Ego – Embracing Forever

All posts tagged: Ego

Choice and Consequence Part 4: Benevolence

January 29, 2022

by Michael

Part 3 of the series is here. Last time I wrote about the distinction between unity and separation—the two possible cornerstones of our individual thought systems. Each of these serves as the organizing factor for all that follows in our perceptual navigation of experience. In describing the transition from the state of perfect communication within the primordial state of being—which is unity—to the condition of separation, I noted that “the experience of being separate was granted, […]

Choice and Consequence Part 2: Prelude to a Story

January 12, 2022

by Michael

comments 34

Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 1 of this series is here. I think I was a twinge unclear last time, so let me begin with a slight reset. We are each absolutely and without doubt unique. The network of capabilities, talents, inclinations, perspectives, beliefs, desires and experiences that make each of us who we are exist in no one else but us. This is so. What I’d hoped to convey is not that the possibilities for individual expression are […]

Navigating to Joy

July 3, 2016

by Michael

comments 39

Course Ideas

Things that appear to be so under one set of conditions, are often found to be quite different under another. It is for this reason that most of our conclusions formed historically, in the context of separation consciousness, are erroneous. What’s remarkable about the experience of life is that we can be completely incorrect about ultimate reality, and have a very real and vivid experience of our own false conclusions up to and even through […]

Just Right

June 26, 2016

by Michael

comments 47

Course Ideas / Creative

“I feel better. But I did that thing again, didn’t I, Hafiz?” “Yes.” “How come we both know what I’m talking about, but we can’t explain it?” “The horses giving chase always get mud in their eyes.” “That was easier than I thought. But giving chase to what?” “To whatever you think is over there.” He waved his hand limply towards the distance, indicating that somewhere along the periphery of my mind there were these […]

On the Great Marriage

June 5, 2016

by Michael

comments 47

Christ / Course Ideas / Reflections

The description I love best is that each of us is an intersection of matter and spirit, the above and below, the eternal and the present, of knowledge and mystery. I am tired of materialism—so very tired of its laborious absurdities, the dead ends it tries to pretty-over, the delicate faculties of the human being it would all but silence. Even so, I would not discard logic or rational thought. I would simply hold them […]

Surrendering to the Creative Self

July 19, 2015

by Michael

comments 26

Book Reviews / Science

In this, the second of three pieces developed in response to Ka’s quotation challenge, I want to explore briefly the ideas and work of Christopher Alexander, an architect, writer and thinker whose work has had a profound impact on me. The quotes I’ve selected all come from his four volume series entitled The Nature of Order. I don’t remember exactly how I discovered this work, but I do remember knowing instantly that I desired to […]

An Insight… A Cliché… A Knowing…

May 30, 2015

by Michael

comments 35

Christ / Course Ideas

I’ve been thinking lately about things I have no business thinking about, like how to reconcile the capital-‘S’ Self from A Course of Love with what I’ve glimpsed of the Buddhist teaching of anatta, or no-self. Let me say right at the outset that this is not purely an intellectual exercise. One of the great miracles of starting this blog has been the dialogue with people whose words, and possibly (though it remains hard to […]

Disarmament (Part 4)

March 21, 2015

by Michael

comments 25

Christ / Creative / Fiction

This is Part 4 of 5. One more to go… Part 1 is here, if you wish to start at the beginning. * * * * * He must have gone for help, the little junco, because when I awoke there were two of them. One on my side of the window, inspecting the sill– making those erratic steps that come in packs of four or five– and the other one outside, moving only its […]

Moulting

September 25, 2014

by Michael

comments 28

Christ / Course Ideas

The process of shifting identity from the false perceptions of the ego to the valid identity we all share in Christ appears, at least for me, to involve passage through states that closely resemble one or more of the following: a flock of large metal plates approaching both the speed of sound and the US Naval Artillery Rail Gun Test Range; a repeating dream in which you hike up the side of a mountain to […]

Smuggling

June 14, 2014

by Michael

comments 19

Christ / Poetry

Like that movie where the “bad guys” cast cocaine into the shape of statues and beautiful figurines so it could be hidden right out in the open, so the Beloved has smuggled Herself into this world. She is all around us, in plain sight, frozen into the shapes of all those hot-eyed, over-blown, sweaty, market-gaming, child-loving, war-fighting, family-valued, finger-pointing, smarter-than, smiling-laughing, loving, drop-kicking, device-wielding, stressed-out costumed beings who can’t quite figure out how the hell […]