A thorough dismantling of the premise of self-help makes the case that getting what you want will never produce lasting fulfillment. The lack we seek to fill is not external but structural—a byproduct of a perceived separation from Source that no acquisition can truly satify. Simulating is not self-help. It is a category built for the direct experience of what you actually are, beneath everything the ego has constructed in its place.
“The self-help movement is about getting what you want, making things happen in the world, attracting things to you that are outside of you, and achieving your goals. That approach is based on a false premise. The premise is that if you get what you want, it will make you happy. The truth is that if you get what you want, it will make you feel good only for a short time and then you’ll want something else. It’s like a carrot and a stick, designed by the ego.
The ego thought system is based on the idea of separation: the idea that somehow we have separated ourselves from our Source, which is God, as well as from each other. And if your happiness and peace of mind is dependent on what happens in this world, you’re in trouble, because the only thing you can depend on in this ego-illusion of a world is that it will shift and change. That’s what it does. It’s fleeting and transitory, offering only temporary satisfaction at best.
But what if it didn’t matter what happened in the world? That’s heresy to the ego, but what if it really didn’t matter? What if you could be happy, strong, and peaceful regardless of what happens in the world? That would be real power. It would be real strength and freedom, and it would be real spirituality.
Having taught all over our country and the world for 14 years, in 30 countries and in 44 states in the U.S., I couldn’t help but notice from many of the questions I’m asked that there is a tremendous feeling of scarcity everywhere. People then attempt to fix that scarcity on the level of form—what you could call the screen we think is our lives—by getting something that they think will somehow erase that sense of lack, such as a material thing or a relationship. However, they’re looking in the wrong place.
The lack is within, not without, and it’s not caused by what most people think. As A Course in Miracles puts it, “A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. I’ve said that the ego is the false you, but there’s another you: the real you. The real you is something that has nothing to do with this world or the body. Your body is simply a symbol of separation. The real you is something that is immortal, invulnerable, constant and unchanging, inseparable and whole; something that can’t be touched by anything in this world—something that can’t be threatened in any way.
When the Course starts off by saying, “Nothing real can be threatened,” that’s what it’s talking about. It means the real you. When it goes on to say, “Nothing unreal exists,” it’s talking about anything else, anything that is not this immortal, changeless, invulnerable self. That’s why the Course is a purely nondualistic spiritual thought system. It’s saying that of the two worlds, the unseen world of God and the falsely seen world of man, only the world of God is true, and nothing else is true.
The world of God cannot be seen with the body’s eyes, except once in a while in temporary symbols, because the body represents a limit on awareness. However, your perfect oneness with your Source can be experienced. Even while you appear to be here in a body, it’s possible to experience the real you. And spiritual experience is very important. In fact, it’s the only thing that will ever make you happy. Words won’t do it; my words won’t do it.
As the Course says, “Words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality.” And when you think of it, how is a symbol of a symbol ever going to make you happy? How’s it ever going to make you feel full, whole, complete, and satisfied? Even a description of the reality of the world of God won’t do that. It’s still just words. But an experience of reality, an experience of what you really are and where you really are, will make you happy because it is full, and whole, and complete, and satisfying.
The Gnostics referred to this direct experience of God as gnosis, which means knowledge. But it doesn’t mean intellectual knowledge or information. When the Course uses the word knowledge, it often uses a capital K, because like the word gnosis, it is referring to direct experience, or Knowledge of God. How does one get to this experience, which blows away anything this world has to offer? This is accomplished by undoing your ego.
As the Course succinctly puts it, “Salvation is undoing.” And that’s a brilliant approach, because if you could really do that, if you could completely undo the false you, then eventually the real you would be all that’s left. And you don’t have to do anything about the real you! The real you is already perfect; it’s already exactly the same as its Source. In order to experience that perfection, what you have to do is remove the ego within your unconscious mind—the walls of separation that block your experience of this perfection.
The Lifetimes When Jesus and Buddha Knew Each Other: A History of Mighty Companions
by Gary Renard