Due to recent (perpetual?) interest in this subject, I managed to unearth this little gem of a paragraph from the December 2006 issue of The Lighthouse (official review of the Foundation for A Course In Miracles, written by Kenneth Wapnick).
“…we want to feel banished from Heaven, with the door forever closed to our return. And this desire – the source of all suffering – is the problem, not the perceived banishment. Many years ago I was seeing a young man in therapy. When his girlfriend of several years, with whom he was madly in love, broke up with him, he was devastated. Week after week he would bemoan his painful fate, until one day while replaying the hurt of the relationship’s end, he described his pain as ‘exquisite’. That broke the log jam of self-indulged victimization, and he was able finally to let the girl go and resume his life. Indeed, he was quite right. His pain was exquisite in its pristine attraction. As long as he was able to attribute his suffering to his girlfriend’s decision, his ego was safe, hiding the mind’s insane decision for a life of suffering behind the hurt and anger of a lost external love. All the while, the mind’s guilt over its decision to separate from love lay unknown and therefore uncorrected.
Pure madness Bernard. “…we WANT to feel banished form Heaven…this desire is the problem, not the perceived banishment”.
I think that´s why Ken´s equation of “looking at the ego without judgment but at the same time paying attention to the cost I am paying for maintaining my desire for my individual self is so important. Be aware of our payments– namely sufferings, depression, loneliness, anger, etc.– to the ego´s thought system. And only that could possibly one day nauseated us of being the ego´s servant. Denial and projection will never help. They should only be, if we are vigilant, the red lights that inform us we are again paying our tribute to the ego. That´s why I love that description of forgiveness we find in the W.B. “Forgiveness merely looks, and waits, and judges not.” I think is in that “waits” that we are aware of our decision and gently see the cost we are paying and wait for the fear to abate.
Thanks again for giving us all this opportunities of reflection and practice.
Hugs and love, Lisi