Ego The ego is the voice for this world. Here are the things the ego would have you believe about yourself. You are a body You are separate You are incomplete You are guilty The ego is the voice for insanity.  This belief is the basis for all the seeming negative things that occur in your life. The ego is a belief in the possibility of existence apart from that which Created you.  Literally speaking...the idea of "the self made man". The voice of the ego is intent on your total destruction and ultimately death.

Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is the voice for God. Here are the things God would have you know about your Self. You are spirit (Love) You are ONE You are whole You are innocent Your Inner Teacher (Holy Spirit) is the voice for sanity, with the positive resulting effects. Your Inner Teacher is the reminder that apart from your creator, there is no LIFE.  (The encouraging good news is that the implied separation is impossible.) Your Inner Wisdom would have you know that life IS eternal, and did not begin with your apparent birth or end with death.

With this knowledge in mind, which system appears to have your best interest at heart?  Once that decision is made then we can move on to what we want to learn, and how to learn it.


LEARN

To understand what I am trying to share to be effective, we need to take a different look at what it means 'to learn'. 

We do not learn anything by just reading or just listening to anything or anyone, including the Bible or "A Course in Miracles", or even the most mundane educational texts.   These activities only produce an awareness of whatever it is we want to learn.   To learn is to actually put the awareness into practice.

As you might have gleaned from a prior series of articles on the Process of Learning, there is more to learning than intellectual assent.   I did not learn to ride a bicycle by reading a manual or listening to what my dad was trying to explain.  I learned from practice, and many opportunities to fall on my butt, get up and try again.  This is true of learning anything.

I began my study of "A Course in Miracles" in 1990, but it was not until I had been applying what I was studying and putting it into practice on a daily basis that I truly began to learn the Course, and ultimately became able and qualified to teach it...not in words as I do today, but in practice with my daily encounters with the characters in my "world".

What I was able to do is change my life experiences based on the introduction of a new set of ideas into my belief system thus changing the results.  Lets review the circular thinking reference made above.

Your beliefs are the support mechanism for the choices you make.   The choices you make are what create your everyday experiences.   Your experiences are presently designed to support your beliefs.   If I believe I am a body, separate, incomplete, and guilty, I will make decisions in my life that will reflect that belief, and reinforce the system that generates them.   Remember your experience is based on your beliefs and your beliefs are based on perception.   So let's consider these ideas on perception.

• Everything is neutral.
• YOU give everything its meaning and value.
• If you hadn't believed it, you never would have seen it.
• When your mind must choose between what is, or what should be, if there is a conflict, your mind will always report what should be.
• Perception is not a fact, but a reflection of the beliefs of the perceiver.

Now let's consider the steps to: change my perception, change my thinking, change my decisions and ultimately change my behavior, and in so doing, change my life.

When I release the ideas the ego would have me believe about myself and replace them with the opposing and corrected thoughts of being whole, one, and innocent, and when I begin to see my brother as I AM, then he will see his reflection in me, as I have learned to see my reflection in him.

In doing so, I have begun to teach what I want to believe, and with every action I take and every loving thought I share, I reinforce what I want to learn, and thus make the learning complete and real...to myself and my brother.


DO

The doing is now begun.  In closing I am reminded of the words of a Hindu Mystic,   "To know and not to do, is not to know".

If you want to understand what you have learned, you will discover it by examining what you do.  Are you ready to replace what you have learned from the world (ego), with what you want to learn from your true Self (Spirit)?

Footnotes:

(a)  Much of the inspiration for this article comes from a booklet written by Burt Hotchkiss, called "Your Owner's Manual".  More information on the manual is contained under Resources, also elsewhere in this web site.