferences, it does it through judgment.
It does it through, what Jesus called hierarchies of illusions.
But, once you start to give yourself over to working miracles,
and tapping into that peace of mind, then these so called hierarchies lose importance.
You start to care less and less and less about those hierarchies,
because peace is your goal.
And peace of mind means letting go of those heirarchies.
You know, the idea that there are some things that are better and worse and so on and so forth,
those start to loosen and loosen in awareness.
It's more like you outgrow them.
You know, it's not like you have to like, battle them,
but it's more like, as you are drawn more into the peace, then,
the other things just start to fade away in awareness.
I mean, you become less and less and less important,
to the point where where, you can just be in a state of stillness,
and not get caught up in the interpretations, the ego's interpretations anymore.
You get back far enough in your mind, that you're not subject to these ego judgments and interpretations.