Beyond ego

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The Nature of Reality

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According to Jesus The Christ

 

[via A Course In Miracles – ACIM 😃]

 

 

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Preface / Introduction

 

Although my given name is Christian, I am actually not a Christian. Matter of fact, I have stayed away from organized religion all my adult life. Although I respect the importance of the various religious teachings for the moral and spiritual orientation of lost sheep like us – human beings wandering around the world, I have preferred to go my own ways. Roads less traveled, so to say.

While growing up in this little village in arch-catholic Austria, of course we went to church every Sunday, no questions asked. And although the whole repetitive ritual of it did not mean much to me, I enjoyed the atmosphere, the attempt for sacredness.

During adolescence and with growing awareness of the realities of the world I became disenchanted and actually appalled by all the pomp and circumstance or The Church and I left this organization soon, never to look back.

 

But then, in the early 1990s I came across the teachings of  “A Course in Miracles”, a 1333 page doorstopper of a book that laid out in very terse prose a 365-day program of “changing the mind” and “seeing reality beyond illusions”. Helen Schucman, a clinical psychologist had claimed that the book had been dictated to her, word for word, via a process of “inner dictation” from Jesus Christ.

It was hard for me to read and I have made several attempts ever since to follow “the course”, but I guess it was not for me! Or maybe I am not spiritually advanced enough 🙃😉.

But I love very much the principles that this course teaches. On forgiveness, on letting go of fear and illusionary identification, seeing reality anew and on the nature of unconditional love.

Those core principles of A Course in Miracles – ACIM – have stood the test of time ever since in my life and also found practical applications in my counseling work with clients. I can say that they are a cornerstone and a lighthouse for me.

Thank you Jesus The Christ for whispering all of that material into Helen Schucman’s inner “ears”.

Here I will try to give a short and concise overview of the core principles that ACIM teaches.

Since I am not a specialist and not really an authority concerning ACIM, you may check it out yourself if you are so inclined.

Download it here.

Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love may provide a popular introduction and  Edith Staufer’s Unconditional Love and Forgiveness a practical application of the principles of The Course. Also Unconditional Forgiveness by Mary Hayes Grieco who integrates ACIM teachings with psychosynthesis therapy. You can download it here.

 

 

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Transcending the Ego

Insights from A Course in Miracles

 

A Course in Miracles – which from now on I will just shorten to ACIM for convenience’ sake – is composed of a Text, a 365-lesson Workbook for Students, and a Manual for Teachers. It presents a thought system centered on love and forgiveness, aimed at inner peace and union with the Divine.

A key concept in ACIM is the ego – a false self or identity rooted in separation and fear. According to ACIM, transcending the ego is essential to experiencing our true Self as created by God.

I will try my best to find the definition of the ego in ACIM, its metaphysical context, and the practical methods the Course gives for dealing with it, overcoming it, and ultimately moving beyond it.

I will also reflect on how Western mystics such as Thomas Merton have expressed parallel insights about transcending the ego through love, forgiveness, and divine union.

 

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The Ego in ACIM: A False Identity of Separation

In A Course in Miracles, the ego is defined not as our true nature, but as a false identity – the belief that we are separate from God and from each other.

Ego is the voice of fear and individuality that opposes the voice of love within our minds – which Jesus names “the Holy Spirit”. Metaphorically, the ego is called the “tiny mad idea” of separation that the Son of God – us folks – mistakenly chose to entertain.

This choice gave rise to an illusory self that sees itself as alone and in conflict with the Divine Will. ACIM emphasizes that this ego-self is not who we really are: “You are not an ego”, it says plainly . Our true Identity is the Spirit or the Son of God, forever one with God, whereas the ego is a temporary hallucination.

ACIM teaches that the ego is not a created entity with real power – it is essentially a belief or thought-system based on a lie. It is the belief in lack, loss, and guilt; a “will” opposed to God’s Will.

Because the ego’s assumption is false – the idea that we could ever be separate from our Source – all of its conclusions are false as well. The Text of ACIM notes that “the ego’s decisions are ALWAYS wrong because they are based on a complete mistaken belief… NOTHING the ego perceives is interpreted correctly.”

In other words, the ego distorts perception, making us see a fearful, divided world that is not real. The ego always speaks first and loudly – in judgment, anger, and anxiety – but its guidance is consistently unreliable.

By contrast, the inner voice of Spirit offers a completely different way of seeing based on truth. ACIM encapsulates this by saying the ego “always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal.” In that way, the ego is the part of our mind that says “no” to God’s love, choosing separation, while the Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that remembers our oneness and sanity.

It’s important to note that the Course does not demonize the ego as an evil force to be attacked in a worldly sense, but rather as an illusion to be gently undone.

In fact, it warns that trying to fight the ego on its own terms only reinforces the belief in it. The ego feeds on conflict and guilt. ACIM explains that the ego arose from our denial of God’s love, and it is maintained by our continued choice to deny love through guilt, attack, and judgment.

For example, the ego uses projection of guilt onto others as a way to avoid looking at our own mistaken belief in sin. Yet this only perpetuates guilt and fear .

The Course exposes this cycle so we can break it: we must recognize that all attack – whether toward others or oneself – stems from the ego and actually increases our own guilt .

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, “dispels guilt through the calm recognition that it has never been”, seeing the Son of God – our true Self and that of others – as entirely guiltless .

In sum, ACIM defines the ego as a fearful illusion – the “false self” that we are not – and invites us to stop identifying with it. Our real safety lies in the recognition that the ego is nothing and nowhere, while the love of God in us is everything.

I know from my own reaction, that this sounds a lot like another religious belief system. But bear with me, there is much more to it when the Course goes on from Metaphysical Concepts to the 365 practical exercises of re-training the mind. Kind of “de-programming illusionary thinking”.

 

 

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The Metaphysical Context of The Course

Illusion of Separation versus Spiritual Reality

 

To fully understand ACIM’s view of the ego, one must grasp the Course’s broader metaphysical context. In the cosmology of ACIM, God is Perfect Love, and His creation – that is often called the Son of God – remains eternally one with Him in spirit.

In reality, there is no true separation between Creator and creation, or among creations themselves. However, within the illusory realm of perception – what we might call the physical world or the dream of life – there appears to be separation, conflict, and loss.

This entire world of perception is, according to ACIM, generated by the ego. It is literally a projection of the ego’s thought of separation – a dream that arose when the Son of God forgot to laugh at the “tiny mad idea” that it could be separate from its Source.

In that instant, the ego was “born” as a thought system that denies reality. Although the separation never truly occurred in God’s eternal reality, the collective mind of the Son fell asleep and began to experience a world of time and space as if it were real. This is the world we currently seem to inhabit – a world that the ego made as a substitute for Heaven.

In this context, the ego is the architect of a false world. Everything the ego shows us with the body’s eyes is part of the illusion designed to prove that the separation is real. The ego’s cosmos is one of limitation, in which each body has a separate life and competing interests.

Its guiding principle is fear – fear of God, seen as an enemy or distant judge and fear of others, who are different and thus potential threats. The ego’s underlying emotion is guilt, stemming from the unconscious belief that we genuinely attacked Heaven and stole our existence from God – the Original Sin.

From that guilt arises punishment and fear. ACIM refers to this dynamic as the ego’s unholy trinity of sin, guilt, and fear – the mechanisms by which the illusion of separation is maintained. This is a self-perpetuating vortex: the more guilty and afraid we feel, the more we listen to the ego’s counsel on how to cope. Typically through further attack or defensiveness, which only deepens the dream.

Yet, ACIM’s metaphysics is ultimately one of hope and undoing. The separation from God is an error, not a sin – a mistake to be corrected, not a real break in relationship. God immediately answers the separation with the Holy Spirit, the Voice of truth in our minds, which represents the memory of our true Home. While the ego speaks for separation, the Holy Spirit speaks for oneness.

Each instant presents a choice between these two voices or thought systems. The miracle that the Course is named for is essentially a shift in perception: a shift away from the ego’s false perception to the Holy Spirit’s true perception.

This shift reveals that everything the ego teaches is illusion, and only the love of God is real. We do not “defeat” the ego by aggression but by shining the light of truth on it. In the presence of truth, the ego simply dissolves because it has no real substance.

In the end, ACIM assures us that the ego is a flimsy illusion: a home built on sand. We remain as God created us, and the moment we are willing to exchange the ego’s lies for truth, awakening occurs – the memory of God returns, and the dream of the ego is undone.

Metaphysically speaking, the ego is the source of the illusion of separation, and transcending the ego means recognizing that this entire illusion is untrue, allowing reality – the awareness of love’s presence – to dawn upon the mind.

 

 

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Undoing the Ego

Mind Training and Forgiveness in Practice

 

 

While the metaphysical theory may sound overly religious and lofty, A Course in Miracles is profoundly focused on practical spiritual training to undo the ego. 

The Workbook for Students – one lesson for each day of the year – is explicitly designed to train the mind to relinquish the ego’s thought system and embrace a new perception. 

As the introduction to the Workbook explains, “The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.” 

In other words, it leads the student through a gradual process of shifting from fear to love, from judgment to forgiveness, from ego-mindedness to Spirit-mindedness. 

Each lesson provides a specific idea or meditation to practice that undermines the ego’s false concepts and strengthens the recognition of truth. This systematic mind training is necessary because the ego’s conditioning runs deep – our habitual ways of thinking are ego-based and require gentle daily undoing. 

In short, ACIM’s method for overcoming the ego is an inner process of changing one’s thoughts – the cause – rather than trying to change external circumstances  – the effect. 

As the Course famously notes, “Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.” 

 

The Practice of Forgiveness

 

The primary tool that A Course in Miracles gives us to dismantle the ego is forgiveness – but in a much deeper sense than is commonly meant by the term. 

In ACIM, forgiveness is not about pardoning someone for a sin that truly happened. Rather, it is a radical recognition that in truth, no sin or separation has occurred. We forgive by overlooking the ego’s projections and seeing the unchanging innocence of Christ in our brother and ourselves. 

“Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin.”  

This practice of forgiveness directly undoes the ego’s main weapon: guilt. Each time we choose forgiveness – seeing the situation with compassion and true perception – we withdraw our belief from the ego’s narrative of attack and separation. We begin to experience that our mind is not imprisoned by past hurts. In forgiving others, we truly forgive ourselves for dreaming of separation. 

As the Course puts it, forgiveness “wipes away dreams” and reveals the light of the world in everyone. It is the great release from the ego’s cycle of grievance and attack.

 

 

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Key Approaches from the Workbook for Transcending the Ego

 

The Workbook provides many actionable practices that help students deal with the ego on a daily basis. These exercises are meant to be woven into one’s day, making spiritual practice a constant, integrated habit. Here are some practical approaches drawn from ACIM’s lessons

 

• Mindfulness of Thoughts: 

Identify and release ego thoughts. Many early lessons focus on becoming aware of thoughts and recognizing their effects. We learn that every upset or grievance is caused not by outside events but by our own thoughts of attack or judgment. By gently letting those thoughts go, we remove the ego’s cause of suffering and fear, and “the effects will change automatically” . 
Practically, this means when we feel distress, we pause and notice the ego thought (for example a criticism or a fear) and choose to release it, often by replacing it with a truth from the lesson. In doing so consistently, the mind becomes less reactive and more peaceful

 

• Applying Peace in the Moment: 

Use the Workbook ideas whenever you feel upset. The Course’s training is integrated in daily life – it asks students to apply the daily idea “as often as possible” and especially in times of emotional disturbance. 
This might involve taking a brief mental break, breathing, and silently repeating the lesson’s idea. For instance, “I could see peace instead of this”. By doing this at the very moment the ego flares up in anger or stress, we train ourselves to pivot from the ego’s reaction to the Holy Spirit’s calm perspective. Consistent practice in real-life situations is how the ego’s grip is weakened day by day

 

• Daily Reflection and Meditation: 

Set aside quiet time to connect with truth. The Workbook lessons typically ask for one or two longer practice periods of 5 or 10 minutes each day where the student stills the mind and focuses on a core idea. 
This might involve repeating an affirmation, contemplating its meaning, or listening in silence. These periods of stillness are essentially moments of meditation where we step back from the ego’s incessant chatter. In the silence, the presence of the Inner Teacher, the Holy Spirit can be felt.

ACIM calls such instants holy instants – moments outside of ego time – which give us a taste of the peace and freedom of our true Self. Regular meditation on the Workbook ideas builds a habit of listening to Spirit rather than ego, and greatly accelerates the undoing of false thinking.

 

• Affirming the True Self:

 Replace ego-based self-concepts with spiritual truth. ACIM’s lessons frequently have us repeat statements of our true Identity, which serve to dismantle the limiting labels the ego has put on us. 
One example is the lesson “I am the light of the world.” Such statements are not ego aggrandizement, but humble acceptance of the Self God created. They train us to identify with our holiness rather than with a false sense of sinfulness. 

Over time, these affirmations loosen the ego’s false identification (“I am unworthy, or a broken self”) and replace it with identification with the divine Light within. This positive replacement is crucial; as ACIM notes, we don’t “sacrifice” the ego to be left with nothing – we exchange the false for the true. We realize we lose nothing of value in letting the ego go; instead, we gain everything: our true Self in God.

 

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Through practices like these, the Workbook gradually leads the student to a new inner orientation. The ego’s voice of fear grows quieter as we stop giving it credence, and the voice of love grows stronger as we consistently choose forgiveness, peace, and true perception. 

ACIM assures us that we are not alone in this practice – we have the constant help of the Holy Spirit, the divine Guide within.
We are learning to trust in a Higher Power rather than our isolated ego self. With patience and dedication to the daily lessons, the mind undergoes a gentle training.

Old ego habits—grievances, defensiveness, judgments—start falling away. 

In their place arises a natural kindness, calm, and sense of unity with others. This is the process of awakening in the Course.

It is not a dramatic battle with an enemy, but a steady lightening of our mental burdens. As the ego is undone, we experience increasing inner peace and an expanding love that extends to all. 
This is the miracle: a healed perception that recognizes the “Face of Christ”, the reflection of God’s love in everything we see. In practical terms, overcoming the ego means that where once we would react with anger, we now choose forgiveness; where we would feel anxiety, we invoke inner peace; where we saw separation, we now sense oneness. 

Each small miracle of changed perception builds towards the final goal of ACIM, which is the full transcendence of the ego and the awakening to the knowledge of God.

At that point, the Workbook says, “words will mean little” – we will live in the constant awareness of Love’s Presence, and the ego thought system will have vanished.

 

 

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Love, Forgiveness, and Union

 

Parallels between A Course in Miracles

and Western Mystical Traditions

 

The approach of transcending the ego in A Course in Miracles resonates with the wisdom of Western mystics throughout the ages. Christian mystics, in particular, have long taught the surrender of the false self in order to experience divine union.

Thomas Merton, a 20th-century Trappist monk and mystical writer, spoke in terms very similar to ACIM. He described the “false self” as the illusory identity built on selfish attachment and ego – a prison that traps us in loneliness.

Merton wrote that “the only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own false self, and enter by love into union with the Life Who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls.”

This call to leave behind the false self through love mirrors ACIM’s core message: that by forgiving and letting go of ego identity, we remember our unity with God. Merton’s “false self” is essentially the ACIM ego – the self we made up that is apart from God – and the escape from its prison comes through opening to love and recognizing our inherent oneness with the divine.

 

Earlier Western mystics echo the same understanding. Meister Eckhart, the 14th-century German mystic, taught a practice of letting go of the small self to “let God be God” in us.

He advised, “Start first with yourself and abandon yourself… See yourself and wherever you find him, see him off… The more you go out of all things… God comes in you with all that is His.” In this vivid instruction, I can hear a parallel to ACIM’s guidance to relinquish the ego.

Eckhart is saying that as we empty ourselves of ego – attachments, self-will, the “I, me, mine” – we create the space for God’s presence to fill us completely. This is very much aligned with the Course’s idea that we must remove the blocks (the ego’s grievances and judgments) to the awareness of Love’s presence, which is our natural inheritance.

Through forgiveness, ACIM students gradually “abandon” the ego’s thought system; through love, they invite God’s light to shine in the place of the ego’s darkness.

 

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What the Course in Miracles teaches is not new, just the language is more focussed, contemporary and “psychological” Whether in a monastery or in everyday life with A Course in Miracles “in hand”, the task is the same: to transcend the ego and remember our oneness with God.

It is a journey from fear to love. It involves the healing of our perception, seeing the divine in our brothers and ourselves and the melting away of the illusion of separateness.

As ACIM and the mystics assure us, what waits beyond the ego’s veil is indescribably beautiful – the direct experience of divine union, peace, and joy. In Christian terms, this is the state of grace, the kingdom of Heaven within.

As ACIM concludes, that “love is the way I walk in gratitude”, and that our true Self is not a limited ego at all, but the beloved child of God, forever united with our Source.

In transcending the ego, we do not become annihilated as a person or lost – we become truly our Self. The small, fearful self was never real to begin with. What is real is the extension of God’s Love that we are and always have been.
By following the practical path of forgiveness and mind training in A Course in Miracles, we reclaim this awareness.

 

We learn to live from our spiritual center rather than the ego. And so, we awaken from the dream of separation, and remember God through the healing power of love.

 

 

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Love Restored

 

The reality of Love in The Course in Miracles

And the experience of Love according to Christian Mystics

 

In A Course in Miracles, “Love” is not a emotion or sentimental religious feeling but the one eternal reality that remains when the ego’s illusions fall away.

The Course tells us that once we truly perceive with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego, only Love is real . All fear-based thoughts disappear like a fog, and we live in the open light of peace. The Course even affirms that “fear is a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied” , pointing out that every painful thought is really asking to be healed by Love.

Practically, this love is experienced as an effortless shift of mind and heart. Marianne Williamson explains that fear arises when we see only the ego at work, but love means we extend our perception beyond surface behavior “to what the heart knows to be true.”

 

Love is the natural way we can look at ourselves and others without judgment or separation. When we choose love – forgiveness, compassion, trust – over fear – anger, guilt, blame – we feel an inner joy and unity that nothing outside can touch.

 

Love not as something we need to earn, but as what we already are underneath guilt and fear.

In everyday terms, restored love according to the Course is the effortless peace and compassion that arise when we stop interpreting life through the ego. It feels like a deep relaxation or clarity: our mind unclenches and we truly see the good in ourselves and others.

This isn’t a vague spiritual fantasy but the Course’s promise of inner awakening – a “realization” that the separation never happened. As one teacher puts it, when that mental shift occurs “nothing else to speak about” remains, because only Love is real . In that state, our behavior naturally flows from gentleness and forgiveness instead of conflict.

 

 

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GOD

 

 

In ACIM, the word “God” refers to the one Mind of Love that created everything. God is not portrayed as a father-figure, but as the infinite Source – a formless, loving Presence that is everywhere and within everything.

ACIM teachers explain that the “Kingdom of Heaven” is simply awareness of perfect Oneness: “there is nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within,” just “the Mind of God” in infinite, loving activity . In this view God is Love, Truth, Spirit and Soul – an unbounded presence that cannot be absent from any time or place.

ACIM reminds us that “there is no time, no place, no state where God is absent” . The famous Course lesson, “God is but Love, and therefore so am I” , encapsulates it:

God is only Love, and we are one with that. In effect, God is experienced as the simple, unshakeable field of love in which all of our lives unfold.

 

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This nondual, immanent vision of God is also to be found in Christian mysticism.

 

Meister Eckhart taught that the deepest ground of our soul is God himself – that the soul and God “are not two, but one” . His famous line, “the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me,” points to this unity: the divine essence is as real inside us as it is everywhere else.

Similarly, St. Teresa of Ávila wrote that the “Kingdom of God is within” and that God is so near we encounter Him “in the silent depths of our hearts” . She reminded herself to remember that God lives like a king in her own soul . In other words, for these mystics God was not a distant idea but a present, loving reality found by withdrawing into inner silence. As Teresa put it simply, “God is very near. We should seek Him within” .

St. John of the Cross and Thomas Merton describe the experience of union with this God of Love. John’s famous “dark night” poems show that even in spiritual emptiness we are being drawn into oneness: eventually “our soul finds its rest in union with God” .

Thomas Merton taught that deep prayer leads to the discovery that “our very being is penetrated with God’s knowledge and love,” and that “his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence” .

In all these accounts, what mystics come to know is the same essential Love that A Course in Miracles calls God.

 

To sum it all up, the God that The Course talks about – pure Love-Mind – is strikingly similar to what Christian mystics have described.

Both speak of a sacred Reality beyond our egoic mind, experienced only by turning inward and opening to infinite Love. As the Course teaches, this God is not found in external images or dogma but in the quiet awareness that’s always here, now.

When we “cease to speak” of anything other than love , we awaken to the same divine Presence that Eckhart, Teresa, John, Merton and ACIM alike say is our real home.

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So be it

 

AMEN

 

 

 

 

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[ ps: For this article i have tried my best to lay it all out as i understand it, the Course in Miracles as well as related accounts of ego, love and God. The essential themes concerning the Nature of Reality.

I tried not to comment on it or add much of my opinion. I don’t claim to follows the teachings of ACIM in detail, but i very much appreciate the key teachings. In case you are interested to dive deeper into those themes, i suggest you read first some of those writers i mentioned at the beginning of the article.  

Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love may provide a popular introduction and  Edith Staufer’s Unconditional Love and Forgiveness a practical application of the principles of The Course. Also Unconditional Forgiveness by Mary Hayes Grieco who integrates ACIM teachings with psychosynthesis therapy. You can download it here.

 

And if you brave 😃 enough to go full hardcore, go ahead and download the Source text of The Course in Miracles itself.

Download here.