A small look at the start of my newest book to be published in 2016 - "Vanquishing Ego"

Strange Bedfellows (excerpted from "Vanquishing Ego", to be published in 2016)

            On the one hand, Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ and ‘A Course in Miracles’ must be the most unlikely pairing possible. However, war by any other name is still war, a battle for supremacy. And it ain’t always a pretty sight! And as any serious student of ‘A Course in Miracles’ has noticed, the ego hangs on tenaciously and viciously in its attempt to keep us focused on its view of ourselves and the world around us. Just take a look at this one quote from the ‘Course’ that speaks of the ego’s efforts and the psychological soldiers it uses:

“. . .(The ego’s) messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble when their master calls of them to serve him. For (this master) is merciless even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search. . .for they are kept cold and starving and made very vicious by their master, who allows them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred. . .escapes their hungry eyes. And in their savage search . . .they pounce on any living thing they see, and carry it screaming to their master, to be devoured. . .They have been taught to seek. . .and to return with gorges filled. . .”

           
            Sounds a little like the zombie apocalypse in the latest B movie. But make no mistake. This is a quote from Chapter 19 of the Text, The Attainment of Peace, from‘A Course in Miracles’. Those messengers are the bitter need to find fault in everyone around us and when found, pounce with anger, usually attacking those we seem to love the most. Ego is an insane, dysfunctional attempt to survive at all costs, wreaking havoc on our emotional stability. The ‘Course’ is here to show us another way.

           
           In a formal war the goals are usually the same for both sides and the combatants are all too human. But, in the psychological battle for supremacy, the armies on each side are diametrically opposed in goal as well as method. The goal of ego is control and camouflaged pain. The goal of the ‘Course’ is freedom and peace. The battle field is the mind and our bodies and physical world a reflecting mirror of what rages within.

           
           Fascinatingly, the strategies set forth hundreds of years ago in Japan by a superior commander named Sun Tzu, can be utilized as metaphor in the twenty first century to help us heal our minds. The sparsely worded military tactics of ‘The Art of War’ written in the 6^th century B.C. marries easily with the spiritual psychology of ‘A Course in Miracles’ written in the late 20^th Century.

            Strange bedfellows for sure. But, like so many unlikely marriages that stand the test of time, these two just seem to work.