This morning we’re going to talk about the stories we tell ourselves.
Over and over again we’re told in "A Course of Miracles" that we should not believe the
ego, we should not trust the ego.
We’re told, “Nothing so blinding as perception of form,” (T-22.III.6:7), which, of course,
means anything that we perceive in our world.
William Blake, in one of his wonderful poems, The Everlasting Gospel (and I quote this often
when I teach) tells us “not to believe the lie,” and it’s the lies that the five
senses tell us and, of course, the lies the five senses tell us really have to do with
the sensory data that are imported from the outside and fed to the brain and as the brain
takes all these—all this sensory information and weaves stories around it.
I always emphasize that we should never believe anyone who tells us two and two equals four
because they’re coming from the world’s laws, the world’s thinking, and as Lesson 76
tells us, we are under no laws but God’s (W-pI.76.11:5-6).
Two and two in Jesus’ world equals five which of course makes no sense here, but
nothing makes sense here because how could anything make sense here since there is no “here?”
But we believe we’re here; that’s the first story.
We actually believe we’re here.
We have a story of our birth, you know, “how this happened.
There’s a sperm, there’s an egg,” etcetera, etcetera, and people weave all stories about
the union of sperms and eggs, and then you have test tube sperms and artificial insemination
and all kinds of other things that begin the story we think of “our life,” and then
as we grow we weave more and more stories; stories about how unfairly treated we are,
how our parents don’t treat us right, how they do this, they do that, and then we have
siblings that don’t treat us right, and people, and teachers, and all kinds of things,
and we’re always weaving stories, weaving stories, weaving stories, and unfortunately
we convince ourselves that these stories are true. And we convince ourselves these stories
are true is because the “hero” of these stories (just as Jesus tells us the “the
‘hero’ of the dream” is (T-27.VIII.h)), the “hero” of these stories is the body.
The “hero” of my stories is my body, and then there’re all these other bodies in
my dream, in my story that I interact with and, of course, I reinforce your dream, your
stories, and you reinforce my stories, and we actually believe these stories.
We believe things happen in this world because of certain laws so, as Lesson 76 tells us
and Jesus is really poking gentle fun at these laws, we actually think that a microorganism
called a “bacteria” or a “virus” actually can affect us (W-pI.76.3). Now within the world’s
story that, of course, is true because thoughts can affect bodies and things can happen to
bodies, but if there is no body, “At no single instant does the body exist at all,”
(T-18.VII.3:1), meaning in the holy instant there’s no thought of separation so there
could be no thought of a separated body, then what is attacking who?
You know?
Or, who’s attacking what?
Nothing can be happening, but we weave stories, and all of these stories have as their central
purpose to reinforce the story, which is that we separated from our Creator and Source,
made up a world as a result of that, and all of this is real.
It actually happened.
I sometimes say when I teach that the ego is the principle of the actually happened;
something happened.
And the Holy Spirit is the principle of the nothing happened.
“Not one note in Heaven’s song was missed,” (T-26.V.5:4).
That’s the principle of the Atonement: nothing happened.
But we make stories.
But what’s particularly helpful is to watch how we make up stories each and every day.
Forget about the larger story of the ontological belief we separated from God; all the everyday
stories, and these every-day stories have one core theme that runs throughout each and
every one of them: “Somebody or something did something to me.
Someone or something did something to me to affect me, to make me happy, to make me sad,
to give me pleasure, to bring me pain,” and then we have all kinds of witnesses; witnesses
of our past experiences as well as current witnesses of other people perhaps, that my
story is true.
And it becomes mandatory that my story be true because that’s what reinforces (even
though I’m not aware of it) the ultimate story is, “I exist.
I exist as a separated son.
I exist as an ego.
I exist as a separated mind.”
And so what corroborates that story and reinforces its seeming validity is the fact that I have
my every-day story: “Yes, I exist, but somebody else did it to me.”
In other words, “I’m innocent of all charges.”
That’s what near the end of the text Jesus refers to as “the face of innocence, the
aspect acted on,” (T-31.V.2:6).
“Something out there has acted on me to make me this way,” and we’re not aware
that the purpose of these stories is to reinforce the fact that I exist as an ego.
So the way out of this is to let Jesus tell us another story; that’s the story of the
miracle, or forgiveness.
That’s the correction that says, “No, no, no, none of that is true.
The real story is that you remain as God created you; the real story, even within the dream
that you are innocent and because you are innocent, everyone else is innocent too.”
There is no one out there who is different from you that is hurting you or making you feel good.
Everyone out there is the same.
So the key in every one of the stories we make up about ourselves is how different we
are from each other.
People are sinful and we are sinless, or we see them as sinless and we are sinful, but
we always see differences and these differences have an impact on us.
The core of Jesus’ story, the story of correction, is that we are all the same.
Yes, it’s still a story because it happens within the world of illusion, but it’s a
story that cancels out all the ego’s stories, and when we finally cancel out all the ego
stories then we come to the reality that there’s no story at all, that we remain the holy Son
of God that God created.
But that’s what we’re always fighting against and so it’s helpful as we go through
our day to look at the purpose behind all the stories we make up and that we want to
make up, and that we want unfair things to happen to us because that reinforces the fact
that we are different; we exist and we are innocent.
But that’s the face of innocence, not the true innocence.
Jesus’ story, which is what we always have the power to choose in the holy instant right
now, is that none of this is true because we are all the same.
We’re all laboring under the same belief that the original story of the ego is true,
we all have the Correction story of the Holy Spirit, and we all have the power to choose
between them.
So as we go through our day it’s very helpful to recognize the ego’s stories and then
recognize Jesus’ story as the correction.
Everything I believe is untrue.
Everything I experience is untrue because it makes the differentiation of God’s separated
son true and real, and the truth within the dream is that we are all the same, and that’s
the lesson Jesus would have us learn in his Course.