06.02.06
0201 - Thoughts on Achieving Mental Health
Posted in the Branch at 9:57 pm by Linda 
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Issue 002 — Nov 2000
Have you ever noticed the feeling that your problems, your foibles and weaknesses are absolutely particular to you? They engender a persistent and recurrent feeling of isolation and aloneness because no one else embodies those limitations in just the way you do? Not even those who are closest to you. They are the kinks or twists, the defects of character, from which point of reference you peer out at the world and somehow try to manage. Yet these qualities seem to carry within them the guarantee of failure as they nullify your well-intentioned attempts to rise above them. Or, at the very most, any fulfilment will be partial and in need of constant defense to maintain what has been won.
In this weakened frame of mind comparison is inevitable. Such comparison will always tend to suggest that others are not subject to the same pressures as oneself, or at least not to the same extent. They are not impinged on by the same terrible past or the weaknesses that it seemed to create in one’s psyche. Nor do they confront circumstances, which uniquely seem to set the parameters on what is possible for you. The underlying feeling is that this part of oneself is not amenable to correction or to change because it actually is you. And indeed all attempts at change have been and will be thwarted by this very weakness or flaw. The words “seek and do not find” have an eerie and haunting ring of truth to all who have wrestled with the attempt to truly free themselves of deeply held negative tendencies.
The Course addresses this aspect of the human condition very directly. Its premise is that our limited and pained self concepts are actually purposeful. We did not come here to actualise or realise ourselves but, on the contrary, to demonstrate that weakness, limitation and ultimately death define who and what we are. This parody of a self seems to offer a prize that the unity of Light and Love does not—a sense of being separate and autonomous. This is the essence of our drama here. Each of us acts out our life giving form to that sense of weakness or limitation. In essence we experience ourselves as not only having problems but actually being the problem. It is this deep-rooted feeling, which gives rise to our constant searching, and restlessness. It is from this perspective that we are always oriented as a fundamentally flawed or limited one, seeking to rectify the hopeless situation by finding something outside ourselves to complete, fix or improve us.
The implications of these Course premises are, as always, profound and far-reaching indeed! One of them is that limitation and separation are the central archetype embodied and enacted here, no matter what the pattern or form it seems to take. It is the fabric of our condition here. The sense of isolation our neurotic self creates and the feeling of being trapped by that neurosis, is the bitter side of the relish and satisfaction sometimes felt in believing oneself to be autonomous. Given that limitation is purposeful, what is the surprise in finding how perfectly one seems to embody error and limitation?
The deepening acceptance of this universal condition paradoxically diminishes the sense that I, as an individual, am somehow wrong in being limited in my ability to realise my potential. If limitation is what I came to express, then I individually am not to blame for that. Indeed, the realisation dawns that I the individual am the limitation. Individuality is the very flaw, which must by its very nature diminish awareness of the freedom. of Spirit. How could it be otherwise?
Nevertheless, it takes a great amount of awareness and faith in what lies outside of the dream, in order to look squarely at the devastation our negative tendencies seem to have wrought. Indeed, without that sure anchor, the amount of psychological pain engendered by looking would be as such that projection of some sort would inevitably occur. It is little wonder that blame and anger are such a crucial part of our experience here. For those of us whose focus has turned inward in an effort to take responsibility for ourselves, those feelings can express themselves as profound and recurrent self- loathing. At one point the Course speaks of the danger inherent in withdrawing blame from outside oneself for one’s unhappiness. The tendency can then be to blame oneself for where one seems to be.
“…as blame is withdrawn from without, there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult at first to realize that this is exactly the same thing, for there is no distinction between within and without…blame must be undone, not seen elsewhere.” (T-11.IV.4:5-6, T-11.IV.5:3)
The underlying mechanism of blame was the error, not the form of what the blame attached itself to. Blame can only arise in a context in which error is perceived as real and somehow defining the one who committed the error. Definition is the key process which gives rise to a sense of self. When we withdraw our identification from our limited and limiting self-images we are automatically releasing ourselves from nightmares. If our identification remains with our self-made images of self we are bound even further. Choosing the latter is the belief in sin and produces the deep self- hatred and sense of unworthiness which all of us are, at one time or another, subject to. Lesson 133 says:
“Yet though he tries to keep its (the ego’s) halo clear within his vision, still must he perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core. His ineffectual mistakes appear as sins to him, because he looks upon the tarnish as his own; the rust a sign of deep unworthiness within himself.” (W-p1.133.10: 1-2)
The deep unworthiness is a shadow of the underlying guilt the Course teaches we all feel at seeming to have destroyed the unity of Heaven in our selfish desire to be self-created rather than God- created. That we believe we have accomplished this is the underlying basis of the belief in sin. The same passage goes on to talk about the significance of sin:
“He who would still preserve the ego’s goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes, according to the dictates of his guide. This guidance teaches it is error to believe that sins are but mistakes, for who would suffer for his sins if this were so?” (W-p1.133.10: 3-4)
The Course does not ask us to be in touch with the deepest level of our guilt. Rather it tells us it is in how we respond to the trials and tribulations our personality presents that we find the opportunity to accept the Atonement for ourselves exactly where we seem to be. The Atonement teaches that whatever we seem to be in any moment, however we seem to be defined, is not real and has never limited us in any way. We are merely contemplating an image that has no inherent meaning or significance, but which serves as a device to fulfill the ego’s purpose—separation. Or to put it more exactly, while an aspect of the Sonship desires autonomy, it will use the ego to prove to itself that its goal has been achieved.
“The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating. Having done this, it (the separated mind) denies all truly natural impulses, not because the ego is a separate thing, but because you want to believe that you are. The ego is a device for maintaining this belief, but it is still only your decision to use the device that enables it to endure.” (T-4. V1.4: 1-4)
What we put our attention on is what becomes real in our awareness. There are only two choices available for our attention: limited and limiting self-images or the open, free and liberating realm of Spirit. In each and every moment the Course is asking to question the truth of what it is we seem to be, so that a space is freed in which we can learn a different sense of who and what we are. In this process our limitations are no longer experienced as a curse which needs to be overcome. Rather, they become the very opportunity to choose again. They represent the choice of whether to remain mesmerized by the images of the dream, the idols we have made to be the substitutes for the love of God or to let our attention be raised above their forms in the trust of what lies beyond. It is what lies beyond which contains the answer to the riddle of self we seem to be and which provides us with images of ourselves which are always wholly kind and beneficent. The self-concept versus Self section puts it thus:
“You will make many concepts of the self as learning goes along. Each one will show the changes in your own relationship, as your perception of yourself is changed. There will be some confusion every time there is a shift, but be you thankful that the learning of the world is loosening its grasp upon your mind. And be you sure and happy in the confidence that it will go at last, and leave your mind at peace.” (T-31.V.16: 1-4)
The learning of the world sought to demonstrate that we are separate, frail and irredeemably flawed. The very action of bringing our minds to Truth challenges and undoes those core assumptions. That is the healing. As a result we may find that we are less fearful and able to function outside the parameters our neuroses previously dictated. Increased capacity to be functional and more harmonious in one’s day to day life is a by-product of allowing our attention to be freed from the chronic self-absorption, which otherwise characterises our existence here.
This is a happy consequence, but as Course students we need to be ever vigilant against the temptation of seeing any consequence as an end in itself. Out ultimate purpose is to awaken from the dream altogether, not to become enamoured with any image of ourselves, be it healthy and functional or not. The Course way in that sense has little to do with self-improvement or self-development as an end in itself. Focusing on the Light will lighten us, but that lightening can only be felt in relation to Spirit. The presence of Spirit is the significant thing. The only significant thing in fact! In terms of our experience it is ironic that mental health and balance are most naturally achieved when they cease to be a goal in themselves. When we invest our attention in the only thing that is worthy of it, all else tends to follow naturally. The pressure inevitably involved in investing inappropriately carries within it the seeds of weariness, despair and seeming failure. The struggle against our apparent limitations was the very action that kept them alive in our awareness.
As always, the simplicity of the process involves getting ourselves out of the way and surrendering to the workings of Spirit in the trust that it knows what it is doing. And always its answers will speak of our magnitude in God, of which our frail and pathetic self-images can know nothing. At this point it seems appropriate to leave off with these wonderful words from the Course:
“This simple courtesy is all the Holy Spirit asks of you. Let truth be what it is. Do not intrude upon it, do not attack it, do not interrupt its coming. Let it encompass every situation and bring you peace.” (T-17.V111. 2:1-4)
© 2000 LH