If we continue to think only within the ego’s thought system we are lost in a world of violence and illusions about the cause of violence. As each anger-triggering interpersonal issue arises (whether it be private or political, local, national or global), we will inspect, dissect, analyze, categorize, theorize, shelve, institutionalize, aggrandize or minimize the issue and thereby perpetuate violence.  In short, we will perform an autopsy on each issue and then then enshrine it and our findings in a mausoleum without changing anything because we will not see the issue as a living opportunity to learn something new that points us towards a better future but as a dead thing of the past we must find a way to normalize or pretend to get rid of.  The ego plays such games with our minds for the purpose of steering us away from the truth that awaits within each issue that causes us to feel anger in some range from irritation to outrage.

The ego feeds and thrives upon anger. Conflict is the ego’s birthing ground, nursery and most developed expression.  It does not want us to find an alternative way to think about life because it fears that we’ll discover that it is the cause of violence and totally disinterested in ending violence.  Yet, within every issue that might arouse our anger to any degree lies a message of peace.  That message is “It need not be this way.”  Violence and anger are not necessary when issues are seen from the perspective of divine love – not the ego’s pseudo-love but love defined without regard to ego’s preservation.  All we need to do is to learn to walk with humility in God’s shoes (free of pride and shame as well as guilt and blame) and see life from Eternity’s perspective.  Then we’ll relax into accepting peace of mind, hope of heart and joy of spirit – what’s sometimes called “joie de vivre.”

The joy of life!  Where has it gone missing?  Why is it so elusive and once encountered so likely to slip away again?  The ego’s hold on our minds is the reason.  We cannot continue to indulge our egos and continue to think mistakenly that ego is a trustworthy guide to any answers worth discovering.  The answers exist but they exist beyond ego’s grasp.  We can begin to recognize them amid ego’s final gasp. Our minds’ capacity to encounter “Ah, ha” moments is evidence of our ability to think beyond ego’s limitations and grasp insights and understandings that elude ego.  We can gasp “Eureka!” at our ability to receive the truth that sets us free of ego.  We cannot grasp this truth and hold onto it too tightly any more than we can grasp a butterfly and squeeze it tightly without robbing it of life.  To become aware of the gentle touch of truth’s butterflies upon our minds, we must first open our hearts to let them land there, where our minds may be trained to notice their arrival.  We cannot inspect, dissect, analyze, etc. the butterflies truth sends to our hearts.  We can only receive, appreciate and marvel at their graceful, simple elegance and accept them as gifts from Divine Eternity.

Gifts from Divine Eternity are our natural inheritance.  As children of God, every one of us is poised to receive our inheritance.  We need not wait for God to die to inherit from our Creator.  All gifts from the Creative Realm are ours here and now – while we and God yet fully live.  The ego would have us believe that we have somehow murdered God or at least so offended Him/Her that any possibility of our having a favorable relationship with God/Goddess is dead.  To believe in God’s uninterruptedly abounding grace towards humanity in general and towards ourselves in particular seems impossible but it is only impossible to the ego that seeks to keep us in the dark, unaware of and inaccessible to our Divine Nature.

The ego cannot participate in divine grace because it disappears in the presence of such grace.  It’s not that the ego is “bad” or “not good enough” to participate in divine grace.  It’s merely that the ego’s way of thinking and feeling about life lacks the capacity to participate in grace because the ego’s way of thinking arose when we believed grace to be absent from our lives, when we believed we needed to protect ourselves from pain because there seemed no other way.  Grace and its progeny forgiveness, mercy, love, compassion, healing, reconciliation and other gentle-natured qualities of human beings exceed the ego’s realm of thought.  They manifest from our hearts, the realm of empathy and wisdom that ego knows not of.  In the presence of grace, the ego’s purpose vanishes and it crumbles into dust for lack of purpose.

The ego teaches us to deny our hearts.  Yet our hearts continue to desire more than the ego’s limited perspective on life can ever offer.  Our internal conflict between, on the one hand, striving to find satisfaction through our constant efforts to win approval through our performances in social roles and, on the other hand, simply desiring the free gift of satisfaction demonstrates that our hearts are aware that the ego does not serve us well.  We cannot win divine approval that brings us abiding deepest satisfaction because what is given freely cannot be won by effort or performance.  Abiding deepest satisfaction is an unearnable gift from our Creator to each of us without exception as His/Her eternally beloved child.

Instead of striving and struggling with egoic effort to prove we are worthy of love and all of life’s best, we can simply accept what our hearts most desire.  We can accept as divine fact that we are already loved and permanently poised to receive life’s best as freely given gifts.  How do we engage in such a radical shift in perspective?  We can begin by accepting the gift of our innate capacity to shift from reverse to neutral before we engage any forward gear.  We can reverse the devotion of our minds to ego’s way and restfully receive awareness of the alternate way and discover our natural affinity for it.  There is only one alternative way that truly exceeds ego’s grasp.  It is the way of divine love.  Ego honors fear.  The alternate way honors divine love and allows it to gradually dissipate all fears at a pace we can regulate according to our heart’s desire.  A text entitled A Course Of Love will tell you more about this way.  Visit http://acourseoflove.com/ to explore and engage in love’s more promising possibilities yourself.

You are poised to dive into love’s sea of serenity within you.  You are poised but like most people hesitate.  Diving into the unknown both intrigues and frightens you.  The ego would have you remain afraid to take the dive.  It would have you believe that taking the dive means forfeiting your opportunity to win the fight and exposes you to ridicule as an incompetent competitor.  The Divine Source of Love seeks not competitors but collaborators who will build the new world according to Love’s Master Plan.  Might you want to be one of the building blocks of such love – even when in the eyes of some others you may appear to be a loser rather than a winner in the ego’s endless rounds of competition?  If you have grown weary of the ego’s invitation to yet another round of competition for social approval and the supposed “perks” of ego, choose to let go of both ego’s perks and irks. Instead, let love be you and bond you to the Divine Source and others as Divine Grace is freely manifest within and through you.

© Art Nicol 2016