Temptation in the Wilderness: Part 1

According to the New Testament, before Jesus started his ministry, he fasted in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights; it was then that the devil came and tempted him.

I am beginning to see with what regularity the ego tempts us; it often seems non-stop. The paradox is that the source of the ego's power is the mind itself. As I said in an earlier post, if I but saw that the ego's efforts are designed to reinforce my feeling of separation from the Great All, I would give it up immediately. The trouble is that I too often identify with the ego.

When I say "ego", however, I'm not referring to the "ego" of traditional Freudian psychology. I perceive the ego as the part of the mind that believes that it is separated from everything else. It identifies itself as a being which did not exist before the date of its birth (or conception), and will cease to be at the moment of its death. It often mitigates its fear of death through the belief in a soul, viewing death as an escape from the troubles of the world. This is as equally illusive because the troubles of the world are really the troubles of the mind. Death will not end our suffering because that which is eternal (i.e. a Child of the Light:) cannot die. It merely changes form. The content however, remains.

The ego is literally a fearful thought. Every time I have a fearful thought, I am identifying with it. Now because God is Love, and love and fear cannot co-exist, whenever I identify with the ego, I always feel a lack, a sense of something missing. I can no longer feel the peace and joy and love that is the inheritance of a Child of God, not because I am being punished, because I've chosen AGAINST it. But I can just as easily choose against the ego. This is what the Mother would have us learn; in truth, that there is no ego. There was only one choice that was made, that CAN be made in eternity, and that we have already made it. We have chosen the Light, and now, slowly but surely, with the Spirit of God and time as our ally, we are making our way back.

Theology is not important, nor is philosophy, nor is a perfect understanding of the universe and all it contains. Nothing in the world of form means anything aside from the purpose that we put to it. An atheist can (and will) attain enlightenment as easily as a yogi. There are many forms of the Universal Path that we all take; who can say or judge why one chooses one as opposed to another? Such differences are not our concern; our only concern is the path that we are on.

The ego sees nothing but difference. It must see difference, as a prerequisite to administering judgment. It says, "This good," and "This is bad," completely unaware that it has made both.

The mind of God sees that all things stand in the Light. It judges not, knowing that nothing CAN be judged.