This is Part 2 of "The Ego's Formula." Let me review quickly what we discussed in the
last video about the ego's formula. It consists of our fear of God's Love because in that
Presence our individual, special self cannot exist. When we become afraid of that love
and withdraw from it, having pushed it away, the ego accuses us of sin. This sin leads
to the experience of guilt or the horror over what we have done. We have told God His Love
is not enough. We crucified His Son Christ by establishing a false self, a false son
to take His place, and we become terrified of the punishment that is inevitable given
what we believe we have done to God and therefore what He will do in return. The ego counsels
us then that the only way to be free of this guilt is to project it out and see the sin
and guilt in the world around us—in people, places, things, events, circumstances, genes,
past lives, future lives, whatever it is that you want to call it. But to see our experience
of dis-ease, our experience of nothing harmonious within ourselves, our experience of hurt,
depression, despair, that all of these have external causes. That once we project the
cause of our dis-ease which is our belief in sin, our belief in the ego, once we project
it out, put it outside of us, the ego causes this veil, this veil of forgetfulness or veil
of denial, to fall across our minds so we have no memory of what has preceded this feeling
of discomfort. All we are aware of is that we are not happy. We are not peaceful. We
are in pain. We are suffering, psychologically or physically and therefore it is something
outside or someone outside who is responsible. Then what happens is we construct all these
lies and stories, this massive edifice of disinformation that will support our contention
that the world has done this to us, and we believe it. And the more we present the evidence,
seeming evidence, for why we are so upset—and we all walk around practically from birth
with these scars, emotional or sometimes physical scars, to prove how we have been abused, victimized,
badly treated, unloved, rejected, uncared for, et cetera—that we carry these around
eager to show this to anyone at any time or any place. In fact, we are insane enough that
we are willing to shell out lots and lots of money to pay therapists—I used to be
one of them—to pay therapists to hear us and hear our tales of woe and reinforce, yes,
how badly abused we have been. All this, of course, is made up because the real lie is
that the world is not responsible for my distress or my dis-ease. I am responsible, and the
"I" that is responsible is my decision-making mind. It is my decision-making mind that is
the cause of my feeling so unhappy, of my being depressed, of my feeling guilty, of
my not being able to have a satisfactory relationship, not being able to hold down a satisfactory
job. All the problems that beset me in this world that I believe are problems that cause
me pain are due only to the mistake—and, of course, it's not a sin but the mistake—that
my decision maker made in choosing the wrong teacher. That's it. But all of this is buried
under clouds and clouds and clouds of obscurity and complexity so I actually think that the
world out there is responsible for me and, again, I build up all these lies and stories.
And I believe them and I get more and more people, more and more witnesses to agree with
me. And there seems to be no way out because in the moment that this has happened, the
truth of my mind's faulty decision-making process is buried, and the seeming truth now
is that it's the world outside of me. That's what Jesus means early on in the text when
he says the ego thought system is fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. What is foolproof
is that once we are caught in this ego trap and it's a very vicious circle that feeds
on itself, all the time our being totally mindless, unaware of our decision-making mind,
there is no hope. And that's what Jesus means when he says this is foolproof. It is not
however God-proof, but we will save for the third installment of the series to talk about
how we get out of this. But it's really important to understand as Lesson 5 says we are never
upset for the reasons we think, never. No matter what the world has done to me, no matter
how abused I have been from childhood on up, that is not why I am not experiencing the
love and peace of God right now. And so what's incumbent upon all of us is not to believe
the lies, not to believe the lies of a two plus two equals four world. The only hope
lies in going back to our basic arithmetic and realize we were taught falsely. Two and
two is not four, but two and two is five, and this will be subject of a third installment
of this series.