Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? ...First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Matthew 7:3-5
If you point out the errors of your brother's ego you must be seeing through yours...
ACIM-T-9:III:3:1
Huh?
Yesterday, I pointed out the errors of other's ways as well as my own in this problem competition we often find ourselves in. Truth is, it was both a defense and an attack.
Not "Problem Special"
You see, I felt a bit stung by the possibly innocent diminishment of "specialness" I received from another the other day when I inferred, in a very subtle nondescript way, that maybe things in "my life" were following a negative pattern. This individual knew my "heavy" history but not what I have been encountering in the terms of "life events " recently. I was not intending to share those events. Still, I felt the need to stand up, be seen and heard, as "special" for enduring what I was enduring. I assumed I would be allotted just one moment on the podium. I didn't get it.
Instead, I got something to the effect that "everyone has problems.". I felt instantly shut down, diminished, and unworthy of sharing (that which I had no intention of sharing anyway) because of one generalizing comment. It seemed the person was saying, "Your problems are no bigger or greater in number than mine or anyone else's, therefore you are not special." Even though that is the truth and something I definitely want to elaborate on in the next entry , that comment, in that moment, lead me instantly to feel the need to defend and attack for this image I was holding of me as "problem special".
This grievance induced defense and attack was internal. I did not respond at the time. I just changed the subject back to their issues but I walked away hurting a bit. I wondered why I felt so stung by that comment. Thus my entry yesterday. I felt the fruitless need to correct what ego had done.
Who did the Stinging?
As I reflect further, I have to ask the question: Who did the stinging? The individual who made the comment is a lovely person. Whether or not they felt we were in a competition and the comment was meant to prevent me from relaying problematic details of my life , thus scoring points that would put me in the lead, I will probably never know. Regardless, it was not the whole person I was encountering in that moment but their ego. I was aware of that.
As I have said before I am often very aware of the ego behaviour in others. I see the unconscious need to get ahead in one way or another in order to feel "right", "special" and/or "better than." How do I see this and become aware of the activated ego in others? Because I see it in myself.
Who got Stung?
I see ego in another because I see ego in myself. In fact, the only part of me that sees ego is ego. Ego recognizes itself in the people we encounter. It takes an ego to know an ego.
And egos love to catch the errors in others, love to collect grievances and point out when others are "wrong". Be sure of that...just watch it in yourself and you will see this is true.
It was ego that got stung and only ego.
It was not the essence of who I am that got stung by that little comment. That truest part of ourselves is above all that pettiness and does not see the need to appear special or to be better at something than someone else. It does not point out the "wrongs" in others because it can only see the "right". It doesn't collect problems as badges of honor. In fact, it does not even recognize life events as being a problem. And when it looks at the person who made the comment, all it sees is pure essence and Love. It can see right through egos as if they are not even there to what is real, what is true.
Ego is only right when it sees it can only be wrong
So since I saw a possible "wrong" in another, it is obvious I was not looking at the situation through the eyes of higher Self; it is a good indication of just how active my ego was in that moment. My ego was active and my ego was right in the only way it will ever be right, in seeing the wrongness of ego in another. Their ego was wrong because ego is always wrong. His ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or does.ACIM-T-9:III:2:10
So how do we make it right?
It is so simple yet we will most likely find it so complicated. Because we refuse to see that the solution can be that easy, we may mistakenly go on being hyper alert to the wrong doings of other egos, collecting grievances, making wrong, defending and attacking our fragile "little I" at the cost of our peace and the peace of others. Sigh!
All we have to do is see beneath the ego to what is there in ourselves and in the other. Beyond this problem collection and competition, beyond this need to be "special" and/or "better than", beyond the ego's insane and foolish behaviour... is the true Self.
It is through those eyes we need to see and into those eyes we need to look. If we operate like that all errors will disappear.
Errors are of the ego, and correction of errors lies in the relinquishment of the ego.
ACIM-T-9: III:2:3
All is well in my world.
ACIM ( 2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Chapter Nine, Section III: The Correction of Error. Foundations for Inner Peace.
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