What does the Course mean when it says I make an ego for everyone else? Q #233: In answering Question #79, you quoted a statement that I would like you to elaborate on and explain: Everyone makes an ego or a self for himself, which is subject to enormous variation because of its instability. He also makes an ego for everyone else he perceives, which is equally variable. Does this mean that I am responsible not only for my own thoughts and actions, but also for the things you do to me, and that I choose the manner in which you play them out? Is this included in the script I write -- exactly, in detail, how you will treat me? A: To make sense of this passage, we need to be clear that Jesus is speaking to the dreamer of the dream and not to the figure in the dream that we mistakenly identify as ourselves (T.27.VII;VIII). At the metaphysical level, we have assigned all the roles and actions to all the figures in our life - - our waking dreams -- just as we have done in our sleeping dreams at night. But most of us are not in touch with this initial level of decision-making. These are all the possible ego scripts, written by the single, collective mind before the fragmentation into billions of separate, individual minds seemed to occur. At the next level of seemingly fragmented, independent minds, we reach agreements with other minds about how we will play out our respective dream roles, that is, which scripts we will review. And, while we choose from the ego-based scripts, these are always some variation on the theme of victim and victimizer. We select the events of our life in conjunction with other minds, but again we have no conscious memory of making the choices, an essential repression for our victim defense to work (for a further discussion of this, see Question #37). The above passage, however, can also be considered from a more immediate psychological level, which is relatively easy to become conscious of and so more practical to work with. We simply recognize our propensity to attribute ego motivations to others, based on our interpretations of our own ego needs. Your purpose may or may not be to manipulate me in any given situation, but I will ascribe ego intent to your actions and act as if my interpretation is valid. Jesus makes it very clear that this kind of analysis is hazardous to our own peace of mind (T.12.I.1,2). And he also gently reminds us of the unreliability of our observations of others: Remember how many times you thought you knew all the ‘facts’ you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were! Is there anyone who has not had this experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right, without ever realizing you were wrong? (M.10.4:1,2,3). Yet we continue making an ego for everyone else as a way of seeing the guilt of the ego thought system outside of ourselves rather than accepting responsibility for its existence within our own mind. So Jesus’ purpose is to lead us to recognize not only what a barrier our projections are to our own happiness but the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment (T.3.VI.3:1). facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions44.htm#Q233
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 13:13:40 +0000
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