30. Holy Spirit Thought System vs. Ego Thought System

 As we journey home to God practicing forgiveness, it is imperative that we understand, recognize and know the difference between the ego thought system and the Holy Spirit thought system.  The ego thought system is based on sin, guilt, fear, and separation.  The Holy Spirit thought system is based on holiness, guiltlessness, love and union.  We must actively search our thoughts for ego thinking.  In order to do that we have to know what we are looking for.  The ego is very tricky and its thought system is cleverly disguised in “benign” thought.  Don’t be duped by the ego.  We must be committed to unmasking all the ego thoughts in our mind that are camouflaged in “innocence.”  These ego thoughts are costing us our Self, God and Heaven. The following list contains some of the hundreds of gems to be found in the excellent teaching tool, The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard, which could be subtitled, The Ego Thought System Exposed.  The book is chock full of Holy Spirit reason and logic and merits close study. The ego is a master reasoner. We need to become the same.  Our salvation depends on it.

1)  The ego believes in opposites — things like pleasure and pain. The Holy Spirit says there are no opposites , and that your true joy can have no counterpart.

2)  The ego wants and believes in complexity. The truth of the Holy Spirit is simple — not necessarily easy for you to accept, but simple.

3)  The ego says you are different than others. The Holy Spirit says that in reality , everyone is the same — and you must feel that way in order to see like Him.

4)  The ego says you’ve suffered a terrible loss, and loss is now a part of what you call life. The Holy Spirit says there is no loss in reality, and that God’s child cannot lose.

5)  The ego says others are guilty, because it secretly believes you’re guilty. It uses anger and righteous indignation, or even laughing at others, to put distance between you and your guilt. You think only animals and children are innocent, because that’s where you’ve chosen to see your own seemingly lost innocence. The ego has to put the idea of innocence somewhere. But the Holy Spirit says everyone is completely innocent, because He knows that you’re completely innocent.

Think of yourself as being self-accused. For as the Course puts it:  Only the self-accused condemn.

6)  The ego attempts to convince you that you have a personal story that is obviously real. The attitude of the Holy Spirit though, can best be summed up in just three words: It never happened.

7)  The ego would be ecstatic if you continued to believe there is a world out there that existed before your life began, and will go on without you after your body dies. The Holy Spirit’s response, as outrageous as it may seem to your ego , is this — as quoted from the Workbook:

…There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. (W132.6)

8)  …the ego would say the angry person you see outside of yourself is a threat that needs to be taken care of in some way. The Holy Spirit sees the angry person as a suffering person who is calling out for help.

9)  The ego says you’re a body. The Holy Spirit says you are not a body; you are not a person, you are not a human being — you are like Him.

10)  The ego says your thoughts are quite important. The Holy Spirit knows that only the thoughts you think with God are real, and nothing else matters.

• The ego calls for sacrifice. In contrast, the Holy Spirit says there is no need for sacrifice of any kind.

12)  The ego says, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” The Holy Spirit knows that God only gives, and never takes away.

13)  The ego reverently proclaims death is real. The Holy Spirit says nobody is dead, and no one can ever really die.

14)  The ego judges something as good or bad; the Holy Spirit says it is neither, because it isn’t true. Thus all things on the level of form are equally untrue because of their illusory nature.

15)  The ego assigns specific, different identities. Both its “love” and hate are directed at specific individuals. The Holy Spirit thinks of everyone as being the same and totally abstract. Thus, like J, His Love is non-specific and all-encompassing.

16)  The ego devises clever reasons why you should continue to listen to its selfish counsel, but the Holy Spirit is certain that at some point you’ll turn to Him, and ultimately go home with Him — as the law of forgiveness and the laws of the mind dictate.

17)  The ego loves it when you regret your past. “ Would have, could have, should have,” and, “If only I had done this instead of that,” and “If only I knew then what I know now,” are some of the ego’s favorite numbers. Not only does this make your past real to you, it makes you feel bad at the same time — all to the ego’s delight. The Holy Spirit knows that with the exception of forgiveness, it doesn’t matter what you do. To the ego, this is heresy. But the Holy Spirit wants you to be healed, and knows that the unconscious guilt in your mind would have played itself out in some way eventually — even if you did take a different turn along the road.

18)  In connection with that, the ego wants what you do to be important. As a way of intruding on your spirituality and delaying the truth, it tries to make what you do in that area important and special. Yet to the Holy Spirit , what you do for Him, or for Jesus or for God are not important. How can anything that occurs in an illusion be important if you actually understand it’s not real? Only forgiveness and your healing matter. True, that kind of a teaching may not be the basis for a popular religion that takes over the world and tells everybody else how they should be living their lives — but it is definitely the truth.

19)  While the Holy Spirit teaches you of your true strength, the ego tells you and your fellow macho men, and all the liberated women, that they have to be tough and learn how to kick ass in the rat race or someone else will get their cheese. All this does is prove how fearful they are, because if they weren’t afraid then they wouldn’t have to be tough. They’re really calling out for love without knowing it.

20)  The ego tries to convince you that your problems are the problem, but the Holy Spirit knows it’s the well-hidden, unconscious guilt that makes you need to dream a world of separation in the first place that’s the problem.

The Disappearance of the Universe p.210-215