My Kingdom is not of this world

Perhaps more than any other word of Jesus in the historical literature, this expression became the frequent victim of level confusion, in one of the ego's favorite defenses against Jesus' teachings, in which it always substitutes the concrete for the abstract, the specific for the concept, the thing for the idea.
Plato already understood that the ideas, the mind, is infinite and forever, and cannot be traded for one or another expression of the idea, as much as you can steal a table, but you can't steal the idea 'table'. And therein lies the rub...
In Margot Krikhaar's Awakening in Love, she deals with this issue extensively, and as always in a thoroughly practical manner, particularly in Chapter 10 of the second part of the book. She covers all the variations of ego-distortions, including one of the ego's favorite games, of rejecting the world, pointing out that all such ego-strategies do nothing but make the error real. As a result they make it harder, not easier to follow Jesus to his Kingdom which is not of this world, as in fact they obfuscate the choice by substituting a specific action for the acceptance of the idea.

What makes the ego so upset are notions like 'I need do nothing' (ACIM:T-18.VII), not to mention the level of insult it feels at passages such as these:

It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You make it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need do. You find it difficult to accept the idea that you need give so little, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize it is not personally insulting that your contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so extremely disproportionate. You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just because it asks nothing you cannot give right now. (ACIM:T-18.IV.7)

It should finally dawn on us that the reason a camel will sooner go through the eye of a needle than a 'rich man' will enter the Kingdom, is simply because you cannot hang on to the values of the world, and seek first the Kingdom all at once. It is one or the other, so as long as you maintain your investment in two mutually exclusive strategies, you will lose your investment. Ask any trader on Wall Street.

The point is that when we do become aware of our own contradictory investments, we should not consult with our ego, but ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit. There is nothing we can do to flick the switch, except flicking the switch, and that means asking the Holy Spirit and not the ego to look at our resistance a different way. Looking at it with Jesus or the Holy Spirit is what will whittle down the resistance, any actions the ego comes up with will only postpone that one choice by always again substituting something that will never work.

Thus the 'other' choice is not doing the opposite in worldly terms, but it is not getting trapped in the choice that never is a choice, by not making the choice by ourselves, but referring it to One Who can guide us out of the maze, exactly because we are then giving our ego the day off. We can always know we've chosen the ego if we are once again engaged in rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, and caught up in believing that this time it will make a difference. The ego as always is the magician, Maya, who makes it seem as if the choices it offers are real choices, yet either choice always means we chose the ego - that is the ego's 'gotcha'. The choice for 'another way' and a different teacher, simply means not buying into the ego's choice for two sides of the same coin, but stepping back from buying in altogether by referring the matter to the Holy Spirit for guidance, which means we are withdrawing our investment from the conflicts of the world, and putting our faith in the teacher whose Kingdom is NOT of this world. Whatever we then do on the practical level is done without investment, only because of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and thus comes without the hidden price of sin, guilt and fear.

To come back to Chapter 10 in Margot's book once more, in it she shares a visionary experience she had as part of her process, which makes it very clear again that experiences will come to us, in the exact form that is most helpful, to help us along the way. In the process it becomes equally clear why in the end it is inevitable that we all choose for Jesus and the Holy Spirit, as the experience grows that the options the ego has to offer aren't any real choices at all.
Logion 47 of the Thomas Gospel (Pursah version) says:

A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows. And a servant cannot serve two masters, or that servant will honor the one and offend the other.
Nobody drinks aged wine and immediately wants to drink young wine. Young wine is not poured into old wineskins, or they might break, and aged wine is not poured into new wineskins, or it might spoil. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, since it would create a tear.

The Course puts it this way:

The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict, which can become very acute. But the outcome is as certain as God. (ACIM:T-2.III.3:9-10)

Copyright, © 2011 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.

Keeping It Real

Mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo. An old Latin saying that always fascinated me. The world wants to be fooled, and therefore she will be.


How many times already have you changed your vote, and wondered afterwards if it made any difference? Democrat, republican, or whatever may be the case wherever you happen to be in the world... One way or another the ego has us tied up in knots with choices which are no choices, with alternatives which are no alternative. The only meaningful choice is forgiveness.

Again and again the ego still manages to get us all wrapped around the axle, for then it makes forgiveness out to be a special thing, that you reserve for special people, or special days. We forgive on Sundays in church, or on alternate Tuesdays, and we feel very special when we're especially forgiving. But that's not forgiveness, that is always what the Course calls forgiveness to destroy, because it implies condemnation, it entails making the error real first, and then magnanimously 'forgiving' it. So what then is forgiveness? Forgiveness is being honest about the ego's tomfoolery, understanding that the ego, i.e. 'the world' WANTS to be fooled, because that keeps the ego in business. The ego's choices are an implied vote for the ego, cloaked by an apparent choice among illusory alternatives, which always are two sides of the same coin, and that coin always has the ego' bust on it - Caesar, a President, etc. The choices the ego has to offer keep us 'safely' rooted in the world. This is Maya, this is the evil witch of many a fairy tale.

This is also why the news about abuse, frauds and deceit, about copyright violations, theft and so on is so non-stop, because as long as we can see the deceit in others we don't have to face it ourselves. But then... with the ego we will merely judge ourselves. The other choice, the only other choice is to turn to Jesus, and to learn to look at the situation with his forgiving eyes, which means to let go of all of our judgments and asking him to look at the issues for us and with us, and let the judgment go into the hands of the Holy Spirit by joining with Jesus.

We want to be deceived, cheated, abandoned, and so on because it supports and maintains the ego's victim-hood story, and thus keeps the ego in charge. Only once we truly 'get' the fact that we are deceived because WE want to be, do we have the option of making another choice. And so the other choice is to forgive, starting with forgiving ourselves for wanting to be fooled, instead of judging ourselves stupid and unworthy once again. This way we won't fall into the trap of merely switching our vote between alternatives that can never live up to their promises, but we can let love be our guide in picking the best candidate with forgiveness in our hearts, guided by love, and without believing that salvation comes from any choices in the world, ever, for the world merely wants to be fooled, and therefore she will be. That story will never change. Our only meaningful option is following Jesus to his Kingdom that is not of this world, and never will be.

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altar unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your mind from everything that hides His face from you. His Holiness is yours because He is the only power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His only Son. (ACIM:T-31.VIII.3)

The common expression: 'Let's keep it real!' is an interesting study in the ego. More often then not, it is used  with a sigh of irritation, and the gist of it is to 'stick to the facts' and  to thwart any attempt to really look at the issues and get honest, because again what's real to the ego are the choices that the world has to offer, and it would not tolerate anything to question the reality of those choices. Therefore what's real to the ego is exactly the unreality of this world of illusory choices, and what the Course calls the real world is the way we live once we have forgiven ourselves completely for wanting to be fooled in the first place, and that is the only thing that will ensure that we won't be. At that point we've put the ego out of business, we've put Maya out of business, because we chose instead for the judgment of the Holy Spirit.

Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. But it is not so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed. (ACIM:T-12.V.8:3-7)

Copyright, © 2011 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.

A House is not a Home

Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home. Its laws are not imposed on you, its values are not yours. And nothing that you think you see in it is really there at all. This is seen and understood as each one takes his part in its undoing, as he did in making it. He has the means for either, as he always did. The specialness he chose to hurt himself did God appoint to be the means for his salvation, from the very instant that the choice was made. His special sin was made his special grace. His special hate became his special love. (ACIM:T-25.VI.6)

The ego's game is substitution, and always level confusion, it offers us a specific something in lieu of content and meaning, always passing off something inferior (form) for the real thing (content/meaning). And once it conned us the first time, it then helps us focus all our energies into maintaining the substitute in lieu of the real thing, until it kills us, which it inevitably will. Our real home is in Heaven, and the ego is always very focused on providing us with something to call home in this world in its place. And the National Association of Realtors has been happy to lend a helping hand by appealing to human emotions - and murdering the English language in a way that would have done Goebbels proud - by insisting we are buying a home, when the only thing you can buy is a house, really. This type of stuff is just emblematic for the level of effort the ego makes to obfuscate truth and to pass off its substitutes for the real thing, and in the process it always limits us to one concrete manifestation of what it is we are looking for. As one of my favorite con-artists used to say: "Logic and reason are just the horse the emotions ride in on." The realtors have understood that one a long time ago.

In recent US domestic political and economic history the whole thing converged into a toxic brew, when with typical slight of hand, a confusion of cause and effect, home ownership was substituted for financial stability, and predictably created the opposite result, which is also emblematic for the ego - creating the very problem it pretends to solve. As Bill Clinton understood, it was also a way of getting votes; votes from the people he was feeding to the wolves, and campaign contributions from the wolves, and then whahappen...? The big print giveth and the small print taketh away: the ego always gives in order to take, and it is completely inimical to the laws of spirit, which say giving and receiving are the same. We are now blessed with shelves full of books on what caused the economic collapse of 2008, and of course they all miss the point as long as they do not get to this fundamental issue of substitution and level confusion. Once you get that, it is clear that it is the ego which is the disease, and like a cancer - the emperor of all maladies, as a recent book calls it - always ends up growing out of control until it kills us, which is its real purpose.

Thus this financial bubble, like other similar bubbles, and like physical cancers are just wild growths that are parasitical to the organism, and kill it. It is just part of the insanity of the system that self destructive activities like this are counted in the plus column as far as GNP is concerned, and Marx would relish the moment to reaffirm his astute observation that capitalism would gladly sell us the rope to hang ourselves, forgetting only that communism would do the same thing just as happily--just think of the arms race. For all of that, the answers only come once we become ready to admit that this world is not our home, never mind how well we decorate it. All these crises are the same, and the only question is when are we ready to seek where the answers are: always inside, never out. Charles Mackay' Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, is as relevant today as when it was first written, but we won't learn from it until we finally wake up to the fact that all this insanity is merely the logical result of one wrong decision we made - the choice for the tiny, mad idea of the separation - which moreover can be corrected. As long as we keep trying to fix the problem outside, we'll merely create the next crisis.

In short, there is nothing extraordinary about these popular delusions, and there is no wicked witch forcing us to get caught up in them, unless we go looking for the wicked witch, by once again choosing the ego over the Holy Spirit. And it invariably takes us for a ride. Thus the power of Maya, the power of the wicked witch, of the Wizard of Oz, collapses into naught if we choose not to get enchanted by it but rather look at it with forgiveness, and change our mind:

The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.

This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, whatever form it takes. The Holy Spirit will repeat this one inclusive lesson of deliverance until it has been learned, regardless of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer takes away the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the single cause of all of them, no matter what their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, " I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo." 

(ACIM:T-27.VIII.10,11)

Copyright, © 2011 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.