The Battle for Truth
There are only two contestants in the battle for truth. Take a very close look at the side you have chosen. For you will back your choice, even with your life!
Contestant # 1
The Deadly Cycle
1. DENIAL - The birth of all problems.
The first step downward along the deadly cycle is the building up of walls. Denial keeps you from knowing the world, your relationships, yourself and God. You choose to separate rather than unify; to be blind rather than sighted. You no longer feel powerful, for you no longer feel connected to the spiritual Power that unites you with the Universe.
2. GUILT - The "original sin".
You pay an astronomically high price for choosing denial - you lose your sense of worth. Refuse the gifts that God, life, the world, your relationships and even what you offer yourself, and you will feel like the Universe's biggest heel. All sense of unworthiness starts here. Guilt is born and breeds in the swamp of denial.
3. FEAR - "Sin" demands punishment.
The deadly cycle spirals downward and the belief in a basic unworthiness, or sinfulness, results in a logical assumption: Screw up and pay for it! Now the denied world, relationships, God, and even the denied aspects of yourself seem on the other side of an endless war zone. Terror grips your mind. You are surrounded by enemies.
Even Adam in the Garden of Eden knew ego’s favorite tactic for self-preservation. When confronted by God, Adam pointed at Eve and whined, "She made me do it!" The world still relies on this ploy - blame someone else and the heats off you.
Anger is the best way to show your "innocence" by focusing on another's faults. Outwardly this seems to work, but inwardly the denied sense of guilt still festers and the need to constantly project anger onto others becomes an exhausting conflagration of battles. The Deadly Cycle continues downward into emotional hell.
If there is an "evil" in this world, then I submit that our own stubborn desire to continue the deadly cycle is "Satan" at work.
Do not be surprised if you feel some resistance to what you have read. As you contemplate these concepts, your loyalty to the first contestant, the Deadly Cycle, will cause it to flex its muscles and challenge you to a dual. Relax, reflect and remember what you have read.
and discuss
1. Each time guilt builds within you, remember to use this affirmation, “I can feel my worth, instead of this.”
2. Notice how often you find it important to be right and another person wrong. Notice how friends can bond over talking trash about an agreed upon target. (“A Course in Miracles” refers to these ‘friendships’ as special relationships)
3. Remind yourself that anger is a misguided attempt to make yourself feel innocent and another guilty. To counter act this, repeat the affirmation from question no. 1, above.
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