T-4.III – The Making of the Ego
April 6, 2021
We like asking big questions, like “How did the separation happen?” or “How could the ego be made?” Jesus says here that it is not necessary to dig into the past for an answer because the same problem keeps repeating itself over and over, like the repetition compulsions mentioned in Section I. Therefore, we are told to look to the present moment for an answer to these questions. Look no further than Helen and Bill and their own behavior, and you have an answer to the question, “How could the ego be made?”
For this commentary, I am adding some of the Notes that discussed Helen and Bill’s physical sight, which I believe will help with understanding how the mental level becomes manifest in physical conditions.
Helen is offered as a great (even extreme) example, but we will see in the notes that follow, that Bill’s behavior sheds light on our question. Helen, as we know from the early material and cameo essays, is prone to receive revelation. Recall this material, now part of Miracle Principle 29:
Tell Bill that miracles do not depend on revelation. They induce it. He is quite capable of miracles already, but he is still too fearful for revelations. Note that your [Helen] revelation occurred specifically after you had engaged at the visionary level in a process of denying fear.
Whereas Bill was too fearful for revelation, Helen was able to deny fear long enough to experience it. This makes her an extreme example:
An extreme example is a good teaching aid, not because it is typical, but because it is clear. The more complex the material, the clearer the examples should be for teaching purposes. (Bill, remember that for your own course, and do not avoid the dramatic. It holds the student’s interest precisely because it is so apparent that it can be perceived).
As Jesus is about to expand on how Helen is a great example, he offers advice to Bill about his academic teaching: Do not avoid the dramatic. Like the “shock effect” (Cameo 4), and the resurrection appearances, a dramatic example can be especially clear when the teaching is complex (and who is going to argue that Course is not complex!). Here we are told why Helen is a clear example:
Helen offers a very good teaching example of alternations between Soul and ego, with concomitant variations between peace and frenzy. In answer to Bill’s question, it is perfectly apparent that when she is ego-dominated, she does not know her Soul. Her abstract ability, which is perfectly genuine and does stem from knowledge, cannot help her, because she has turned to the concrete which she cannot handle abstractly. Being incapable of appropriate concreteness perceptually, because her ego is not her natural home, she suffers from its intrusions but not from complete lack of knowledge.
Helen had a way of vacillating between extremes. Bill often remarked on it. In August 1966, Bill kept a journal. He commented in one entry on Helen’s appearance:
“When I saw Helen around 1:30 (for the first time that day), she appeared particularly radiant. It is startling how much her appearance changes when she is ‘with it.’ This radiance continued throughout the afternoon, although there was a relatively brief period in which she ‘fogged over,’ displaying a marked fear reaction, which briefly altered her appearance. However, she got back very quickly.”
Helen herself wrote about this vacillation:
“Before falling asleep [in France] one evening, a sense of unbelievable strength and joy rose up in me, beginning in the chest area and rising up into my throat and out into my arms. For several minutes I felt as if I could easily reach out and touch the whole world and everyone in it. My sense of closeness to them all was intensely joyous…”
“Later [in London], this happy experience had a fearful counterpart in the form of a startlingly clear sensation of horror. One evening I lay for brief rest before getting ready for dinner. Most unexpectedly I was seized by a murderous rage so intense and so completely indiscriminate that I jumped up literally shaking.”
This tendency toward revelation Jesus calls her “abstract ability” which cannot help her when she fluctuates and descends into ego-dominance (like “murderous rage”). Jesus continues his assessment of Helen’s perceptual “concreteness” (a word to describe this ego thinking which contrasts with the abstract or Soul-level thinking):
“The result is a kind of “double vision,” which would have produced an actual diplopia if she had not settled for near-sightedness. This was an attempt to see the concrete more clearly in through the ego’s eyes, without the “interference” of the longer range. The virtual lack of astigmatism is due to her real efforts at objectivity and fairness. She has not attained them, or she would not be near-sighted, but she has tried to be fair with what she permitted herself to see.”
Jesus is saying that Helen’s near-sightedness (an actual physical condition) is an experience she settled on to avoid double vision (a far less desirable condition of seeing two objects where there is really one). Near sightedness is a welcome compromise over double vision, as an outcome for her ego/spirit split.
Now Jesus addresses Bill, how his eyesight relates to his revelation-readiness:
Belief that there is another way is the loftiest idea of which ego-thinking is capable. This is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the self. Helen always had this idea, but it merely confused her. Bill, you were more capable of a long-range view, and that is why your eyesight is good. But you were willing to see because you utilized judgment against that you saw. This gave you clearer perception than Helen’s but cut off the cognitive level more deeply. That is why you believe that you never had knowledge. Repression has been a stronger mechanism in your own ego-defense, and that is why you find her shifts so hard to tolerate. Willfulness is more characteristic of her, and that is why she has less sense than you do.
It is extremely fortunate, temporarily, that the particular strengths you will both ultimately develop and use are precisely those which the other must supply now. You, Bill, who will be the strength of God, is quite weak, and you who will be God’s help is clearly in need of help herself. What better plan could have been devised to prevent the intrusion of the ego’s arrogance on the outcome?
While Helen was near-sighted, Bill was able to see long range. But his sight lacked depth because he was judging against what he saw. It was a form of long-distance superficial seeing. Whereas Helen’s near-sightedness was an indication of her effort toward objectivity and fairness. She was, in other words seeing the close-up details for what they were without overlooking the details. Each possesses abilities that the other needs, thus they both have gifts to supply each other. By accepting what the other offers, Bill will become and represent the “strength of God.” Helen will be “God’s help.” This must have been a powerful motivator for both Helen and Bill to recognize in the other the qualities of seeing the world that would help them both achieve their lofty functions.
This example of Helen’s “great propensity for revelation” and her “suddenly swinging to its complete opposite” (3:1) is the proof – the example – Jesus indicates as an answer to the question about the making of the ego. We do not need to look back to the beginning of time for answer. Helen is proof that one can be in a heavenly state of oneness with God and all her brothers, and still throw it all away in a state of frenzy when her ego intrudes upon her mind. Rather than dismissing the ego, Helen pampers it and protects it as if it were her offspring (6:1-4).
How do we find our way out of this dilemma of ego-dominated thinking?
“The question is not how you respond toward your ego, but only what you believe you are” (7:1).
This is the response we’ve been given numerous times in the past couple chapters. We elect to see ourselves in God’s light only.
Jesus offers his support to us. Quoting John 14:1, he tells us that to believe in God is to believe in him (7:3). He even refers to himself as the “teacher of the ego,” placing himself right in the center of the conflict we all experience as we vacillate between love and fear. He is placing himself at the center of our personal storm. The storm, of course, is our personal need to dismiss the ego so that it departs from our mind entirely. We need to fire the ego! “Undermining the foundations of an ego’s thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true” (8:1). We need Jesus’ support, since we are “very likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most” (8:4). We should be grateful then to accept Jesus’ support as we diminish our ego and choose a more loving and forgiving response to our relationships and situations.
Suggested Practice
I am being trained to be both harmless and helpful to my brothers. And the outcome is as certain as God!