Ask Amy: Does sending love and light reinforce the ego?
Q: I like visualizing people who are in need (whether they are close to me or in places like the Ukraine, Nigeria and Syria) and sending them love and light, but recently a fellow ACIM student told me that this reinforces the ego. Can you help me understand this?
A: Your question reveals that you are approaching yourself as a person who likes helping other people. On the surface, your desire seems very good, yet it is actually what the Course calls “the face of innocence”* and constitutes an attack on the very people you think you are helping by “making the error real.”*
If you are an ACIM student, you must understand if it seems obvious to you that there is a problem, whether personal or political, you have made a mistake. By tackling worldly problems, you are playing ego god, and reinforcing the ego thought system. It may sound outrageous to say that the painful injustices and horrifying catastrophes of this world are not real, but in Lesson 132 we are told the central thought ACIM teaches is, “There is no world!”
In Chapter 18 we learn “At no single instant does the body exist at all.” Since this is beyond what we can grasp, Jesus guides us to use the world as a classroom and the body as a vehicle to help us awaken to the Truth that we are “Divine Abstraction.”*
The distinction between visualizing people and sending love and light to them, and being a miracle worker is rather than you deciding what’s helpful, you step back and let the Holy Spirit lead the way (W-155). You open your mind as a conduit for God’s Love and Light — which dissolves your sense of a personal self.
In Chapter 12, The Holy Spirit’s Curriculum, it says, “Do not attempt to ‘help’ a brother in your way, for you cannot help yourself. But hear his call for the Help of God, and you will recognize your own need for the Father.” The only healing necessary is mind healing; the only mind in need of healing is your own.
It is actually useless to send love and light as one person to another because people are bodies and bodies are mindless things the ego dreamed up. The Course gives us a way to dream differently, as a path to awakening.
Give your concerns about people and the world to the Holy Spirit. Ask the Holy Spirit to use you as His Instrument for healing, peace and freedom. This undoes the split in the mind and the world proves to be illusory. Do not dictate to Spirit who should be healed and what should be done.
Don’t reinforce the ego belief that there is a world with people and problems. Open your mind to your true Self which is formless, unified, infinite and eternal. Instead of dragging God into the ego dream, allow yourself to be lifted up to Reality and see unreality for the nothingness which it is. Love and Light will radiate from you, and in the process you will find that you (and everyone) are that Love and Light.
* Read Chapter 31 for more on “the face of innocence,” Chapter 12 on “making the error real,” and Chapter 4 on “Divine Abstraction.”
This Q&A appears in the Ask Amy column from the May-June 2014 issue of Miracles magazine. Miracles is a well-loved staple in the ACIM community. To get a subscription, email [email protected] or call 845-496-9089. To ask Amy a question, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com
