Tuesday Text: Chapter 4: The Ego's Struggle to Preserve Itself, S 5: The Calm Being of God's Kingdom

Tuesday Text Class 10/13/26

Ch 4: The Ego’s Struggle to Preserve Itself

S 5: The Calm Being of God’s Kingdom

          The Kingdom of God is you. This is the whole message of the Atonement. The totality transcends the sum of its parts. Ideas do not leave their source. You are always in the Kingdom of God where you belong. Everything else does not exist. You are the kingdom. 

          Here is your declaration of independence. The Kingdom is  perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen. This is a good prayer to use in moments of temptation. This prayer is very helpful when fully understood. Christmas is a state of mind. The Christ wills from the spirit not the ego. The Christ mind is yours. He talks about the creations of our spirit, a kingdom created by spirit. Your ego and your spirit can’t co-create but your spirit and your creator, God will always be co-creating. Your creations that you create along the lines of love and expansion. The creations of your spirit are as safe as you are. 

          The levels of the mind in ACIM are:

-The Superconscious

-The Conscious

-The Unconscious 

The ego in its normal upside down way takes impulses from the superconscious and perceives them as if they arise from the unconscious. The ego judges what is to be accepted and the impulses of the superconscious are unacceptable to it because they point to the nonexistence of the ego. So the ego feels threatened and it censors and reinterprets data from the superconscious. What you do not perceive you still know deep down, as Freud points out. It can retain an active life outside of your awareness like your creations in Heaven. 

          Repression both conceals baser instincts and loftier ones from the ego’s awareness because they are both threatening to the ego. In the face of threat, the ego is concerned with saving itself, so it sees them as the same. The threat of the lofty is actually much greater to the ego because the pull of God pales human appetites and drives. The Ego tries to keep itself from being swept away. Which it would if faced with knowledge. The upper level of the unconscious contains the call of God and the body. The basic conflict between love and fear is unconscious. The ego can’t tolerate either so it blocks both. Society depends on restraining fear. Salvation depends on stopping the blocks to the awareness of love's presence. 

          You need the help of Jesus because you have suppressed your own internal guide and so you need guidance. His role is to separate the true from the false in your unconscious so truth can break through the barriers the ego has built and shine through your mind. If we stand on our united strength the ego won’t prevail. The ego looks at the spirit as the enemy. The ego cropped up during the separation and it continues by believing in the separation. So the ego reduces the spirit impulses to the unconscious and has to reward you for doing so. In its weakness all it can offer is a sense of its own temporary existence which begins with its own beginning and ends at its own ending (i.e. death like so many myths). It tells you this ego life/body life is your existence. So the ego offers a sense of temporary existence. Spirit offers knowledge, an unshakable being. He uses the word revelation. No one who experiences the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. The ego is meager compared to the kingdom. You know this when you experience it/remember it. 

          If you identify with your ego, you can’t believe God loves you because you don’t love what you’ve made. The ego does not love you. Egos are concerned with self protection, not love. Egos were made out of denial of God, they have no allegiance to you either. You can’t know the true relationship that exists between God and his kids because of the hatred you have for the self that you have made. The self you made exiled you from the kingdom. You hate the self you created. You protect your own idea about yourself in the will to separate which conflicts with the love you feel for what you have made. 

          No human love is without this ambivalence because the ego can’t experience love without ambivalence, the concept is beyond its grasp. Love is your inheritance. It will enter into any mind which truly wants it but it must want it truly. Where’s your treasure? You have to want it without ambivalence. This kind of wanting is totally without the ego’s desire to get. 

           When you experience the all encompassing love of the kingdom, once you remember the ego can never recover. That you believe in darkness and hiding is why God can’t enter. The gifts of the kingdom are yours but you need to ask. This is not like the when the ego sets conditions, it’s the condition of what you are. You are as free as God and will always be. You can only be bound by honor and that is voluntary. 

          When Jesus gives an exercise in the Course you should take that directive literally. 

Prayer: God in the name of our brother Jesus, help us to keep in our minds your love for us and ours for you. Amen. 

God always answers this request. Feel free to make it as many times as you like. Remember, no other gods before me. No idol can ever fill your bucket . There are no Gods except our Creator in Heaven. You think that there are other gods still. It never occurred to you before to give you every thought which opposes knowledge. You keep a thousand scraps of meanness which keep God from entering. Light can’t penetrate the walls you make to block it. Light will not destroy what you have made. No one can see through a wall but Jesus can step around it and reach you on the other side. Watch your mind for scraps of meanness or you won’t be able to ask Jesus to help you clean up the mess. We ask for help, we have powerful free will. He will love you and honor you and respect what you have made if it's true. 

          He answers any clear call. He must be invited in. If you are trying to make yourself over in terms of ego, you aren’t being true to yourself. But Jesus waits in love and patience until you are ready. You always choose the time. He knows that one day you will call for his help and on that day he will be there. He’s happy to help but he needs to be invited in. Watch your mind carefully. What are you really asking for? Be honest. There is no hiding from Jesus and the Holy Spirit, at a certain point you will be relieved that this is the case.

           Watch your mind. Not hiding- this is the first step towards allowing God to enter. Jesus prepares you for this Course. How long are you going to deny him his kingdom? Remember this is what you really want. In your unconscious, deeply repressed by ego is the key to your release. God has given you everything. The ego does not exist. This makes the ego fearful. To the ego to have and to be are different. But they are identical to the spirit. The spirit knows you have and are everything. Distinction is meaningful only in terms of getting which implies lack. Having the kingdom of God and being the kingdom of God are the same thing. 

          If you are sane, the calm being of God’s kingdom is on the conscious level. But it’s banished from the part of the mind which the ego rules. The ego is desperate because it knows it can’t prevail. How much vigilance you have been willing to use to protect the ego. How little vigilance you have used to protect your higher mind. Who but the crazy would believe in what isn’t true and protect this belief at the cost of truth.