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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
A Course In Miracles
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When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then know that this need not be... Depression comes from a sense of being deprived of something... Remember that you are deprived of nothing except by your own decisions, and then decide otherwise.
Be not content with future happiness. It has no meaning, and is not your just reward.
The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be disheartened. Have you really considered how many opportunities you have had to gladden yourself [and] have refused? Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, releasing the strength of God into everything you think and do... Without your allegiance ... the ego cannot exist.
Editor’s note: How do we lessen the influence of the ego in our minds? By “shining” it away. This is picturesque denoting a very simple dynamic. All we need do is notice, to become aware, of the wiles and tricks of the ego. We don’t have to fight it or grit our teeth in combat. Peter Russell calls this process "ease itself" and "relaxing into the resistence." Simply focus the internal light of mental awareness on what the ego is doing, and we will “shine it away.” The ego lives in the dark, is nourished by our illusion and deception, but once we perceive how it works, it’s the beginning of the end for the ego.
Judge how well you have done this [shining away of the ego] by your own feelings. Editor's note: It's immediate feedback. A sense of joy, which is our natural state linked to God, is immediately forthcoming and sensed when we choose rightly and withdraw support for the ego. Emotions, in large measure, reveal and reflect, in the body, the ego's power. But there is a higher-level basis for emotion. Joy signals our alignment with God's mind, a precept reflected in the Course's statement, "You are a mirror of truth, in which God Himself shines in perfect light."
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